Indeed. The "downward spiral" should have slammed into the bottom of the barrel at the emergence of the Twitter Files disclosures. But not even close...this barrel seems bottomless.
I thought the downward spiral would have ended when the government allowed Wall Street to swindle 18 million unlawful foreclosures, take the houses and take $29 trillion from the Treasury.
But little did I know that people would willingly leave their homes. And people would willingly call these homeowning taxpayers "deadbeats" when the real deadbeats were the Wall Street losers who crashed the global economy!
The downward spiral continues until we resolve to take back our government by demanding things change like, eliminate the (anti) Patriot Act and the (elite Citizens) United Act. Eliminate unheard of benefits that career congressmen get like a lifetime of absolutely free medical coverage for life. Congress has no idea the complexities of what typical retirement coverage is and how it's delivered. Make two terms the limit for all congressmen. Exactly like the President. Jail those who have violated 1A, 4A and any other amendments. Reel in the FBI by redefining their role in this country and ensuring they stay in this country. The same for the CIA, NSA, SS in that their work is outside of this country. Eliminate the DHS. Why? Because the FBI can do the same thing. Make the military industrial complex budget transparent and limited to a max percentage of the national budget.
See, it's not that hard and I'm no rocket scientist.
Anyway, I’d make it a percentage of the total budget and similar to other countries in the western world as a guideline. If the president were to ever declare a war and congress approve then allowances could be increased during that time period and immediately reduced afterward.
I think there's something even more insidious going on. There's a reason that they don't want us to look too closely at the real history of WWII. Note that the letter says "forwarding the aims of a FORMER National Socialist organization," not current. How do you even do that if something no longer exists? It separates it from the current Nazis in Ukraine and whether the 'former' version was funded and backed by entities still in power. I wrote this in response to an interview of CJ done by Margaret Anna Alice: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/cj-hopkins-and-the-new-normal-reich and this, but read it before you think that 'forgive' means 'absolve': https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/forgiving-hitler and finally this, that asks the big question: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/did-fascists-win-wwii?
Imagine the person with the authority to define 'hate speech' here in the US 3 years ago.
I bet the following statements would have been considered 'hate speech' and a criminal offense:
"There is a lab in Wuhan working on Covid gain of function. Shouldn't we at least consider a lab leak a potential source of the virus?" Arrested and charged: racist propaganda
"I think natural immunity to Covid is at least as good, if not better, than the vaccine. Especially considering how new the vaccine is and relatively untested " - Arrested and charged: Spreading Ati-vax propaganda
"This whole Russia-gate thing seems a little off to me. They don't seem to be able to produce any direct proof of Trump's involvement" Arrested and charged: sedition: aiding a foreign government.
Absolutely the crux of the matter. At 85 years old, I thought I had seen most things manifested, but I never envisioned the lethality of destroying freedom of speech right in front of my eyes. I took for granted the gift of free expression of human thought, even ghastly human anti-human thought. I was unaware of how tenuous our free expression had become and how tightly we are controlled.
Hmm. It seems to me that laws and authority go hand in hand. You can't have a law against hate speech unless someone has the authority to define hate speech. Isn't that what judges do for all laws?
Here in the Canada's hate speech against Russia and Russians is broadcast live on CBC. I don't have a list, but IIRC every single prosecution has been for people who criticised "Jews", or who had engaged in holocaust denial.
The holocaust was 11 to 17 million people - 6 million of whom were indeed Jews. It's the people who elide all those victims who are engaged in holocaust denial, but tell that to know nothing Trudeau.
When they passed hate speech laws I thought (fascetiously) now the Muslims will be protected. Not.
For a while in 27 states you had to sign away your right of political free speech (no BDS supporting) to get any money from said state. Even if you were teaching English, digging a ditch, anything. That's when I knew the Constitution didn't mean a thing. Abby Martin challenged it and won. But it is rising from the dead in a mutated form.
Then there's Riyoko Takagi. Possibly the best jazz pianist in the world and a swimsuit model who loves to show off her rack. She's 38 years old but appears to be 26. I got used to it.
Abby was on TeleSur until they ran out of money. She still puts out a little bit. Maybe she's concentrating on her psychedelic art these days.
Except that in many if not most cases, fear leads to hate, so they're quite closely related and informally, though not literally, Islamophobia can be seen as synonymous to anti-Muslim or similar construction.
My "favorite" part of being a Jew in 2023 is being told I'm anti-semitic by non-Jews when I explain why satire and even sincere attempts to debase "my people" (rolls eyes) should be allowed, since it helps others develop critical thinking so we don't need a special council of enlightened elders to make all our decisions for us while we wait for our daily SOMA pills... Thanks again, Matt! :)
It's like white radicals telling Black and Asian Americans that they're "white supremacists" for opposing lower academic standards and transgendered males in girls' bathrooms in public schools.
Borrowing your "REPLY" MIKE O.--MY COMMENTS BOX REMAINS BLOCKED. THANKS.
Slave labor was a mainstay of Nazi Germany. The CCP controls the wealth created by the labor of a surveilled and monitored Chinese people.The Ukrainian holodomor, the gulag and mass execution defined Stalinist Russia. In America Pinkerton and Wells Fargo made their bones as union busting thugs. Exploitation for personal gain, of labor and natural resources, at the expense of peoples and environments, without accountability or consequence, has been the mainstay of tyranny since the first city built a wall. Isn't it time to accept that America was looted and abandoned decades ago. Through the wind screen, collapsing highway's, train wrecks, drug addled shit in the unsafe street homeless encampments, irrational gun violence, a captured and destroyed educational system and a manufactured hyperreality whose main job is to ensure perpetual crisis no solutions forthcoming. You can polish that turd any way you like but it's still a turd. The manufactured lie screaming over the top of the American national dialogue and human moral reason is just that, a manufactured lie. Continuing to pretend that the DNC/EU/IMF/CCP Davos crowd isn't a loose affiliation of fascist billionaires with their eyes on world domination and exploitation is for fools. How SHOULD YOU FEEL when an unelected foreign national declares that American's WILL accept limits on free speech?
The European people are fighting back. Dutch farmers are seizing control of their government, anti-EU sentiment is on the rise and nations across Europe are electing so called "right wing" leadership to fight off the fascist tyrants disguised as the communist "left". Fiends committed to the destruction of people's and the reduction of human beings to warehoused "thingdom". Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig called totalitarian finance.
They're scared and dangerous. People lie out of fear. The Taibbi/Shellenberger witch trial, the ongoing Trump prosecution's, J/6, the object lesson we call Julian Assange, the Twitter Files and the dozen other cover-up's and scandals the lier's selectively ignore make it plain as day. The bad financial/social/ political policy driving the chaos and collapse around us is intentional. America is under assault. The Constitution and the Bill of Right's it contains is all that's left and all that matters. Stand or perish.
I was thinking of the much funnier ( and deeper ) Blazing Saddles actually.. Also The original film version of The Producers would probably have the “New Puritans” in fits.
I said this previously. If Roger Waters and C.J. Hopkins espoused an attitude towards the American Empire that was in line with the bootlicking German establishment, they could march around in the uniforms of SS Understraßenbahnpolizeifűhreren and nobody in the Prosecutor's office would give a shit. Not unless Germany also is going to prosecute Rammstein for its videos, not to mention Mel Brooks for making The Producers and Charlie Chaplin for The Great Dictator.
Like WWI in the United States, the populace is not all that keen on going to war for Ukraine, but the elites are all in. Therefore, the elites are especially concerned to crush any dissent, lest the masses start to get ideas.
Yup - the American electorate is being dragged into an ever widening conflict because the elites of both parties and corporate America want it so. Lots of people are getting rich off this Ukrainian conflict whilst the ‘little man’ not only gets nothing, but gets taxed first and then they’ll drag his body to the frontlines to fight for the rich pigs. There ought to be a law...it’s immoral.
"Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
• In an interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946)
DOD explains that it can’t get recruits. DOD says foreigners can get American citizenship if they join our military. Do ya think there will be any vetting? Do you think we will be arming friendlies? Do you think they want to kill foreigners on our behalf or us? Seriously.
If the US ever decides to impose marshal law at home, it'll certainly be easier if the military is largely composed of immigrants who feel no bond of kinship to American citizens.
Your ancestor from Ireland may have fought in the Civil War but they were not given green cards. Once here immigrants at that time were given citizenship after 5 years when they applied for it. Lincoln did not put out an ad in foreign countries looking for volunteers. My entire paternal family can here from Ireland starting in 1849.
I meant to say citizenship, not green card. I don't know that ads were or were not placed in foreign papers? That is why he crossed the pond. To join the military, fight in our civil war and gain citizenship. That is, if he lived. He did, and here I am.
You are a nice person Patrick. Saying this is not new is pretty emphatic. It was not just the green card, it was adverts for foreigners to join our military for citizenship. I think that Obama invented that. I don't know that Savi is a he.
FWIW, I know a Ukrainian who signed up for the US Army a couple years ago, because that would allow him to get citizenship and his family to get Green Cards. He is not my favorite person, politically, but he is in no rush to go back to Ukraine, where he would immediately be press-ganged into their armed forces.
I just checked my post. I did not say that the DoD cares. It goal is to dismantle. O took out over a hundred of our best officers and dressed our troops in high heels and then did the impossible - lead from behind as ISIS rampage. Biden doubled down with go Woke, males dressed as females, military members all using made up pronouns, purging anyone that failed a litmus test, forced CRT on everyone and them jabbed them. In need of recruits, hmm. The take down of the US military was/is China and the UN's first objective. The petro dollar is next.
I am 74yrs old/live in France and have an autoimmune disease.
I have also been a liberal socialist all my life.......it seems in your mind 'I am too far gone' to know anything. This is not true. I now realise that possibly I was duped and heartily regret it.
I should’ve qualified my statement with “any normal healthy person.”
I’m sincerely sorry to hear about your situation. You have challenges with pathogens of all sorts, not just or even particularly COVID. Autoimmune disorders are not easily managed.
All that said, the way these governments are using the COVID excuse to implement tyranny is beyond the pale. Would you agree?
Indeed, it was policy on the fly and varied considerably from one jurisdiction to the next all over the world. That's why the "grand centralized plan" idea is bunk. On the other hand, it's obvious governments used propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
Here's my paranoid take. Different social experiments were run in different countries and US states. As you noted, the intensity of the propaganda varied; the length and severity of lockdown varied; the response to dissent varied. The anti-lockdown/anti-vax propaganda also varied--possibly just another variable in the experiments.
Regardless of whether there was actually any central planning, coordination or intent behind this variety of policies, it's indisputable that the resulting range of outcomes was a goldmine for social scientists. Particularly, for social scientists studying techniques to manage dissent.
"Vilify dissenters as nazis and white supremacists, then lock their bank accounts and threaten to take away their children and kill their pets? Great success!"
I have an aunt who believes the COVID thing and she is a nurse. Dyed in the wool democrat. My moms memorial is in July, taking a bet whether she will be wearing a mask, and the memorial is being held outside, sigh.
The shine is off the medical community. Everyone is looking side-eye at medical professionals now. First time in their lives they are being challenged.
Back in the age of reason, around eight years ago, three ideas were common: Vaccines generally prevented transmission; herd immunity was defined as about 85-93% of the population; and that people were free to choose their destiny regarding their bodies. It was always accepted that a certain percentage of the population would eschew the vaccine, and that society would absorb that. Herd immunity would prevail. But by breaking the first rule, lying about it, and then making free thought a crime, we’ve ended up on a long slide down the slope of reason.
I've said this before & I'll say it again -- I was an exchange student @ a British university in '80s, when the lefty student council (who I generally agreed with) made a motion to ban "racist and sexist speakers" from campus. Sounded good -- until I thought, wait a minute, who's gonna decide that? Sided with the Tory types, given my USA free-speech inclinations. This government-backed "hate speech" BS is that on steroids. And Roger Waters and "The Wall" (a top-five all-time album) -- are you f'ing kidding me? #HappyHumpDay
This point deserves emphasis. It's pretty depressing that they're modifying classic literature to suit modern progressive sensibilities, but that's where we are.
Buy hard copy books. Don't rely on electronic copies.
I was in school when Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence came out, quite a few of us got copy's. It was pretty boring compared to other stuff we read.
Is there something in German DNA that makes them authoritarian?
Anyone who countenances the concept of "hate speech" is either an idiot busybody who wants the state to enforce his prejudices (read: leftist), or someone angling for a position of authority in a bureaucracy designed to bend the collective discourse in favor of their faction's interests . . . like in the allegedly erstwhile Disinformation Governance Board.
The concept of "hate speech" is so obviously contrary to the letter and spirit of the First Amendment it has no chance here despite a few generations of university indoctrinated pussies wanting to censor harsh criticisms of their pet social engineering projects or token oppressed minorities.
What is it about the current Democratic Party that has turned them so authoritarian, to the point where they would go as Germany has gone?
Wokeness. Period. Call it applied neo-Marxism, cultural Marxism, or identity Marxism, it's the same totalitarian nightmare slopped into our collective reality by the universities and their graduates. The fact that the concept has been adopted by multinational corporations, including those belonging to the military industrial complex, makes the whole project, the "liberation of the culturally marginalized," appear surreal and sinister . . . the wolf in sheep drag on a civilizational scale.
It used to be a slow creep. Then they became energized. Who put up a fuss when Congress or whomever decided there was such a thing as a 'hate' crime and it deserved its own code of punishment. Who decides an act was perpetrated because of hate?
The "energizing" of the neo-Marxist left is, I think, partly an illusion originating in the hysteria generated by the press over the Trump presidency, along with the BLM grift and race riots fomented by social media and agitprop passed off as journalism.
The slow feed into the world of people believing in and advancing "wokeness"--the professional class emerging from American universities with humanities degrees--is the vector. The above-mentioned conditions led many people who hadn't been paying attention to look for explanations, and what we found was that we were in the middle of a nearly completed social revolution.
As James Lindsay writes in "New Discourses," "being woke means having taken on the worldview of Critical Social Justice, which sees the world only in terms of unjust power dynamics and the need to dismantle problematic systems. That is, it means having adopted Theory and the worldview it conceptualizes."
The authoritarians are in every society just waiting for things to ripen and allow them open display of their desire to control the rest of us. Time for a house cleaning. The wolf in sheep drag, best description yet. I'm going to borrow!
I think it’s simpler. Power. Corrupts. And it never quenches its thirst for more power and control lest it lose its grip to another.
Side note:
The largest ethic population in America is?
German-Americans, by a huge margin. Seriously. WWI and WWII propaganda pushed the expression of their culture below the radar, but the cultural mindset is still there in some. Of course I’m not claiming that all, or even most of those descended from German immigrants hold authoritarian views. Obviously.
It helps to give examples because every situation is different. Is COVID causing excess deaths? If it is, then an "authoritarian" response might have some justification. To be clear, though, there's no justification for Germany's treatment of CJ Hopkins.
Covid was a 'control' stage play. Simulations on how to advance control of the people were done in the open and privately on several occasions prior to its launch. Blessed be the sheep who loved and followed their shepherd without nary a thought sparking in their brain due to fear-block - that was Part One of the Play. The play turned out to be a Masterpiece of sheer force without use of any force. Magnificent. Can they try that again?
It's big of you to admit your scepticism of those of us that resisted the "pandemic" narratives and who saw the totalitarianism impulse behind it. You would think many more journalists would have immediately done so. In hindsight it was so obvious, but even now, we slave under the lies and refuse to admit the truth, and our society crashes and burns. There's no coming back from the betrayls of the media, medicals, and politicians. Even future generations will be scarred.
I have been ignoring the fact that Matt writes to his audience of like-minded people. ”C.J. was ahead of me, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others in seeing how Trump-era propaganda campaigns deranged the population.” It was only a particular population that became deranged. The rest of the population understood the scam and certainly felt the scorn directed at it. When a people understand the government and media mode of operation it is not difficult to develop a critical eye for the absurd. My favorite: Scarf lady's 2 weeks to level the curve. How long that 2 weeks? She was a plant put there to do exactly what she did.
Count me among those who saw it as a scam from the beginning. But I wonder: How much can be attributed to personal insight, versus receiving oppositional propaganda?
This much is obvious: the propaganda directed at the covid/vax believers was much more effective because they were able to point at us--the hated rightwing Trump-supporting white supremacist double nazis; the ignorant flyover-country rubes--as the dissenting class. Never mind that African Americans were the group least accepting of the vaxx. Is it possible that we, or at least some of us, were propagandized into being dissenters simply so we could be the foils in a larger divide and conquer strategy?
I think not, but everyone has a right to their opinions and their feelings. Millions were getting first then second jabs. Biden et al were happy. Then came a fury of jab mandates. For those already reluctant, it was an I told myself so. Millions were jabbed against their will and without consent.
I kept a record of 8 years of extreme gov malfeasance the media ignored before Trump took office. And then a doubling down on more malfeasance including lack of due process and any form of justice with the bullseye on Trump’s head. So, I had already built the strongest case possible that this was all planned. No one walks in my shoes but what I witnessed was the total abuse of every inalienable right in 2020. We were forced to surrender our right
o to associate
o to practice our faith
o to wed
o to bury
o to see loved ones
o to work
o to play
o to move
o to learn
o to disagree
o to purchase
o and to speak
But they weren’t done because then came the gene-jabs and the tax-free $$$ payoffs to keep those in distress from complaining.
This is yet another unbelievable example of mindless censorship. This likely has nothing to do about fascism and probably a lot to do about how global governments completely bungled the sordid COVID episode, the actual subject Mr. Hopkins addresses. Beyond the breathless incompetence most governments displayed, the tenacity with which they continue to suppress discussion of their handling of SARS-2-COVID makes me wonder if there are not more damning secrets of which we remain unaware.
" It was one component of the massive heartbreak that I experienced over the last few years… Basically 99% of my old theater friends, theater colleagues, some of them just went silent and disappeared. Others I had huge fights with and falling out episodes with."
I identify so completely with CJ's comment here. I lost almost all of my "friends" when I was fighting against my unlawful foreclosure in 2010. How dare anyone speak out against the way the mainstream presents the "facts." And then the final nail in my coffin of friendship was the way I went against the mainstream as far as Covid disinformation disseminated by the mainstream. I lost my last "friend" over those ideas.
Thankfully, I have found new friends. Conservatives. Who would have ever thought that my freedom to think the way I want to think would be championed by the conservatives. Wasn't being "liberal" all about "open to new ideas and opinions"??? Apparently not.
This is a really common story. It happened to me, too, over the Trump election. My Libertarian leanings were reason enough for a former friend of over 20 years to denounce me as a "fascist" (naturally) and cut me off.
I don't know how old people need to be to understand you can have a disagreement with a particular viewpoint without having hatred for those who hold that viewpoint you disagree with? I'm 61 and believe at 61 you should be old enough to have learned this.
I’d like to just extend my thanks and deepest gratitude to both Matt and CJ. Your reporting, reason and wit has been much appreciated, and needed. Long may it prevail. I do my little bit to support your substacks etc across the pond here in the UK ;)
It's over. Art is dead. Freedom of expression has been obliterated by the new religious inquisition. We are all heretics forced to deny reality, science, language and reason. Satire is dark humor with a strong, sometimes shocking message. Take that away, and we are in trouble. We've been muzzled. We must fall in line with our captors, for they know what's best for us. Like our idilic parents. If there are hate speech laws , we no longer have freedom of speech, and we no longer live in a Democracy. Maybe we never really did?
Today's liberals are finger-wagging moralists so humorless, stiff and priggish that they make The Church Lady look like Johnny Rotten by comparison. Meanwhile the pranksters, the subversives, the breakers of taboos and tellers of forbidden truths are on the Alt-Right, and to a lesser extent, the Dirtbag Left.
This is not because of any innate censoriousness on the part of liberals or any natural love of freedom on the part of conservatives, but is a byproduct of their respective present relationships to power.
I think it's a bit premature to give into despair. The fact that we can have this discussion here and elsewhere without (so far as I know) interference from the state is good evidence that all is not yet lost. Michael Malice in "The White Pill" argues that we here in the US still have methods of dissent and are nowhere near being under the sort of total control held by the Soviets, North Koreans, and Chinese.
Good point and true, but I live in L.A., and as a comedian I don't feel like I can be funny anymore. I have no idea what may offend someone? I also don't feel safe as a woman. There are no safe spaces anymore. I ca no longer pursue my dreams of being a Hollywood filmmaker. I'm not a pedo or a pervert.
If I were you I wouldn't worry about who your routines might or might not offend. No safe spaces? I recommend carrying a pistol. I prefer the 1911 Colt .45 automatic.
Since I'm forced to share a bathroom, changing room, steam, sauna and shower with men now, I fully support open carry. Problem is, I'm in Gov. Grusome Newsonland. No guns allowed.
In hindsight it’s incredible how many of us swallowed the notion that people who didn’t take the shot were “terrorists,” and needed the incentive of ever-harsher “consequences” to repent of their “violence.”
It certainly was incredible to be on the receiving end of that abuse. I'm still hoping for a bit more of an apology than "Gosh, that got a little out-of-hand, didn't it?"
Edit: I don't feel like, I need an apology from Matt. I remember him mostly just being silent on COVID issues.
Yes, well. I fell under suspicion in 2021 by (former) friends and colleagues when I failed to wrap my social media profile pics in the I-got-vaxxed virtue ribbons. Sealed the deal, and am now a known subversive, after openly acknowledging my decision not to take the shots. The pressure to do so was enormous, the consequences an education about what America had become. Glad I did it, and glad I did it for the reasons I did it. Whatever you believe, now is the time to stand up.
"What’s more dangerous than outlawing hate speech? Giving someone the authority to define hate speech. "
Sums it up right there. The downward spiral continues.
Indeed. The "downward spiral" should have slammed into the bottom of the barrel at the emergence of the Twitter Files disclosures. But not even close...this barrel seems bottomless.
I thought the downward spiral would have ended when the government allowed Wall Street to swindle 18 million unlawful foreclosures, take the houses and take $29 trillion from the Treasury.
But little did I know that people would willingly leave their homes. And people would willingly call these homeowning taxpayers "deadbeats" when the real deadbeats were the Wall Street losers who crashed the global economy!
And Barak Obama was re-elected with an almost 100% of the black voters. YES, we are that dumb and cowardly.
Yes, but I saw many black voters protesting his Seattle visit along with me. So, some were not that dumb. Obama is a great con man.
Morass of mendacity
The downward spiral continues until we resolve to take back our government by demanding things change like, eliminate the (anti) Patriot Act and the (elite Citizens) United Act. Eliminate unheard of benefits that career congressmen get like a lifetime of absolutely free medical coverage for life. Congress has no idea the complexities of what typical retirement coverage is and how it's delivered. Make two terms the limit for all congressmen. Exactly like the President. Jail those who have violated 1A, 4A and any other amendments. Reel in the FBI by redefining their role in this country and ensuring they stay in this country. The same for the CIA, NSA, SS in that their work is outside of this country. Eliminate the DHS. Why? Because the FBI can do the same thing. Make the military industrial complex budget transparent and limited to a max percentage of the national budget.
See, it's not that hard and I'm no rocket scientist.
Just a question--what percentage of the budget do you approve for military spending?
I thought I replied earlier. Idk what happened.
Anyway, I’d make it a percentage of the total budget and similar to other countries in the western world as a guideline. If the president were to ever declare a war and congress approve then allowances could be increased during that time period and immediately reduced afterward.
I think there's something even more insidious going on. There's a reason that they don't want us to look too closely at the real history of WWII. Note that the letter says "forwarding the aims of a FORMER National Socialist organization," not current. How do you even do that if something no longer exists? It separates it from the current Nazis in Ukraine and whether the 'former' version was funded and backed by entities still in power. I wrote this in response to an interview of CJ done by Margaret Anna Alice: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/cj-hopkins-and-the-new-normal-reich and this, but read it before you think that 'forgive' means 'absolve': https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/forgiving-hitler and finally this, that asks the big question: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/did-fascists-win-wwii?
Read up on the Reinhard Gehlen organization, Operation Paperclip, and "ex" Nazis training the FBI.
It was not a defeat, it was a merger.
A Nazi slaver (with good PR) got America to the moon.
Yes, I think Matt Ehret is doing a great job of exposing this history. Also James Corbett--now if only the two of them could get along: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/matt-ehret-and-james-corbett and https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/multipolar-vs-micropolar.
Yes, we learned from the best and I don't mean Von Braun.
Good old von Braun used slave labour at Peenemunde where they made the V2s. Under performers were hanged in front of the other prisoners.
Von Braun's real value to America was in ICBM design. Getting to the moon was his side job.
Imagine the person with the authority to define 'hate speech' here in the US 3 years ago.
I bet the following statements would have been considered 'hate speech' and a criminal offense:
"There is a lab in Wuhan working on Covid gain of function. Shouldn't we at least consider a lab leak a potential source of the virus?" Arrested and charged: racist propaganda
"I think natural immunity to Covid is at least as good, if not better, than the vaccine. Especially considering how new the vaccine is and relatively untested " - Arrested and charged: Spreading Ati-vax propaganda
"This whole Russia-gate thing seems a little off to me. They don't seem to be able to produce any direct proof of Trump's involvement" Arrested and charged: sedition: aiding a foreign government.
Absolutely the crux of the matter. At 85 years old, I thought I had seen most things manifested, but I never envisioned the lethality of destroying freedom of speech right in front of my eyes. I took for granted the gift of free expression of human thought, even ghastly human anti-human thought. I was unaware of how tenuous our free expression had become and how tightly we are controlled.
Hmm. It seems to me that laws and authority go hand in hand. You can't have a law against hate speech unless someone has the authority to define hate speech. Isn't that what judges do for all laws?
I was really counting on Nina Jankowicz to sort all that out for us.............
Where is the Ministry of Truth when you need it?
Exactly.
My "Reported" comment was satirical.
Here in the Canada's hate speech against Russia and Russians is broadcast live on CBC. I don't have a list, but IIRC every single prosecution has been for people who criticised "Jews", or who had engaged in holocaust denial.
The holocaust was 11 to 17 million people - 6 million of whom were indeed Jews. It's the people who elide all those victims who are engaged in holocaust denial, but tell that to know nothing Trudeau.
When they passed hate speech laws I thought (fascetiously) now the Muslims will be protected. Not.
For a while in 27 states you had to sign away your right of political free speech (no BDS supporting) to get any money from said state. Even if you were teaching English, digging a ditch, anything. That's when I knew the Constitution didn't mean a thing. Abby Martin challenged it and won. But it is rising from the dead in a mutated form.
I used to see Abby, who is great, all over the place, but not anymore. I don't know why.
Back in the early days I almost did not take Abby seriously as she is so pretty. But hey, she's got the chops. A super model with a brain and heart!
Who knew that was possible? ;)
Then there's Riyoko Takagi. Possibly the best jazz pianist in the world and a swimsuit model who loves to show off her rack. She's 38 years old but appears to be 26. I got used to it.
Abby was on TeleSur until they ran out of money. She still puts out a little bit. Maybe she's concentrating on her psychedelic art these days.
Islamophobia is the FEAR of Muslims.
Antisemitism is the HATE of Jews.
Hmmm
Except that in many if not most cases, fear leads to hate, so they're quite closely related and informally, though not literally, Islamophobia can be seen as synonymous to anti-Muslim or similar construction.
"Reported!"
My "favorite" part of being a Jew in 2023 is being told I'm anti-semitic by non-Jews when I explain why satire and even sincere attempts to debase "my people" (rolls eyes) should be allowed, since it helps others develop critical thinking so we don't need a special council of enlightened elders to make all our decisions for us while we wait for our daily SOMA pills... Thanks again, Matt! :)
It's like white radicals telling Black and Asian Americans that they're "white supremacists" for opposing lower academic standards and transgendered males in girls' bathrooms in public schools.
Larry Elder, the black face of white supremacy
Isn't it great? (: I get told how much of a sexist I am by saying that I'm a man, by other men who don't want to be men.
Tell them to stop mansplaining (with a straight face) and try not to smile while they squirm.
Haha! Good one. Hope I don't have to...but then again, could be fun. Sounds like you're speaking from experience Mike? (:
Borrowing your "REPLY" MIKE O.--MY COMMENTS BOX REMAINS BLOCKED. THANKS.
Slave labor was a mainstay of Nazi Germany. The CCP controls the wealth created by the labor of a surveilled and monitored Chinese people.The Ukrainian holodomor, the gulag and mass execution defined Stalinist Russia. In America Pinkerton and Wells Fargo made their bones as union busting thugs. Exploitation for personal gain, of labor and natural resources, at the expense of peoples and environments, without accountability or consequence, has been the mainstay of tyranny since the first city built a wall. Isn't it time to accept that America was looted and abandoned decades ago. Through the wind screen, collapsing highway's, train wrecks, drug addled shit in the unsafe street homeless encampments, irrational gun violence, a captured and destroyed educational system and a manufactured hyperreality whose main job is to ensure perpetual crisis no solutions forthcoming. You can polish that turd any way you like but it's still a turd. The manufactured lie screaming over the top of the American national dialogue and human moral reason is just that, a manufactured lie. Continuing to pretend that the DNC/EU/IMF/CCP Davos crowd isn't a loose affiliation of fascist billionaires with their eyes on world domination and exploitation is for fools. How SHOULD YOU FEEL when an unelected foreign national declares that American's WILL accept limits on free speech?
The European people are fighting back. Dutch farmers are seizing control of their government, anti-EU sentiment is on the rise and nations across Europe are electing so called "right wing" leadership to fight off the fascist tyrants disguised as the communist "left". Fiends committed to the destruction of people's and the reduction of human beings to warehoused "thingdom". Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig called totalitarian finance.
They're scared and dangerous. People lie out of fear. The Taibbi/Shellenberger witch trial, the ongoing Trump prosecution's, J/6, the object lesson we call Julian Assange, the Twitter Files and the dozen other cover-up's and scandals the lier's selectively ignore make it plain as day. The bad financial/social/ political policy driving the chaos and collapse around us is intentional. America is under assault. The Constitution and the Bill of Right's it contains is all that's left and all that matters. Stand or perish.
Nothing will change until the people are in the streets by the millions. Don't hold your breath in amerika.
Excellent and insightful commentary.
I have an older version of Safari, and I'm having the same problem. I copy and paste the comment section over to Chrome and so far it seems to work.
I just saw Ari Shaffir's comedy special, "Jew," and highly recommend it.
10/10
Seriously.
What the hell? I guess they think Mel Brooks is an anti-semite as well. SMH
She’s a Dru-ish Princess-or whatever in Spaceballs…
I was thinking of the much funnier ( and deeper ) Blazing Saddles actually.. Also The original film version of The Producers would probably have the “New Puritans” in fits.
I said this previously. If Roger Waters and C.J. Hopkins espoused an attitude towards the American Empire that was in line with the bootlicking German establishment, they could march around in the uniforms of SS Understraßenbahnpolizeifűhreren and nobody in the Prosecutor's office would give a shit. Not unless Germany also is going to prosecute Rammstein for its videos, not to mention Mel Brooks for making The Producers and Charlie Chaplin for The Great Dictator.
Like WWI in the United States, the populace is not all that keen on going to war for Ukraine, but the elites are all in. Therefore, the elites are especially concerned to crush any dissent, lest the masses start to get ideas.
Yup - the American electorate is being dragged into an ever widening conflict because the elites of both parties and corporate America want it so. Lots of people are getting rich off this Ukrainian conflict whilst the ‘little man’ not only gets nothing, but gets taxed first and then they’ll drag his body to the frontlines to fight for the rich pigs. There ought to be a law...it’s immoral.
Oh, very well then....
"Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
• In an interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946)
It worked for Pharoah and it's working for president dementia.
This is true-and I pity the poor bastards who get drafted/conscripted.
I don’t feel bad for officers and voluntary enlistees-you can’t get your Rambo on just when you want to…..
The funny thing is that Rambo fantasies won't do much good when faced with modern artillery or MLRS.
As the Russian generals are learning in Ukraine, to their personal demise…
DOD explains that it can’t get recruits. DOD says foreigners can get American citizenship if they join our military. Do ya think there will be any vetting? Do you think we will be arming friendlies? Do you think they want to kill foreigners on our behalf or us? Seriously.
If the US ever decides to impose marshal law at home, it'll certainly be easier if the military is largely composed of immigrants who feel no bond of kinship to American citizens.
Oh the pesky guns and that awful 2nd amendment. What could the founders have been thinking.
"Martial," not "marshall"---the first step to not being taken seriously in comment sections is egregious spelling errors.
Not the first time that empires have employed such a strategy.
Roman foederati, the Ottoman janissaries and the life of Sultan Baibars all come to mind, and all are most instructive.
Or white nationalist Nazis...
The first step in convincing yourself it's okay to destroy a person is to vilify and dehumanize them. That technique is as old as humanity itself.
Thanks for the demonstration.
This is not new. This is how my Great Grandfather got his green card. He came from Ireland and fought in the Civil war.
Your ancestor from Ireland may have fought in the Civil War but they were not given green cards. Once here immigrants at that time were given citizenship after 5 years when they applied for it. Lincoln did not put out an ad in foreign countries looking for volunteers. My entire paternal family can here from Ireland starting in 1849.
I meant to say citizenship, not green card. I don't know that ads were or were not placed in foreign papers? That is why he crossed the pond. To join the military, fight in our civil war and gain citizenship. That is, if he lived. He did, and here I am.
He may have been speaking figuratively.
You are a nice person Patrick. Saying this is not new is pretty emphatic. It was not just the green card, it was adverts for foreigners to join our military for citizenship. I think that Obama invented that. I don't know that Savi is a he.
This happened in the Civil War-immigrants from Ireland and Germany were signed up straight off the boat by the thousands into the Union Army.
What on earth makes you think that the DoD cares?
FWIW, I know a Ukrainian who signed up for the US Army a couple years ago, because that would allow him to get citizenship and his family to get Green Cards. He is not my favorite person, politically, but he is in no rush to go back to Ukraine, where he would immediately be press-ganged into their armed forces.
I just checked my post. I did not say that the DoD cares. It goal is to dismantle. O took out over a hundred of our best officers and dressed our troops in high heels and then did the impossible - lead from behind as ISIS rampage. Biden doubled down with go Woke, males dressed as females, military members all using made up pronouns, purging anyone that failed a litmus test, forced CRT on everyone and them jabbed them. In need of recruits, hmm. The take down of the US military was/is China and the UN's first objective. The petro dollar is next.
But but but as per The Denture, Ice Cream Pelosi, the wall was immoral
I love Rammstein!!
The music videos are the best- especially the one with the dobermans and sunflowers. Du ruk so gut I think the song is called.
Dicke Titten is quite out there.
Ja! Their vids are astonishing. They have a master's grasp of film making.
Ich Will and du hast are two of my favs. But only if my speakers are turned all the way to 'elf'.
My favorite is "Sonne".
Meow?
Anyone cowering in terror of COVID in 2023 is either completely ignorant or a slavish devotee to the State.
Anyone convinced the government has the best interest of the individual anywhere near the center of motivation is too far gone to rescue.
Hello Marie.
I am 74yrs old/live in France and have an autoimmune disease.
I have also been a liberal socialist all my life.......it seems in your mind 'I am too far gone' to know anything. This is not true. I now realise that possibly I was duped and heartily regret it.
I should’ve qualified my statement with “any normal healthy person.”
I’m sincerely sorry to hear about your situation. You have challenges with pathogens of all sorts, not just or even particularly COVID. Autoimmune disorders are not easily managed.
All that said, the way these governments are using the COVID excuse to implement tyranny is beyond the pale. Would you agree?
Yes I would but I also believe it all happened very quickly and everything got skewered.
Indeed, it was policy on the fly and varied considerably from one jurisdiction to the next all over the world. That's why the "grand centralized plan" idea is bunk. On the other hand, it's obvious governments used propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
Here's my paranoid take. Different social experiments were run in different countries and US states. As you noted, the intensity of the propaganda varied; the length and severity of lockdown varied; the response to dissent varied. The anti-lockdown/anti-vax propaganda also varied--possibly just another variable in the experiments.
Regardless of whether there was actually any central planning, coordination or intent behind this variety of policies, it's indisputable that the resulting range of outcomes was a goldmine for social scientists. Particularly, for social scientists studying techniques to manage dissent.
"Vilify dissenters as nazis and white supremacists, then lock their bank accounts and threaten to take away their children and kill their pets? Great success!"
I was duped for the past 25 years being a progressive liberal.
I was duped for the past 25 years being a conservative.
I feel you. I'm an independent now, but probably would be considered conservative since
I accept reality and science.
I have an aunt who believes the COVID thing and she is a nurse. Dyed in the wool democrat. My moms memorial is in July, taking a bet whether she will be wearing a mask, and the memorial is being held outside, sigh.
Occasionally, I still see people alone in their cars wearing masks.
The propaganda was so good it actually broke their brains.
People like your aunt make me all the more wary of medical professionals.
The shine is off the medical community. Everyone is looking side-eye at medical professionals now. First time in their lives they are being challenged.
Here's a good example of many doctors' reaction to being challenged.
https://edwardcurtin.com/if-it-was-allowed-id-hold-you-down-and/
Back in the age of reason, around eight years ago, three ideas were common: Vaccines generally prevented transmission; herd immunity was defined as about 85-93% of the population; and that people were free to choose their destiny regarding their bodies. It was always accepted that a certain percentage of the population would eschew the vaccine, and that society would absorb that. Herd immunity would prevail. But by breaking the first rule, lying about it, and then making free thought a crime, we’ve ended up on a long slide down the slope of reason.
I've said this before & I'll say it again -- I was an exchange student @ a British university in '80s, when the lefty student council (who I generally agreed with) made a motion to ban "racist and sexist speakers" from campus. Sounded good -- until I thought, wait a minute, who's gonna decide that? Sided with the Tory types, given my USA free-speech inclinations. This government-backed "hate speech" BS is that on steroids. And Roger Waters and "The Wall" (a top-five all-time album) -- are you f'ing kidding me? #HappyHumpDay
Leave them kids alone.
Notice how Floyd’s swagger dropped dramatically after Roger left?
I have a simple rule. If a book gets banned, I buy it. Here are the new normal Reich's new German words: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-speak-german
Books and the possession of books. Literacy. All under assault. Get the Classic's in the original before the censorship sets in.
>>in the original
This point deserves emphasis. It's pretty depressing that they're modifying classic literature to suit modern progressive sensibilities, but that's where we are.
Buy hard copy books. Don't rely on electronic copies.
Even hard copy books are being changed. Buy used, old copies.
I saw bowdlerized versions of Huckleberry Finn decades ago. Even back then I thought that was appalling.
Absolutely. (Cormac McCarthy just passed on.)
Who is modifying classic literature to suit modern progressive sensibilities? Is there a specific group or organization doing the modifying?
So do I!
Yes very true and the same goes for kids.
I was in school when Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence came out, quite a few of us got copy's. It was pretty boring compared to other stuff we read.
The entertainment industry has recreated the Blacklist and inflicted it on itself. Wild times.
Is there something in German DNA that makes them authoritarian?
Anyone who countenances the concept of "hate speech" is either an idiot busybody who wants the state to enforce his prejudices (read: leftist), or someone angling for a position of authority in a bureaucracy designed to bend the collective discourse in favor of their faction's interests . . . like in the allegedly erstwhile Disinformation Governance Board.
The concept of "hate speech" is so obviously contrary to the letter and spirit of the First Amendment it has no chance here despite a few generations of university indoctrinated pussies wanting to censor harsh criticisms of their pet social engineering projects or token oppressed minorities.
What is it about the current Democratic Party that has turned them so authoritarian, to the point where they would go as Germany has gone?
Wokeness. Period. Call it applied neo-Marxism, cultural Marxism, or identity Marxism, it's the same totalitarian nightmare slopped into our collective reality by the universities and their graduates. The fact that the concept has been adopted by multinational corporations, including those belonging to the military industrial complex, makes the whole project, the "liberation of the culturally marginalized," appear surreal and sinister . . . the wolf in sheep drag on a civilizational scale.
It used to be a slow creep. Then they became energized. Who put up a fuss when Congress or whomever decided there was such a thing as a 'hate' crime and it deserved its own code of punishment. Who decides an act was perpetrated because of hate?
The "energizing" of the neo-Marxist left is, I think, partly an illusion originating in the hysteria generated by the press over the Trump presidency, along with the BLM grift and race riots fomented by social media and agitprop passed off as journalism.
The slow feed into the world of people believing in and advancing "wokeness"--the professional class emerging from American universities with humanities degrees--is the vector. The above-mentioned conditions led many people who hadn't been paying attention to look for explanations, and what we found was that we were in the middle of a nearly completed social revolution.
As James Lindsay writes in "New Discourses," "being woke means having taken on the worldview of Critical Social Justice, which sees the world only in terms of unjust power dynamics and the need to dismantle problematic systems. That is, it means having adopted Theory and the worldview it conceptualizes."
Yup, recognizing humanity as unjust in all respects so certain humans can remold to their desires.
The authoritarians are in every society just waiting for things to ripen and allow them open display of their desire to control the rest of us. Time for a house cleaning. The wolf in sheep drag, best description yet. I'm going to borrow!
100%.
"Wolf in sheep drag" - Love it!
I think it’s simpler. Power. Corrupts. And it never quenches its thirst for more power and control lest it lose its grip to another.
Side note:
The largest ethic population in America is?
German-Americans, by a huge margin. Seriously. WWI and WWII propaganda pushed the expression of their culture below the radar, but the cultural mindset is still there in some. Of course I’m not claiming that all, or even most of those descended from German immigrants hold authoritarian views. Obviously.
It helps to give examples because every situation is different. Is COVID causing excess deaths? If it is, then an "authoritarian" response might have some justification. To be clear, though, there's no justification for Germany's treatment of CJ Hopkins.
Covid was a 'control' stage play. Simulations on how to advance control of the people were done in the open and privately on several occasions prior to its launch. Blessed be the sheep who loved and followed their shepherd without nary a thought sparking in their brain due to fear-block - that was Part One of the Play. The play turned out to be a Masterpiece of sheer force without use of any force. Magnificent. Can they try that again?
They can, and they will. The better question is, how will the people respond this time?
It's big of you to admit your scepticism of those of us that resisted the "pandemic" narratives and who saw the totalitarianism impulse behind it. You would think many more journalists would have immediately done so. In hindsight it was so obvious, but even now, we slave under the lies and refuse to admit the truth, and our society crashes and burns. There's no coming back from the betrayls of the media, medicals, and politicians. Even future generations will be scarred.
I have been ignoring the fact that Matt writes to his audience of like-minded people. ”C.J. was ahead of me, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others in seeing how Trump-era propaganda campaigns deranged the population.” It was only a particular population that became deranged. The rest of the population understood the scam and certainly felt the scorn directed at it. When a people understand the government and media mode of operation it is not difficult to develop a critical eye for the absurd. My favorite: Scarf lady's 2 weeks to level the curve. How long that 2 weeks? She was a plant put there to do exactly what she did.
Count me among those who saw it as a scam from the beginning. But I wonder: How much can be attributed to personal insight, versus receiving oppositional propaganda?
This much is obvious: the propaganda directed at the covid/vax believers was much more effective because they were able to point at us--the hated rightwing Trump-supporting white supremacist double nazis; the ignorant flyover-country rubes--as the dissenting class. Never mind that African Americans were the group least accepting of the vaxx. Is it possible that we, or at least some of us, were propagandized into being dissenters simply so we could be the foils in a larger divide and conquer strategy?
I think not, but everyone has a right to their opinions and their feelings. Millions were getting first then second jabs. Biden et al were happy. Then came a fury of jab mandates. For those already reluctant, it was an I told myself so. Millions were jabbed against their will and without consent.
I kept a record of 8 years of extreme gov malfeasance the media ignored before Trump took office. And then a doubling down on more malfeasance including lack of due process and any form of justice with the bullseye on Trump’s head. So, I had already built the strongest case possible that this was all planned. No one walks in my shoes but what I witnessed was the total abuse of every inalienable right in 2020. We were forced to surrender our right
o to associate
o to practice our faith
o to wed
o to bury
o to see loved ones
o to work
o to play
o to move
o to learn
o to disagree
o to purchase
o and to speak
But they weren’t done because then came the gene-jabs and the tax-free $$$ payoffs to keep those in distress from complaining.
That makes my brain hurt. But it makes sense — you have to create an Other for your side to demonize.
Nice try.
This is yet another unbelievable example of mindless censorship. This likely has nothing to do about fascism and probably a lot to do about how global governments completely bungled the sordid COVID episode, the actual subject Mr. Hopkins addresses. Beyond the breathless incompetence most governments displayed, the tenacity with which they continue to suppress discussion of their handling of SARS-2-COVID makes me wonder if there are not more damning secrets of which we remain unaware.
" It was one component of the massive heartbreak that I experienced over the last few years… Basically 99% of my old theater friends, theater colleagues, some of them just went silent and disappeared. Others I had huge fights with and falling out episodes with."
I identify so completely with CJ's comment here. I lost almost all of my "friends" when I was fighting against my unlawful foreclosure in 2010. How dare anyone speak out against the way the mainstream presents the "facts." And then the final nail in my coffin of friendship was the way I went against the mainstream as far as Covid disinformation disseminated by the mainstream. I lost my last "friend" over those ideas.
Thankfully, I have found new friends. Conservatives. Who would have ever thought that my freedom to think the way I want to think would be championed by the conservatives. Wasn't being "liberal" all about "open to new ideas and opinions"??? Apparently not.
You go get 'em, CJ!
This is a really common story. It happened to me, too, over the Trump election. My Libertarian leanings were reason enough for a former friend of over 20 years to denounce me as a "fascist" (naturally) and cut me off.
In hindsight, it was no great loss.
I don't know how old people need to be to understand you can have a disagreement with a particular viewpoint without having hatred for those who hold that viewpoint you disagree with? I'm 61 and believe at 61 you should be old enough to have learned this.
But, what do I know?
Trump bent the minds of millions. It's one of the more bizarre social phenomena I have witnessed in my 62 years.
I’d like to just extend my thanks and deepest gratitude to both Matt and CJ. Your reporting, reason and wit has been much appreciated, and needed. Long may it prevail. I do my little bit to support your substacks etc across the pond here in the UK ;)
It's over. Art is dead. Freedom of expression has been obliterated by the new religious inquisition. We are all heretics forced to deny reality, science, language and reason. Satire is dark humor with a strong, sometimes shocking message. Take that away, and we are in trouble. We've been muzzled. We must fall in line with our captors, for they know what's best for us. Like our idilic parents. If there are hate speech laws , we no longer have freedom of speech, and we no longer live in a Democracy. Maybe we never really did?
Today's liberals are finger-wagging moralists so humorless, stiff and priggish that they make The Church Lady look like Johnny Rotten by comparison. Meanwhile the pranksters, the subversives, the breakers of taboos and tellers of forbidden truths are on the Alt-Right, and to a lesser extent, the Dirtbag Left.
This is not because of any innate censoriousness on the part of liberals or any natural love of freedom on the part of conservatives, but is a byproduct of their respective present relationships to power.
I think it's a bit premature to give into despair. The fact that we can have this discussion here and elsewhere without (so far as I know) interference from the state is good evidence that all is not yet lost. Michael Malice in "The White Pill" argues that we here in the US still have methods of dissent and are nowhere near being under the sort of total control held by the Soviets, North Koreans, and Chinese.
Good point and true, but I live in L.A., and as a comedian I don't feel like I can be funny anymore. I have no idea what may offend someone? I also don't feel safe as a woman. There are no safe spaces anymore. I ca no longer pursue my dreams of being a Hollywood filmmaker. I'm not a pedo or a pervert.
If I were you I wouldn't worry about who your routines might or might not offend. No safe spaces? I recommend carrying a pistol. I prefer the 1911 Colt .45 automatic.
Since I'm forced to share a bathroom, changing room, steam, sauna and shower with men now, I fully support open carry. Problem is, I'm in Gov. Grusome Newsonland. No guns allowed.
In hindsight it’s incredible how many of us swallowed the notion that people who didn’t take the shot were “terrorists,” and needed the incentive of ever-harsher “consequences” to repent of their “violence.”
Speak for yourself, Matt
Um he WAS speaking for himself and others like him.
It certainly was incredible to be on the receiving end of that abuse. I'm still hoping for a bit more of an apology than "Gosh, that got a little out-of-hand, didn't it?"
Edit: I don't feel like, I need an apology from Matt. I remember him mostly just being silent on COVID issues.
Yes, well. I fell under suspicion in 2021 by (former) friends and colleagues when I failed to wrap my social media profile pics in the I-got-vaxxed virtue ribbons. Sealed the deal, and am now a known subversive, after openly acknowledging my decision not to take the shots. The pressure to do so was enormous, the consequences an education about what America had become. Glad I did it, and glad I did it for the reasons I did it. Whatever you believe, now is the time to stand up.