The power to decree what is "disinformation" now determines what can and cannot be discussed on the internet. It is now in the hands of trained disinformation agents of the U.S. Security State.
Never refer to this abomination as anything but the Ministry of Truth, bad branding can sink this thing faster than a million high minded Tweets and Substack posts.
Yes it does. So many don't seem to realize anything the KKK etc have to say, as vile as it may be, is far less important than their right to say it. Astounding that so many have forgotten this or are too cowardly to stand for principle, a principle soldiers die for.
They haven't forgotten, they never understood. They thought freedom of speech meant their freedom to say what they wanted to say. A belief of the self-absorbed and self-entitled.
But no, that's not it.That's not the foundation of freedom of speech. That's the reward, not the price. The price is the right of someone you despise to say whatever they want, and most particularly to say something you hate.
Watching how this thing has rolled out and how this "bombshell" leak of a February Supreme Court draft opinion ditching Roe was suddenly dropped, makes me think there HAS been blowback to this treacherous creation. I want to think most Americans value freedom of speech, and that they have had their fill of being shamed into silence the last few years.
Even if Americans don't read Orwell anymore (thanks, education system), we've been speaking up/out for a couple of centuries. The timing on this Roe revelation seems out of place. Maybe the Truth Ministry thing isn't going exactly how the shadow government planned. Thus, a diversion.
We know if it was the Obama Administration, they would be spying on SCOTUS since they’ve spied on everyone else. Thinking that the Biden Administration would do the same doesn’t seem like a stretch to me. And of course the timing of this stinks to high heaven………
What makes you think the Bush regime didn't do this? You do know Bush SR was the head of the CIA and was appointed by Ford, the same assburglar who pardoned Nixon? Im cool with blaming the Obama administration (the people involved mostly were Clinton people except Quid-pro Joe) but lets not pretend that this new to them. Every administration in history probably except Carter and Trump spied on their political enemies.
Democratic polling + cynical manner in which this Administration operates x no tactic is a bridge too far = Supreme Court take-down.
Prediction: The Administration knew about this before Politico published (the draft opinion is dated February?). It used to be called "The October Surprise," but a lot of states (no doubt in an effort to suppress votes), have instituted early voting --- a person can literally vote WEEKS before election day if they want to. Therefore, you can't wait too long to activate the troops.
Altho --- the above is predicated on the fact that the "liberal" side leaked this. Did noted journalist Ruth Marcus opine in WaPo that a "conservative" is the likely source of the leak. Yeah, probably the same conservative that drove around DC with a loudspeaker yelling at Breyer to resign. Probably the same conservative that disclosed Breyer's resignation letter before he did. Those wily conservatives!
And are incredibly gullible. I don't understand how a single person can be for censorship; the best you can say is that they haven't heard an argument to the contrary. I mean, shouldn't it be obvious that no person or organization can have a monopoly on truth? I hate to be partisan but the only possible reaction for anyone concerned about this sort of thing is to vote and support the opposite of these people; make them completely toxic politically. I don't trust Republicans as far as I can throw them, but at least they aren't this.
Some aren't, some are. If the USMOT isn't immediately killed, and the likes of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lindsay Graham (etc) gain the utmost levels of political power, do you seriously think that they will have the integrity to resist using its machinery to advance their own corrupt agenda? Worse, this could conceivably remove all of the incentives for the Deep Statists of both parties to even pretend at partisan differences.
It's almost as if we should be trying to limit federal government powers across the board. If only people had warned us that too much centralized power breeds this kind of thing...
This was always odd to me. I'm by no means a historian, but it seems like a very early example of highjacking language fr PR purposes, but I don't have near enough grasp of the time to see how it would even work. Actual Federalism is about dividing power amongst the states as apposed to centralizing it nationally. Yet, my understanding is the Federalist Party advocated the opposite, by wanting larger control at the federal level, including the abhorrent concept of a national bank. So why call themselves the Federalist?
Well I don't think those people will reach that level. They are friends of the Democrats largely. Graham less so. But for sure, I just mean that for now the Republicans are less terrible. If that changes then we'll have to adjust with it. Censorship threats used to come more from Christian conservatives so it can definitely change and shift.
You guys keep making the same mistake led on by the media that wants you to make this mistake.
This is not a fight between Left and Right.
It's a fight between bottom and top.
At top are the Establishment of both political parties unwilling to share power with We the People. They think they are the experts and the only one's capable of managing such a complex nation of divergent interests through the heavy hand of a STATE.
They don't trust us and now we have every reason to not trust them.
Look, I dislike Bernie Sanders, but watching the Establishment kneecap him twice in a row on the national stage while trying to literally bury Donald Trump....is proof positive the Establishment is in a war with ANYONE who dares challenge their hierarchical power structure they've built for themselves as they manage the long-term decline of our democracy.
Well that was the case for a while...but as you touch on Trump changed the game, and Bernie nearly did on the left. They went after Trump so hard because he threatened the dominance of the establishment. So to the extent that he and his allies control the Republican party, which I think they largely do although it's not over yet either, that means that the Republicans represent a vehicle to oppose said establishment. That could change obviously.
I totally agree that as of this moment, the Demoncraps are the greater danger to liberty, by a significant margin. I wanted to point out that this could shift with blinding swiftness, and that the current top priority and focus should be to rid ourselves of this abominable institution, preferably without waiting for, or depending on, one or more electioral cycle changes. By then, it could be too late.
I agree with that, but how? Other than pushing for people in Washington to do so. But Dems have the power for now to block it. Republicans should force votes to make Dems own this disinformation board, then they'll have to answer for it in November.
Not all of them Ben. Most conservative christians in the 80s weren’t very political except when it came to abortion and that doesn’t mean they were for censorship.
Not True. Ask Ed Meese. The uber-religious right can be just as much fuckwads as the woke left. Musk is right. The world is a better place when both extremes are pissed off because they are losing equally.
Gullible yes, but I suspect the bigger problem is apathy. Unfortunately I know a lot of people who have simply stopped paying attention to current events due to the stress. Seriously, it's difficult to make it through an entire episode of TCT without having a nervous breakdown. These things typically happen when no one is paying attention (e.g., "Democracy dies in [self-imposed] darkness").
"Ukraine is not in America's interests. It is Russia's interests, but not ours."
I said 6 months ago Biden should threaten to withhold $1 billion in aid if Zelensky didn't cede the Donbas to Putin and declare themselves neutral on the issue of NATO. It's not as though he hasn't used that tactic before.
Instead, we have a political party on the decline choosing war with Russia as a means to distract America from the myriad of problems that have surfaced since Democrats took charge just 15 months ago.
Obama has the foreign policy chops of a muskrat. The issue is avoiding yet another war in Europe, when things are much further along where we have to go in and clean up the mess. If not Ukraine, what's our "green line"? History provides ample evidence that megalomaniacs do not exercise self-restraint.
Most folks I know under the age of 50 (I'm 67) are not paying much attention to political / cultural trends taking place today. They're mostly drawn to short summarized "belief statements". If it takes more than 5 mins to grasp, they usually can't or won't engage.
To me it seems like a combination of Orwellian (fear) and Huxlian (hedonistic escapism).
Just what the WEF folks promote and are leading the West toward. Surveillance Capitalism. Which is very much what the Chinese are promoting - Surveillance State-ism.
Yes, I think the influence of China on our politics is highly underrated. Probably because people are afraid of being called racist if they point it out.
But it's like we're focused on the potential for a war with them over Taiwan, not implausible by any means. What we're missing is that China is trying to defeat us from the inside out and make it so that fighting is unnecessary. They're turning us against and away from our liberal beliefs. They're going out of style. Woke kids want to explicitly judge people by their skin color. And censor wrong think. That's not liberalism.
Yes, John Murray's statement says in a concise, clear way the what and why of current events, especially the "combination of fear (Orwellian) and Huxlian (hedonistic escapism)
Hmm I think I feel the opposite way. The problem I think is that lots of people are concerned about what is happening but aren't sure what they can do about it. Voting and donating to certain causes sure but it seems like there should be more we can do.
Maybe "apathy" isn't the correct term however I think we really are describing the same thing. "it seems like there should be more we can do", but in the absence of any good solutions I think I'll ignore it and hope it goes away.
Most people pay little or no attention to most political speech. Anyone who is gainfully employed and/or has a family to support and care for has more imprtant things to do than politics. That's why the politicians are well paid -- propaganda is their job.
They've been slowly inching these people towards accepting authoritarianism for a decade plus. They just pushed it into hyperdrive with ole Donnie and the Bush neocons hated him too so they piled on. It doesn't help that Trump himself is a narcissistic windbag.
Americans are being given Soma right now via their Establishment Media to relax and calm us, lest we go bash in cop cars and create riots because the Supreme Court has restored democratic process to America around our most contentious issue of all time.
Respectfully, I disagree. It's being reported this morning that the home addresses and maps thereto of the Alito Five are being distributed. Yesterday, The Worst President Ever said that MAGA (whatever that is) is the most dangerous political movement in the history (recent) of the nation. "Journalists" and political mouthpieces are screaming that America sucks and is in peril, at the same time.
This summer there will be bashing of cop cars and riots (already started in LA) and it will be encouraged in the name of Democracy and for the supposed purpose of Defending Women's Rights.
Buckle up. To paraphrase Margo Channing, "It's going to be a bumpy ride."
It will ensure the mid term collapse, but it will also embolden Republicans to think they have some kind of righteous authority to remake the US. Biden's team actually thought they had the support of the country to steer it into a Ministry of Truth iceberg. When you've lost Bezos, you know you're off the rails.
I have not read the hodge podge that it has been made into with the bevy of ambitious, sometimes zealous, highly educated sociopathic lawyers at the disposal of the revolving door system of Natsec, corporate, and financiers.
A corporation is the same as a Citizen? Please.
They've already butchered the 4th amendment and have the 1st amendment nearly in checkmate by pushing our best journalists to the fringes and censoring them, and trying to put the publisher in our times in prison and torturing him, while trying to do an mprison him for life in their uncontestable and classified kangaroo courts , in the person of Julian Assange; for the crime of telling the truth. No retractions ever needed.
I like to keep it simple and think the same principles laid forth so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence will suffice.
They had to put this idiot woman up front as a diversion.
They'll remove her in a public event in 2 months...replace her with someone 10x more dangerous and spookier but 10x less cringy...and most people will move on with their lives unaware of the massive plans to censor social media running up to the 2022 mid terms.
I am done being civil to my old liberal friends who have adopted this illiberal view that it is fine to empower government and large corporations to cancel, de-platform and ban speech they claim is disinformation while they spew the majority of disinformation.
There is a key to understand what is driving this. If you are left, you run on emotions. You feel first and then develop a narrative to deflect from the fact that you are basing your opinion on feelings and not facts. Then you call everything outside of that narrative as disinformation. And because you cannot effectively think outside your box of feelings, this all seems right, moral and rational to you.
But people that cannot do an honest self-assessment of feelings over fact are in fact dysfunctional. They are the last people we should be giving the keys to any disinformation power.
It is an "inmates running the asylum" situation... and we cannot let it be.
In this particular instance, their behavior is too deliberate, too self-serving, and too predictable in accordance with The Iron Law of Oligarchy to be the result of craziness.
It's tough, but don't give up being civil. We can't isolate ourselves and they still have some good to offer.
But it is difficult. They assume we have negative intent and they can be so damned smug and self righteous. Then they go off and do the things they accuse us of with no self awareness.
I’m legitimately tired. I’m tired of the projection of the worst imaginable intent. I’m tired of their self righteousness. I’d rather Civil War kickoff than Nuclear Armageddon.
I realize I need to undergo some self purification to continue to endure these blows without retaliating, but I’m tired. I really am.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
-MLK
I agree. It’s just been a hard stretch… The Left’s Musk meltdown and the ensuing smears coupled with the complete disavowing of free speech and the First Amendment…
The complexity of the Ukraine situation boiled down to Putin is loco; all the while even entertaining other possibilities is enough to receive accusations of treason.
The vitriol towards the unvaccinated and now the Left wants to fall back on “my body my choice.” I agree, it is, but I can be pro-choice and believe abortion should be a state issue. That doesn’t mean I want to bring back segregation, sheez.
No, it's not the only way out. Civility and non-violent change didn't work the first time around--we had a whole War of Independence instead. If "Give me liberty or give me death" aren't fighting words, then nothing is.
"[P]eople that cannot do an honest self-assessment of feelings over fact are in fact dysfunctional. They are the last people we should be giving the keys to any disinformation power."
I agree with your assessment of their (political) dysfunction. But those aren't the ones in power -- they're voters, and unfortunately voters don't matter. Instead, sociopathic political animals are. They know what they are doing, and they've been dangerously "functional" for decades.
I agree with you. I find being around any hardcore liberal as downright unhealthy and THAT is why I think that those of us that are healthy minded have a repulsion toward these people
While I don't think it healthy to isolate either, and it's important to reach out and educate, my experience has been that they do not WANT to be educated. They are not only dysfunctional in their own lives but are more so politically.
Americans have constant exposure to sociopaths and to sociopathic abuse
I mean there was a reason Jim Jones got 800 to drink koolaid laced with cyanide.
Democrats operate much like a CULT
Is that something anyone who is healthy minded would be attracted too?
However, a quibble; you seem to be conflating liberals with the Left. They are not at all the same.
Your criticism is spot on as to liberals, but the real Left, as I see it and as I participate in it, is ready to see all of the information, dis-, mis-, or otherwise and let the debate begin. If we on the Left can't persuade people of the benefits of peace in the world and of promoting the rights of the working class and the disadvantaged and pressing for universal, material benefits then we need to shut up and go home. My 1.92 cents (inflation, ya know).
Actually, it's not. First, there are only a few such benefits in the US that even come sorta close to being universal and material, such as Medicare and Social Security. And even those are full of holes and gaps.
Inflation is always produced by shortages, mainly of energy and/or food. COVID disrupted supply chains all over the world and especially in China due to lockdowns and other restrictions. The war in Ukraine is also a big factor causing shortages and price increases in food and energy.
In addition, this time there is an additional factor as detailed by Matt Stoller back in December, 2021. See his post here:
Forgive me for replying without reading the article, but I would have to disagree with your first assertion that is "inflation isalways produced by shortages". If it was just the shortages, it would be the "transitory inflation" they tried to sell us initially, because as soon as the supply lines recovered, prices would normalize, as we've seen lumber do - for the most part.
True inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, but it's first part of that equation that is the controlling condition.
Supply chains can be perfectly normal and you introduce too much money into a market and suddenly they are no longer efficient enough, because suddenly (artificially) there is suddenly more demand.
There are two types of inflation: Demand-pull and cost-push inflation. We are in the midst of a cost-push inflation, as all of the ones in at least the last hundred years have been.
Your contention that too many dollars is the controlling part of the equation is simply false.
You seem to have missed your own point with the example of lumber prices. Once the supply came closer to meeting demand, prices returned to nearly their previous level. When other shortages have been mitigated those prices should also return to lower levels. Perhaps your conception of "transitory" should include a longer time frame.
It should be obvious that supply shortages are still the most prominent feature of the current inflation, as in, energy and food production due to the war in Ukraine, the issue with Russian gas and Europe, and climate change decreasing food production in many places around the world.
Your final statement is not wrong, but that situation can only occur when there are no more idle real resources (labor and commodities) that can be brought into productive use. We are nowhere close to that point and never have been since WWII.
My use of transitory was mocking the administration's use of the word.
I said lumber has "normalized - for the most part", but stabilized was the more accurate word. As in, it's no longer rising, and has even lowered some, but that trend has stopped. Despite lumber production in full swing and keeping up with demand (retail lumber yards are not depleted anymore), the prices are still significantly higher than in 2020 and will remain that way.
Yes, it is obvious that supply side shortages are and have been contributing to price increases. We both agree there. What I'm rather surprised by is a lack of acknowledgment
as to the effects of introducing ***trillions*** in unsubstantiated dollars to the market. The effects of this can never be reversed - only slowed by hiking rates which, of course, come with its own market cooling effects.
So is it your position that after the war ends, that prices will return to a level that will represent the normal 2%/year inflation range up to that point?
John Z., hate to tell you, but an inflation of the currency results from pumping trillions of more money dollars into circulation without an concomitant increase in goods....more cash chasing the same amount of goods equals inflation.
Price increases caused by interruptions to the supply of a particular item is a change in relative prices--not the same as inflation of the currency. These increases can be reversed by increasing the supply of goods. Inflation of the currency can only be reversed by reducing the supply of cash in circulation.
You're giving away your age, young man. We have already had stagflation in the US, back in the 1980's, and you're right, it creates a lot of suffering.
I have to start by asking you to clarify what you mean by "inflation of the currency".
Inflation is an increase in prices (and wages, usually, but not currently), so your terminology is confusing.
Additional spending does not cause inflation unless we reach the point where there are no more idle real resources (labor and commodities) that can be brought into productive use. We haven't been anywhere close to that since WWII.
Also, why would you want to take money out of the economy. A growing economy needs a growing money supply. Otherwise we fall into a recession or depression.
Well, "inflation of the currency" means that each dollar (euro, etc.) in circulation has less value and can therefore buy less things...the classic example is Weimar Germany, where it took a whole wheelbarrow of currency to buy a loaf of bread. Sound monetary policy seeks to prevent that outcome by keeping the total amount of currency in circulation roughly tied to the total amount of good and services produced. More dollars chasing same amount of goods equals inflation of the currency.
Force the Fed to grow the money supply at the rate of overall productivity growth, and you'll see that corporate profits have NOTHING to do with the inflation rate. If money was growing at 2% (instead of the historical 7%) you'd have true competition for the consumer dollar, rather than rampant price increases by all companies. Some firms would actually be FAILING - imagine that! This is why governments HATE gold as a monetary standard (worldwide supply grows at about 2% per year). They can't inflate their way out of every problem.
The Fed does not control the growth of the money supply. The supply of money is increased when banks make loans which create deposits. The Fed simply responds to the need for reserves that this creates in order to maintain the interbank payment clearing system, and to maintain their policy rate.
The gold standard has never been the answer to inflation. It can only restrict the ability of an economy to grow and it frequently produces recessions or depressions. I recommend that you read more widely and get off the goldbug train.
"The Fed does not control the growth of the money supply." Then why did they create (print) more than $5 trillion in bank reserves after COVID hit? I assume they thought such an historically massive increase in reserves might have some effect on the real economy? I also recommend that you read beyond your 100 level Money & Banking text to get a better understanding of how the financial system works. Also, the gold standard was in effect throughout the 19th century in the U.S., arguably the most prosperous and productive period in our history. Yes, there were occasional financial panics and recessions, and generally greater volatility, but real growth and real wages rose at the highest levels ever.
You're right, of course but as we said in the 60s, "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts "! Well, now they'll cancel you for the stating evidentiary facts. Your proposal is?
Everyone runs on emotions. Everyone feels first and then develops a narrative around it. It's the nature of being human. I'm not just talking about emotions, I'm talking about base sensations too. We are all taking in information on multiple levels all of the time. Reason comes later and is only a part of the picture. Facts can be twisted to accommodate specific viewpoints.
It is strange to me to say this is a phenomenon of the "left" only.
"I feel, therefore you're wrong" is one conclusion to draw among many. It's all about how one engages themself in the process of making meaning. So yeah, many people aren't doing that, meaning they're not engaging themselves, and they want to make others responsible for how they feel.
You also might be interested in the book "Decartes' Error" by Antonio Damasio
I agree with that to some degree, but I find conservatives to much more pragmatic, logical and prone to seeking the facts through the clouds of strong emotions. And I also see this as having a gender component.
Here is an analogy. Educated wife and husband. Wife decides she wants to exit her career and stay home to raise their kids. Husband work hard and makes a good life for the family. Husband is disciplined. Works out every morning. Eats well. At night he likes to have a couple of cookies and a glass of milk before bed. Wife has been putting on a lot of weight... has had trouble controlling her impulses to eat. She asks him to stop buying the cookies. He thinks about it and says no... that it is her problem to gain control of her eating, and not his.
Liberals side with the wife, conservatives side with the husband.
Of course; that's why we need conservatives and liberals; they both have strengths that complement each other. We also need to be able to reason, argue, discuss and come to agreement even if it's agreeing to disagree. Unfortunately now, that doesn't seem possible and strangely enough, the left? has taken on the worst characteristics of the right and become a strange woke left caring nothing about the working classes.
It's so interesting that we would draw any kind of broad sweeping conclusion about liberals and conservatives. People are super complex. I wouldn't take either side in this case. I wouldn't stop at cookies - I would want to go deeper. What's all at play and how is each person-wife and husband- making a relationship to themself?
Smart move! Nobody said conservatives were stupid; Oh wait, yeah, the woke did. They must not be able to see themselves in the mirror.. zero self awareness.
Yes, it is why they say that first impression are lasting ones. However, the average mentally healthy adult person has some form of control over their emotions. We see this in healthy interpersonal relationships where one or both parties can get very angry and say things they don't mean, but are also able to see the error of their ways and come back and reconcile - logic prevails.
On the flip side, we have large groups of people who suffer some level of emotional disregulation (using the term generally and not from DSM-V). To cope with the underlying problem (anxiety, fear, self loathing, depression) these people rely (usually unwittingly) on tactics like "black and white thinking", "splitting", delusion, and other ego aiding defenses - essentially, they've learned at an early age to create a reality that is easier for them to accept and feel safe. As the kids say - they cope.
Perhaps you already know this, but the "base sensations" you refer to is the "fight, flight, or freeze" mechanism that gets it's marching orders from limbic nervous system, which circumvents conscious thought, in order to make instant decision when it comes to life or death scenarios. We all have this and with mentally healthy people, these reactions only come up in obvious life or death scenarios. However, for the mentally unhealthy, a distortion took place in their upbringing (usually aided by some bad genes), that skews what constitutes a life or death threat and leads to really hyperbolic reactions to even mundane things at times.
So while it's not an exclusively a left thing, by any means, the phenomena presents differently based on cultural factors that happen to follow party lines fairly well anyway. For those on the "right", they typically grew up in an environment that emphasized trust of God which, whether you believe it or not, has a satiating affect for many. On the flip side, if you grew up atheist, or even agnostic, you are forced to place your faith in a benevolent government.
I don't think enough thought or attention is given to this, actually. The reality is the world is a scary place filled with infinite uncertainty and even the healthiest of minds subconsciously places "faith" somewhere in order to forget about the peril that is around us everywhere and at all times.
I never remember believing in the invisible sky god so I guess you could call me an atheist and, of course, I'd say thanks. There was a time when I was young that there were actually real left wing labor party's in power in Europe and they DID make things better for the working classes. They didn't exist in the Americas and they don't exist anywhere anymore. I'm Canadian and Old so I can remember despite no labor party ever coming to Federal power in Canada, they were able to push the labor agenda and things would get better over time and you could look to a brighter future. No more, the empire struck back with neo liberalism and now the woke distraction and things are getting even worse for the working classes and it's moving into the middle classes who didn't care about the working classes when they were screwed over. Now, you have the fantastical Ukraine war that's taking the oxygen out of reality for the vast majority of the Western countries. If I had known then what I know now; I would have moved from Canada to Denmark when I was young. So, Yes, believing in politics once had validity, religion never had and never will unless you're incapable or unwilling to think rationally.
I disagree. Some of the strongest and wisest people I know are hyper-religious. I’m not, but I’m mature enough to recognize their perceived relationship with God is a large part of it.
Also, yes, escape Rusty Trombone’s ex post facto violating regime. Absolute insanity. I’m ready to invade to liberate you guys.
A wise man; pen name, Voltaire once said " who can convince you to believe an absurdity can convince you to commit an atrocity "! Religion doesn't make you strong, it makes you vulnerable to exploitation which, of course is the purpose of it. Try this on, "a flag is a veil that prevents you from seeing the truth "! Homo sapiens is the story believing animal; it allows us to build huge societies based on commonly believed stories/myths; god, money, nations, rule of law and on and on. This flaw or strength can be and is exploited by the ruling classes eg. Divine rights of king's then; rule of law now. Believed stories are much better than having a police state; cheaper and more effective.
Rule of Law can actually exist it doesn’t have to be a myth. When it doesn’t “our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
That's very insightful. I think the secular faith you describe is essentially authoritarianism - uncritically accepting the pronouncements of the authorities on one's chosen side. Viewing the world in terms of opposing sides is part of the problem. It's a natural but primitive way of being, and our instincts tend to pull us back down into it when trouble arises.
Sounds like you have a background in psychology? Me too :)
Actually, the base sensations I'm talking about are more like heat, pressure, sharpness, roughness, things like that. Fight, flight or freeze are sympathetic nervous system (and yes, limbic but also brainstem) responses to a threat, and they are implicated in trauma. And yes, the neocortex goes offline when we are in fight or flight, so we don't stop and think about what to do when a bear is coming to eat us for example, we just run
For some this fight/flight response comes up only in extreme circumstances- like a car accident. But this response also comes up developmentally too- many times in abusive situations. I definitely agree that culture can have an impact on how this occurs.
Yes but there's a few people with Asbergers who give reason a higher priority, , they can't even lie but, , of course, , they can be wrong. We're not rational animals; we're rationalizing animals and smarter and better educated can use more credible rationalizing. Figures don't lie but liars can use Figures. Of course on top are the sociopaths and I mean, literally on the top positions in society. Paleo emotions, medieval institutions and god like technology including nukes; not a good recipe. Thomas Jeffersons rationalizations for his slavery are a perfect example of a very smart person finding justification in what he does. The counter arguments from Lafayette go nowhere despite being excellent. It hasn't gotten any better in 250 years.
"Paleo emotions, medieval institutions and god like technology including nukes; not a good recipe."
I've sometimes characterized humans as "primates with nuclear weapons". I wonder whether there's a kind of cosmic filter at play - life forms that evolve to the point of understanding the atomic structure of matter while remaining morally primitive might all destroy themselves, so that only morally elevated life forms eventually survive.
"We're not rational animals; we're rationalizing animals and smarter and better educated can use more credible rationalizing." Interestingly, people with Aspergers demonstrate an almost complete lack of ego, which allows them to more objectively evaluate information. In some sense, they have nothing to "defend", and therefore are better able to avoid rationalizing. They admit error and move on. This quality makes them some of the best money managers in the world. See Michael Burry.
"There is a key to understand what is driving this. If you are left, you run on emotions. You feel first and then develop a narrative to deflect from the fact that you are basing your opinion on feelings and not facts. Then you call everything outside of that narrative as disinformation. And because you cannot effectively think outside your box of feelings, this all seems right, moral and rational to you."
So DHS Secretary Mayorkas - himself an abject failure in his position - cites Ms. Jankowicz as an "expert in disinformation". Is that a thing? Are Ivy League schools now handing out degrees in "disinformation", or is it strictly on-the-job training?
Look, this isn't complicated. Here's what the First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". There is simply no room for the government to determine what is the "truth". Creating this position legitimizes and advocates for censorship. If we are to remain free, this progressive hail mary cannot be allowed to stand.
Evidently Mayorkas told Congress today that he was unaware that this twat buffoon called the Post Hunter Biden account "misinformation" and endorsed and promoted the Steele dossier, but that he stood behind her for the position anyway, because she is a "subject matter expert on disinformation". They aren't even pretending at accountability any more.
The people behind this are already advocating violence against the Supreme Court. It is easy to imagine a Biden Administration claiming that the court did not represent Americans and announcing its elimination.
Because the security state calls the 1a dangerous and people who rely upon its protection threats to the Administration. Unfortunately for them, that is part of what 1a is for. I think they will attempt to shut down the Supreme Court and the upcoming Federal elections by proclaiming a state of “national emergency” to combat “domestic terrorism”. That would be their way to hold onto power until ”Trump supporters” are no longer able to vote or be elected to office. The most likely response to an attempt to disqualify the Administration’s opponents would be an actual insurrection.
A writ of mandate is the only thing that ever stopped Gavin Newsom. He managed to piss off the entire California State Supreme Court, which unanimously ordered him to obey state marriage law as written or go straight to prison (and stay there) for contempt. I do not know if such a writ is available under Federal law, but, if it were, no POTUS of either party would accept being served… they would claim that the Executive Branch is immune from such writs… in effect, that it is above the law and is only limitable by the prospect of impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.
Just watch the movie "The Lives of Others" , about the Stasi abuses in East Berlin, and you'll get a foretaste of what's coming here in ther US if progressives are allowed to have their way.
Sounds hyperbolic, but how far away are we really from being encouraged to rat out your friends, family, and neighbors. We're already there in some ways.
Not as far as many would think. We've already seen similar scenarios with COVID. Progressives are only too happy to turn in their "less evolved" neighbors...
"This is why Americans cling to their guns. It has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with self-defense against the common criminal. We cling to our guns so that, when our neighbors show up and say, “We’re going to take you to the camps now, because you’re a danger to society,” we can look back at them and say, “Like hell you will.”"
Covid scam was a test as to how compliant the population would be
They know they can do whatever they want to us and NO ONE but a few fringe will do a damned thing about it
For things to change it would have to take something to shock Americans out of their cog dis, something so evil that it can't be explained or excused away
Well done! Wish Tucker Carlson could see this, he might be tempted to play it on his show. I know he’s less than enamored with Nina the Disminformationist and the upcoming jackboot Ministry of Truth.
Thank you! I spent 10 years performing comedy improv in front of live audiences in Los Angeles. I thought it was possibly a waste of time so I'm glad to be able to use some of it now. :-D
Wasn't Jankowicz herself one of the people who insisted, on the basis of no discernable evidence, that the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian disinformation"?
How'd that work out for her? Actually, she hasn't done half bad for herself, in spite of being dead wrong.
And those who were right about the laptop all along still were cast into Outer Darkness.
Joe Biden hid in the basement and received more votes than any presidential candidate ever, and within a year has one of the lowest recorded approval ratings ever. You really think trump can win an election at this point?
And how, pray tell, does not voting help matters? Just makes the election- riggers job even easier.
The solution is to both vote and closely monitor the election process, and continue to call out irregularities as they occur. "Not voting" = "game over."
From my experience, the primary hallmark, or defining characteristic, of anything labelled "Russian disinformation" is that it turns out to be true. We should rename it from "Russian Disinformation" to "Spoiler Alert" maybe.
I would like to sum up their game with the following quote:
They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
Knots – R.D. Laing (Psychiatrist and former Tavistock Institute Resident)
The only thing that matters right now is changing the rules of the game. The Ministry of Truth's main purpose is to make sure everyone plays the game. They want everyone to use the same pre-established linguistic models and talking points, whether for or against them, as long as you're playing the game. We should do the opposite, jettison their linguistic models and "framing," and do so with much humor, trolling them into oblivion. They're not smart enough to control humor. They'll try, but it will backfire.
New unified platforms and fundraising initiatives, more Substack, total boycott of mainstream media. That should be the movement.
Tim Dillon (the best comedian around right now and who also interviewed Genn a while back) made a good point. Most of the "pro-gun" people haven't done anything to stop the onslaught and destruction of the country for the last 40 years... They're waiting for the apocalypse before they can use their "rights," at which point they will be worth virtually nothing, given the entire country will be gone.
Too many are still stuck trying to play the game, not realizing everything around them has been whittled away for decades, with new hellscape city after new hellscape city appearing. Guns won't stop that. These things can be addressed, but it requires a paradigm shift and an altogether dropping of the left vs. right false binary.
I'm not against guns, but victory is definitely not going to come from everyone just stocking up on ammo. It can prevent direct use of force, but that won't really stop the engineered collapse of the system, the destruction of the food supplies, and engineered mass starvation.
I’m saying people need to use their brains for problem solving and real solutions before you have to raise your kid in a world that literally looks like Mad Max world.
The US banking system needs to be restructured, a new global financial architecture created with the other major civilizations in the world.
The “international community” is literally only about 1 billion people. A good chunk of civilizations has already rejected the Malthusian death cult currently being imposed on the West by a very small oligarchical interest.
They’re not that smart and they’re sitting on the largest financial bubble in history.
The solutions is to not play their game, cancel the funny money ie the global derivatives bubble and worthless paper that has been bailed out since 2007 and as a result kept the zombie banking system afloat.
The USA was conceived according to a Hamiltonian tradition, the dedication to great projects, and future-orientated investments, rather than the maximization of profit in the short term.
The US needs to go back to its Hamiltonian tradition, take back control of sovereign credit creation, which currently lies in the hand of a small merchant banking system run by a few merchant banking families. It’s really not that complicated lol. The complication stems more from the “flooding the field” ie the constant bullshit single issues and false left/right binaries people are fed to keep them dumb and tribalized.
In a word: America has been the chief target of psychological operations. Until people stop playing the game and falling into illusions of choice fed to them, and instead start calling things by their name, things won’t change.
We just need to call things by their name. It’s harder than most people think, but largely because they’re not really thinking, they’ve been trained to rely on categories on nominalism ie. “we live in a democracy” “we’re a free country” “we believe in the free market” no matter how much of these things aren’t even real anymore, people keep thinking they are.
If people are willing to let go of the illusions, America could easily go back to its real tradition, the American system, the system of Hamilton, Lincoln, JFK.
I saw a great T-shirt yesterday, The slogan was "I'm going to let God fix it -- Because if I fix it, I'm going to jail". I am an *UN*compromising 2A supporter, and I am prepared to use my "resources" to defend family and friends, and to generally safeguard civil liberties as best I can in a SHTF situation. I am NOT about to start mindlessy offing people who favor curtailing our liberties (even those people who are instrumental in the attempt), or do anything equally stupid. Absent a viable and rational strategy for those who believe individual liberty to be indispensible to take power (and such a strategy WOULD constitute an insurrection, we had better all face up to that), any such action would only result in my imprisonment or death, and, to add insult to injury, those who would curtail those liberties would only use the attempt as propaganda to further their own aims.
I could answer with a flurry of sources, but at this point, I’d say this shouldn’t be a contentious point.
The problem is some conspiracy theories aren’t really crazy, the problem is the average decent person has trouble imagining the kind of people willing to orchestrate these things or why. That’s the real problem.
If people aren’t comfortable with looking evil in the face, then they usually just instinctively avoid all the cognitive dissonances and say “that’s crazy, they would never do that.”
I recommend:
“Towards a Global Food Disaster, Engineered through Acts of Political Sabotage: F. William Engdahl“
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics.
Whitney Webb had also done good work covering this with the “Ice Age Farmer.”
Well, it's possible that the reason it's taken 40 years to advance their agenda is simply knowing that the citizens are armed. You don't think those in power would rather have taken a more direct path like the CCP? Even in pre-war Germany they had to disarm segments of the population that presented the greatest threats.
Like I said, I think it’s important for people to be able to defend themselves against outright tyranny. I mean, that’s why the second amendment is there.
I was simply saying that it’s not enough. The USA is almost gone, and if it goes, so do the liberties of most of the other Western countries.
Only a paradigm shift in thought and action, and a returning of the USA to it’s actually tradition, the American System of Political Economy (that’s actually what it’s called, that’s the Hamiltonian system, the Lincoln system), then it won’t survive.
The federal reserve is a bad bank ie bankrupt, holding trillions of worthless paper. It needs to be shut down and the banking system needs to be broken up again with Glass Steagall, cancelling much of the funny money, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, which is what all the bailouts have been used to prop up.
If you really want to go to war with the shadowy forces that actually control America, and all the Five Eyes countries, do that.
People don’t realize how scared they would be. Were a sudden mass call to break up the banks and go back to Hamilton and Lincoln’s vision of great projects to get momentum, they’d lose their shit.
The Texas legislature actually recently passed a resolution to do just that:
"Third National Bank: We support the abolition of the Federal Reserve and the creation of a Constitutional Third National Bank of the United States, based on a gold reserve foundation, focused on investing in the industrial, agricultural, and infrastructural growth of our nation."
Hitler used the SA to seize power and turned around and denounced them to win the support of the moneyed anti-Semitic class. [Kenneth Branagh had an uncredited role as a moneyed Nazi in the movie “Swing Kids”]. The Swedes were spared invasion because Göring’s wife Karin and her friends were those kinds of Swedes.
Officially neutral, the Swedish government let Germany buy the supplies they wanted. The Swedish people were far from neutral, however, and the Hungarian Jews that made it to Sweden were never handed over to the Germans. The Swedish papers swindle that let apparent non-Semites escape Hungary saved my former Congressman (Tom Lantos) and his wife’s whole family. He was stationed behind enemy lines, pretending to be a Swede and helping Jews escape, for the rest of the war. He was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress.
If the government freezes your financial assets because you protest against their policies (coming soon, I expect), who can you shoot to get them back?
Just like the grievance industry rose up to "fight discrimination," the content moderation industry is rising up to "fight misinformation." When the bureaucracy is in place, it becomes very difficult to fight and it grows like a cancer.
And why do we still even have a Department of Homeland Security?
Content moderation is also used to “protect marginalized communities”. Pretty soon reporting about BLM’s lack of financial transparency and misuse of funds is going to become disinformation.
Whadya mean, pretty soon? Head of the Olympics.."everyone knows trans women are women "..everyone? The female PM of Scotland is putting men in women's prisons. The female PM of New Zealand has a trans woman as female athlete of the year. When Vladimir Putin basically says the west is crazy and he doesn't share our values, he has a point. Very few people care about about sexual orientation or race or ethnicity or or but any rational person rejects impossible things, this world ain't wonderland or is it. The law of gravity is real for all people, the laws of the state are never real, they're always made up by and for the ruling classes but the utter craziness these days is like religion in the middle ages only now, the information is available and the lumpenproletariat act like it's the middle ages all over...facts and reality count for nothing these days.
Substack could simply be shut off by these gonifs. Imagine a DHS logo on the web page saying that the Web domain and site were seized to suppress disinformation. I can imagine them doing the same thing to Republican Party Web sites with the front page documenting the seizure declaring it a terrorist organization.
Probably just a matter of time. I'm more than a bit creeped out that they keep our credit card info on substack. I wish there was a more secure way to pay.
Substack, and any other potential government disinformation target, really needs to start accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Additionally, they should consider incorporating blockchain technology into their content distribution networks. We've all seen how easy it is for the government to shutdown websites they don't like (Parlor) or freeze individual bank accounts (Canadian trucker supporters). In both cases the blockchain could have made the difference.
It'd be nice if Biden's Collective stopped playing and said the words out loud: We swore to uphold the Constitution but, truth is, we aren't in favor of protecting views other than our own, we plan to actively & violently eliminate freedom of association and we're all for taking your property [and eventually your lives] without providing you the luxury of due process [notice and hearing]. We're not going to ask you "how do you like it?' cuz, frankly, we don't care.
True, but it's harder here than in other places. I'm glad so many states and other organizations sued over the vax mandates, for instance, and got them shot down by the supreme court. In Canada, they didn't even need a disinformation board, Trudeau just went straight to jailing dissenters and freezing bank accounts.
In a different life I prosecuted criminal cases. I was never crazy about prosecuting obscenity cases cuz the first two prongs of the obscenity test (appeal to prurience and going beyond the customary limits of candor) seemed more the elements of proof for a nuisance case than proofs of a First Amendment violation.. The saving grace of the obscenity statutes is they all gave a little nod to speech protection by including some tokenistic language about "everything's okay if this communication provides some general value to reasonable people." The Big Idea behind the Disinformation Board is to eliminate even this minimal protection ---in fact, it's specifically designed to do the opposite.
It's so much easier to let the people think by voting for the Unicriminal Party, which includes most of Capitol Hill and the The Supreme Court, they can make incremental change.
At the same time the Uniparty is making incremental change to the constitution, incrementally adding more authoritarian control over the populace. They're just torching it incrementally.
So the 'Mean Girls' and 'The Heathers' finally climbed to the top of the 'Security State' to persecute the evil-doers on Hillary's shit-list? May God have mercy on our souls.
Giving DHS the responsibility as gatekeeper for truth is like having a fox guard a henhouse. It was a mistake to consolidate so many agencies into one unholy amalgam, and we are paying the price for creating an impenetrable bureaucracy with little or no accountability to American citizens.
This is quite a gambit the government and their accomplices in corporate America are playing, one obviously geared to upending our individual liberties. It remains to be seen if they can be stopped or disrupted before things devolve too far, and I appreciate Glenn and his allies in the non-corporate media sounding the clarion call to action in the face of this perfidy.
The name of this abomination The Department of Homeland Security freaked me right out to begin with. Talk about fascism. They show up at every march or rally I've been to. Why are we the people submitted to this nasty powerful 'agency'. Neither party is willing to get rid of this national 'security' state. Too busy playing the partisan/money game and refusing to regulate out of control dark money lobbyists, big out of control industries and other anti-democratic players under the guise of security. Security for who the assholes who own and run the place? You bet.
As Ron Paul said, "In a nation of lies, the truth is treason."
We are all, by that definition, traitors, though I take that as a badge of honor. To be accused of treason by the thought police is like being called a bigot by the KKK or Black Panthers or a Jew Lover by Neo Nazis.
It is time to defund the thought police via primarying every representative who is on board with this, even via casual comments. Thanks to Tulsi Gabbard, Karl Rove and Nancy Pelosi are on the same page. They are both trash who undermine both freedom and the rule of law.
Government's practice of spreading its own disinformation metastasized to the judiciary last week: A judge in Florida ordered a man who defaced an LGBT mural to write an essay centered on a thoroughly false premise—that the 2016 massacre at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando deliberately targeted the LGBT community.
Given the Pulse myth deflects public attention from the perpetrator's explicit proclamation that he was retaliating for U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East, the judge was (inadvertently, I'm sure) serving the interest of the national security state too.
Never refer to this abomination as anything but the Ministry of Truth, bad branding can sink this thing faster than a million high minded Tweets and Substack posts.
Agree but incredibly, most Americans have not read Orwell
Then it's our duty to make them aware -- in whatever ways are successful. We're on the front lines of this hybrid war, remember.
Time to make a new sign: "Defund the Ministry of Truth."
All Speech Matters!
Yes it does. So many don't seem to realize anything the KKK etc have to say, as vile as it may be, is far less important than their right to say it. Astounding that so many have forgotten this or are too cowardly to stand for principle, a principle soldiers die for.
They haven't forgotten, they never understood. They thought freedom of speech meant their freedom to say what they wanted to say. A belief of the self-absorbed and self-entitled.
But no, that's not it.That's not the foundation of freedom of speech. That's the reward, not the price. The price is the right of someone you despise to say whatever they want, and most particularly to say something you hate.
Hear Hear
All lives mater as well.
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I like it haha
Love it
Watching how this thing has rolled out and how this "bombshell" leak of a February Supreme Court draft opinion ditching Roe was suddenly dropped, makes me think there HAS been blowback to this treacherous creation. I want to think most Americans value freedom of speech, and that they have had their fill of being shamed into silence the last few years.
Even if Americans don't read Orwell anymore (thanks, education system), we've been speaking up/out for a couple of centuries. The timing on this Roe revelation seems out of place. Maybe the Truth Ministry thing isn't going exactly how the shadow government planned. Thus, a diversion.
We know if it was the Obama Administration, they would be spying on SCOTUS since they’ve spied on everyone else. Thinking that the Biden Administration would do the same doesn’t seem like a stretch to me. And of course the timing of this stinks to high heaven………
What makes you think it's not the Obama administration?
Obama is in charge of the Biden regime.
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What makes you think the Bush regime didn't do this? You do know Bush SR was the head of the CIA and was appointed by Ford, the same assburglar who pardoned Nixon? Im cool with blaming the Obama administration (the people involved mostly were Clinton people except Quid-pro Joe) but lets not pretend that this new to them. Every administration in history probably except Carter and Trump spied on their political enemies.
Democratic polling + cynical manner in which this Administration operates x no tactic is a bridge too far = Supreme Court take-down.
Prediction: The Administration knew about this before Politico published (the draft opinion is dated February?). It used to be called "The October Surprise," but a lot of states (no doubt in an effort to suppress votes), have instituted early voting --- a person can literally vote WEEKS before election day if they want to. Therefore, you can't wait too long to activate the troops.
Altho --- the above is predicated on the fact that the "liberal" side leaked this. Did noted journalist Ruth Marcus opine in WaPo that a "conservative" is the likely source of the leak. Yeah, probably the same conservative that drove around DC with a loudspeaker yelling at Breyer to resign. Probably the same conservative that disclosed Breyer's resignation letter before he did. Those wily conservatives!
And are incredibly gullible. I don't understand how a single person can be for censorship; the best you can say is that they haven't heard an argument to the contrary. I mean, shouldn't it be obvious that no person or organization can have a monopoly on truth? I hate to be partisan but the only possible reaction for anyone concerned about this sort of thing is to vote and support the opposite of these people; make them completely toxic politically. I don't trust Republicans as far as I can throw them, but at least they aren't this.
Some aren't, some are. If the USMOT isn't immediately killed, and the likes of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lindsay Graham (etc) gain the utmost levels of political power, do you seriously think that they will have the integrity to resist using its machinery to advance their own corrupt agenda? Worse, this could conceivably remove all of the incentives for the Deep Statists of both parties to even pretend at partisan differences.
It's almost as if we should be trying to limit federal government powers across the board. If only people had warned us that too much centralized power breeds this kind of thing...
Actually, some people did warn about the dangers of centralized power--they were known as "the anti-federalists."
This was always odd to me. I'm by no means a historian, but it seems like a very early example of highjacking language fr PR purposes, but I don't have near enough grasp of the time to see how it would even work. Actual Federalism is about dividing power amongst the states as apposed to centralizing it nationally. Yet, my understanding is the Federalist Party advocated the opposite, by wanting larger control at the federal level, including the abhorrent concept of a national bank. So why call themselves the Federalist?
I think your sarcasm detector is broken.
IF ONLY
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf
Well I don't think those people will reach that level. They are friends of the Democrats largely. Graham less so. But for sure, I just mean that for now the Republicans are less terrible. If that changes then we'll have to adjust with it. Censorship threats used to come more from Christian conservatives so it can definitely change and shift.
You guys keep making the same mistake led on by the media that wants you to make this mistake.
This is not a fight between Left and Right.
It's a fight between bottom and top.
At top are the Establishment of both political parties unwilling to share power with We the People. They think they are the experts and the only one's capable of managing such a complex nation of divergent interests through the heavy hand of a STATE.
They don't trust us and now we have every reason to not trust them.
Look, I dislike Bernie Sanders, but watching the Establishment kneecap him twice in a row on the national stage while trying to literally bury Donald Trump....is proof positive the Establishment is in a war with ANYONE who dares challenge their hierarchical power structure they've built for themselves as they manage the long-term decline of our democracy.
Well that was the case for a while...but as you touch on Trump changed the game, and Bernie nearly did on the left. They went after Trump so hard because he threatened the dominance of the establishment. So to the extent that he and his allies control the Republican party, which I think they largely do although it's not over yet either, that means that the Republicans represent a vehicle to oppose said establishment. That could change obviously.
I totally agree that as of this moment, the Demoncraps are the greater danger to liberty, by a significant margin. I wanted to point out that this could shift with blinding swiftness, and that the current top priority and focus should be to rid ourselves of this abominable institution, preferably without waiting for, or depending on, one or more electioral cycle changes. By then, it could be too late.
I agree with that, but how? Other than pushing for people in Washington to do so. But Dems have the power for now to block it. Republicans should force votes to make Dems own this disinformation board, then they'll have to answer for it in November.
Not all of them Ben. Most conservative christians in the 80s weren’t very political except when it came to abortion and that doesn’t mean they were for censorship.
Not True. Ask Ed Meese. The uber-religious right can be just as much fuckwads as the woke left. Musk is right. The world is a better place when both extremes are pissed off because they are losing equally.
The "Establishment" will recognize this when Rudy Giuliani or Donald Trump Jr are appointed Ministers of Truth in the next Administration.
Serious request?
I think they should appoint Glenn Greenwald to this post.
He's the only guy who seems to understand that speaking Truth to Power through an adversarial press is the only way to retain our democracy.
That Minister of Truth needs to be a Liaison between the people, media and the government.
If you don't have impeccable and unimpeachable credentials...you shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of that job.
Glenn Greenwald wouldn't take the job.
He’d take it if only to disband the entire operation.
I was hoping someone would buy CNN and just shut it down. Fire everybody and go into receivership.
The establishment will declare Trump's victory in the next election, "Russian disinfo".
"impeccable credentials" such as "Disinformation Expert".
I guess we found out what “peace studies” really was.
Gotta crack some eggs to bake a cake.
Gotta crack some skulls to keep the peace.
Gullible yes, but I suspect the bigger problem is apathy. Unfortunately I know a lot of people who have simply stopped paying attention to current events due to the stress. Seriously, it's difficult to make it through an entire episode of TCT without having a nervous breakdown. These things typically happen when no one is paying attention (e.g., "Democracy dies in [self-imposed] darkness").
I watch zero news about Ukraine.
I'm with Obama on this.
"Ukraine is not in America's interests. It is Russia's interests, but not ours."
I said 6 months ago Biden should threaten to withhold $1 billion in aid if Zelensky didn't cede the Donbas to Putin and declare themselves neutral on the issue of NATO. It's not as though he hasn't used that tactic before.
Instead, we have a political party on the decline choosing war with Russia as a means to distract America from the myriad of problems that have surfaced since Democrats took charge just 15 months ago.
Obama has the foreign policy chops of a muskrat. The issue is avoiding yet another war in Europe, when things are much further along where we have to go in and clean up the mess. If not Ukraine, what's our "green line"? History provides ample evidence that megalomaniacs do not exercise self-restraint.
America made this mess. They never clean up either.
America is a rogue state, albeit with good PR, bent on global hegemony.
Ukraine is the most locked down lied about war ever.
Very true!
Most folks I know under the age of 50 (I'm 67) are not paying much attention to political / cultural trends taking place today. They're mostly drawn to short summarized "belief statements". If it takes more than 5 mins to grasp, they usually can't or won't engage.
To me it seems like a combination of Orwellian (fear) and Huxlian (hedonistic escapism).
Just what the WEF folks promote and are leading the West toward. Surveillance Capitalism. Which is very much what the Chinese are promoting - Surveillance State-ism.
Yes, I think the influence of China on our politics is highly underrated. Probably because people are afraid of being called racist if they point it out.
But it's like we're focused on the potential for a war with them over Taiwan, not implausible by any means. What we're missing is that China is trying to defeat us from the inside out and make it so that fighting is unnecessary. They're turning us against and away from our liberal beliefs. They're going out of style. Woke kids want to explicitly judge people by their skin color. And censor wrong think. That's not liberalism.
Art of War: When your enemy is destroying itself do not impede their progress.
Yes, John Murray's statement says in a concise, clear way the what and why of current events, especially the "combination of fear (Orwellian) and Huxlian (hedonistic escapism)
Hmm I think I feel the opposite way. The problem I think is that lots of people are concerned about what is happening but aren't sure what they can do about it. Voting and donating to certain causes sure but it seems like there should be more we can do.
Maybe "apathy" isn't the correct term however I think we really are describing the same thing. "it seems like there should be more we can do", but in the absence of any good solutions I think I'll ignore it and hope it goes away.
It's a feeling of helplessness
"Seriously, it's difficult to make it through an entire episode of TCT without having a nervous breakdown."
That's kind of true. Sigh.
Most people pay little or no attention to most political speech. Anyone who is gainfully employed and/or has a family to support and care for has more imprtant things to do than politics. That's why the politicians are well paid -- propaganda is their job.
They've been slowly inching these people towards accepting authoritarianism for a decade plus. They just pushed it into hyperdrive with ole Donnie and the Bush neocons hated him too so they piled on. It doesn't help that Trump himself is a narcissistic windbag.
Most people want to be led. Add a bunch of young adults who have been raised in safe spaces and here we are.
I will wager that, even as we speak, Orwell is being removed from college and high school reading lists.
I am sure the inventor of the “memory hole” would have appreciated the irony of himself being “memory-holed”.
Ask them if they know Big Brother, Thought Police, or even Ministry of Truth
It’s the doorway in. I use it constantly to great effect.
And a large fraction of those who have appear to regard it as an instruction manual.
Yep, currently reading "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek. Childhood friend used to tell me, "read books" and I didn't listen. NOT ANYMORE!!
I preferred Aldus Huxley's A Brave New World.
Americans are being given Soma right now via their Establishment Media to relax and calm us, lest we go bash in cop cars and create riots because the Supreme Court has restored democratic process to America around our most contentious issue of all time.
Respectfully, I disagree. It's being reported this morning that the home addresses and maps thereto of the Alito Five are being distributed. Yesterday, The Worst President Ever said that MAGA (whatever that is) is the most dangerous political movement in the history (recent) of the nation. "Journalists" and political mouthpieces are screaming that America sucks and is in peril, at the same time.
This summer there will be bashing of cop cars and riots (already started in LA) and it will be encouraged in the name of Democracy and for the supposed purpose of Defending Women's Rights.
Buckle up. To paraphrase Margo Channing, "It's going to be a bumpy ride."
It will ensure the mid term collapse, but it will also embolden Republicans to think they have some kind of righteous authority to remake the US. Biden's team actually thought they had the support of the country to steer it into a Ministry of Truth iceberg. When you've lost Bezos, you know you're off the rails.
and how many have read the Constitution?
I don’t know, but I would peg it at safely less than 5%. And probably less than 1%
I do know from 30 years of conversations with people virtually no one understands the entire purpose of the constitution was to limit government
reading orwell may then be a pointless exercise for many
It may be taken as a training manual! Yikes!
I have not read the hodge podge that it has been made into with the bevy of ambitious, sometimes zealous, highly educated sociopathic lawyers at the disposal of the revolving door system of Natsec, corporate, and financiers.
A corporation is the same as a Citizen? Please.
They've already butchered the 4th amendment and have the 1st amendment nearly in checkmate by pushing our best journalists to the fringes and censoring them, and trying to put the publisher in our times in prison and torturing him, while trying to do an mprison him for life in their uncontestable and classified kangaroo courts , in the person of Julian Assange; for the crime of telling the truth. No retractions ever needed.
I like to keep it simple and think the same principles laid forth so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence will suffice.
Some have and thought the fictitious INGSOC party policy was a how-to manual.
Or much of anything else.
Then they should at least see the movie with John Hurt, which is rather faithful to the book.
They had to put this idiot woman up front as a diversion.
They'll remove her in a public event in 2 months...replace her with someone 10x more dangerous and spookier but 10x less cringy...and most people will move on with their lives unaware of the massive plans to censor social media running up to the 2022 mid terms.
YES! RIDICULE AND MORE RIDICULE!!!
Ridicule? I had something else in mind.
I’m not sure why they need a Disinformation Czarinx (politically correct)
Is it because Psaki is leaving and they’re trying to fill the void?
Psaki will come crawling back to the blob after being fired for low ratings like Megyn Kelly in 6 months.
Czarinx LOL!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
\\][//
Mock the fools
The first thing a Republican Congress needs to do is withhold ALL DHS funding, not just the MOS.
This American KGB needs to be dismantled.
Put ICE back under Treasury as the old INS.
You're very optimistic. Controlling speech and info online is a global project. They will come for substack too.
TFW when 1984 is banned as disinformation.
I am done being civil to my old liberal friends who have adopted this illiberal view that it is fine to empower government and large corporations to cancel, de-platform and ban speech they claim is disinformation while they spew the majority of disinformation.
There is a key to understand what is driving this. If you are left, you run on emotions. You feel first and then develop a narrative to deflect from the fact that you are basing your opinion on feelings and not facts. Then you call everything outside of that narrative as disinformation. And because you cannot effectively think outside your box of feelings, this all seems right, moral and rational to you.
But people that cannot do an honest self-assessment of feelings over fact are in fact dysfunctional. They are the last people we should be giving the keys to any disinformation power.
It is an "inmates running the asylum" situation... and we cannot let it be.
It's the "people who see 1984 as an instruction manual", and we cannot let it be.
They aren't crazy. They are malevolent.
Remember, always point out the appendix to 1984 to these people.
Then call them retards.
Can't they be both? lol
In this particular instance, their behavior is too deliberate, too self-serving, and too predictable in accordance with The Iron Law of Oligarchy to be the result of craziness.
It's tough, but don't give up being civil. We can't isolate ourselves and they still have some good to offer.
But it is difficult. They assume we have negative intent and they can be so damned smug and self righteous. Then they go off and do the things they accuse us of with no self awareness.
I’m legitimately tired. I’m tired of the projection of the worst imaginable intent. I’m tired of their self righteousness. I’d rather Civil War kickoff than Nuclear Armageddon.
I realize I need to undergo some self purification to continue to endure these blows without retaliating, but I’m tired. I really am.
trembo slice, I hear you, and feel much the same, but we must recommit to a path of civility and non-violent change...it's the only way out...
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
-MLK
I agree. It’s just been a hard stretch… The Left’s Musk meltdown and the ensuing smears coupled with the complete disavowing of free speech and the First Amendment…
The complexity of the Ukraine situation boiled down to Putin is loco; all the while even entertaining other possibilities is enough to receive accusations of treason.
The vitriol towards the unvaccinated and now the Left wants to fall back on “my body my choice.” I agree, it is, but I can be pro-choice and believe abortion should be a state issue. That doesn’t mean I want to bring back segregation, sheez.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
-MLK
Yes. I'd like to think that reason, too, has a role in driving out darkness but I may be guilty of wishful thinking there.
No, it's not the only way out. Civility and non-violent change didn't work the first time around--we had a whole War of Independence instead. If "Give me liberty or give me death" aren't fighting words, then nothing is.
"[P]eople that cannot do an honest self-assessment of feelings over fact are in fact dysfunctional. They are the last people we should be giving the keys to any disinformation power."
I agree with your assessment of their (political) dysfunction. But those aren't the ones in power -- they're voters, and unfortunately voters don't matter. Instead, sociopathic political animals are. They know what they are doing, and they've been dangerously "functional" for decades.
I agree with you. I find being around any hardcore liberal as downright unhealthy and THAT is why I think that those of us that are healthy minded have a repulsion toward these people
While I don't think it healthy to isolate either, and it's important to reach out and educate, my experience has been that they do not WANT to be educated. They are not only dysfunctional in their own lives but are more so politically.
Americans have constant exposure to sociopaths and to sociopathic abuse
I mean there was a reason Jim Jones got 800 to drink koolaid laced with cyanide.
Democrats operate much like a CULT
Is that something anyone who is healthy minded would be attracted too?
I think not.
u can be self-righteous or u can be self-aware...is very hard to be both
Excellent points, Frank.
However, a quibble; you seem to be conflating liberals with the Left. They are not at all the same.
Your criticism is spot on as to liberals, but the real Left, as I see it and as I participate in it, is ready to see all of the information, dis-, mis-, or otherwise and let the debate begin. If we on the Left can't persuade people of the benefits of peace in the world and of promoting the rights of the working class and the disadvantaged and pressing for universal, material benefits then we need to shut up and go home. My 1.92 cents (inflation, ya know).
And just maybe you might figure out exactly where that inflation is coming from??? Hint: "universal, material benefits..." ???
Actually, it's not. First, there are only a few such benefits in the US that even come sorta close to being universal and material, such as Medicare and Social Security. And even those are full of holes and gaps.
Inflation is always produced by shortages, mainly of energy and/or food. COVID disrupted supply chains all over the world and especially in China due to lockdowns and other restrictions. The war in Ukraine is also a big factor causing shortages and price increases in food and energy.
In addition, this time there is an additional factor as detailed by Matt Stoller back in December, 2021. See his post here:
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/corporate-profits-drive-60-of-inflation?s=r
Forgive me for replying without reading the article, but I would have to disagree with your first assertion that is "inflation isalways produced by shortages". If it was just the shortages, it would be the "transitory inflation" they tried to sell us initially, because as soon as the supply lines recovered, prices would normalize, as we've seen lumber do - for the most part.
True inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, but it's first part of that equation that is the controlling condition.
Supply chains can be perfectly normal and you introduce too much money into a market and suddenly they are no longer efficient enough, because suddenly (artificially) there is suddenly more demand.
There are two types of inflation: Demand-pull and cost-push inflation. We are in the midst of a cost-push inflation, as all of the ones in at least the last hundred years have been.
Your contention that too many dollars is the controlling part of the equation is simply false.
You seem to have missed your own point with the example of lumber prices. Once the supply came closer to meeting demand, prices returned to nearly their previous level. When other shortages have been mitigated those prices should also return to lower levels. Perhaps your conception of "transitory" should include a longer time frame.
It should be obvious that supply shortages are still the most prominent feature of the current inflation, as in, energy and food production due to the war in Ukraine, the issue with Russian gas and Europe, and climate change decreasing food production in many places around the world.
Your final statement is not wrong, but that situation can only occur when there are no more idle real resources (labor and commodities) that can be brought into productive use. We are nowhere close to that point and never have been since WWII.
My use of transitory was mocking the administration's use of the word.
I said lumber has "normalized - for the most part", but stabilized was the more accurate word. As in, it's no longer rising, and has even lowered some, but that trend has stopped. Despite lumber production in full swing and keeping up with demand (retail lumber yards are not depleted anymore), the prices are still significantly higher than in 2020 and will remain that way.
Yes, it is obvious that supply side shortages are and have been contributing to price increases. We both agree there. What I'm rather surprised by is a lack of acknowledgment
as to the effects of introducing ***trillions*** in unsubstantiated dollars to the market. The effects of this can never be reversed - only slowed by hiking rates which, of course, come with its own market cooling effects.
So is it your position that after the war ends, that prices will return to a level that will represent the normal 2%/year inflation range up to that point?
John Z., hate to tell you, but an inflation of the currency results from pumping trillions of more money dollars into circulation without an concomitant increase in goods....more cash chasing the same amount of goods equals inflation.
Price increases caused by interruptions to the supply of a particular item is a change in relative prices--not the same as inflation of the currency. These increases can be reversed by increasing the supply of goods. Inflation of the currency can only be reversed by reducing the supply of cash in circulation.
Aye, wait till people learn about stagflation. That's when the suffering really starts.
You're giving away your age, young man. We have already had stagflation in the US, back in the 1980's, and you're right, it creates a lot of suffering.
I have to start by asking you to clarify what you mean by "inflation of the currency".
Inflation is an increase in prices (and wages, usually, but not currently), so your terminology is confusing.
Additional spending does not cause inflation unless we reach the point where there are no more idle real resources (labor and commodities) that can be brought into productive use. We haven't been anywhere close to that since WWII.
Also, why would you want to take money out of the economy. A growing economy needs a growing money supply. Otherwise we fall into a recession or depression.
Well, "inflation of the currency" means that each dollar (euro, etc.) in circulation has less value and can therefore buy less things...the classic example is Weimar Germany, where it took a whole wheelbarrow of currency to buy a loaf of bread. Sound monetary policy seeks to prevent that outcome by keeping the total amount of currency in circulation roughly tied to the total amount of good and services produced. More dollars chasing same amount of goods equals inflation of the currency.
Force the Fed to grow the money supply at the rate of overall productivity growth, and you'll see that corporate profits have NOTHING to do with the inflation rate. If money was growing at 2% (instead of the historical 7%) you'd have true competition for the consumer dollar, rather than rampant price increases by all companies. Some firms would actually be FAILING - imagine that! This is why governments HATE gold as a monetary standard (worldwide supply grows at about 2% per year). They can't inflate their way out of every problem.
The Fed does not control the growth of the money supply. The supply of money is increased when banks make loans which create deposits. The Fed simply responds to the need for reserves that this creates in order to maintain the interbank payment clearing system, and to maintain their policy rate.
The gold standard has never been the answer to inflation. It can only restrict the ability of an economy to grow and it frequently produces recessions or depressions. I recommend that you read more widely and get off the goldbug train.
"The Fed does not control the growth of the money supply." Then why did they create (print) more than $5 trillion in bank reserves after COVID hit? I assume they thought such an historically massive increase in reserves might have some effect on the real economy? I also recommend that you read beyond your 100 level Money & Banking text to get a better understanding of how the financial system works. Also, the gold standard was in effect throughout the 19th century in the U.S., arguably the most prosperous and productive period in our history. Yes, there were occasional financial panics and recessions, and generally greater volatility, but real growth and real wages rose at the highest levels ever.
Read Mises you lunatic ;)
Would that help me to better tolerate some of the other lunatics I've responded to upthread?
Because I know enough about his theories to know that he has nothing useful to say about our current world economy.
You're right, of course but as we said in the 60s, "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts "! Well, now they'll cancel you for the stating evidentiary facts. Your proposal is?
Everyone runs on emotions. Everyone feels first and then develops a narrative around it. It's the nature of being human. I'm not just talking about emotions, I'm talking about base sensations too. We are all taking in information on multiple levels all of the time. Reason comes later and is only a part of the picture. Facts can be twisted to accommodate specific viewpoints.
It is strange to me to say this is a phenomenon of the "left" only.
"I think, therefore I am." has become "I feel, therefore you're wrong."
"I feel, therefore you're wrong" is one conclusion to draw among many. It's all about how one engages themself in the process of making meaning. So yeah, many people aren't doing that, meaning they're not engaging themselves, and they want to make others responsible for how they feel.
You also might be interested in the book "Decartes' Error" by Antonio Damasio
I agree with that to some degree, but I find conservatives to much more pragmatic, logical and prone to seeking the facts through the clouds of strong emotions. And I also see this as having a gender component.
Here is an analogy. Educated wife and husband. Wife decides she wants to exit her career and stay home to raise their kids. Husband work hard and makes a good life for the family. Husband is disciplined. Works out every morning. Eats well. At night he likes to have a couple of cookies and a glass of milk before bed. Wife has been putting on a lot of weight... has had trouble controlling her impulses to eat. She asks him to stop buying the cookies. He thinks about it and says no... that it is her problem to gain control of her eating, and not his.
Liberals side with the wife, conservatives side with the husband.
I would buy extra cookies just to make her stronger
Of course; that's why we need conservatives and liberals; they both have strengths that complement each other. We also need to be able to reason, argue, discuss and come to agreement even if it's agreeing to disagree. Unfortunately now, that doesn't seem possible and strangely enough, the left? has taken on the worst characteristics of the right and become a strange woke left caring nothing about the working classes.
It's so interesting that we would draw any kind of broad sweeping conclusion about liberals and conservatives. People are super complex. I wouldn't take either side in this case. I wouldn't stop at cookies - I would want to go deeper. What's all at play and how is each person-wife and husband- making a relationship to themself?
Smart move! Nobody said conservatives were stupid; Oh wait, yeah, the woke did. They must not be able to see themselves in the mirror.. zero self awareness.
Huh?
Yes, it is why they say that first impression are lasting ones. However, the average mentally healthy adult person has some form of control over their emotions. We see this in healthy interpersonal relationships where one or both parties can get very angry and say things they don't mean, but are also able to see the error of their ways and come back and reconcile - logic prevails.
On the flip side, we have large groups of people who suffer some level of emotional disregulation (using the term generally and not from DSM-V). To cope with the underlying problem (anxiety, fear, self loathing, depression) these people rely (usually unwittingly) on tactics like "black and white thinking", "splitting", delusion, and other ego aiding defenses - essentially, they've learned at an early age to create a reality that is easier for them to accept and feel safe. As the kids say - they cope.
Perhaps you already know this, but the "base sensations" you refer to is the "fight, flight, or freeze" mechanism that gets it's marching orders from limbic nervous system, which circumvents conscious thought, in order to make instant decision when it comes to life or death scenarios. We all have this and with mentally healthy people, these reactions only come up in obvious life or death scenarios. However, for the mentally unhealthy, a distortion took place in their upbringing (usually aided by some bad genes), that skews what constitutes a life or death threat and leads to really hyperbolic reactions to even mundane things at times.
So while it's not an exclusively a left thing, by any means, the phenomena presents differently based on cultural factors that happen to follow party lines fairly well anyway. For those on the "right", they typically grew up in an environment that emphasized trust of God which, whether you believe it or not, has a satiating affect for many. On the flip side, if you grew up atheist, or even agnostic, you are forced to place your faith in a benevolent government.
I don't think enough thought or attention is given to this, actually. The reality is the world is a scary place filled with infinite uncertainty and even the healthiest of minds subconsciously places "faith" somewhere in order to forget about the peril that is around us everywhere and at all times.
I never remember believing in the invisible sky god so I guess you could call me an atheist and, of course, I'd say thanks. There was a time when I was young that there were actually real left wing labor party's in power in Europe and they DID make things better for the working classes. They didn't exist in the Americas and they don't exist anywhere anymore. I'm Canadian and Old so I can remember despite no labor party ever coming to Federal power in Canada, they were able to push the labor agenda and things would get better over time and you could look to a brighter future. No more, the empire struck back with neo liberalism and now the woke distraction and things are getting even worse for the working classes and it's moving into the middle classes who didn't care about the working classes when they were screwed over. Now, you have the fantastical Ukraine war that's taking the oxygen out of reality for the vast majority of the Western countries. If I had known then what I know now; I would have moved from Canada to Denmark when I was young. So, Yes, believing in politics once had validity, religion never had and never will unless you're incapable or unwilling to think rationally.
I disagree. Some of the strongest and wisest people I know are hyper-religious. I’m not, but I’m mature enough to recognize their perceived relationship with God is a large part of it.
Also, yes, escape Rusty Trombone’s ex post facto violating regime. Absolute insanity. I’m ready to invade to liberate you guys.
A wise man; pen name, Voltaire once said " who can convince you to believe an absurdity can convince you to commit an atrocity "! Religion doesn't make you strong, it makes you vulnerable to exploitation which, of course is the purpose of it. Try this on, "a flag is a veil that prevents you from seeing the truth "! Homo sapiens is the story believing animal; it allows us to build huge societies based on commonly believed stories/myths; god, money, nations, rule of law and on and on. This flaw or strength can be and is exploited by the ruling classes eg. Divine rights of king's then; rule of law now. Believed stories are much better than having a police state; cheaper and more effective.
Rule of Law can actually exist it doesn’t have to be a myth. When it doesn’t “our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
That's very insightful. I think the secular faith you describe is essentially authoritarianism - uncritically accepting the pronouncements of the authorities on one's chosen side. Viewing the world in terms of opposing sides is part of the problem. It's a natural but primitive way of being, and our instincts tend to pull us back down into it when trouble arises.
Sounds like you have a background in psychology? Me too :)
Actually, the base sensations I'm talking about are more like heat, pressure, sharpness, roughness, things like that. Fight, flight or freeze are sympathetic nervous system (and yes, limbic but also brainstem) responses to a threat, and they are implicated in trauma. And yes, the neocortex goes offline when we are in fight or flight, so we don't stop and think about what to do when a bear is coming to eat us for example, we just run
For some this fight/flight response comes up only in extreme circumstances- like a car accident. But this response also comes up developmentally too- many times in abusive situations. I definitely agree that culture can have an impact on how this occurs.
Yes but there's a few people with Asbergers who give reason a higher priority, , they can't even lie but, , of course, , they can be wrong. We're not rational animals; we're rationalizing animals and smarter and better educated can use more credible rationalizing. Figures don't lie but liars can use Figures. Of course on top are the sociopaths and I mean, literally on the top positions in society. Paleo emotions, medieval institutions and god like technology including nukes; not a good recipe. Thomas Jeffersons rationalizations for his slavery are a perfect example of a very smart person finding justification in what he does. The counter arguments from Lafayette go nowhere despite being excellent. It hasn't gotten any better in 250 years.
"Paleo emotions, medieval institutions and god like technology including nukes; not a good recipe."
I've sometimes characterized humans as "primates with nuclear weapons". I wonder whether there's a kind of cosmic filter at play - life forms that evolve to the point of understanding the atomic structure of matter while remaining morally primitive might all destroy themselves, so that only morally elevated life forms eventually survive.
Very likely; that's assuming that morally elevated life forms exist in the universe.
"We're not rational animals; we're rationalizing animals and smarter and better educated can use more credible rationalizing." Interestingly, people with Aspergers demonstrate an almost complete lack of ego, which allows them to more objectively evaluate information. In some sense, they have nothing to "defend", and therefore are better able to avoid rationalizing. They admit error and move on. This quality makes them some of the best money managers in the world. See Michael Burry.
"There is a key to understand what is driving this. If you are left, you run on emotions. You feel first and then develop a narrative to deflect from the fact that you are basing your opinion on feelings and not facts. Then you call everything outside of that narrative as disinformation. And because you cannot effectively think outside your box of feelings, this all seems right, moral and rational to you."
Brilliantly stated!
So DHS Secretary Mayorkas - himself an abject failure in his position - cites Ms. Jankowicz as an "expert in disinformation". Is that a thing? Are Ivy League schools now handing out degrees in "disinformation", or is it strictly on-the-job training?
Look, this isn't complicated. Here's what the First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". There is simply no room for the government to determine what is the "truth". Creating this position legitimizes and advocates for censorship. If we are to remain free, this progressive hail mary cannot be allowed to stand.
If someone called me an "expert in disinformation" I would take that to mean that (s)he/(s)him thought I was a degenerate liar.
and you would be correct...
Evidently Mayorkas told Congress today that he was unaware that this twat buffoon called the Post Hunter Biden account "misinformation" and endorsed and promoted the Steele dossier, but that he stood behind her for the position anyway, because she is a "subject matter expert on disinformation". They aren't even pretending at accountability any more.
They are a bunch of talent-free clowns.
The people behind this are already advocating violence against the Supreme Court. It is easy to imagine a Biden Administration claiming that the court did not represent Americans and announcing its elimination.
Sounds like an insurrection to me.
Or packing, which they already want to do.
That would be terrifying. Are we coming to this?
Why is there no class action lawsuit filed against this new DISINFO outfit when it is clearly a violation of the 1A??
Why is Congress not attempting to pass laws that are pro censorship??
Because they know they have no legal leg to stand on
Because the security state calls the 1a dangerous and people who rely upon its protection threats to the Administration. Unfortunately for them, that is part of what 1a is for. I think they will attempt to shut down the Supreme Court and the upcoming Federal elections by proclaiming a state of “national emergency” to combat “domestic terrorism”. That would be their way to hold onto power until ”Trump supporters” are no longer able to vote or be elected to office. The most likely response to an attempt to disqualify the Administration’s opponents would be an actual insurrection.
A writ of mandate is the only thing that ever stopped Gavin Newsom. He managed to piss off the entire California State Supreme Court, which unanimously ordered him to obey state marriage law as written or go straight to prison (and stay there) for contempt. I do not know if such a writ is available under Federal law, but, if it were, no POTUS of either party would accept being served… they would claim that the Executive Branch is immune from such writs… in effect, that it is above the law and is only limitable by the prospect of impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.
Several States Attorney Generals have sent DHS a letter threatening a lawsuit. We'll see where that goes.
Good question. Who would have standing to bring such a suit? Any citizen?
Just watch the movie "The Lives of Others" , about the Stasi abuses in East Berlin, and you'll get a foretaste of what's coming here in ther US if progressives are allowed to have their way.
Sounds hyperbolic, but how far away are we really from being encouraged to rat out your friends, family, and neighbors. We're already there in some ways.
Not as far as many would think. We've already seen similar scenarios with COVID. Progressives are only too happy to turn in their "less evolved" neighbors...
Exactly:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-nazi-next-door/
"This is why Americans cling to their guns. It has nothing to do with hunting. It has nothing to do with self-defense against the common criminal. We cling to our guns so that, when our neighbors show up and say, “We’re going to take you to the camps now, because you’re a danger to society,” we can look back at them and say, “Like hell you will.”"
Amen, brother.
Covid scam was a test as to how compliant the population would be
They know they can do whatever they want to us and NO ONE but a few fringe will do a damned thing about it
For things to change it would have to take something to shock Americans out of their cog dis, something so evil that it can't be explained or excused away
Well that will clearly be misinformation.
Excellent reply. Hilarious.
Remember "See Something, Say Something"
An excellent film everyone should see.
FWIW, I did a Mary Poppins parody song in response to Nina's singing...please don't mind my pitchiness, the point wasn't my voice but that they are trying to sell us tyranny with a "spoonful of sugar" - https://wholistic.substack.com/p/the-mary-poppins-of-free-speech-parody
Well done! Wish Tucker Carlson could see this, he might be tempted to play it on his show. I know he’s less than enamored with Nina the Disminformationist and the upcoming jackboot Ministry of Truth.
Great stuff, made me an instant subscriber. Hope to see you on Tucker soon.
I’ve just subscribed to your rumble channel at https://rumble.com/v136rr8-the-mary-poppins-of-free-speech-parody.html
You have a great voice!! (Wish I could sing like that!) I will also subscribe to your substack. GREAT WORK.
Impressive.
OMG that is SO amazing! You obviously have some theatre background with that voice and those facial expressions.
Thank you! I spent 10 years performing comedy improv in front of live audiences in Los Angeles. I thought it was possibly a waste of time so I'm glad to be able to use some of it now. :-D
You're good. You're really, really good.
Loved your song!
Wasn't Jankowicz herself one of the people who insisted, on the basis of no discernable evidence, that the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian disinformation"?
How'd that work out for her? Actually, she hasn't done half bad for herself, in spite of being dead wrong.
And those who were right about the laptop all along still were cast into Outer Darkness.
She’s a top “disinformation” operative...that’s why she was qualified...
Based on the last 2 years of policy and damage to America, the only explanation is the Democrats are confident of one more “rigged” election...
In 2 years it’s President Trump’s Agency...
Joe Biden hid in the basement and received more votes than any presidential candidate ever, and within a year has one of the lowest recorded approval ratings ever. You really think trump can win an election at this point?
Giggle…
For him to obliterate...
Dems rigged 2 primaries and the 2020 General.
Any mistakes in 2016 were corrected
Notice how they are doubling down and don't seem at all worried about midterms?
Im encouraging everyone I know NOT TO VOTE.
"Im encouraging everyone I know NOT TO VOTE."
And how, pray tell, does not voting help matters? Just makes the election- riggers job even easier.
The solution is to both vote and closely monitor the election process, and continue to call out irregularities as they occur. "Not voting" = "game over."
I wish a reporter just once dared to ask: what exactly are the 'hallmarks' of Russian disinformation?
From my experience, the primary hallmark, or defining characteristic, of anything labelled "Russian disinformation" is that it turns out to be true. We should rename it from "Russian Disinformation" to "Spoiler Alert" maybe.
Brilliant!
Spoiler Alert!!! I love this - I will definitely steal this and use it when I can fit it in someday!
Yes!
It doesn’t say what we want it to say.
Right? The follow up was along the lines of "...and aren't the people who exposed this just bad people?" Jesus H
I would like to sum up their game with the following quote:
They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
Knots – R.D. Laing (Psychiatrist and former Tavistock Institute Resident)
The only thing that matters right now is changing the rules of the game. The Ministry of Truth's main purpose is to make sure everyone plays the game. They want everyone to use the same pre-established linguistic models and talking points, whether for or against them, as long as you're playing the game. We should do the opposite, jettison their linguistic models and "framing," and do so with much humor, trolling them into oblivion. They're not smart enough to control humor. They'll try, but it will backfire.
New unified platforms and fundraising initiatives, more Substack, total boycott of mainstream media. That should be the movement.
The Tower of Babel delenda est.
"The only thing that matters right now is changing the rules of the game. "
Bingo. We must continually be upping our game, and getting well beyond reactive mode.
Biden could shut down Substack with one phone call.
They could also send police to your door with one call. What does that change exactly? Should people just "get in line" instead lol?
Purchase guns.
Tim Dillon (the best comedian around right now and who also interviewed Genn a while back) made a good point. Most of the "pro-gun" people haven't done anything to stop the onslaught and destruction of the country for the last 40 years... They're waiting for the apocalypse before they can use their "rights," at which point they will be worth virtually nothing, given the entire country will be gone.
Too many are still stuck trying to play the game, not realizing everything around them has been whittled away for decades, with new hellscape city after new hellscape city appearing. Guns won't stop that. These things can be addressed, but it requires a paradigm shift and an altogether dropping of the left vs. right false binary.
I'm not against guns, but victory is definitely not going to come from everyone just stocking up on ammo. It can prevent direct use of force, but that won't really stop the engineered collapse of the system, the destruction of the food supplies, and engineered mass starvation.
In a word: the discourse needs to be elevated.
The point of having weapons is to protect oneself, one’s family and one’s property from individual actors.
I’m not going to risk prison for people cheering on this lunacy.
When those same people show up at my door demanding whatever, that’s the point at which I need to make use of all that practice.
What do you expect us to do?
How could elevating the discourse have any impact on this event and those behind it?
I’m saying people need to use their brains for problem solving and real solutions before you have to raise your kid in a world that literally looks like Mad Max world.
The US banking system needs to be restructured, a new global financial architecture created with the other major civilizations in the world.
The “international community” is literally only about 1 billion people. A good chunk of civilizations has already rejected the Malthusian death cult currently being imposed on the West by a very small oligarchical interest.
They’re not that smart and they’re sitting on the largest financial bubble in history.
The solutions is to not play their game, cancel the funny money ie the global derivatives bubble and worthless paper that has been bailed out since 2007 and as a result kept the zombie banking system afloat.
The USA was conceived according to a Hamiltonian tradition, the dedication to great projects, and future-orientated investments, rather than the maximization of profit in the short term.
The US needs to go back to its Hamiltonian tradition, take back control of sovereign credit creation, which currently lies in the hand of a small merchant banking system run by a few merchant banking families. It’s really not that complicated lol. The complication stems more from the “flooding the field” ie the constant bullshit single issues and false left/right binaries people are fed to keep them dumb and tribalized.
In a word: America has been the chief target of psychological operations. Until people stop playing the game and falling into illusions of choice fed to them, and instead start calling things by their name, things won’t change.
We just need to call things by their name. It’s harder than most people think, but largely because they’re not really thinking, they’ve been trained to rely on categories on nominalism ie. “we live in a democracy” “we’re a free country” “we believe in the free market” no matter how much of these things aren’t even real anymore, people keep thinking they are.
If people are willing to let go of the illusions, America could easily go back to its real tradition, the American system, the system of Hamilton, Lincoln, JFK.
I saw a great T-shirt yesterday, The slogan was "I'm going to let God fix it -- Because if I fix it, I'm going to jail". I am an *UN*compromising 2A supporter, and I am prepared to use my "resources" to defend family and friends, and to generally safeguard civil liberties as best I can in a SHTF situation. I am NOT about to start mindlessy offing people who favor curtailing our liberties (even those people who are instrumental in the attempt), or do anything equally stupid. Absent a viable and rational strategy for those who believe individual liberty to be indispensible to take power (and such a strategy WOULD constitute an insurrection, we had better all face up to that), any such action would only result in my imprisonment or death, and, to add insult to injury, those who would curtail those liberties would only use the attempt as propaganda to further their own aims.
Who would engineer mass starvation?
The same people who thought that making a virus more virulent is a good idea.
I could answer with a flurry of sources, but at this point, I’d say this shouldn’t be a contentious point.
The problem is some conspiracy theories aren’t really crazy, the problem is the average decent person has trouble imagining the kind of people willing to orchestrate these things or why. That’s the real problem.
If people aren’t comfortable with looking evil in the face, then they usually just instinctively avoid all the cognitive dissonances and say “that’s crazy, they would never do that.”
I recommend:
“Towards a Global Food Disaster, Engineered through Acts of Political Sabotage: F. William Engdahl“
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/05/04/towards-a-global-food-disaster-engineered-through-acts-of-political-sabotage-f-william-engdahl/
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics.
Whitney Webb had also done good work covering this with the “Ice Age Farmer.”
I dunno, it's pretty much a given that people will starve as a result of our sanctions regime.
These people.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806
Well, it's possible that the reason it's taken 40 years to advance their agenda is simply knowing that the citizens are armed. You don't think those in power would rather have taken a more direct path like the CCP? Even in pre-war Germany they had to disarm segments of the population that presented the greatest threats.
Like I said, I think it’s important for people to be able to defend themselves against outright tyranny. I mean, that’s why the second amendment is there.
I was simply saying that it’s not enough. The USA is almost gone, and if it goes, so do the liberties of most of the other Western countries.
Only a paradigm shift in thought and action, and a returning of the USA to it’s actually tradition, the American System of Political Economy (that’s actually what it’s called, that’s the Hamiltonian system, the Lincoln system), then it won’t survive.
The federal reserve is a bad bank ie bankrupt, holding trillions of worthless paper. It needs to be shut down and the banking system needs to be broken up again with Glass Steagall, cancelling much of the funny money, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, which is what all the bailouts have been used to prop up.
If you really want to go to war with the shadowy forces that actually control America, and all the Five Eyes countries, do that.
People don’t realize how scared they would be. Were a sudden mass call to break up the banks and go back to Hamilton and Lincoln’s vision of great projects to get momentum, they’d lose their shit.
The Texas legislature actually recently passed a resolution to do just that:
"Third National Bank: We support the abolition of the Federal Reserve and the creation of a Constitutional Third National Bank of the United States, based on a gold reserve foundation, focused on investing in the industrial, agricultural, and infrastructural growth of our nation."
Hitler used the SA to seize power and turned around and denounced them to win the support of the moneyed anti-Semitic class. [Kenneth Branagh had an uncredited role as a moneyed Nazi in the movie “Swing Kids”]. The Swedes were spared invasion because Göring’s wife Karin and her friends were those kinds of Swedes.
Officially neutral, the Swedish government let Germany buy the supplies they wanted. The Swedish people were far from neutral, however, and the Hungarian Jews that made it to Sweden were never handed over to the Germans. The Swedish papers swindle that let apparent non-Semites escape Hungary saved my former Congressman (Tom Lantos) and his wife’s whole family. He was stationed behind enemy lines, pretending to be a Swede and helping Jews escape, for the rest of the war. He was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress.
If the government freezes your financial assets because you protest against their policies (coming soon, I expect), who can you shoot to get them back?
If one hasn’t already done that, one is much too late.
Don't kid yourself, Biden can't even call 9-1-1 by himself.
You're right but good luck with that.
Just like the grievance industry rose up to "fight discrimination," the content moderation industry is rising up to "fight misinformation." When the bureaucracy is in place, it becomes very difficult to fight and it grows like a cancer.
And why do we still even have a Department of Homeland Security?
Content moderation is also used to “protect marginalized communities”. Pretty soon reporting about BLM’s lack of financial transparency and misuse of funds is going to become disinformation.
Whadya mean, pretty soon? Head of the Olympics.."everyone knows trans women are women "..everyone? The female PM of Scotland is putting men in women's prisons. The female PM of New Zealand has a trans woman as female athlete of the year. When Vladimir Putin basically says the west is crazy and he doesn't share our values, he has a point. Very few people care about about sexual orientation or race or ethnicity or or but any rational person rejects impossible things, this world ain't wonderland or is it. The law of gravity is real for all people, the laws of the state are never real, they're always made up by and for the ruling classes but the utter craziness these days is like religion in the middle ages only now, the information is available and the lumpenproletariat act like it's the middle ages all over...facts and reality count for nothing these days.
They are ruled by feelings not facts.
Ocasio-Cortez: People More Concerned About Me Being "Factually Correct" Than "Morally Right"
Because only she and people who follow her can be "morally right."
Mr. Greenwald is the best reporter in English on this planet. That is why I give him a monthly.
donation and urge all truthseekers to do the same.
I get so upset when I read his Twitter account which I do daily FAR too many shit lib trolls in the comments.
I totally agree with you
Im a die-hard Glenn fan!
Substack could simply be shut off by these gonifs. Imagine a DHS logo on the web page saying that the Web domain and site were seized to suppress disinformation. I can imagine them doing the same thing to Republican Party Web sites with the front page documenting the seizure declaring it a terrorist organization.
Probably just a matter of time. I'm more than a bit creeped out that they keep our credit card info on substack. I wish there was a more secure way to pay.
Since I work for a bank, my employment could be lost to such political conniving.
Substack, and any other potential government disinformation target, really needs to start accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Additionally, they should consider incorporating blockchain technology into their content distribution networks. We've all seen how easy it is for the government to shutdown websites they don't like (Parlor) or freeze individual bank accounts (Canadian trucker supporters). In both cases the blockchain could have made the difference.
Then we can all follow Greenwald to the dark web and be branded criminals overnight. Yippie.
I’m so grateful for GG and will do my best to reward him financially for his efforts and his integrity no matter which platform he resorts to.
It'd be nice if Biden's Collective stopped playing and said the words out loud: We swore to uphold the Constitution but, truth is, we aren't in favor of protecting views other than our own, we plan to actively & violently eliminate freedom of association and we're all for taking your property [and eventually your lives] without providing you the luxury of due process [notice and hearing]. We're not going to ask you "how do you like it?' cuz, frankly, we don't care.
If they'll steal an election, or engineer the Jan 6 "insurrection" (both of which they did), there's nothing they WON'T do, IMHO.
We're fortunate the founding fathers included so many checks and balances or they probably would have just torched the whole thing decades ago.
Except when the bad guys are entrenched on both sides of the checks and balances, then it's that much harder to root them out.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy wins in the end.
True, but it's harder here than in other places. I'm glad so many states and other organizations sued over the vax mandates, for instance, and got them shot down by the supreme court. In Canada, they didn't even need a disinformation board, Trudeau just went straight to jailing dissenters and freezing bank accounts.
"I'm glad so many states and other organizations sued over the vax mandates, for instance, and got them shot down by the supreme court."
Yes. The genius of the federalist system may yet save us.
In a different life I prosecuted criminal cases. I was never crazy about prosecuting obscenity cases cuz the first two prongs of the obscenity test (appeal to prurience and going beyond the customary limits of candor) seemed more the elements of proof for a nuisance case than proofs of a First Amendment violation.. The saving grace of the obscenity statutes is they all gave a little nod to speech protection by including some tokenistic language about "everything's okay if this communication provides some general value to reasonable people." The Big Idea behind the Disinformation Board is to eliminate even this minimal protection ---in fact, it's specifically designed to do the opposite.
It's so much easier to let the people think by voting for the Unicriminal Party, which includes most of Capitol Hill and the The Supreme Court, they can make incremental change.
At the same time the Uniparty is making incremental change to the constitution, incrementally adding more authoritarian control over the populace. They're just torching it incrementally.
Even Hitler never said those words...
So the 'Mean Girls' and 'The Heathers' finally climbed to the top of the 'Security State' to persecute the evil-doers on Hillary's shit-list? May God have mercy on our souls.
Giving DHS the responsibility as gatekeeper for truth is like having a fox guard a henhouse. It was a mistake to consolidate so many agencies into one unholy amalgam, and we are paying the price for creating an impenetrable bureaucracy with little or no accountability to American citizens.
This is quite a gambit the government and their accomplices in corporate America are playing, one obviously geared to upending our individual liberties. It remains to be seen if they can be stopped or disrupted before things devolve too far, and I appreciate Glenn and his allies in the non-corporate media sounding the clarion call to action in the face of this perfidy.
Many of us were vocal opponents of the creation of the DHS by Bush Jr....we said then it would be turned against US citizens and we were right.
The name of this abomination The Department of Homeland Security freaked me right out to begin with. Talk about fascism. They show up at every march or rally I've been to. Why are we the people submitted to this nasty powerful 'agency'. Neither party is willing to get rid of this national 'security' state. Too busy playing the partisan/money game and refusing to regulate out of control dark money lobbyists, big out of control industries and other anti-democratic players under the guise of security. Security for who the assholes who own and run the place? You bet.
What have we learned to do differently this time around?
As Ron Paul said, "In a nation of lies, the truth is treason."
We are all, by that definition, traitors, though I take that as a badge of honor. To be accused of treason by the thought police is like being called a bigot by the KKK or Black Panthers or a Jew Lover by Neo Nazis.
It is time to defund the thought police via primarying every representative who is on board with this, even via casual comments. Thanks to Tulsi Gabbard, Karl Rove and Nancy Pelosi are on the same page. They are both trash who undermine both freedom and the rule of law.
RON PAUL 2024!
And he was right.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/were-all-terrorists-now
Government's practice of spreading its own disinformation metastasized to the judiciary last week: A judge in Florida ordered a man who defaced an LGBT mural to write an essay centered on a thoroughly false premise—that the 2016 massacre at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando deliberately targeted the LGBT community.
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/florida-judge-orders-vandal-to-write?s=w
Given the Pulse myth deflects public attention from the perpetrator's explicit proclamation that he was retaliating for U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East, the judge was (inadvertently, I'm sure) serving the interest of the national security state too.
And these are the people who think they know fact from fiction. Clown World.