Let's pretend that all these supposedly "Russian" accounts really were Russian. They weren't, but whatever.
We now know that no Russian person ever may express an opinion regarding the policies or elections of any western country, lest some unsuspecting westerner overhear and be led astray.
You write: "[T]here’s no way to keep a cap on 8 billion voices." True enough. But, 99.9% of of censorship is of the self-censorship variety. We weigh our actions and inactions in the balance. We ask: "What might the consequences be for expressing these ideas?" What we will never know is how many would-be Taibbis and Shellenbergers have already decided to pursue a career in something like accounting, in response to the way you and others have been treated by those who took an Oath to respect the highest office in the land, which is the Office of Citizen.
"A major subtext of the CIC story is that ordinary people are going to have to build their own media and oversight institutions to represent them, as virtually the entire landscape of traditional institutional checks on power seems to have been compromised."
I keep coming back to the same conclusion that young people are both the source of the problem and the solution. They are the source of the problem because they are so damn easy to influence and manipulate with passion. It is the reason they make great soldiers... and social justice warriors... and the same reason that they should be looked at as the solution.
The compromised landscape of traditional institutional checks on power, although extending into non-profits, our government and our media... are supposed to be dealt with by democracy. The 2016 election was exactly that... the political outsider... the anti-establishment candidate... the imperfect tonic to a boiling kettle of wrongness that half of the nation could see happening.
But the institutional power base... a global one... and one wounded by Brexit and then Trump... and noting they would have to go ALL IN to save their Great Reset project... I think they fucking released a pandemic. That is a fantastic conspiracy theory except that with what we know now from the Twitter Files and the work of Matt and Micheal and others it is really not so fantastic at all.
Then the giant anti-Trump and woke propaganda campaign... but one coordinated to include the education system and big tech. The focus was on the young people. Brainwash the young people to go hard left. Then the CIS... take out the opposition to the giant propaganda campaign.
Had the GOP won back the Senate and had stronger control of the House as should have been the case in the 2020 election or the 2022 election, much of the legislative work to correct the problems would be underway. It might include the need to impeach Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and install Kevin McCarthy as POTUS. Severe? Not really considering the consequences we are dealing with.
But the kids came out in unheard of numbers for both of those elections and put Democrats in power... put the globalist corporatist cabal in power... put the corrupt establishment in power.
We will lose the nation... may have already lost the nation... until and unless we fix the youth problem. The first step is to absolutely destroy the existing education system as is and reform it.
Props to Shellenberger for coining the Censorship-Industrial Complex. To win the war against the totalitarianists, philanthropaths, and propagandists, we must use the power of (re)framing to expose their lies, corruption, and psychological manipulation tactics.
You may find the list of historical examples I’ve compiled in this piece protesting censorship useful:
NGO. That is another way of saying, a non-profit with a political point of view. The problem with NGOs is that they get funded by governments, rich people, and maybe corporations who have an agenda. Anyone can start an NGO, as long as someone like Lois Lerner allows them to exist. The Boards of these NGOs are typically disengaged people who like to tell their friends at cocktail parties that they are doing good for the world. They are unpaid, but don’t need the money. The employees of these entities are activists, and basically subsidized through their tax exemption, get to do their works in the shadows. Until Elon, Matt, Michael, et al, came along.
Mahalo, Matt. I’ve seen and heard my elderly, life-long democrat parents listen to the relentless untrue messages from CNN & MSNBC; and if I mention a different perspective, they don’t budge an inch.
I’ve admired your work for a while and learned a lot from your courageous writings and public speaking especially 2008 crises and Twitter Files. All the best!
The scariest demonstration of how the CIC can literally crush the entire world is the global Covid response, which was completely and absolutely planned and controlled by the same international media-NGO-intelligence/military cartel, plus utterly corrupt government-industry partnership. It would make the whole CIC story more applicable and relevant to a much broader public if you were to expose the Covid response which destroyed so many all over the world for the propaganda extravaganza that it was (and still is).
RE: "[T]here’s no way to keep a cap on 8 billion voices forever."
I recommend reading about the technology already developed and partially implemented that CAN shut down dissent by means of social estrangement and economic penalties wielded in concert to manipulate behavior and bypass consent:
"[A]ll of these groups to act in concert, essentially as one giant, incestuous intelligence operation — not of the people, but paternalistically 'for' the people"
I'm convinced what's at the root here, driving this behavior of this new elite, is a current more profound than mere paternalism. Given the vicious disparagement of their subjects, this is no 'noblesse oblige'. It drives a stake in the heart of the very concept of (actual) democracy, similar IMO to the way organized religions often do.
It is embodied in the most fundamental -ism that exists in 2023, rarely unacknowledged (and thus has no name that I'm aware of): "Intellectism", where those who are deemed* to have static inferior intelligence and/or knowledge are *thereby* a subhuman subspecies -- one that must be managed as one herds cattle. or culls excess wildlife. In other words, the moral (and personhood!) inferiority of the low-intelligence and low-knowledge human beings is in today's world too often *taken for granted* -- the only issue being whether the label has been applied correctly to the given persons, given how tricky the evidence can be.**
Intellect-ism is more fundamental than classism, which acts as a proxy, and which is at least acknowledged in some quarters but is now completely eliminated from the dimensions championed by today's establishment "Left", i.e. the Democratic Party.
----------
*Rarely demonstrated in any conclusive ways. But that is really a completely different point, even if it is more readily acknowledged as problematic.
**And no, I'm not talking about people with identifiable conditions such as Down syndrome, who apparently are generally well-protected, even if, in IMO, some unacceptably paternalistic ways.
FYI - there have been a lot of junk article in my feed recently pointing to issues of bank health, the dollar/world's reserve currency under stress (and no mention of dedollarization really). Combining this with what I perceive to be a series of new financial institutions (an odd time for the empire to rebrand) in our local community here in the Midwest ---- indicates to me that the Empire is trying to pull a Phillip Morris (and rebrand to Altria) using the entire finance sector.
While twitter craziness, foreign policy blunders, and the march to fascism hold sway over the recent weeks news cycles, let us not forget that ultimately, money runs the show in this oligarchy. And that institutional memory must be suppressed for the elite financiers to keep their resources at the end of empire and unipolarity. All of this steam about financial crisis and US Debt ceilings ($31 Trillion) and world's reserve currency seem to be baked into this narrative of doom, which will leak into the economy. Let us not forget that the policy makers have been running straight ahead as fast as they can to accelerate this process ---- which indicates complicity.
Let's pretend that all these supposedly "Russian" accounts really were Russian. They weren't, but whatever.
We now know that no Russian person ever may express an opinion regarding the policies or elections of any western country, lest some unsuspecting westerner overhear and be led astray.
You write: "[T]here’s no way to keep a cap on 8 billion voices." True enough. But, 99.9% of of censorship is of the self-censorship variety. We weigh our actions and inactions in the balance. We ask: "What might the consequences be for expressing these ideas?" What we will never know is how many would-be Taibbis and Shellenbergers have already decided to pursue a career in something like accounting, in response to the way you and others have been treated by those who took an Oath to respect the highest office in the land, which is the Office of Citizen.
Proud supporter Matt, brilliant work to you and the team. Keep up the good work.
A little nugget I think seems apt, from Michael Hudson's new book:
"When Louisiana demagogue Huey Long was asked in the 1930s whether fascism could come to America, he replied "Sure, only we'll call it anti-Fascism.""
"A major subtext of the CIC story is that ordinary people are going to have to build their own media and oversight institutions to represent them, as virtually the entire landscape of traditional institutional checks on power seems to have been compromised."
I keep coming back to the same conclusion that young people are both the source of the problem and the solution. They are the source of the problem because they are so damn easy to influence and manipulate with passion. It is the reason they make great soldiers... and social justice warriors... and the same reason that they should be looked at as the solution.
The compromised landscape of traditional institutional checks on power, although extending into non-profits, our government and our media... are supposed to be dealt with by democracy. The 2016 election was exactly that... the political outsider... the anti-establishment candidate... the imperfect tonic to a boiling kettle of wrongness that half of the nation could see happening.
But the institutional power base... a global one... and one wounded by Brexit and then Trump... and noting they would have to go ALL IN to save their Great Reset project... I think they fucking released a pandemic. That is a fantastic conspiracy theory except that with what we know now from the Twitter Files and the work of Matt and Micheal and others it is really not so fantastic at all.
Then the giant anti-Trump and woke propaganda campaign... but one coordinated to include the education system and big tech. The focus was on the young people. Brainwash the young people to go hard left. Then the CIS... take out the opposition to the giant propaganda campaign.
Had the GOP won back the Senate and had stronger control of the House as should have been the case in the 2020 election or the 2022 election, much of the legislative work to correct the problems would be underway. It might include the need to impeach Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and install Kevin McCarthy as POTUS. Severe? Not really considering the consequences we are dealing with.
But the kids came out in unheard of numbers for both of those elections and put Democrats in power... put the globalist corporatist cabal in power... put the corrupt establishment in power.
We will lose the nation... may have already lost the nation... until and unless we fix the youth problem. The first step is to absolutely destroy the existing education system as is and reform it.
Matt, you and the entire team are the journalists that Woodward and Bernstein could have been had they not fallen in love with the
DC Intell Elite.
Props to Shellenberger for coining the Censorship-Industrial Complex. To win the war against the totalitarianists, philanthropaths, and propagandists, we must use the power of (re)framing to expose their lies, corruption, and psychological manipulation tactics.
You may find the list of historical examples I’ve compiled in this piece protesting censorship useful:
• “Letter to US Legislators: #DefundTheThoughtPolice” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-us-legislators-defundthethoughtpolice)
I've unrolled Twitter Files part 21 and 22 here, if anyone would like to read them:
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/twitter-files-parts-xx-and-xxi-unrolled
NGO. That is another way of saying, a non-profit with a political point of view. The problem with NGOs is that they get funded by governments, rich people, and maybe corporations who have an agenda. Anyone can start an NGO, as long as someone like Lois Lerner allows them to exist. The Boards of these NGOs are typically disengaged people who like to tell their friends at cocktail parties that they are doing good for the world. They are unpaid, but don’t need the money. The employees of these entities are activists, and basically subsidized through their tax exemption, get to do their works in the shadows. Until Elon, Matt, Michael, et al, came along.
Mahalo, Matt. I’ve seen and heard my elderly, life-long democrat parents listen to the relentless untrue messages from CNN & MSNBC; and if I mention a different perspective, they don’t budge an inch.
I’ve admired your work for a while and learned a lot from your courageous writings and public speaking especially 2008 crises and Twitter Files. All the best!
The scariest demonstration of how the CIC can literally crush the entire world is the global Covid response, which was completely and absolutely planned and controlled by the same international media-NGO-intelligence/military cartel, plus utterly corrupt government-industry partnership. It would make the whole CIC story more applicable and relevant to a much broader public if you were to expose the Covid response which destroyed so many all over the world for the propaganda extravaganza that it was (and still is).
Kudos, Matt (and team)!
Matt, keep up this important work. People need to wake the fuck up, recognize, and reject the manipulation. We are being pitted against each other.
Matt, you know what you have to do, but you can't bring yourself to do it. "...and that is why I am supporting Donald Trump for President in 2024."
RE: "[T]here’s no way to keep a cap on 8 billion voices forever."
I recommend reading about the technology already developed and partially implemented that CAN shut down dissent by means of social estrangement and economic penalties wielded in concert to manipulate behavior and bypass consent:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy-digital-privacy
"[A]ll of these groups to act in concert, essentially as one giant, incestuous intelligence operation — not of the people, but paternalistically 'for' the people"
I'm convinced what's at the root here, driving this behavior of this new elite, is a current more profound than mere paternalism. Given the vicious disparagement of their subjects, this is no 'noblesse oblige'. It drives a stake in the heart of the very concept of (actual) democracy, similar IMO to the way organized religions often do.
It is embodied in the most fundamental -ism that exists in 2023, rarely unacknowledged (and thus has no name that I'm aware of): "Intellectism", where those who are deemed* to have static inferior intelligence and/or knowledge are *thereby* a subhuman subspecies -- one that must be managed as one herds cattle. or culls excess wildlife. In other words, the moral (and personhood!) inferiority of the low-intelligence and low-knowledge human beings is in today's world too often *taken for granted* -- the only issue being whether the label has been applied correctly to the given persons, given how tricky the evidence can be.**
Intellect-ism is more fundamental than classism, which acts as a proxy, and which is at least acknowledged in some quarters but is now completely eliminated from the dimensions championed by today's establishment "Left", i.e. the Democratic Party.
----------
*Rarely demonstrated in any conclusive ways. But that is really a completely different point, even if it is more readily acknowledged as problematic.
**And no, I'm not talking about people with identifiable conditions such as Down syndrome, who apparently are generally well-protected, even if, in IMO, some unacceptably paternalistic ways.
FYI - there have been a lot of junk article in my feed recently pointing to issues of bank health, the dollar/world's reserve currency under stress (and no mention of dedollarization really). Combining this with what I perceive to be a series of new financial institutions (an odd time for the empire to rebrand) in our local community here in the Midwest ---- indicates to me that the Empire is trying to pull a Phillip Morris (and rebrand to Altria) using the entire finance sector.
While twitter craziness, foreign policy blunders, and the march to fascism hold sway over the recent weeks news cycles, let us not forget that ultimately, money runs the show in this oligarchy. And that institutional memory must be suppressed for the elite financiers to keep their resources at the end of empire and unipolarity. All of this steam about financial crisis and US Debt ceilings ($31 Trillion) and world's reserve currency seem to be baked into this narrative of doom, which will leak into the economy. Let us not forget that the policy makers have been running straight ahead as fast as they can to accelerate this process ---- which indicates complicity.
FYI