A few days ago, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that Twitter under his leadership had “made a bunch of mistakes” with respect to moderation decisions relating to the 2020 election, “especially around the New York Post and the Hunter Biden laptop story
Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will follow immediately after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
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Why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
This is and has been occurring all across the globe since the minute this COVID-19 fraud was propagated to every corner of the earth.
The Second Amendment is second because it is the remedy for anyone trying to subvert the First.
The fog of this war is purposefully thick—a massive labyrinth filled with wrong turns, dead ends, and long, interesting paths to nowhere—relentless discombobulation are important tentpoles of demoralization and destabilization.
Robert Malone has said that those in Europe have told him that the only reason things didn't escalate as badly in the US as it did there (or in Canada and AU and NZ) is because of the 2nd amendment.
It's not just that, but there are still enough of us around who have a healthy mistrust of government. Those who grew up in the sixties had the adage "Don't trust anyone over 30." It's not that the older you get the more untrustworthy you get, it's the more "established" you become. When you are establishment, you burn calories maintaining your position.
Very true. Problem: Those radicals from the 60s, or their ideological heirs (sometimes literally like this public figure, child of two honest-to-God terrorists:
In dissident circles, many like to say of this phenomenon: In the 1960s they said don't trust "The Man" (the authorities.) But in recent decades, they now ARE "The Man." A parallel observation is made that in just a generation or so, the Democratic party has literally inverted alll its values. As recently as the 1980s, they were typically in support of organized labor, of free speech, were anti-war, distrustful of corporations, and generally suspicious of government. My, how times have changed!
If anything positive may be said about politics (US or elsewhere) these past few years, surely it's how blatantly obvious is the endemic corruption of media, corporations, government, indeed nearly all institutions.
Yes! I am no fan of smoking, but I don't even think secondhand smoking is as bad as they say it is. Where is the proof? My mom was a chainsmoker most of her life, died of lung cancer, but I don't see any evidence of us, her kids, showing any ill effects of that, and there were hours we were stuck in the back seat of her 280z with the windows rolled up in the rain breathing in the smoky air.
Even I as a rabid nonsmoker didn't think they were fair. You don't relegate people to the outer reaches of society for doing ordinary but unpopular things. They should have improved the ventilation systems.
" Those who grew up in the sixties had the adage "Don't trust anyone over 30."
There was another one from that period, which I still like: "Question authority."
Since I trusted my parents, even when we argued, and I liked my grandparents and most of their friends, I thought, even very young, that the "over 30" adage was silly. But you do add a more interesting nuance about the pitfalls of maturity.
When one is young, every thing about life seems uncertain, insecure, and full of possibility. When one is young, the energy to adjust and bound through quickly changing circumstance animates every fiber. That resilience wanes, everso gradually, with age. My mother in her 80s, still curious, and dependent on a walker to get around, used to quote a familiar verse from Matthew, giving a far more literal application. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
I know, but here in the states, the effect is the same, it leads to a lot of us being compliant. We don't want to be called racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic members of the tyrannical patriarchy.
You could have a point they would be aware that it would be so objectionable an affront to basic rights to many people that some would defend themselves more forcibly then you’re allowed to - certainly in Canada, where you can’t defend yourself and are in danger of having your bank account frozen and funds seized.
I dont know if i buy it. They have weapons to pin point & fry your brain in your head from miles away dont think they worry about our guns if were unable to organize to even make it on totally captured mainstream media? Im not buying that
Democratic governors, everywhere, have been frantically banning guns and passing laws (traps) pertaining to the transport and storage of weapons. 2/3 of the "gun violence" deaths that they bang on about are suicides. A mere 400 or so Americans die from rifles every year (contrast that to 30k+ from drunk drivers), yet Biden has launched a campaign to ban the most effective weapon--AR-15--available to citizens.
Perhaps but i dont think they give us any real strength against a standing armybor god kniws what weapons they could employ? I think its
1/2 propaganda to get lib votes & i honostly dont know drones ,robots , armored unmanned weapons,everything imaginable & some? They’re fear of us doesn’t make sense to me anymore . Wish i was wrong but i think solidarity & total refusal to participate is our only way . Stop consuming everything at once collectively dont pay a bill or buy a coke or a bandaid for as long as it takes ? The whole system is rotten bottom up cant shoot our way out.
I agree. The guns civilians are permitted won't do much against a full army force. But an armed citizenry will make civilian authorities think hard about whether and how they impose their more arbitrary, controlling decrees.
We forget that the 2nd amendment says right to "arms", not merely guns. Guns may have made sense at the time the amendment was ratified.
On a road trip with friends, we were discussing the 2nd. Their two boys, ages 9 and 12, were sitting in the back, apparently as disinterested as kids usually are with grown-up conversation. I asserted that I thought I should be able to own an RPG too (not the game), if I wanted it. Suddenly a burst of laughter from the back. 10 years later, my friend told me that her sons had never forgotten that; they thought it was great.
Little ears. You never know.
Governments should always be a little afraid of the people they govern. It helps keep them honest. Or at least less tyrannical.
The system may be too far gone for a peaceable solution. I'm no expert by any means. Sadly, mass violene may be in our futures. But frankly, I doubt a citizen's militia of hunting rifle (or AR15) bearing rednecks marching into the State capital, or DC, is realistic. Based upon my spotty reading of history, I think it's more likely that some form of a palace coup, or an outright mutiny in military units, is more likely. Government self-selects for toadies, having weeded out actual or potential trouble-makers. Problem: once things have deteriorated to a certain point, hypothetically say, the outright persecution and arrest of past national leaders and other harrassment of the opposition, while ignoring serious crimes by the present regime, you are entering very dangerous territory. Hypothetically, at some point, a military commander with some real firepower under his control may correctly decide that he is the next suspect to be arrested and that he has nothing to lose by, shall we say, cleaning house.
If the authorities have to think about an armed populace, it makes mass arrests a lot more complicated. Instead of a couple of officers and a car they need bring a SWAT team, armored vehicles, and body armor. And maybe a few body bags.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
I've been talking to someone from Australia on Twitter, and we got into the weeds about Covid death rates, IFR, etc. and improperly filling out death certificates. He asked me if what I said was true, why weren't thee police involved? This is coming from an Australian that no doubt saw people taken from their houses because they did not comply with Covid regulations. The very institutions that would prosecute such behavior are the ones behind it.
Yes, officers of the law, soldiers, and mercenaries are the enablers and the executors of every single evil thing the elites are doing and have done to humanity. Order followers are not on your side, they are on the side of their paychecks and pensions.
Money can get many kinds of people to do almost anything, look at what the doctors and hospitals did during COVID for evidence. "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome": https://tritorch.com/legion
Some people are simply more comfortable with order than with uncertainty and awkward lack of definition. Cognitive dissonance is harder for some to navigate. It is not always venal motives.
I say this as a person with an often messy house or kitchen. I respect how uncomfortable this makes some of my friends, and try to pickup better before their visits.
Over time, I have become aware that many of my very neat friends have quite disorganized drawers and cupboards and closets. It surprised me at first, because the inside of my drawers are well organized and uncluttered. Other people are neatly put together all the way through.
It can be the same with more abstract concepts, I think.
As I conjecture elsewhere, things in government can get very interesting indeed when a single powerful figure in the chain of command, especially if he is in charge of a lot of firepower and has allies, becomes aware that he is likely to be on the next round-up for the cattle car to the gulag or whatever. At some point, people in such positiions might decide they have little to lose and that it's time to be, shall we say, "proactive"?
I've often had the same experience these past 30 years or so: I point out some thing that is more-or-less illegal, immoral, breach of trust, et cetera complete with either references to indicators, proof or other material supporting my allegation - at worst simple reason based on observable facts - and the first response is almost always some variation of "But why would X do Y if it's bad?", with the tacit meaning that since Y is bad and X is understood as intrinsically Good, X cannot be doing Y no matter what.
Among academics, it's over 19 out of 20. Among craftsmen and professionals it's an even split. Interestingly (?), among those working in law, real estate and/or finance the reaction is instead "Yeah? So what? Find a way to exploit it then, man - before someone else does!". Life-style criminals have the exact same reaction, which I find rather telling re: lawyers, brokers et cetera.
I've found that responding by saying: "Asking why X would do Y is akin to a team of firemen debating how a fire started, instead of fighting it. The "Why?" is secondary to putting it out, or putting a stop to X doing Y, don't you think?"
I really do wonder how and why so so many confuse the "what" with the "how" and the "why" nowadays.
True. In fact, you probalby have no conception of the extent to which humans in general have a world-view based upon bald assumptions, sweeping generalizations, etc. This is one of the more fascinating themes in Nietzsche's famous "Beyond Good and Evil." Even though some of the beliefs are demonstrably untrue, ironically he says that some of them may be helpful or even necessary for human existence. Nietzsche doesn't use this specific example, but I find it a very good one: We "know" that world is not really flat. Yet I've used a 2-dimensional map many times in my life and found it highly useful. In fact, a flat world view is useful for 99.99% of all human activities.
To compound that disconnect, any time you offer them evidence to the contrary like the Cabrera article, they will simply access the "fact checking" site and discard it as a biased source of "possible conspiracy theories and misinformation." As if there is an authorized site that is unbiased and able to do an honest assessment of bias and misinformation.
Mmmm, yes, my husband is very condescending about my 'conspiracy theories'. This morning, I told him covid was a global hoax. He probably thinks I'm mad. Needless to say, we don't talk about current affairs.
That has to be tough to live with. Do you ask him if it isn't a conspiracy theory, then why did most countries go in lockstep to the Covid policies? The answer from the twittersphere is that they were "the most sensible." but when you ask them questions about masks, lockdowns, and social distancing it gets murkier and murkier.
Have you tried dunning him with books and articles on the subject? Such as the article by Stella Paul on American Thinker about gov't-induced hospital policies in the US that helped ramp up the covid death tolls - try that one on him. Ed Dowd's book Cause Unknown might also serve as an eye-opener, not to mention the Breggins' Global Predators book. And then there's Steve Kirsch's substack (not to mention this one).
People were coming up with excuses in the same spirit during the Stalinist Great Terror (as recounted in Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope [isn't that an appropriate title for our times!] and I presume other works from that time).
In the States, it really will come down to the 5-10% who retain something of the spirit of the 5-10% in 1776. (Presumably, the same is true elsewhere. [who knows, maybe some government funded academics are already doing research on this point].)
Generally concurring, tritorch. Yet, let’s think about why it’s so necessary for most people to use a pseudonym online? The widespread has a severe cooling effect, It weakens the ethos and accommodates knavery. A sea of ciphers contributes to the fog of war. A nom de plume for fiction is one thing, but clandestine political speech is, in my mind, distinct from that which is explicitly attributable to the genuine speaker. ~C.G.
America has the First and Second Amendments, Europe doesn’t. America has Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, Europe doesn’t. America has a conservative Supreme Court, Europe has leftist EU commissars. Substack is a beacon of free speech globally, hope it stays that way.
US has a document on which is printed the First Amendment. That is of historical interest only - and even that, only for as long as it remains available.
Imho what matters most is that MANY Americans still believe they HAVE Constitutional Rights and will ACT as if they are real!
In the end it's the behavior of the People which will determine if this World Coup is successful. And defending the principles defined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are big steps in slowing down and stopping this Agenda.
I don't think it's a matter of the people coming in not yearning for liberty. It's that heritage peoples have the precious rights of citizenship. Illegal immigrants do not, and can be thrown out at any time at the rulers' discretion. Hence, those same rulers want to eliminate the heritage peoples generally, so that no one can assert their rights against them.
My more timid European friends most admire Americans’ inventive doing-dare in political satire, which we seem to take much for granted.
I think Eugyppius’s life experience has been a bit informed - for better and worse - by his time in America and once someone is really exposed to this culture that is so brazenly confident of its natural, political and civil rights that it often regards with careless frivolity... well, it changes you !
At one point, I think the US had a halo effect on the world, but now that halo effect has changed. I think it's emanating from elsewhere. Our light grows dim and guttering due to a lot of artifice, a lot of us being in other countries business, and continuing to push the industry of war to no great purpose, as if "war" was a great purpose to begin with.
We are definitely rotting from within. The cognitive dissonance from the Trump era that only was exacerbated during Covid has driven a lot of us mad, and I believe has also added physiological components due to the stress of maintaining such self delusion. In the early days of lockdown, I found myself fatigued and in a brain fog as well, because I could not believe the ridiculous nature of watching the daily death counts and often fabricated fictions being perpetuated live.
Your comments about Americans echo something Nietzsche says. He's speaking of the shaky assumptions of philosophers, but his comments have far wider application. (search for "sancta"):
Applied to the present topic, "J6" is a good example. On Janauary 6, 2022, hundreds of American citizens thought they were exercising constitutional rights when protesting at the U.S. Capitol. For their trouble, many of them have been jailed for 2 1/2 years, awaiting trail where they'll likely be sentenced to many years in prison.
I really wish yanks would finally get it into their heads that "Europe" is geography: we are a lot of different peoples in a lot of different nations, not citizen-slaves to the Creed of Greed like the fooled, ruled and drooled masses of the US.
Might as well talk about "asians" as if a korean and a burmese are the same thing.
It's the truth. Europe blows an American's mind because so many VERY different cultures and peoples live so very close together yet are totally different. I can drive from Southern Germany, my husband's home, through parts of Austria, Switzerland, and all of France, and literally be inches from Spain, in a day!
Or into Italy in an afternoon, almost. And yet those cultures, their values and thinking, are very, very different!
Strange, yes?
And the poor Europeans who come here, and really have no idea how large our county is, and need to drive, say across Texas, for some reason, just cannot believe the distances!
Americans need better educations, more geography, more history, more languages.
We are pretty darn ignorant and it let's our Government get away with a lot of madness!
We in Europe are pawns in this American empire. The current policy of the US government towards its NATO allies, especially Germany, is irreconcilable with the interests of the peoples of the allied states. There are important structural differences in the US which, currently, do present some limits to regime action. However, these are less important than they were and a true crisis may destroy the value of the First Amendment entirely.
The elites feel under threat and are in no mood to surrender anything they have. That is a mood which, barring a sudden dramatic improvement in economic conditions, etc, must lead to trouble. We are already seeing this.
It is just easier to enforce the regime policies in the imperial hinterland than in the metropolis…
Hell, the policies of our Government are antithetical to the interests and rights of the American People.
We have rank traitors running our Government, imho, and the sooner more Americans wake up to this reality, AND TAKE ACTION, the better.
All those aware need to dig in and expose the corruption. Stand up for free and fair elections, Constitutional Rights, and full ACCOUNTABILITY for all the Covid Crimes.
I pray we have what it takes, and help from God above to get it done; both for Americans and for all the people in the world who have been impoverished or harmed or killed by my nation's behavior.
America needs to return to an independent nation that seeks relationships through trade, education, and diplomacy.
Not the bullies or the police force of the planet.
I am ashamed of our illegal wars, and brutish behavior. Finally it has come home to roost, and we are it's victims also. Maybe that will shake enough people awake to face reality?
I agree with many of your sentiments. Alas, as a card-carrying pessimist, I suepct that there are still a lot more chickens that have not yet returned to the roost, or stated another way, that there are many more installments of unpalatable Reality that will have to be faced before any change is possible.
I agree except with last sentence, which in historical terms I believe you have backwards. As you have stated it, I would say it's true during relatively stable times, that is, when the emprie is in power. But when that power fades, usually this occurs with gradual loss of the "colonies." Overt rebellion not always needed. As a central power diminished (e.g. Rome) local powers filled the void. Decrees from the imperial capital were ignored, if they arrived at all. Eventually the messengers stopped arriving. Unless there is an army to enforce that authority, it will eventually vanish.
Interesting point. I completely agree, except that I don’t think we are (quite) there yet. If anything the imperial power is turning up the pressure on the provinces, while it still can. Looking at the raft of policies this implies, all of which are both disastrous and unpopular, this risks creating a breach between the centre and the provinces at some point. Will it be Ukraine? I don’t know, but you are right that America risks losing Europe entirely if it is unwilling to enforce its will militarily.
Well, we have also something. For example, we had International COVID Summit III in Brussels in European Parament. Which is a nice gesture. Similarly, there has been a speech on Woke cult also in European Parliament by James Lindsay. I think in the USA they would not allow this Woke to be questioned. And we have UK Column, which is British anti-establishment news.
So in Europe we didn't have many of this alternative and non-mainstream media, but I think recently there is growing number of them and people are starting to understand the need, not to have USA owned network of media.
This is nothing but a tactical retreat and is mostly driven by a single event- Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and his subsequent release of the details of the censorship in that company. The Left in the US is still trying to figure out how to undo the effects of that one event and I expect that, by the Summer of next year, the censors everywhere in the informal sphere of social media will once again be working to silence the hoi polloi like me.
while the release of those details has been massively important, particularly for us, I think it's easy to overestimate their meaning to the political establishment.
There's no point. I don't want to be a doomer or a blackpiller or whatever, but if you're litigating whether you can show your face in public or who gets to use what bathrooms, then your society is too far gone, man
As their censorship and narratives fail we increasingly see the pivot from it's not happening to of course it's happening and here's why it's a good thing.
Partisan politics is so bitterly divided right now that there aren't a whole lot of people that wouldn't be perfectly fine with censorship of the other side. The difference is that the left has the means to do so. Perhaps it was a bad idea to make San Francisco the center of the world lol
Before anyone complains about censorship, first they must know that they've been censored. Then they have to understand how much they lost because their media was censored.
Absolutely so. I'm continually shocked by how many people I encounter who don't know and when told about it they refuse to realize or even consider that there is serious censorship going on.
Their outrage extends to the edge of voting for someone other than a Democrat, and not a smidge further. The RFK campaign will be instructive, and we'll see if the rank-and-file Dems have the semblance of a pair of balls left (probably not).
I disagree. Every single proof of corruption, censorship, propaganda, manipulations, and harms to individuals, their health, their families, their economic status, etc., every single fact helps "move the needle," as Jeff Childers puts it. And the Twitter Files proved what was happening EVERWHERE. One honest Supreme Court ruling and this crap ends. And if they fail us, then the People must deal with the situation.
If the full American population ever "groks" what just happened, and that awareness is spreading, btw, their days are numbered.
Which is especially hilarious considering Breonna Taylor/George Floyd protestors were targeted as well. And even more hilarious considering they just playacted as #THERESISTANCE for four years.
Yet they think they'll never run afoul of Big Brother.
It's fair to say that nobody who is politically active cares. But that leaves out the vast unengaged middle who do not drive any political changes but whose votes are important to maintain the facade of popular consent.
I don't think the files mean anything, now. However, the files are a record, and times change, constantly. Who knows what the next 5 years will bring? I definitely didn't have covid shutdowns on my future-happenings-bingo-card, and if the elevated mortality continues or escalates there could be a major change in people's feelings about their government. Or not.
Yes, eugyppius's phrase "re-establish some veneer" nailed it. They're not saying they did anything wrong, only that they wish they hadn't been so sloppy. Now they're going to try to rein in their zealous functionaries and get them to run a tighter ship, being more subtle and careful about how they censor and manipulate.
It'll be interesting to see if it works. The functionaries may not let themselves be controlled, especially if Trump has to be defeated. It'll also be interesting to see how many people buy it. One problem the Regime functionaries have is that they generally don't know any real Americans anymore, so they have a hard time calibrating a message for them or judging how well it's going over.
There is no need to censor so long as we have "election month" that proceeds until an arbitrary number of ballots are collected. The regime has all future contests in the bag. Trump was a dead cat bounce of America's spirit of '76 anti-authority bent, and they will not let it happen again. Something cataclysmic will have to happen to disentangle Permanent Washington from the levers of power. "The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead." Interesting times are ahead (or not, and we have nothing to look forward to but more iPhones and Superbowls)
This. They got caught on the hop in 2016. To prevent a repeat of that embarrassment, it is far more important to them to control the electoral process than to censor the complainers on social media. In fact, by NOT censoring so heavily, they probably hope to preemptively defuse the complaints about election-stealing when they do in fact steal the next election, not by suppressing news stories, but by the simple expedient of massaging, stroking, or outright faking the numbers. Look at the CDC for an example of how it's done. "Democracy: it's safe and effective!"
"when they do in fact steal the next election, not by suppressing news stories, but by the simple expedient of massaging, stroking, or outright faking the numbers."
And if a weaponized justice department, and manipulation of the election process doesn't work, I fear they may resort to more drastic means, which has happened in the past, as many of them now fear retribution against them, as James Comey came right out and said recently.
In one part of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, he describes the trick for fudging the vote that was used in South Texas. The secret was to have "your" precincts withhold the reports of their vote counts until they could be sure of how many votes were needed to win--being the last to report guaranteed your victory.
Now with "election month" and massive mail-in ballots, it has become easy for the "machine" in power to be the last one reporting.
I do find it funny that absolutely no one has an issue admitting that elections in the past were rigged. I mean, we learn all about Tammany Hall, etc., and it's an open secret that JFK was the beneficiary of shenanigans. But the same people that acknowledge the inherently corrupt nature of big city machine politics simply *cannot* bring themselves to admit that maybe, just maybe, there was some fuckery afoot in the 2020 election. I think a big reason is that the cities that engaged in chicanery were largely black (Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta), and the modern shitlib would rather see their entire bloodline wiped out rather than think ill of black people in any fashion. The DNC mindfuck hypnosis is actually incredibly impressive when you think about it.
Or perhaps, as in Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The bigger the protest about the assertion of funny business, the more likely it is that there is truth to it, and the bigger it probably is.
I believe this. I will be surprised if there is an election in 2024. I could be wrong. If an election occurs it will have to be even more brazenly crooked than 2020. The borg will not cede power to an outsider. Period.
As T777 has pointed out, it seems as if elections are going to be done away with as the mechanism by which the executive is selected, at least for the foreseeable future. Of course, they will argue that this isn't the case by intoning that whatever election was "the most secure in the history of forever" and that whatever candidate (who may well be a Republican) "is the most popular of all time."
......without fixing the integrity of our elections, we’re going to relieve the 2020 election just like we did in 2022. It’s simply too easy to cheat — and from the Swamp’s point of view, there’s too much at stake not to.
I’ve said it couple times already and I’m sure I’ll say it again — you don’t have to be a criminal mastermind to steal from a multi-billion dollar company like Walmart, you just need to know where the holes in the company’s security are. (Pro tip: Seattle is one of them.)
In that vein, you don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to steal an election, you just need to know where the integrity holes are — an easy prospect when you’re the one who opened them in the first place. The “best” part about this scheme is that you can continually scream ‘THERE’S NO PROOF OF ELECTION FRAUD’ when the system is designed to eliminate the ability to gather proof of election fraud.
When I was a child growing up in the suburbs of Washington, our class took a field trip to the Supreme Court. I asked to see the statue of limitations. A polite aide suggested I look outside. [guess which part of this story is untrue! 🤡
"Among these steps were broad changes in the way American presidential elections are conducted, assisted by the pretence of the pandemic."
Thanks for this. I sometimes feel alone - even among my own circle of critical thinkers - in dissecting the results of the 2020 election and being uncertain what the true result of that election would have been, absent the wholesale ballot manipulation that obviously took place. Like under Covid, the consensus is so strong that Biden won, yet the evidence is so abundant that he probably didn't, that I begin to question my own sanity.
“Democracy is on the ballot” = It’s okay to cheat because the ends justify the means. This includes the “pre-cheating” that the Left boasts about as “election fortification,” i.e. changing the rules in advance in ways that favor Democrats and hurt Republicans, especially in swing states. But these people who’re absolutely convinced that Trump presents an unprecedented Danger to the Republic™--they wouldn’t have a problem looking the other way as a few boxes of ballots fell off some trucks near vote-counting headquarters
I met someone who was part of the Jill Stein recount in MI in 2016. There was a R governor at the time. The counts on the boxes of ballots were catastrophically wrong; this was done by the poll workers, and favored Hillary, the D candidate at the time.
The R governor (an "outsider nerd") did NOTHING about it, and send them for "training." This is something they could have gone to prison for, and the R governor just looked the other way. They're part of the cheat as well.
Cheating didn’t start in 2020 obviously. But in 2020 it was in your face - unless you deliberately closed your eyes. There are people in both parties who just don’t want to face the implication that “democracy” is a sham.
I’ll never believe that Biden got that many votes. There’s no way. No one came to his few rallies, he never came out of the basement. He got over 80 million votes? I don’t think so. That’s what my logic tells me. And if he did, people are way dumber than I thought.
It's the same mechanism of "This is a deadly virus" when evidence around clearly showed it wasn't because why does a deadly virus need advertising? After the towers went down on 9/11 how often did they have to show the towers going down on 9/11?
until now that's generally how it worked, and the establishment is now hoping they've found the way to overcome his anti-fragility. we'll see, I guess.
Even the hard-leftist U.S. PBS News Hour yesterday did a long segment on focus groups in Iowa who unanimously expressed continued support for President Trump despite the indictments. When challenged by the pollster, they openly stated on camera that their support was strengthened by what they (rightfully) believe to be election interference.
I saw a Jordan Peterson interview with him. He does think that the weather has been changing, presumably getting warmer, since he was a kid. But he was pretty courteous and rational about having the discussion.
Fun as it is to dream of that ticket, neither Kennedy nor Trump would be the other's vice president. Kennedy's point is to restore sanity and humanity to the Democratic Party. Trump would drive it berserk.
I think Kennedy says what he has to to allow the brain-washed Dem majority to accept him. The man is far too smart and has too much integrity, (from what I've seen over 20+ years being soundly attacked) to believe CO2 is our biggest problem. He said as much in a Jordan Peterson interview recently.
He knows, and states, that the climate scare tactic is being utilized for control. That's enough for me. His is the most honest voice I've heard in 30 years- I'm willing to give the man a try!
Agreed. While I admire RFK Jr.'s stance on vaccines, someone said (and I believe was correct) to observe that on most other issues he's actually to the left of the current radical administration. His greatest service right now is daring to force these issues. Even amid all the hostile media (non-)attention he gets, more and more people will be made uncomfortable, realizing that here's a Kennedy for God's sake, who is all but deplatformed by the media. I doubt he has any realistic chance of national office.
Trump’s stunning ascendancy to the presidency would not have been possible without the tectonic collision between a public empowered by digital platforms and the elites who control our ruling institutions. By 2015, social media had transformed the public from a passive audience into a hyperactive one whose numbers are unprecedented in human experience, and which has managed to bleed institutions of authority.
The internet’s democratization of information forever changed society’s traditional power dynamics. Whereas before the digital big bang a scarcity of sources in possession of a scarcity of information endowed those sources with authority and allowed dominant media to operate within a system of centralized, one-way news dissemination — meaning to consume the news was to ingest a diet of information pre-selected by the elites — after the internet, information was no longer limited to a newspaper and the 10 o’clock roundup, nor was it dispensed one to many via a rigid, top down pyramid. Media luminaries and government officials alike had always played an intermediary role in the way citizens received and processed information, but the internet’s sheer speed and scope completely upended the concept of authority as a belief system anointing the chosen few.
What you describe is true enough, about the ease and speed of spread of information. Problem: the quality of the data. It's just as easy to spread lies, gossip and fantasy as it is wisdom or factual information. By the way, that's not a callf or censorship. It's just to alert everyone of the need to evaluate the worth of a claim or of information, from whatever source.
A new broadcast news outfit came to the UK, GBNews which set out to be unbiased, albeit Right leaning, and would not simply toe the Government line. It has been censured by Ofcom the (neutral Ha!) Govt appointed regulator for such horrors as reporting on mRNA deaths and injuries - including interviewing bereaved widows of young husbands... misinformation, and reports on dissent and challenge to the climate change narrative... misinformation. It challenges the whole transgender/Pride nonsense, and reports on the illegals immigrant scandal. Apart from Govt censure, some of its advertisers have pulled out due to its racist/homophobic/transphobia/antivaxxer/climate denier content. As a consequence it is not as aggressive as at its start-up, but still provides a reasonable antidote to the BBC and its stable mates. Perhaps the only way is for a subscription only News service, but maybe not a financially viable possibility.
The Yanks will never give up. Never have we been assaulted by the elites, media and corrupt government officials as we are now. More and more people are waking up...finally. It's the last dying gasp of these oligarchs. We shall never surrender. Jack Dorsey, Zuckerberg, etc. are a plague and no critical thinker listens to them. Long live Tucker...150 million viewers.
Dorsey's racket frequently includes these general expressions of remorse without the necessary elements for a proper apology. Off the top of my head, those elements include (1) specific acknowledgment of the wrong, (2) articulation of the injury caused by the wrongdoing, (3) identification of people injured by the conduct, (4) expression of intent to not cause similar injury in the future, and (5) demonstrated action taken to rectify the wrongdoing or injury.
Dorsey likes to talk like Harry Truman about how the "buck stops here" with generalized sentiments that on their face seem sort of like an apology followed by repetition of the wrong.
This is what it smells like to me. They’re trying to mea culpa their way out of the fact that all these transgressions will have to be acknowledged publicly, before they go ahead and transgress some more. It’s a subtle way of crafting the narrative to maintain the veneer.
Don't forget it was Jack who did the Town Hall with Obama. Establishing relationships that today are very strong(deep state) Who is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer? Where did they work prior? https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ostps-teams/u-s-chief-technology-officer/ Jason Goodman goes very deep on this Twitter/U.S. Government relationship(s.)
Google's relationship to Democratic administrations is even more troubling. The company shares an ethos and a worldview with the Democratic Party that intertwine and lead to the same conclusion: All of America’s problems can be answered via social engineering—a process that depends on facts and truth remaining, in the words of The New Atlantis’s Aaron White, “ruthlessly value-free and yet, when properly grasped, a powerful force for ideological and social reform."
Google's progressive agenda stretches back to the Obama administration, when a revolving door was established. No fewer than 55 Google employees left the company to take positions in the Obama administration, while 197 government employees moved from the federal bureaucracy to Google or to other companies and organizations owned by Eric Schmidt. To get a sense of how crazy these numbers are, as of 2020 there were 377 people employed in the West Wing.
After the 2016 election, Google held an internal meeting, the video of which leaked online. They basically took turns crying about Trump's victory, and then vowed not to let it happen again. I'm sure many globlalist-left organizations had similar meetings, and we saw the results in four years of increasing censorship and deplatforming, culminating in the election steal. Anything they do to the contrary now is for show, an attempt to make people forget about the last few years or to think it's changing. They won't change their goals a bit.
“ The formal sphere consists of the major press and broadcast media, where content is heavily influenced by corporate advertising;”. The reason why the BBC remains a Public Corporation funded by (compulsory) annual licence fee (currently £159) is allegedly to free its News output and programming of any external influence. This leaves its News output and programming subject to internal influence, with even BBC management recently admitting is Left wing and heavily biased.
These people are not stupid and if they are relaxing the censorship, that means they are comfortable in thinking that the election fortification fix is already in place. First, you can be sure that they have corrected the mistakes made in the 2020 election and have figured out how to make the cheating much less obvious. Second, they have successfully deleted Tucker Carlson's voice and in the process, have intimidated the other TV talking heads into being a little more careful about what they say. Third, they have inflicted (they believe) sufficiently mortal wounds to President Trump's chances of re-election.
However, while not stupid, I do believe they live in a well-insulated echo-chamber of their own egos. And as echo-chambers are closed loops, I think they have underestimated the potential that resides in all the people in the US who are sick to death of all the wokedness, all the transgenderedness, all the DIEedness, all the Climate Changedness, and especially of the DOJ's overt and increasingly obvious politically driven prosecution of those they don't like while completely ignoring the crimes of those they do like. I believe that the fear that resulted from witnessing the punishments of those who spoke out during the coronadoom travesty caused much self-censorship. I'm hoping there is a resultant unintended consequence of opening the eyes of a large number of people who have learned the lesson of keeping their thoughts to themselves, but know they can vote their thoughts.
I wonder what can be done on a personal level, to encourage journalists to engage with dissenting opinions and explore ideas they are covering neutrally. Even if we manage to halt the govt/tech sponsored censorship machine, what can we do to bring back civil discussion without reflexively blocking anyone that disagrees with you?
To Kathleen, who have I have followed for years, I penned a polite but firm critique of the article and entire premise she is proposing - even opening up on a personal level and sharing that my own wife was just diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I can appreciate the need of these people to feel safe.
Of course, this nets an instant block and she continues to shield her mind from ideas that deviate from her beliefs.
I don't expect her to listen to some random no-follower-twitter user, but it is reflective of a larger societal problem - even if we weren't asking Big Tech or our Govt to block ideas we don't like, we seem to have a large segment of society unwilling to engage to engage in discourse. Perhaps it was always like this, we just didn't have block buttons in our life before?
People are brainwashed and scared, plain and simple. The older a person is, the more likely they are brainwashed. And by brainwashed I mean "mind controlled through fear."
Personal story: yesterday, a jabbed friend of mine (60) told me about someone she knows (maybe early 50s?) who died suddenly from a blood clot. I VERY gently explained the blood clots are side effect of the vax. She shut down immediately and said people have ALWAYS died suddenly from blood clots, it's nothing new.
I see it both ways. In medicine seems to be the younger the physician, the more likely they are to buy into the mask, vaccination, etc. (My wife is a physician so most of our friends are physicians so speaking from this experience).
Especially in the cancer centers we have been in lately, it is the residents always masked, not the attendings. Same with nurses, the younger they are, more likely to be masked. But it's still at best 10% of staff - and that is saying something as we have been in the cancer wards for the sickest of the sick. The day mask mandates dropped 90% stopped the practice.
The scary part is that the brainwashing is actually most effective in the younger adults. The old folks, as far as I can tell, are not so much brainwashed as cautious and playing it safe. They are not into investigating.
My experience with age grades is almost opposite. It's hard to read young people. They seem not to express opinions about the matter at all, either due to indoctrination or intimidation, or perhaps just out of kindly respect for the old doofs.
Some older people certainly bought into it and became tyrannical over it, but others are precisely the ones who scoff at it. I noticed early on in the grocery store, when masks were being pushed hard or mandated, that almost everyone else would be wearing them, and then I'd see some tough old guy or gal not wearing one, or leaving it off their nose so they could breathe.
Today, almost nobody is wearing them except for a few of the apparently fragile elderly, and a scattering of people of all ages who obviously believe. But in the central Plains, there doesn't seem to be any rancor one way or the other. Just a couple of weeks ago, I remember interacting briefly with a beautiful young lady in her teens or twenties, perfectly masked, yet trading banter with me as cheerfully and indifferently as if no mask stood between us.
Yeah... younger people. I have two stepsons: 26 and 29; husband had them when he was older.
The older one went to college ,the younger one did not. The younger one is, in many ways, much more... IDK, normal? He thinks for himself, so he is "uninitiated."
I treat my stepsons like young adult co-workers. I don't talk down to the, and I'm kind of them, but I also will kindly confront them when they say something stupid.
Two examples, both with older stepson. First incident, he makes a comment about trees and plants having rights. I looked at him as if he was insane, and explain that biblically, man has dominion over nature, and the whole concept was not thought out. He was surprised that I even questioned his idea, but listened to my reasoning, and couldn't really explain his ideas.
Second incident: talking about the environment. I tell him pollution is much better now than it was in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He is stunned and doesn't really believe this is true. His dad comes home, I ask him about it and he agrees with me. The idea that the environment is better now never occurred to my stepson.
I don't think a lot of young people, especially those in college, have had their beliefs challenged, at least kindly. I can do it because I'm just a different adult, not a parent. They simply don't know that things are actually really different than what they're taught in college. They don't discuss their opinions on certain things because it doesn't occur to them that there are other opinions. Groupthink.
It's refusal of reality - she is in denial. And I mean, can you blame her? Who could think, that world build on humanity and moral principles will do another genocide of this kind?
An argument can be made to the contrary, that the older the person is, the less likely they are brainwashed. I have been seeing the diverging perception/reality of the MSM for decades. I remember in my twenties being angry at reading the Atlanta Gerbil and Constipation about how they so distorted the news, would listen to WSB radio and be equally as upset. Often POV would leak into stories and you could see the slant. Now that slant is so ubiquitous it is hard to distinguish it from actual news.
I knew in the back of my mind that WMD's were a rationalization for George W to finish what his dad started in Iraq, but I bought in slightly to the idea of "country building" which was ridiculous on my part. How do we feel about China coming into our country and remaking it? Although I have to say, they did a pretty effective job over the past three years.
Your friend who is 60 is right, that people have died suddenly of blood clots in the past, just not to this degree, and at such young ages. I have talked to a ton of younger people on Twitter and on other platforms who are brainwashed as well. Age is not a factor as much as faith and belief in the institutions, and the belief that "well most people believe this, it must be true."
As we get older, we also have (or can have) a more realistic idea of what true disease and pain and suffering is. I am obese, I have diabetes, I have lost a leg, How do you think that stacks up against Covid which I had twice in 2020 and it was a cold. It wasn't even a bad horrible cold. The worst flu I had was as a kid. I remember because I was feverish, had terrible headaches, and when I tried to stand up had vertigo, and also thre up quite a bit.
Aside: At times I welcome sickness because it makes me grateful for the times I am not. It also makes me nostalgic. The second time I had Covid, I had a fever, and there is nothing quite like being in your bed, bundled up, with a fever...It reminded me of when I was a kid...given chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, of mom bringing me home comic books when I got to take a vacation from school for a couple days. There was a time during the illness that I felt moments of fear...because I am not immune to the media influence..but when the symptoms waned and normal life once again reasserted itself, such was life...and without a sense of smell for a couple weeks after.
I am by default a nonconformist, and yet in many things, compliant, especially if it makes sense. I think my nonconformity was only supplanted by my desire to be left alone, which is where the state overstepped its bounds, and truly has been for sometime. The state usually though left it's citizens alone for the most part. It would take its imaginary narratives abroad and wreak havoc on other countries. This was wrong and is wrong by the way.
I also think there is some underlying aspect of "we must never suffer with illness ever" happening as well.
Also... people seem to have been made phobic. There is a young PhD that works with my husband. She is pregnant and acts like she is disabled. I guess that's a new thing with young well educated women. It's bizarre.
Must not ever feel pain, must not suffer, must not experience discomfort. Weird.
One of my best friends died unexpectedly in his bed, just short of his 50th birthday. But no, that one could not have been the jab; that was nearly ten years ago. I never did hear the cause of death. But he suffered from and was treated for pulmonary embolisms and complained of headaches. The point I'm trying to make here is that people do at times die without (much) forewarning.
Thanks for making your experience with Quinlan public here, Michael. It seems to me if she didn't appreciate being reminded she was wrong about masks (however politely and with documentation), she could have ignored you. Her blocking you reveals she's threatened by the truth and perhaps embarrassed by her ignorance. If she were confident in her viewpoint, she wouldn't be so concerned about allowing others to see a (more accurate) opposing perspective.
P.S. If masks worked, cancer patients would be sufficiently protected by their OWN masks.
our MSM narrative-enforcement agents have "beliefs" like religious fundamentalists have "beliefs"—they are presented with a full slate of approved mandatory dogma, then they swallow it whole and never question it or allow it to be questioned.
A writer for something like the LA Times (which is written at the same level of a left-wing college newspaper), cannot allow herself to think or to rigorously question any of her beliefs—propounding and defending elite-approved narratives is her job, and if she weren't a zombie Karen she wouldn't be there in the first place; and if she did ever wake up one day and think for herself, she would be eased out and replaced by a newer model obedient drone.
Thank you, probably working in a Cath Lab for 20 years did her in. Got "Marie Curie'd" so to speak. We are hoping can have 2 good years with our children before...
I think this is perceptive. The Establishment has good reason to be confident, after their successful election thefts, censorship regimes, and pointless lockdowns and other restrictions have gone unpunished and even widely unacknowledged.
Perhaps they will allow us a little freedom. But I expect it will be very little, and temporary. After that, we will all be fully locked down and eating bugs.
I love the analysis here: Formal, accepted discourse, as moderated by the elite gatekeepers, vs. informal, mostly unacceptable discourse, as occurs among the peasants, outside the gates of the castle. The rise of the internet gave the latter wings, and the arrogant establishment didn't see it coming until it was too late.
I agree that the gatekeepers have been extending their walls outward to include social media and, if possible, every realm of internet content. In fact, I'd say that in the US this has been going on ever since 2009, when President Obama took office, and began a series of meetings with big tech to establish an initiative to put the brakes on the dangerously fermenting freedom of expression the internet. We saw all of it go into overdrive in the waning days before Trumps historic win in 2016, and it hasn't let up until this year. The question is why?
You say it's confidence, but in my opinion, it's exactly the opposite. The censors have been exposed and their narratives discredited. While they've been able to shelter the public from this so far, the dam may be breaking. They're no longer so arrogant as to be sure they can continue to hide the truth, or even keep uninterrupted power, unless and until they develop a better plan. I look at their recent 'relaxation' of control and censorship as a tactical retreat, intended to limit short-term damage while the elites figure out how to preserve their power long enough to out-last Donald Trump and the challenge from the peasants.
Give up your free speech at your peril. Once they are able to silence you, the game is over. The loss of all of your other freedoms will follow immediately after. Anyone that advocates to censor you, or to unmask your anonymity is your adversary. Treat them like one - no matter what else they say.
---
Why is it so vital and necessary for the combined monolithic apparatus of government, corporations, and NGOs, to brute force censor everyone while decimating the careers and reputations of the dissenters? Here is why:
The reason the First Amendment is prime directive order 1, is because it is the most important freedom we have for the same reason it is the first target an adversary subverts, disrupts, and destroys during a crime, a war, or a takeover—preventing a target from assembling, communicating, and organizing a response to an assault grants an enormous advantage to the aggressors.
This is and has been occurring all across the globe since the minute this COVID-19 fraud was propagated to every corner of the earth.
The Second Amendment is second because it is the remedy for anyone trying to subvert the First.
The fog of this war is purposefully thick—a massive labyrinth filled with wrong turns, dead ends, and long, interesting paths to nowhere—relentless discombobulation are important tentpoles of demoralization and destabilization.
Control speech and you control thought.
Control thought and you control the individual.
Control the individual and you control their past, present, and future.
Control enough individuals and you control everything.
Until you realize how easy it is for your mind to be manipulated
You will remain a pawn in someone else's game
-Evita Ochel
Robert Malone has said that those in Europe have told him that the only reason things didn't escalate as badly in the US as it did there (or in Canada and AU and NZ) is because of the 2nd amendment.
It's not just that, but there are still enough of us around who have a healthy mistrust of government. Those who grew up in the sixties had the adage "Don't trust anyone over 30." It's not that the older you get the more untrustworthy you get, it's the more "established" you become. When you are establishment, you burn calories maintaining your position.
Very true. Problem: Those radicals from the 60s, or their ideological heirs (sometimes literally like this public figure, child of two honest-to-God terrorists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin
In dissident circles, many like to say of this phenomenon: In the 1960s they said don't trust "The Man" (the authorities.) But in recent decades, they now ARE "The Man." A parallel observation is made that in just a generation or so, the Democratic party has literally inverted alll its values. As recently as the 1980s, they were typically in support of organized labor, of free speech, were anti-war, distrustful of corporations, and generally suspicious of government. My, how times have changed!
If anything positive may be said about politics (US or elsewhere) these past few years, surely it's how blatantly obvious is the endemic corruption of media, corporations, government, indeed nearly all institutions.
Yes, Jimmy, but when we are all gone things will be different. Selfishly, I just want the 'way things are' to last until I'm dead...
I don't want things to go back to normal though...not to 2020.
Let's go back to pre surveillance state ideals. Where we could park our car at the airport and see our loved ones off at the gate.
Let's go back to a time when we could let kids fend for themselves without adult supervision for 2 hours.
Let's go back to a time when there weren't random security checks.
In more than a few ways "progress" has been stepping backwards.
BOOM
Yes! I am no fan of smoking, but I don't even think secondhand smoking is as bad as they say it is. Where is the proof? My mom was a chainsmoker most of her life, died of lung cancer, but I don't see any evidence of us, her kids, showing any ill effects of that, and there were hours we were stuck in the back seat of her 280z with the windows rolled up in the rain breathing in the smoky air.
Even I as a rabid nonsmoker didn't think they were fair. You don't relegate people to the outer reaches of society for doing ordinary but unpopular things. They should have improved the ventilation systems.
" Those who grew up in the sixties had the adage "Don't trust anyone over 30."
There was another one from that period, which I still like: "Question authority."
Since I trusted my parents, even when we argued, and I liked my grandparents and most of their friends, I thought, even very young, that the "over 30" adage was silly. But you do add a more interesting nuance about the pitfalls of maturity.
When one is young, every thing about life seems uncertain, insecure, and full of possibility. When one is young, the energy to adjust and bound through quickly changing circumstance animates every fiber. That resilience wanes, everso gradually, with age. My mother in her 80s, still curious, and dependent on a walker to get around, used to quote a familiar verse from Matthew, giving a far more literal application. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
I can't speak for Europe, but we have a lot of browbeating here in the states as well.
I know, but here in the states, the effect is the same, it leads to a lot of us being compliant. We don't want to be called racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic members of the tyrannical patriarchy.
You could have a point they would be aware that it would be so objectionable an affront to basic rights to many people that some would defend themselves more forcibly then you’re allowed to - certainly in Canada, where you can’t defend yourself and are in danger of having your bank account frozen and funds seized.
I dont know if i buy it. They have weapons to pin point & fry your brain in your head from miles away dont think they worry about our guns if were unable to organize to even make it on totally captured mainstream media? Im not buying that
Democratic governors, everywhere, have been frantically banning guns and passing laws (traps) pertaining to the transport and storage of weapons. 2/3 of the "gun violence" deaths that they bang on about are suicides. A mere 400 or so Americans die from rifles every year (contrast that to 30k+ from drunk drivers), yet Biden has launched a campaign to ban the most effective weapon--AR-15--available to citizens.
The Oligarchy worries about guns...a lot.
Perhaps but i dont think they give us any real strength against a standing armybor god kniws what weapons they could employ? I think its
1/2 propaganda to get lib votes & i honostly dont know drones ,robots , armored unmanned weapons,everything imaginable & some? They’re fear of us doesn’t make sense to me anymore . Wish i was wrong but i think solidarity & total refusal to participate is our only way . Stop consuming everything at once collectively dont pay a bill or buy a coke or a bandaid for as long as it takes ? The whole system is rotten bottom up cant shoot our way out.
I agree. The guns civilians are permitted won't do much against a full army force. But an armed citizenry will make civilian authorities think hard about whether and how they impose their more arbitrary, controlling decrees.
We forget that the 2nd amendment says right to "arms", not merely guns. Guns may have made sense at the time the amendment was ratified.
On a road trip with friends, we were discussing the 2nd. Their two boys, ages 9 and 12, were sitting in the back, apparently as disinterested as kids usually are with grown-up conversation. I asserted that I thought I should be able to own an RPG too (not the game), if I wanted it. Suddenly a burst of laughter from the back. 10 years later, my friend told me that her sons had never forgotten that; they thought it was great.
Little ears. You never know.
Governments should always be a little afraid of the people they govern. It helps keep them honest. Or at least less tyrannical.
The system may be too far gone for a peaceable solution. I'm no expert by any means. Sadly, mass violene may be in our futures. But frankly, I doubt a citizen's militia of hunting rifle (or AR15) bearing rednecks marching into the State capital, or DC, is realistic. Based upon my spotty reading of history, I think it's more likely that some form of a palace coup, or an outright mutiny in military units, is more likely. Government self-selects for toadies, having weeded out actual or potential trouble-makers. Problem: once things have deteriorated to a certain point, hypothetically say, the outright persecution and arrest of past national leaders and other harrassment of the opposition, while ignoring serious crimes by the present regime, you are entering very dangerous territory. Hypothetically, at some point, a military commander with some real firepower under his control may correctly decide that he is the next suspect to be arrested and that he has nothing to lose by, shall we say, cleaning house.
Every oligarchy has.
If the authorities have to think about an armed populace, it makes mass arrests a lot more complicated. Instead of a couple of officers and a car they need bring a SWAT team, armored vehicles, and body armor. And maybe a few body bags.
And the elites favorite and most effective weapons are fear and censorship. It became obvious with covid to anyone who did a little research.
Now being used for climate change and the war in Ukraine. The plan of the UN is that they are the only source for information on climate change.
Monty Python got it right decades ago...
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
It's looking to me like our inquisitors have lost 'surprise'.
and the COMFY CHAIR
Yes! That was it, surely. Something about a place to sit...😛
Monty Python. Let me think. It wasn't a boot stomping on my face...forever. Naw, that was Orwell. It was something else on my face, now what was it? 😏
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/b3b807e1-4912-4d58-acea-72ce26a28585
Tyranny requires some cooperation from the oppressed.
You can only accomplish so much through coercion.
I've been talking to someone from Australia on Twitter, and we got into the weeds about Covid death rates, IFR, etc. and improperly filling out death certificates. He asked me if what I said was true, why weren't thee police involved? This is coming from an Australian that no doubt saw people taken from their houses because they did not comply with Covid regulations. The very institutions that would prosecute such behavior are the ones behind it.
Yes, officers of the law, soldiers, and mercenaries are the enablers and the executors of every single evil thing the elites are doing and have done to humanity. Order followers are not on your side, they are on the side of their paychecks and pensions.
Money can get many kinds of people to do almost anything, look at what the doctors and hospitals did during COVID for evidence. "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome": https://tritorch.com/legion
Yes, it's money for sure. For some people, it trumps everything.
Some people are simply more comfortable with order than with uncertainty and awkward lack of definition. Cognitive dissonance is harder for some to navigate. It is not always venal motives.
I say this as a person with an often messy house or kitchen. I respect how uncomfortable this makes some of my friends, and try to pickup better before their visits.
Over time, I have become aware that many of my very neat friends have quite disorganized drawers and cupboards and closets. It surprised me at first, because the inside of my drawers are well organized and uncluttered. Other people are neatly put together all the way through.
It can be the same with more abstract concepts, I think.
As I conjecture elsewhere, things in government can get very interesting indeed when a single powerful figure in the chain of command, especially if he is in charge of a lot of firepower and has allies, becomes aware that he is likely to be on the next round-up for the cattle car to the gulag or whatever. At some point, people in such positiions might decide they have little to lose and that it's time to be, shall we say, "proactive"?
Yes, disgusting pieces of shite! For sure.
(Anecdote & bias-alert!)
I've often had the same experience these past 30 years or so: I point out some thing that is more-or-less illegal, immoral, breach of trust, et cetera complete with either references to indicators, proof or other material supporting my allegation - at worst simple reason based on observable facts - and the first response is almost always some variation of "But why would X do Y if it's bad?", with the tacit meaning that since Y is bad and X is understood as intrinsically Good, X cannot be doing Y no matter what.
Among academics, it's over 19 out of 20. Among craftsmen and professionals it's an even split. Interestingly (?), among those working in law, real estate and/or finance the reaction is instead "Yeah? So what? Find a way to exploit it then, man - before someone else does!". Life-style criminals have the exact same reaction, which I find rather telling re: lawyers, brokers et cetera.
I've found that responding by saying: "Asking why X would do Y is akin to a team of firemen debating how a fire started, instead of fighting it. The "Why?" is secondary to putting it out, or putting a stop to X doing Y, don't you think?"
I really do wonder how and why so so many confuse the "what" with the "how" and the "why" nowadays.
True. In fact, you probalby have no conception of the extent to which humans in general have a world-view based upon bald assumptions, sweeping generalizations, etc. This is one of the more fascinating themes in Nietzsche's famous "Beyond Good and Evil." Even though some of the beliefs are demonstrably untrue, ironically he says that some of them may be helpful or even necessary for human existence. Nietzsche doesn't use this specific example, but I find it a very good one: We "know" that world is not really flat. Yet I've used a 2-dimensional map many times in my life and found it highly useful. In fact, a flat world view is useful for 99.99% of all human activities.
And the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown, meaning said distractions act as a safety-blanket.
To compound that disconnect, any time you offer them evidence to the contrary like the Cabrera article, they will simply access the "fact checking" site and discard it as a biased source of "possible conspiracy theories and misinformation." As if there is an authorized site that is unbiased and able to do an honest assessment of bias and misinformation.
Mmmm, yes, my husband is very condescending about my 'conspiracy theories'. This morning, I told him covid was a global hoax. He probably thinks I'm mad. Needless to say, we don't talk about current affairs.
That has to be tough to live with. Do you ask him if it isn't a conspiracy theory, then why did most countries go in lockstep to the Covid policies? The answer from the twittersphere is that they were "the most sensible." but when you ask them questions about masks, lockdowns, and social distancing it gets murkier and murkier.
Have you tried dunning him with books and articles on the subject? Such as the article by Stella Paul on American Thinker about gov't-induced hospital policies in the US that helped ramp up the covid death tolls - try that one on him. Ed Dowd's book Cause Unknown might also serve as an eye-opener, not to mention the Breggins' Global Predators book. And then there's Steve Kirsch's substack (not to mention this one).
I am in a similar situation with my wife. 🙏
That's why the "fact checking" sites exist in the first place.
People were coming up with excuses in the same spirit during the Stalinist Great Terror (as recounted in Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope [isn't that an appropriate title for our times!] and I presume other works from that time).
In the States, it really will come down to the 5-10% who retain something of the spirit of the 5-10% in 1776. (Presumably, the same is true elsewhere. [who knows, maybe some government funded academics are already doing research on this point].)
Generally concurring, tritorch. Yet, let’s think about why it’s so necessary for most people to use a pseudonym online? The widespread has a severe cooling effect, It weakens the ethos and accommodates knavery. A sea of ciphers contributes to the fog of war. A nom de plume for fiction is one thing, but clandestine political speech is, in my mind, distinct from that which is explicitly attributable to the genuine speaker. ~C.G.
America has the First and Second Amendments, Europe doesn’t. America has Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, Europe doesn’t. America has a conservative Supreme Court, Europe has leftist EU commissars. Substack is a beacon of free speech globally, hope it stays that way.
Let’s keep pushing back against the GAE Woke Jihad together: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-wage-a-progressive-jihad
Yeah, but Europe has Eugyppius. He's our Gandalf the White.
Bullshit and lies! Shall not pass.
Maybe he’s really Tucker in disguise.
And we all must help him!
Subscribed.
Also helps those in spite of themselves...see also Jonah.
But Eugyppius don't get bigheaded.
US has a document on which is printed the First Amendment. That is of historical interest only - and even that, only for as long as it remains available.
Imho what matters most is that MANY Americans still believe they HAVE Constitutional Rights and will ACT as if they are real!
In the end it's the behavior of the People which will determine if this World Coup is successful. And defending the principles defined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are big steps in slowing down and stopping this Agenda.
I don't think it's a matter of the people coming in not yearning for liberty. It's that heritage peoples have the precious rights of citizenship. Illegal immigrants do not, and can be thrown out at any time at the rulers' discretion. Hence, those same rulers want to eliminate the heritage peoples generally, so that no one can assert their rights against them.
Second world living looks great to those from third world hell holes.
Exactly.....the masses tend to favor safety and what they perceive as security over freedom.
Worth mentioning the saying, attributed to Ben Franklin: If you trade freedom for security, you will end up with neither.
My more timid European friends most admire Americans’ inventive doing-dare in political satire, which we seem to take much for granted.
I think Eugyppius’s life experience has been a bit informed - for better and worse - by his time in America and once someone is really exposed to this culture that is so brazenly confident of its natural, political and civil rights that it often regards with careless frivolity... well, it changes you !
At one point, I think the US had a halo effect on the world, but now that halo effect has changed. I think it's emanating from elsewhere. Our light grows dim and guttering due to a lot of artifice, a lot of us being in other countries business, and continuing to push the industry of war to no great purpose, as if "war" was a great purpose to begin with.
We are definitely rotting from within. The cognitive dissonance from the Trump era that only was exacerbated during Covid has driven a lot of us mad, and I believe has also added physiological components due to the stress of maintaining such self delusion. In the early days of lockdown, I found myself fatigued and in a brain fog as well, because I could not believe the ridiculous nature of watching the daily death counts and often fabricated fictions being perpetuated live.
I think most of us are just plain old pissed off about it, Jimmy.
That too.
Yes, so agree Sean! As someone UK born and lives in the USA.
Your comments about Americans echo something Nietzsche says. He's speaking of the shaky assumptions of philosophers, but his comments have far wider application. (search for "sancta"):
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4363/pg4363-images.html
Applied to the present topic, "J6" is a good example. On Janauary 6, 2022, hundreds of American citizens thought they were exercising constitutional rights when protesting at the U.S. Capitol. For their trouble, many of them have been jailed for 2 1/2 years, awaiting trail where they'll likely be sentenced to many years in prison.
Well said.
I really wish yanks would finally get it into their heads that "Europe" is geography: we are a lot of different peoples in a lot of different nations, not citizen-slaves to the Creed of Greed like the fooled, ruled and drooled masses of the US.
Might as well talk about "asians" as if a korean and a burmese are the same thing.
Well that was a bitter pill to swallow Rikard!
It's the truth. Europe blows an American's mind because so many VERY different cultures and peoples live so very close together yet are totally different. I can drive from Southern Germany, my husband's home, through parts of Austria, Switzerland, and all of France, and literally be inches from Spain, in a day!
Or into Italy in an afternoon, almost. And yet those cultures, their values and thinking, are very, very different!
Strange, yes?
And the poor Europeans who come here, and really have no idea how large our county is, and need to drive, say across Texas, for some reason, just cannot believe the distances!
Americans need better educations, more geography, more history, more languages.
We are pretty darn ignorant and it let's our Government get away with a lot of madness!
I visited that place called the United Kingdom, and was suprised what good English they spoke, considering they are Europeans. 😏
Yeah I know what you mean. I spent nearly a year in Europe when I was in my 30's. Pretty cool
We in Europe are pawns in this American empire. The current policy of the US government towards its NATO allies, especially Germany, is irreconcilable with the interests of the peoples of the allied states. There are important structural differences in the US which, currently, do present some limits to regime action. However, these are less important than they were and a true crisis may destroy the value of the First Amendment entirely.
The elites feel under threat and are in no mood to surrender anything they have. That is a mood which, barring a sudden dramatic improvement in economic conditions, etc, must lead to trouble. We are already seeing this.
It is just easier to enforce the regime policies in the imperial hinterland than in the metropolis…
Hell, the policies of our Government are antithetical to the interests and rights of the American People.
We have rank traitors running our Government, imho, and the sooner more Americans wake up to this reality, AND TAKE ACTION, the better.
All those aware need to dig in and expose the corruption. Stand up for free and fair elections, Constitutional Rights, and full ACCOUNTABILITY for all the Covid Crimes.
I pray we have what it takes, and help from God above to get it done; both for Americans and for all the people in the world who have been impoverished or harmed or killed by my nation's behavior.
America needs to return to an independent nation that seeks relationships through trade, education, and diplomacy.
Not the bullies or the police force of the planet.
I am ashamed of our illegal wars, and brutish behavior. Finally it has come home to roost, and we are it's victims also. Maybe that will shake enough people awake to face reality?
I agree with many of your sentiments. Alas, as a card-carrying pessimist, I suepct that there are still a lot more chickens that have not yet returned to the roost, or stated another way, that there are many more installments of unpalatable Reality that will have to be faced before any change is possible.
I agree except with last sentence, which in historical terms I believe you have backwards. As you have stated it, I would say it's true during relatively stable times, that is, when the emprie is in power. But when that power fades, usually this occurs with gradual loss of the "colonies." Overt rebellion not always needed. As a central power diminished (e.g. Rome) local powers filled the void. Decrees from the imperial capital were ignored, if they arrived at all. Eventually the messengers stopped arriving. Unless there is an army to enforce that authority, it will eventually vanish.
Interesting point. I completely agree, except that I don’t think we are (quite) there yet. If anything the imperial power is turning up the pressure on the provinces, while it still can. Looking at the raft of policies this implies, all of which are both disastrous and unpopular, this risks creating a breach between the centre and the provinces at some point. Will it be Ukraine? I don’t know, but you are right that America risks losing Europe entirely if it is unwilling to enforce its will militarily.
Well, we have also something. For example, we had International COVID Summit III in Brussels in European Parament. Which is a nice gesture. Similarly, there has been a speech on Woke cult also in European Parliament by James Lindsay. I think in the USA they would not allow this Woke to be questioned. And we have UK Column, which is British anti-establishment news.
So in Europe we didn't have many of this alternative and non-mainstream media, but I think recently there is growing number of them and people are starting to understand the need, not to have USA owned network of media.
True, but the truck drivers of Canada deserve some credit for leading Americans from the lockdown desert.
This is nothing but a tactical retreat and is mostly driven by a single event- Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and his subsequent release of the details of the censorship in that company. The Left in the US is still trying to figure out how to undo the effects of that one event and I expect that, by the Summer of next year, the censors everywhere in the informal sphere of social media will once again be working to silence the hoi polloi like me.
while the release of those details has been massively important, particularly for us, I think it's easy to overestimate their meaning to the political establishment.
No one cares about the Twitter Files. Rightists knew it was happening, and leftists are fine with it.
But let us make those facts better known to more. We have to red-pill more people.
There's no point. I don't want to be a doomer or a blackpiller or whatever, but if you're litigating whether you can show your face in public or who gets to use what bathrooms, then your society is too far gone, man
Nope. Litigate and win. The alternative is far worse.
Agree.
As their censorship and narratives fail we increasingly see the pivot from it's not happening to of course it's happening and here's why it's a good thing.
Partisan politics is so bitterly divided right now that there aren't a whole lot of people that wouldn't be perfectly fine with censorship of the other side. The difference is that the left has the means to do so. Perhaps it was a bad idea to make San Francisco the center of the world lol
Before anyone complains about censorship, first they must know that they've been censored. Then they have to understand how much they lost because their media was censored.
Absolutely so. I'm continually shocked by how many people I encounter who don't know and when told about it they refuse to realize or even consider that there is serious censorship going on.
I care about it, but then I'm an old school liberal who needed to see evidence.
Further: many liberals and even some leftists are outraged by the lies. They are seeing that so many things their ideas were based are bankrupt.
Their outrage extends to the edge of voting for someone other than a Democrat, and not a smidge further. The RFK campaign will be instructive, and we'll see if the rank-and-file Dems have the semblance of a pair of balls left (probably not).
I disagree. Every single proof of corruption, censorship, propaganda, manipulations, and harms to individuals, their health, their families, their economic status, etc., every single fact helps "move the needle," as Jeff Childers puts it. And the Twitter Files proved what was happening EVERWHERE. One honest Supreme Court ruling and this crap ends. And if they fail us, then the People must deal with the situation.
If the full American population ever "groks" what just happened, and that awareness is spreading, btw, their days are numbered.
"and leftists are fine with it."
Which is especially hilarious considering Breonna Taylor/George Floyd protestors were targeted as well. And even more hilarious considering they just playacted as #THERESISTANCE for four years.
Yet they think they'll never run afoul of Big Brother.
SamizBOT,
It's fair to say that nobody who is politically active cares. But that leaves out the vast unengaged middle who do not drive any political changes but whose votes are important to maintain the facade of popular consent.
I don't think the files mean anything, now. However, the files are a record, and times change, constantly. Who knows what the next 5 years will bring? I definitely didn't have covid shutdowns on my future-happenings-bingo-card, and if the elevated mortality continues or escalates there could be a major change in people's feelings about their government. Or not.
Yes, eugyppius's phrase "re-establish some veneer" nailed it. They're not saying they did anything wrong, only that they wish they hadn't been so sloppy. Now they're going to try to rein in their zealous functionaries and get them to run a tighter ship, being more subtle and careful about how they censor and manipulate.
It'll be interesting to see if it works. The functionaries may not let themselves be controlled, especially if Trump has to be defeated. It'll also be interesting to see how many people buy it. One problem the Regime functionaries have is that they generally don't know any real Americans anymore, so they have a hard time calibrating a message for them or judging how well it's going over.
We must build our own systems.
There is no need to censor so long as we have "election month" that proceeds until an arbitrary number of ballots are collected. The regime has all future contests in the bag. Trump was a dead cat bounce of America's spirit of '76 anti-authority bent, and they will not let it happen again. Something cataclysmic will have to happen to disentangle Permanent Washington from the levers of power. "The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead." Interesting times are ahead (or not, and we have nothing to look forward to but more iPhones and Superbowls)
This. They got caught on the hop in 2016. To prevent a repeat of that embarrassment, it is far more important to them to control the electoral process than to censor the complainers on social media. In fact, by NOT censoring so heavily, they probably hope to preemptively defuse the complaints about election-stealing when they do in fact steal the next election, not by suppressing news stories, but by the simple expedient of massaging, stroking, or outright faking the numbers. Look at the CDC for an example of how it's done. "Democracy: it's safe and effective!"
"when they do in fact steal the next election, not by suppressing news stories, but by the simple expedient of massaging, stroking, or outright faking the numbers."
THIS
2022 midterms were an example of this.
And if a weaponized justice department, and manipulation of the election process doesn't work, I fear they may resort to more drastic means, which has happened in the past, as many of them now fear retribution against them, as James Comey came right out and said recently.
In one part of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, he describes the trick for fudging the vote that was used in South Texas. The secret was to have "your" precincts withhold the reports of their vote counts until they could be sure of how many votes were needed to win--being the last to report guaranteed your victory.
Now with "election month" and massive mail-in ballots, it has become easy for the "machine" in power to be the last one reporting.
Those books are excellent.
I do find it funny that absolutely no one has an issue admitting that elections in the past were rigged. I mean, we learn all about Tammany Hall, etc., and it's an open secret that JFK was the beneficiary of shenanigans. But the same people that acknowledge the inherently corrupt nature of big city machine politics simply *cannot* bring themselves to admit that maybe, just maybe, there was some fuckery afoot in the 2020 election. I think a big reason is that the cities that engaged in chicanery were largely black (Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta), and the modern shitlib would rather see their entire bloodline wiped out rather than think ill of black people in any fashion. The DNC mindfuck hypnosis is actually incredibly impressive when you think about it.
Or perhaps, as in Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The bigger the protest about the assertion of funny business, the more likely it is that there is truth to it, and the bigger it probably is.
I believe this. I will be surprised if there is an election in 2024. I could be wrong. If an election occurs it will have to be even more brazenly crooked than 2020. The borg will not cede power to an outsider. Period.
As T777 has pointed out, it seems as if elections are going to be done away with as the mechanism by which the executive is selected, at least for the foreseeable future. Of course, they will argue that this isn't the case by intoning that whatever election was "the most secure in the history of forever" and that whatever candidate (who may well be a Republican) "is the most popular of all time."
Exactly the case. Exactly.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/republican-voters-trump-or-desantis
......without fixing the integrity of our elections, we’re going to relieve the 2020 election just like we did in 2022. It’s simply too easy to cheat — and from the Swamp’s point of view, there’s too much at stake not to.
I’ve said it couple times already and I’m sure I’ll say it again — you don’t have to be a criminal mastermind to steal from a multi-billion dollar company like Walmart, you just need to know where the holes in the company’s security are. (Pro tip: Seattle is one of them.)
In that vein, you don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to steal an election, you just need to know where the integrity holes are — an easy prospect when you’re the one who opened them in the first place. The “best” part about this scheme is that you can continually scream ‘THERE’S NO PROOF OF ELECTION FRAUD’ when the system is designed to eliminate the ability to gather proof of election fraud.
When I was a child growing up in the suburbs of Washington, our class took a field trip to the Supreme Court. I asked to see the statue of limitations. A polite aide suggested I look outside. [guess which part of this story is untrue! 🤡
"Among these steps were broad changes in the way American presidential elections are conducted, assisted by the pretence of the pandemic."
Thanks for this. I sometimes feel alone - even among my own circle of critical thinkers - in dissecting the results of the 2020 election and being uncertain what the true result of that election would have been, absent the wholesale ballot manipulation that obviously took place. Like under Covid, the consensus is so strong that Biden won, yet the evidence is so abundant that he probably didn't, that I begin to question my own sanity.
You're definitely not alone.
“Democracy is on the ballot” = It’s okay to cheat because the ends justify the means. This includes the “pre-cheating” that the Left boasts about as “election fortification,” i.e. changing the rules in advance in ways that favor Democrats and hurt Republicans, especially in swing states. But these people who’re absolutely convinced that Trump presents an unprecedented Danger to the Republic™--they wouldn’t have a problem looking the other way as a few boxes of ballots fell off some trucks near vote-counting headquarters
BTW... it's not only team D that cheats.
I met someone who was part of the Jill Stein recount in MI in 2016. There was a R governor at the time. The counts on the boxes of ballots were catastrophically wrong; this was done by the poll workers, and favored Hillary, the D candidate at the time.
The R governor (an "outsider nerd") did NOTHING about it, and send them for "training." This is something they could have gone to prison for, and the R governor just looked the other way. They're part of the cheat as well.
Cheating didn’t start in 2020 obviously. But in 2020 it was in your face - unless you deliberately closed your eyes. There are people in both parties who just don’t want to face the implication that “democracy” is a sham.
D or R…two wings of the same bird.
With "Democracy on the ballot," who in their right mind would vote for Biden?
Only those with Stockholm syndrome.
I’ll never believe that Biden got that many votes. There’s no way. No one came to his few rallies, he never came out of the basement. He got over 80 million votes? I don’t think so. That’s what my logic tells me. And if he did, people are way dumber than I thought.
People can indeed be stupid but to the tune of 80 million voters? Nah, don’t think so.
Nope, no way.
It's the same mechanism of "This is a deadly virus" when evidence around clearly showed it wasn't because why does a deadly virus need advertising? After the towers went down on 9/11 how often did they have to show the towers going down on 9/11?
What Jack describes is election interference.
The persecution of Trump has only made him stronger
until now that's generally how it worked, and the establishment is now hoping they've found the way to overcome his anti-fragility. we'll see, I guess.
Even the hard-leftist U.S. PBS News Hour yesterday did a long segment on focus groups in Iowa who unanimously expressed continued support for President Trump despite the indictments. When challenged by the pollster, they openly stated on camera that their support was strengthened by what they (rightfully) believe to be election interference.
It is the helium that elevates Trump's balloon.
He will not be allowed to run, at least not as a Republican
This isn't going to happen, but you know what would really gum up the works?
If Trump ran with RFK as VP.
I saw a Jordan Peterson interview with him. He does think that the weather has been changing, presumably getting warmer, since he was a kid. But he was pretty courteous and rational about having the discussion.
Fun as it is to dream of that ticket, neither Kennedy nor Trump would be the other's vice president. Kennedy's point is to restore sanity and humanity to the Democratic Party. Trump would drive it berserk.
I think Kennedy says what he has to to allow the brain-washed Dem majority to accept him. The man is far too smart and has too much integrity, (from what I've seen over 20+ years being soundly attacked) to believe CO2 is our biggest problem. He said as much in a Jordan Peterson interview recently.
He knows, and states, that the climate scare tactic is being utilized for control. That's enough for me. His is the most honest voice I've heard in 30 years- I'm willing to give the man a try!
Agreed. While I admire RFK Jr.'s stance on vaccines, someone said (and I believe was correct) to observe that on most other issues he's actually to the left of the current radical administration. His greatest service right now is daring to force these issues. Even amid all the hostile media (non-)attention he gets, more and more people will be made uncomfortable, realizing that here's a Kennedy for God's sake, who is all but deplatformed by the media. I doubt he has any realistic chance of national office.
Trump’s stunning ascendancy to the presidency would not have been possible without the tectonic collision between a public empowered by digital platforms and the elites who control our ruling institutions. By 2015, social media had transformed the public from a passive audience into a hyperactive one whose numbers are unprecedented in human experience, and which has managed to bleed institutions of authority.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/reflecting-on-trumps-rise
The internet’s democratization of information forever changed society’s traditional power dynamics. Whereas before the digital big bang a scarcity of sources in possession of a scarcity of information endowed those sources with authority and allowed dominant media to operate within a system of centralized, one-way news dissemination — meaning to consume the news was to ingest a diet of information pre-selected by the elites — after the internet, information was no longer limited to a newspaper and the 10 o’clock roundup, nor was it dispensed one to many via a rigid, top down pyramid. Media luminaries and government officials alike had always played an intermediary role in the way citizens received and processed information, but the internet’s sheer speed and scope completely upended the concept of authority as a belief system anointing the chosen few.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-digital-big-bang-309
And that's the way it is, June 16, 2023
What you describe is true enough, about the ease and speed of spread of information. Problem: the quality of the data. It's just as easy to spread lies, gossip and fantasy as it is wisdom or factual information. By the way, that's not a callf or censorship. It's just to alert everyone of the need to evaluate the worth of a claim or of information, from whatever source.
A new broadcast news outfit came to the UK, GBNews which set out to be unbiased, albeit Right leaning, and would not simply toe the Government line. It has been censured by Ofcom the (neutral Ha!) Govt appointed regulator for such horrors as reporting on mRNA deaths and injuries - including interviewing bereaved widows of young husbands... misinformation, and reports on dissent and challenge to the climate change narrative... misinformation. It challenges the whole transgender/Pride nonsense, and reports on the illegals immigrant scandal. Apart from Govt censure, some of its advertisers have pulled out due to its racist/homophobic/transphobia/antivaxxer/climate denier content. As a consequence it is not as aggressive as at its start-up, but still provides a reasonable antidote to the BBC and its stable mates. Perhaps the only way is for a subscription only News service, but maybe not a financially viable possibility.
The Yanks will never give up. Never have we been assaulted by the elites, media and corrupt government officials as we are now. More and more people are waking up...finally. It's the last dying gasp of these oligarchs. We shall never surrender. Jack Dorsey, Zuckerberg, etc. are a plague and no critical thinker listens to them. Long live Tucker...150 million viewers.
Dorsey's racket frequently includes these general expressions of remorse without the necessary elements for a proper apology. Off the top of my head, those elements include (1) specific acknowledgment of the wrong, (2) articulation of the injury caused by the wrongdoing, (3) identification of people injured by the conduct, (4) expression of intent to not cause similar injury in the future, and (5) demonstrated action taken to rectify the wrongdoing or injury.
Dorsey likes to talk like Harry Truman about how the "buck stops here" with generalized sentiments that on their face seem sort of like an apology followed by repetition of the wrong.
This is what it smells like to me. They’re trying to mea culpa their way out of the fact that all these transgressions will have to be acknowledged publicly, before they go ahead and transgress some more. It’s a subtle way of crafting the narrative to maintain the veneer.
Don't forget it was Jack who did the Town Hall with Obama. Establishing relationships that today are very strong(deep state) Who is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer? Where did they work prior? https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ostps-teams/u-s-chief-technology-officer/ Jason Goodman goes very deep on this Twitter/U.S. Government relationship(s.)
Google's relationship to Democratic administrations is even more troubling. The company shares an ethos and a worldview with the Democratic Party that intertwine and lead to the same conclusion: All of America’s problems can be answered via social engineering—a process that depends on facts and truth remaining, in the words of The New Atlantis’s Aaron White, “ruthlessly value-free and yet, when properly grasped, a powerful force for ideological and social reform."
Google's progressive agenda stretches back to the Obama administration, when a revolving door was established. No fewer than 55 Google employees left the company to take positions in the Obama administration, while 197 government employees moved from the federal bureaucracy to Google or to other companies and organizations owned by Eric Schmidt. To get a sense of how crazy these numbers are, as of 2020 there were 377 people employed in the West Wing.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/googlegov-part-1
After the 2016 election, Google held an internal meeting, the video of which leaked online. They basically took turns crying about Trump's victory, and then vowed not to let it happen again. I'm sure many globlalist-left organizations had similar meetings, and we saw the results in four years of increasing censorship and deplatforming, culminating in the election steal. Anything they do to the contrary now is for show, an attempt to make people forget about the last few years or to think it's changing. They won't change their goals a bit.
Yes, great point. I actually talked about that video in a second post I wrote about Google:
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/googlegov-part-2
Remember on "House of Cards" when this was a huge scandal that threatened to take down an entire administration?
LOL
In other words, he’s covering his ass
“ The formal sphere consists of the major press and broadcast media, where content is heavily influenced by corporate advertising;”. The reason why the BBC remains a Public Corporation funded by (compulsory) annual licence fee (currently £159) is allegedly to free its News output and programming of any external influence. This leaves its News output and programming subject to internal influence, with even BBC management recently admitting is Left wing and heavily biased.
You are correct.
These people are not stupid and if they are relaxing the censorship, that means they are comfortable in thinking that the election fortification fix is already in place. First, you can be sure that they have corrected the mistakes made in the 2020 election and have figured out how to make the cheating much less obvious. Second, they have successfully deleted Tucker Carlson's voice and in the process, have intimidated the other TV talking heads into being a little more careful about what they say. Third, they have inflicted (they believe) sufficiently mortal wounds to President Trump's chances of re-election.
However, while not stupid, I do believe they live in a well-insulated echo-chamber of their own egos. And as echo-chambers are closed loops, I think they have underestimated the potential that resides in all the people in the US who are sick to death of all the wokedness, all the transgenderedness, all the DIEedness, all the Climate Changedness, and especially of the DOJ's overt and increasingly obvious politically driven prosecution of those they don't like while completely ignoring the crimes of those they do like. I believe that the fear that resulted from witnessing the punishments of those who spoke out during the coronadoom travesty caused much self-censorship. I'm hoping there is a resultant unintended consequence of opening the eyes of a large number of people who have learned the lesson of keeping their thoughts to themselves, but know they can vote their thoughts.
Hopefully, if it's not already too late......
Tucker Carlson has NOT been silenced, he has UNLEASHED, episode 3 has been viewed 94 + million times.
4 episodes now.
I wonder what can be done on a personal level, to encourage journalists to engage with dissenting opinions and explore ideas they are covering neutrally. Even if we manage to halt the govt/tech sponsored censorship machine, what can we do to bring back civil discussion without reflexively blocking anyone that disagrees with you?
In my meager Twitter use, Kathleen Quinn, and op-ed writer for LA Times, NYT, etc, shared this bizzare story https://twitter.com/mskathleenquinn/status/1669061709598695447 about cancer patients who are distraught over the dropping of masks.
To Kathleen, who have I have followed for years, I penned a polite but firm critique of the article and entire premise she is proposing - even opening up on a personal level and sharing that my own wife was just diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I can appreciate the need of these people to feel safe.
https://twitter.com/MichaelDAmbro17/status/1669080409911566338
Of course, this nets an instant block and she continues to shield her mind from ideas that deviate from her beliefs.
I don't expect her to listen to some random no-follower-twitter user, but it is reflective of a larger societal problem - even if we weren't asking Big Tech or our Govt to block ideas we don't like, we seem to have a large segment of society unwilling to engage to engage in discourse. Perhaps it was always like this, we just didn't have block buttons in our life before?
People are brainwashed and scared, plain and simple. The older a person is, the more likely they are brainwashed. And by brainwashed I mean "mind controlled through fear."
Personal story: yesterday, a jabbed friend of mine (60) told me about someone she knows (maybe early 50s?) who died suddenly from a blood clot. I VERY gently explained the blood clots are side effect of the vax. She shut down immediately and said people have ALWAYS died suddenly from blood clots, it's nothing new.
That. Is. Brainwashing.
I see it both ways. In medicine seems to be the younger the physician, the more likely they are to buy into the mask, vaccination, etc. (My wife is a physician so most of our friends are physicians so speaking from this experience).
Especially in the cancer centers we have been in lately, it is the residents always masked, not the attendings. Same with nurses, the younger they are, more likely to be masked. But it's still at best 10% of staff - and that is saying something as we have been in the cancer wards for the sickest of the sick. The day mask mandates dropped 90% stopped the practice.
The scary part is that the brainwashing is actually most effective in the younger adults. The old folks, as far as I can tell, are not so much brainwashed as cautious and playing it safe. They are not into investigating.
That's actually what's most scary to me:
The day mask mandates dropped 90% stopped the practice*
Know what I mean?
I love seeing it though. My own sister insisted she would wear her mask forever because “she hadn’t gotten sick and they’re not inconvenient”.
Of course as soon as mandate dropped in Ohio she stopped wearing it.
Even having lunch last week with my wife who’s carrying a chemotherapy pump with her no more mask for my sister 😂
My experience with age grades is almost opposite. It's hard to read young people. They seem not to express opinions about the matter at all, either due to indoctrination or intimidation, or perhaps just out of kindly respect for the old doofs.
Some older people certainly bought into it and became tyrannical over it, but others are precisely the ones who scoff at it. I noticed early on in the grocery store, when masks were being pushed hard or mandated, that almost everyone else would be wearing them, and then I'd see some tough old guy or gal not wearing one, or leaving it off their nose so they could breathe.
Today, almost nobody is wearing them except for a few of the apparently fragile elderly, and a scattering of people of all ages who obviously believe. But in the central Plains, there doesn't seem to be any rancor one way or the other. Just a couple of weeks ago, I remember interacting briefly with a beautiful young lady in her teens or twenties, perfectly masked, yet trading banter with me as cheerfully and indifferently as if no mask stood between us.
Yeah... younger people. I have two stepsons: 26 and 29; husband had them when he was older.
The older one went to college ,the younger one did not. The younger one is, in many ways, much more... IDK, normal? He thinks for himself, so he is "uninitiated."
I treat my stepsons like young adult co-workers. I don't talk down to the, and I'm kind of them, but I also will kindly confront them when they say something stupid.
Two examples, both with older stepson. First incident, he makes a comment about trees and plants having rights. I looked at him as if he was insane, and explain that biblically, man has dominion over nature, and the whole concept was not thought out. He was surprised that I even questioned his idea, but listened to my reasoning, and couldn't really explain his ideas.
Second incident: talking about the environment. I tell him pollution is much better now than it was in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He is stunned and doesn't really believe this is true. His dad comes home, I ask him about it and he agrees with me. The idea that the environment is better now never occurred to my stepson.
I don't think a lot of young people, especially those in college, have had their beliefs challenged, at least kindly. I can do it because I'm just a different adult, not a parent. They simply don't know that things are actually really different than what they're taught in college. They don't discuss their opinions on certain things because it doesn't occur to them that there are other opinions. Groupthink.
Great observation. Happy to be the primitive un-initiated type!
It's refusal of reality - she is in denial. And I mean, can you blame her? Who could think, that world build on humanity and moral principles will do another genocide of this kind?
An argument can be made to the contrary, that the older the person is, the less likely they are brainwashed. I have been seeing the diverging perception/reality of the MSM for decades. I remember in my twenties being angry at reading the Atlanta Gerbil and Constipation about how they so distorted the news, would listen to WSB radio and be equally as upset. Often POV would leak into stories and you could see the slant. Now that slant is so ubiquitous it is hard to distinguish it from actual news.
I knew in the back of my mind that WMD's were a rationalization for George W to finish what his dad started in Iraq, but I bought in slightly to the idea of "country building" which was ridiculous on my part. How do we feel about China coming into our country and remaking it? Although I have to say, they did a pretty effective job over the past three years.
Your friend who is 60 is right, that people have died suddenly of blood clots in the past, just not to this degree, and at such young ages. I have talked to a ton of younger people on Twitter and on other platforms who are brainwashed as well. Age is not a factor as much as faith and belief in the institutions, and the belief that "well most people believe this, it must be true."
.
I think there are a few factors here:
-fear of death
-conformist/non-conformist tendencies
-exposure to the MSM
-Fear of death.
As we get older, we also have (or can have) a more realistic idea of what true disease and pain and suffering is. I am obese, I have diabetes, I have lost a leg, How do you think that stacks up against Covid which I had twice in 2020 and it was a cold. It wasn't even a bad horrible cold. The worst flu I had was as a kid. I remember because I was feverish, had terrible headaches, and when I tried to stand up had vertigo, and also thre up quite a bit.
Aside: At times I welcome sickness because it makes me grateful for the times I am not. It also makes me nostalgic. The second time I had Covid, I had a fever, and there is nothing quite like being in your bed, bundled up, with a fever...It reminded me of when I was a kid...given chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, of mom bringing me home comic books when I got to take a vacation from school for a couple days. There was a time during the illness that I felt moments of fear...because I am not immune to the media influence..but when the symptoms waned and normal life once again reasserted itself, such was life...and without a sense of smell for a couple weeks after.
I am by default a nonconformist, and yet in many things, compliant, especially if it makes sense. I think my nonconformity was only supplanted by my desire to be left alone, which is where the state overstepped its bounds, and truly has been for sometime. The state usually though left it's citizens alone for the most part. It would take its imaginary narratives abroad and wreak havoc on other countries. This was wrong and is wrong by the way.
I also think there is some underlying aspect of "we must never suffer with illness ever" happening as well.
Also... people seem to have been made phobic. There is a young PhD that works with my husband. She is pregnant and acts like she is disabled. I guess that's a new thing with young well educated women. It's bizarre.
Must not ever feel pain, must not suffer, must not experience discomfort. Weird.
One of my best friends died unexpectedly in his bed, just short of his 50th birthday. But no, that one could not have been the jab; that was nearly ten years ago. I never did hear the cause of death. But he suffered from and was treated for pulmonary embolisms and complained of headaches. The point I'm trying to make here is that people do at times die without (much) forewarning.
Thanks for making your experience with Quinlan public here, Michael. It seems to me if she didn't appreciate being reminded she was wrong about masks (however politely and with documentation), she could have ignored you. Her blocking you reveals she's threatened by the truth and perhaps embarrassed by her ignorance. If she were confident in her viewpoint, she wouldn't be so concerned about allowing others to see a (more accurate) opposing perspective.
P.S. If masks worked, cancer patients would be sufficiently protected by their OWN masks.
"Of course, this nets an instant block and she continues to shield her mind from ideas that deviate from her beliefs."
But you see, Quinn is an open-minded liberal, and you're not. We are living in 🤡 world.
Very sorry to hear about your wife.
our MSM narrative-enforcement agents have "beliefs" like religious fundamentalists have "beliefs"—they are presented with a full slate of approved mandatory dogma, then they swallow it whole and never question it or allow it to be questioned.
A writer for something like the LA Times (which is written at the same level of a left-wing college newspaper), cannot allow herself to think or to rigorously question any of her beliefs—propounding and defending elite-approved narratives is her job, and if she weren't a zombie Karen she wouldn't be there in the first place; and if she did ever wake up one day and think for herself, she would be eased out and replaced by a newer model obedient drone.
Thank you, probably working in a Cath Lab for 20 years did her in. Got "Marie Curie'd" so to speak. We are hoping can have 2 good years with our children before...
AWFLs are awful
I think this is perceptive. The Establishment has good reason to be confident, after their successful election thefts, censorship regimes, and pointless lockdowns and other restrictions have gone unpunished and even widely unacknowledged.
Perhaps they will allow us a little freedom. But I expect it will be very little, and temporary. After that, we will all be fully locked down and eating bugs.
Ominous indeed.
I love the analysis here: Formal, accepted discourse, as moderated by the elite gatekeepers, vs. informal, mostly unacceptable discourse, as occurs among the peasants, outside the gates of the castle. The rise of the internet gave the latter wings, and the arrogant establishment didn't see it coming until it was too late.
I agree that the gatekeepers have been extending their walls outward to include social media and, if possible, every realm of internet content. In fact, I'd say that in the US this has been going on ever since 2009, when President Obama took office, and began a series of meetings with big tech to establish an initiative to put the brakes on the dangerously fermenting freedom of expression the internet. We saw all of it go into overdrive in the waning days before Trumps historic win in 2016, and it hasn't let up until this year. The question is why?
You say it's confidence, but in my opinion, it's exactly the opposite. The censors have been exposed and their narratives discredited. While they've been able to shelter the public from this so far, the dam may be breaking. They're no longer so arrogant as to be sure they can continue to hide the truth, or even keep uninterrupted power, unless and until they develop a better plan. I look at their recent 'relaxation' of control and censorship as a tactical retreat, intended to limit short-term damage while the elites figure out how to preserve their power long enough to out-last Donald Trump and the challenge from the peasants.