It is clear that certain groups in our country want to control the narrative to their benefit by limiting the amount of information we receive. This is corporate fascism.
1. Finance. Starve heterodox voices of money, crippling them financially.
2. Culture. Slant as much of media and entertainment in favor of specific narratives, marginalizing heterodox voices.
3. Education. Indoctrinate children (ages 0 to 23) as quickly and thoroughly as possible, silencing through intimidation all heterodox voices.
4. Law. Subvert law schools and courts through the proliferation of regressive, illiberal exercise of the law, persecuting heterodox voices.
5. Science and Medicine. Deny hundreds of years of verifiable fact and viciously attack dissenting dissenting heterodox voices.
6. Government. Weaponize Federal agencies to extralegally target and persecute all dissenting heterodox voices, often in partnership with commercial interests, to shore up narratives and enact regressive, illiberal policy.
7. Corporations. Partner with governmental and non-governmental organizations to subvert heterodox voices, stifling and restricting their reach.
Once you succeed in supplanting reason and personal agency with partisan piety amplified by a regressive, illiberal, and fundamentalist ideology (an ideology predicated on unfalsifiable and malignant premises that justify any act of depravity as morally acceptable), there are no other outcome besides the ones to which we are bearing witness.
Given the aggressiveness of these bad actors, and their willingness to subordinate reason in favor of ideology, it is hard to see how those still possessed of reason and love of country can gracefully and elegantly turn the tide.
Yet perhaps there is a coalition of the willing ready to stand in the breach and reclaim our institutions. Matt has made it abundantly clear that he is, I am grateful for his bravery, and I take comfort and strength from his example. Thank you, Matt, for standing in the breach and continuing to shine a bright light on this lunacy, and inspiring others to take a stand with you.
As a 20th-century lefty like Matt, we were always told that "when fascism came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and cross" or something like that. It was an understandable sentiment at the time, as people looked back at history and saw so much bloodshed and oppression based on King or God or Church or State (or some combo), and simply extrapolated that the future would play out much in the same way as it had in the past.
But not even the spawn of Nostradamus and Orwell could have predicted our era of totalitarian safetyism, the dictatorship not of kings or priests or soldiers but of authoritarian kindergarten teachers who will denounce, gag and banish all dissent because "we value a safer community".
Instead of Big Brother we seem to have arrived at Big Mother, who supervises all our thoughts and activities and will punish anyone who doesn't play nice and share, who refuses to follow all her rules, or who commits the horrific and unforgivable crime of hurting someone's feelings.
Who could have guessed that the epitaph to the American experiment would read: "SAFETY FIRST!" History always has a good sense of humor.
As I've mentioned before, attacking the finances of people They don't like is nothing new. The Obama Administration's Operation Choke Point resulted in the denial of financial services for thousands of perfectly legal (and in most cases Federally licensed) American businesses. In my own case, I lost my merchant services account after ten chargeback-free years.
Superficially, you might suggest that it's somehow worse now because firms are being attacked for their reporting and other utterances, and it is worse. But no one behind Operation Choke Point seriously believed they were improving public safety or reducing crime: they came after us simply because they didn't like us. They didn't like what we did, they didn't like what we said, and they definitely didn't like how we (most of us) voted.
But it was okay to go after gun nuts in that way, because no one likes them. And it's okay to go after Canadian truckers, because they are maybe white supremacists. And it's okay to go after independent media because, um, reasons.
There is an alternative to PayPal whose business model is to NEVER censor their services for any partisan reasons. It's called AlignPay. The first Amendment is a great business model.
How is this legal? Like, how is this functionally different from a bank cutting off your account because of your views, or the credit card scanner machine company refusing to sell to a deli because its owners are Muslim?
The longer we pretend that the people doing this aren't trying to crush the rest of us, the longer we suffer. Freedom should never be a partisan issue. For all the warnings of how dire the Trump years would be, he was more victim than villain in all of this.
It's like we share a brain, Matt! I just wrote about this yesterday! My general rule is that if I'm on the same page as Taibbi, I'm on the right track. 😄
......although the DGB has stated it won’t target Americans, we’re talking about a government agency here — and one tasked with election disinformation. (Remember when the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t supposed to target Americans either?)
How long will it be before the DGB is telling Paypal who to ban, or telling DHS who is a ‘domestic terrorist’? After the success of Canada shutting down protestors and the increase in vaccine uptake after the mandates, government has decided that threatening your ability to feed your family is a viable (and efficient!) compliance tool. This is the logical next step of the fascist takeover of the country. Agencies with the guns will simply point to the DGB ‘proof’ as they steal your stuff and deplatform you, or worse.
Paypal maintains a hostile set of policies toward small business by overcharging for fees and not refunding fees to sellers when a product return occurs. As a result, I've eliminated Paypal from all transactions including from my ebay account.
The service became superfluous once browsers were able to securely store credit card numbers for online purchases. It is no longer needed.
That video encapsulates everything about neoliberal elites: arrogance, cluelessness, and the belief that the world will find everything they do cute and clever. Even Gandhi would want to slap that smug look off her face.
There needs to be an alternative payment system set up, with all the alternative media outlets, whatever their differences, working together and coordinating.
Despite this crackdown, it shows how fragile the powers that be are.
They just can’t allow any dissent. All the more people should just drop all the mainstream outlets, stop using them, and pick some independent people to support.
Every time that fucking Nina Jankowicz clip is played, a unicorn dies.
It is clear that certain groups in our country want to control the narrative to their benefit by limiting the amount of information we receive. This is corporate fascism.
And so the capture accelerates:
1. Finance. Starve heterodox voices of money, crippling them financially.
2. Culture. Slant as much of media and entertainment in favor of specific narratives, marginalizing heterodox voices.
3. Education. Indoctrinate children (ages 0 to 23) as quickly and thoroughly as possible, silencing through intimidation all heterodox voices.
4. Law. Subvert law schools and courts through the proliferation of regressive, illiberal exercise of the law, persecuting heterodox voices.
5. Science and Medicine. Deny hundreds of years of verifiable fact and viciously attack dissenting dissenting heterodox voices.
6. Government. Weaponize Federal agencies to extralegally target and persecute all dissenting heterodox voices, often in partnership with commercial interests, to shore up narratives and enact regressive, illiberal policy.
7. Corporations. Partner with governmental and non-governmental organizations to subvert heterodox voices, stifling and restricting their reach.
Once you succeed in supplanting reason and personal agency with partisan piety amplified by a regressive, illiberal, and fundamentalist ideology (an ideology predicated on unfalsifiable and malignant premises that justify any act of depravity as morally acceptable), there are no other outcome besides the ones to which we are bearing witness.
Given the aggressiveness of these bad actors, and their willingness to subordinate reason in favor of ideology, it is hard to see how those still possessed of reason and love of country can gracefully and elegantly turn the tide.
Yet perhaps there is a coalition of the willing ready to stand in the breach and reclaim our institutions. Matt has made it abundantly clear that he is, I am grateful for his bravery, and I take comfort and strength from his example. Thank you, Matt, for standing in the breach and continuing to shine a bright light on this lunacy, and inspiring others to take a stand with you.
As a 20th-century lefty like Matt, we were always told that "when fascism came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and cross" or something like that. It was an understandable sentiment at the time, as people looked back at history and saw so much bloodshed and oppression based on King or God or Church or State (or some combo), and simply extrapolated that the future would play out much in the same way as it had in the past.
But not even the spawn of Nostradamus and Orwell could have predicted our era of totalitarian safetyism, the dictatorship not of kings or priests or soldiers but of authoritarian kindergarten teachers who will denounce, gag and banish all dissent because "we value a safer community".
Instead of Big Brother we seem to have arrived at Big Mother, who supervises all our thoughts and activities and will punish anyone who doesn't play nice and share, who refuses to follow all her rules, or who commits the horrific and unforgivable crime of hurting someone's feelings.
Who could have guessed that the epitaph to the American experiment would read: "SAFETY FIRST!" History always has a good sense of humor.
I'll be shutting my PayPal acct this evening - was an early adopter, too.
Great article. I sometimes I wonder if I am overly paranoid, but lately it really seems like 1984 is the guide being used.........
As I've mentioned before, attacking the finances of people They don't like is nothing new. The Obama Administration's Operation Choke Point resulted in the denial of financial services for thousands of perfectly legal (and in most cases Federally licensed) American businesses. In my own case, I lost my merchant services account after ten chargeback-free years.
Superficially, you might suggest that it's somehow worse now because firms are being attacked for their reporting and other utterances, and it is worse. But no one behind Operation Choke Point seriously believed they were improving public safety or reducing crime: they came after us simply because they didn't like us. They didn't like what we did, they didn't like what we said, and they definitely didn't like how we (most of us) voted.
But it was okay to go after gun nuts in that way, because no one likes them. And it's okay to go after Canadian truckers, because they are maybe white supremacists. And it's okay to go after independent media because, um, reasons.
When does this stop being okay?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
Progressives have gone full Monty with their hostility towards property rights and due process.
There is an alternative to PayPal whose business model is to NEVER censor their services for any partisan reasons. It's called AlignPay. The first Amendment is a great business model.
How is this legal? Like, how is this functionally different from a bank cutting off your account because of your views, or the credit card scanner machine company refusing to sell to a deli because its owners are Muslim?
The longer we pretend that the people doing this aren't trying to crush the rest of us, the longer we suffer. Freedom should never be a partisan issue. For all the warnings of how dire the Trump years would be, he was more victim than villain in all of this.
It's like we share a brain, Matt! I just wrote about this yesterday! My general rule is that if I'm on the same page as Taibbi, I'm on the right track. 😄
------------------
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/free-speech-under-attack-from-all
......although the DGB has stated it won’t target Americans, we’re talking about a government agency here — and one tasked with election disinformation. (Remember when the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t supposed to target Americans either?)
How long will it be before the DGB is telling Paypal who to ban, or telling DHS who is a ‘domestic terrorist’? After the success of Canada shutting down protestors and the increase in vaccine uptake after the mandates, government has decided that threatening your ability to feed your family is a viable (and efficient!) compliance tool. This is the logical next step of the fascist takeover of the country. Agencies with the guns will simply point to the DGB ‘proof’ as they steal your stuff and deplatform you, or worse.
Paypal maintains a hostile set of policies toward small business by overcharging for fees and not refunding fees to sellers when a product return occurs. As a result, I've eliminated Paypal from all transactions including from my ebay account.
The service became superfluous once browsers were able to securely store credit card numbers for online purchases. It is no longer needed.
That video encapsulates everything about neoliberal elites: arrogance, cluelessness, and the belief that the world will find everything they do cute and clever. Even Gandhi would want to slap that smug look off her face.
I’ll be deleting my PayPal account.
There needs to be an alternative payment system set up, with all the alternative media outlets, whatever their differences, working together and coordinating.
Despite this crackdown, it shows how fragile the powers that be are.
They just can’t allow any dissent. All the more people should just drop all the mainstream outlets, stop using them, and pick some independent people to support.
The Narrative Matrix delenda est.