68 Comments

While I understand that Elon is trying to give media whores a taste of their own medicine, the problem is that psychopaths, narcissists, etc., can never understand the larger perspective when this is done to them. Witness Taylor Lorenz, who looks, speaks and acts like a total deep state media prostitute. Such people cannot understand, no matter how much you try to show them.

The greater problem is that the elite world selects for these types of personalities with no empathy or conscience. We now have a world with psychopaths and narcissists in power. Personally, I have the right education to be in that world, but I self-selected to be out of it when I learned what it took to "play." My conscience would not allow me to be a part of misapplication of technology AND medical science.

There are fewer and fewer ways of income for those who do not conform to the bullying. The elites run things through bullying and the need to repeat and accept lies "for the common good." This is no way to run a world. Humanity needs to stop pretending it is still in grade school and stand up to the bullies and call their bluff...and stop playing their rigged "games. These games are destroying our world, nature and humanity.

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I pretty much agree with what you wrote.

However, there are more than psychopaths and narcissists involved. There are people who seek power and then use power to keep others down and out. They know they are hypocrites. For them, the means are justified by the ends. I think this latter group includes people who, when they praise "free speech," do so cynically, because they know they don't believe it should apply to all speech. They take the public position that they think will best advance their goals, and will change that position whenever it suits them, albeit they may try to obfuscate the change, and try to get away with it, something that monolithic control of the media can help them do.

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Oliver Darcy is a threat to the 1st amendment and journalism, more than ANY Russian. Darcy is evil on par with most FBI/CIA agents who spy on Americans for their political beliefs.

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This is generally what sophisticated psychopaths do....not all are ax murderers! Snakes in suits, more or less.

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"Ούτις"?

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Indeed....

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I don't blame Musk for giving the censors a bit of their own medicine, but I do believe this is temporary and twitter will become a free speech platform he promised. It's as if someone punches you a few times and you want to end the conflict, but not before you get in a right-hook. OK, now we can be friends.

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We are at exactly that point of the evolution, unfortunately, open brawling, well before both sides learn that the best way mutually forward is to not engage in these types of practices because they will also be used against you.

We are a decade or more away from the Geneva convention of tech censorship.

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Made me laugh!

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Dec 29, 2022·edited Dec 29, 2022

Oh no! Musk gored the mainstream media Ox!! The reaction was priceless. So funny to see these self-important buffoons abandon the "stop complaining it's a private company" position and scream like little bitches. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

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"Private companies can do what they want!"

"OK you're banned"

"NOT LIKE THAT!"

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The problem is less what people say on mainstream and social media but rather that their audience is a citizenry taught to take what celebrities anointed as "authority" say more seriously than understanding logical fallacies in the language they use and lack of evidence for what they say. Two parties have promoted appeal to authority as the primary argument through which citizens should believe and act on these beliefs.

And they do.

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Dec 29, 2022·edited Dec 29, 2022

Yep. Critical thinking skills are more important than ever. Question everything. Seek and read opposing opinions. Have open discussions with family and friends. Most importantly, look at the world around you and trust the evidence of your own eyes and ears.

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That’s exactly what we should be thinking about.

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Musk and Gabbard are really both warnings to the 'lemmings' on the left -- cross us and we will destroy you.

The press lamenting about 'no free speech' WHILE THE TWITTER FILES ARE EXPOSING HOW THEY CURTAIL FREE SPEECH was the chef's kiss of hypocrisy.

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Shellenberger will be next to be given a hatched job by the DNC types, it's already started for Taibbi.

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LOL Glenn knows all about that!

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Yep, the Bezos post calling him a conservative journalist. How wrong does one have to be on how many occasions does one have to be to be completely discredited as a source of information?

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I was a trad Republican when the Gary Webb broke the story on crack cocaine and the CIA.

I didn’t like it and was angry about the lib media etc & then the NYT &. WaPo attacked Webb and the story which confused me greatly.

It was a significant step on my journey to the palms of Morpheus

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I saw the same thing in the 2014 Maidan Coup - all tv networks and media of all positions were supporting this and not giving the actual information...it was all anti-Russia by design. 911 was quite similar when no network or MSM was able to reflect WHY the US might be hated...or WHY such an action wasn't stopped when it could have been...or why this led to our rights being trampled on and Iraq invaded? The media tells people what to think, but never HOW to think. This is missing from our early education in preparation for future obedience.

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Thank you for calling it out. I had all but forgotten about Baby Jane. I was probably on the side of the security state during the bush Cheney era. What a dope. It has taken 79 years to realize I'm not half as smart as I thought I was.

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Glenn, quick question: Considering the recent revelations regarding governmental interference with social media platforms, do you think Substack is similarly involved and do you believe Substack leadership is knowingly allowing government agents or representatives access to user information without informing users?

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I just assume that everywhere I go, anything I say, or write, is being collected somewhere.

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I have wondered about that for a while. Especially given that Substack is constantly having “incidents.”

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Remember the ending of 3 Days of the Condor?

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I do and feel sad that the last scene promised hope that probably wasn't going to be provided by the NYTimes.

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I keep expecting to see Dennis Kucinich's DIVISION OF LIGHT AND POWER quoted in these recent discussions in regard to the accumulation of corrupt power in certain circles such as the ones that are being examined today: The avalanche of fascist corruption engulfing both the US and the EU today. Kucinich wrote about the same thing happening in smaller scale in the 70's in Cleveland when he was mayor. Horrifying.

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We clearly have no friends or allies left.

They all despise us.

The possible endings are narrowing.

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You cannot cite a substack at Wikipedia. I've been told to stop adding information on the Twitter Files until the MSM covers it. Dead end. The Wikipedia story will be the settled coverage.

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Wikipedia has been fully captured for years and years. I want to say it didn't start that way, but I'm realizing I don't know shit about shit.

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It's pretty good for most things (sports, biographies) but political topics have a different energy. Until there are some books or MSM coverage the discussions at Substacks aren't permanent records that can be cited.

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I tend to trust the niche science/ math and geography stuff that is only intermittently updated and then only by super-specialist fussbudgets that manage to make the discussion page not sound like a forum thread.

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Agree. That is where I usually stay. I don't do very well with topics like "The Twitter Files. There is lively discussion on the Talk page of the article. It was initially set to be deleted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Twitter_Files

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But yeah, it's admittedly tricky for me to say "gato malo 2021, all-cause mortality study" in debate.

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People use to go to Wikipedia because they thought it would be more reliable than the commercial media. I guess that's no longer true.

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I think people go to Wikipedia because it is easy and it is the #1 site in the world for general information, so what is there is perceived as truth by many. (ha ha link is to Wikipedia-sigh).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_visited_websites

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It's probably the same reason why a lot of people read the NYT or watch PBS or listen to NPR. Most of their friends do, as well, or the people they work with, so that a confirmation bubble develops. And its probably also why sites like "Newsguard" work as well as I assume they do.

By the way, Consortium News reports that it is still getting a "red mark" from Newsguard. See,

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/29/how-newsguard-judged-consortium-news/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9348b1cb-9ef6-463d-896c-81950c3f3b9d

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That's exactly correct. And I have always gotten good information from Consortium News. If we look at the advisory board for NewsGuard it is all clear. Arne Duncan, Tom Ridge, etc. https://www.newsguardtech.com/our-advisory-board/

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I didn't know about this media outlet. I will check it out!

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This is good to know (but sad). I will not donate to them again. Thanks for the heads up.

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You always have the Gutterballs!

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That's the "us."

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Just making sure I was on right side. ;)

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This is kind of the way psychopathy was simplified to me once: if you have to ask or worry if you are, you aren't.

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Once again, thank you for the transcript!

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Remember when Trump was barred from blocking people on Twitter?

Compare and contrast that with what we now know about Twitter.

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LOL Imagine what would have happened if Trump had 'ordered' Fauci off Twitter.

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Thank you for that article. You are worth the $5/mo. I am sad that after 17 years on the job, I have to worry about trading two smart drinks per month for each awesome person I support: you, tulsi, Caitlin, Jimmy dore. I still get Aaron Matte and Joe Rogan free.

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Dec 30, 2022·edited Dec 30, 2022

Matt Taibbi is another one worth supporting. Been following both Matt and Glenn since their early days and these two have consistently been "on target" with the truth. Would be great if there could be a "package" for $200 a year where you can get a number of voices. My subs are Glenn, Matt and Aaron, and Jimmy Dore. I do read Tulsi and Caitlin as well, although Caitlin is a little too gung ho on China some of the time, not realizing that China is the WEF showpiece for the world.

Given that both Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal are on Grayzone, I might switch my Aaron sub to Grayzone to get both as Aaron doesn't put much out on Substack. Max and Aaron are the up and coming Glenn and Matt and I love reading and hearing all 4 of these great reporters!

Idea for Glenn - a broader System Update network that is headed by Glenn, but also includes these other real journalists. It sucks that Jimmy Dore and System Update are often on at the same time because I love to watch both, but I do love the idea of an Eastern Time Prime time news slot that Glenn is doing...long overdue and much appreciated, given his many commitments and family situation. Praying for David's complete recovery in the New Year.

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Mr. Greenwald

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, the New York Times published a fear mongering article indicating an "unprecedented" rise in hate speech on Twitter (Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html?smid=tw-share ).

"...........Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.

Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.

And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site........."

This is how the left led by the New York Times - which represents little more than the long arm of the DNC - plans to brow beat not just Twitter, but any social media outlet into censorship. The same playbook of fearmongering is being played out with "voter rights" and accusing the right of supporting Jim Crow 2.0. MAGA is regularly labeled "far right" (for example, Lauren Boebert) which has been traditionally meant for Nazis, white nationalists and white supremacists. This is driven by identity politics and future elections. As long as the left can frighten and motivate the victim groups, this serves the left's goal in future elections.

This is a very powerful political strategy with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. replacing class.

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Are these numbers accurate? I looked at the research itself and it seemed credible enough at face value, but I wasn't able to discern how exactly they labelled different messages for, for instance, 'hateful content' etc, so I was not able to verify if that 'translation' process from tweets to numbers was done properly/accurately. Curious if others have some idea of how to verify these claims.

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As much as I admire everything Glenn has done in recent years (Snowden, Brazil) I am somewhat baffled by the constant polemic tone that mimics so much of the overheated debate style of the corporate media he so despises. And a tv show certainly doesn’t help nuance. Makes it more difficult to listen to him, which is sad, because he has so much to say.

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I think you may have a point, concerning Greenwald's style, but to me it seems like a tone of exasperation. He's reporting on something really malign: the subversion of people's understanding of reality. That is a subject one can easily get excited about. Conversely, it's a subject that is difficult to report on in a completely dispassionate way, not when the subject is the perversion of the very marrow of a free society.

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