Americans have been paying taxes to disenfranchise themselves, as government agencies and subcontractors undertake a massive digital blacklisting project
I cannot wait for this drop, Matt. You are one of a very few real journalists left who has managed to keep me sane in an otherwise scary, sad, 1984ish time. And whether it is because they are all evil or just ignorantly malevolent, it makes no difference. This is virtually the opposite of what the US is supposed to be and stand for.
Go for it and I hope there is no one left standing when you are done.
For future reference: I believe you don't have to be "on" Twitter to read the piece as posted there, though it's not a friendly format if not familiar. You have to join to comment - on Twitter.
Our biggest problem we face is the corruption of our systems.
Why isn't anyone talking about solutions?
Let's build a decentralized and transparent "4th branch of government" that is 100% built and controlled by the people as a parallel system that holds all of the other branches accountable.
They are using technology to organize against us. We must use it back against those who are corrupting our systems.
"...that is 100% built and controlled by the people..."
Permit me to be skeptical of any institution that claims to be "100% built and controlled by the people..." Such language is a smokescreen for the rule of a powerful few.
This is so big I don’t know how to feel. Who is governing us? What methods do we have to communicate with same? What is democracy?
Pulling on this thread is unsettling, especially when the “media class” has such confidence in their pronouncements and so smug when dealing with their detractors.
The saddest and most frightening part is you can never really attach faces/names to your question. It is an amorphous assemblage of shifting individuals - this is the death of every conspiracy theory, the lack of a single entity to blame.
"Was" the death. Big data can now be used to identify sufficiently high probabilities about the actors even where direct evidence has been carefully suppressed. Enough of that toothpaste is already out of the tube; meanwhile, suppression creates its own trail.
It is important not forget that the direct beneficiaries of this was the major media outlets. It was just as important who was upgraded as who was downgraded.
There is no "media class". NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS are all controlled by the CIA.
400 "journalists" under CIA payroll in 1977.
How many today? 4,000? 40,000?
Anderson Cooper, Mika Brzezinski, Don Lemon, Rachel Madcow - and all the rest of them: all under CIA payroll, CIA puppets.
At the top of the food chain of the Censoring, "Deplatforming" and "deboosting" of Americans you will always find the CIA and their minions: George Soros and BlackRock.
(John Brennan, anyone? plus Gina Haspel (Brennan's lapdog), Michael Hayden, Michael Morell & co.)
I was a happier fellow when I could believe I lived in a democracy. And Harelson is right. Vaccine mandates are unjust and authoritarian. The problem is that the majority of educated people—seemingly the more educated, the worse it is—refuse to see our perilous predicament for what it is and continue to love Big Brother. There is no hope—to take back Obama’s favorite word—if there is no organized resistance to this Gulag they are constructing around us.
Vaccines work. Polio, measles, mumps and small pox for example. One reason we won the Revolutionary War was Washington inoculated his troops against small pox and the British didn't.
Go check the numbers again. The flu vaccine doesn't work great and comes nowhere close to performing as do chicken pox, measles, etc. Influenza is no more stable than Covid and even Dr. Fauci admits that the vaccine was never going to work very well.
From the CDC (link below) in the last 18 years the highest performing flu vaccine was in 2010-2011 at 60%, the second highest was 2014-2015 at 52%. No other year was over 50%. The lowest was 2004-2005 at 10%. The last five years were:
I take the flu shot after a nasty case 10 years. Ago. I am willing to accept it might be the placebo affect but it seems to work. I would also add that healthy people, which I am, are more likely to get shots and skew the data. But I still get the shot as I see it as low risk.
I wouldn’t say great. Rather, they lower morbidity and mortality for specifics influenza strains. Which is exactly what they’re designed to do. Sadly, these past few years have made parents doubt ALL vaccines, even the most effective ones. This disinformation campaign hurts the most vulnerable.
Agree with you completely. As soon as a product is oversold then the consumers lose faith in the producer and don't buy any of the products -- even the ones that work. It's the situation we are in. Would that we aggressively protect the vulnerable and allow the rest to determine their own course.
I think Tony Faucci among others might say otherwise: from a recently published article in the journal Cell host & Microbe, Tony was one of three authors on a paper titled:
Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses
"As of 2022, after more than 60 years of experience with influenza vaccines, very little improvement in vaccine prevention of infection has been noted. As pointed out decades ago, and still true today, the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases.7 Even decades-long efforts to develop better, so-called “universal” influenza vaccines—vaccines that would create more broadly protective immunity, preferably lasting over longer time periods8,10—have not yet resulted in next-generation, broadly protective vaccines, although a large number of experimental vaccines are in preclinical or early clinical development."
here is the part that matters:
"the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases."
so the flu shot works great...so great that even the captured FDA would not likely license the product if it had a different therapeutic target.
Those are good examples having gone through years of rigorous and required FDA testing and trials. There was no reason for Operation Warp Speed and EU authorization for the COVID vaccine.... like the common cold, it is a Corona virus. And the immediate banning of long FDA approved oral treatments made NO sense...and enabled the arcane chicanery to commence. And Fauci’s initial 180 on masks spoke volumes...of BS.
The common cold is not itself a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are often the source of common symptoms of common colds---runny nose, scratchy throat, cough, etc.
Last I heard, around 10% of "common colds" are caused by one of several human coronaviruses. Covid is gradually joining the herd, adapting to its new host.
Prior infection with other coronviruses is commonly given as a reason some people are relatively immune.
The common cold can be caused by a rhinovirus or a coronavirus or perhaps others. At any rate, the current outbreak of the novel, science created Covid-19, presents as a common cold or flu-like symptoms in almost all cases. Which means there is no longer a need for vaccines, mandates, masks or testing.
I originally thought the same thing about the speed with which the vaccine came out. But then I learned that mRNA technology had been in the works for years
It’s always dicey to make generalizations like that. However, I have found many educated people are obsessed with their own credentials. Many sign their names with an alphabet soup of letters, as if to guarantee whatever they say is correct.
An example might be the typical person that believes everything broadcast or publicized on NPR—often has at least a bachelor’s degree. Does having a bachelor’s degree make one educated? Only if after getting it, that person continues on with self-educating. That means much more than simply continuing education required for licensure.
I read some of the abuse you take on Twitter. We appreciate what you do. By exposing the truth, you are doing more to help our country than most of our politicians. Please don't be distracted or discouraged by the haters!
Just fucking wow. Just overnight I was thinking about McCarthy’s Hollywood blacklist, which cast a cloud over an entire decade. Now we have solid evidence of hundreds, maybe thousands, of similar BS blacklists, being created and used *by our own government* to nudge the populace in whatever direction it so chooses.
You’re absolutely right -- it’s way bigger than Watergate and yet, because the MSM will bury it (by looking the other way), it won’t have any real impact.
We live in dangerous times... frustration is building.
I've been following the Twitter Files from the very beginning and read every thread and unfortunately, people still don't know about it or think what's happened is not a problem. With every revelation, I think, "This is it! This will finally break through!" And it doesn't. It's getting depressing. I'm right of center and am disheartened that my liberal friends (the few who still talk to me) think that censoring people and ideas is okay because those ideas are "dangerous." All the areas I used to find common ground (i.e. censorship, free speech) is disappearing.
What happened is that the liberals got the whip hand, and once they did, they made The Church Lady look like G.G. Allin.
Meanwhile, the people skewering received pieties, the subversives, the roasters of sacred cows and speakers of outrageous truths that you aren't supposed to say out loud are all on the alt-right (and to a lesser extent, the Dirtbag Left).
This is NOT because of any inherent priggishness of liberals, nor is it because of any inherent virtue on the part of the right. Rather, it is the result of their current relationship toward power.
So, in a previous comment you assert that the PMC has the "whip hand." And now a bit later you're telling us that the "liberals" have the "whip hand." Who, exactly, has the whip hand? And who might the "whip hand" belong to next?
It is altogether possible that a right-wing populist movement could take it - this is the fear that Trump (and Bernie to a lesser extent) roused. The PMC (which leans liberal, since liberal politicians love them some big govt) will align with whoever supports the status quo (you know, like establishment GOP versus those insurgent types). The false belief that will infect just about everyone is that someone will look out for you.
Team D (aka "liberals") is but the political expression of the PMC made manifest, albeit with minorities as junior partners. (For its part, Team R is the party of Local Gentry, with white evangelicals as junior partners).
As to how things will play out, I don't own a crystal ball.
“ With every revelation, I think, "This is it! This will finally break through!"
Ditto. When they refuse to print I always promise myself I won’t get my hopes up next time, but the revelations are so important,especially collectively, I refuse to give up hope now.
Thanks again for an illuminating article. I take exception with only one comment regarding whether the GEC abuse was by "malfunction or design." After all we've seen the safe bet is design. I am bothered about the line about this "may" tarnish Obama's legacy. I think it quite clearly does, as does the whole russiagate affair. He was president when all this started.
Thanks for this. I should say I've talked to a number of people from this world, and I think as with any venture you get people of all types in any project. Some are sincere. A lot are just ignorant. GEC was originally designed to address ISIS recruitment, and its mission took a sharp turn in an unexpected direction almost immediately, which led to a lot of bad decisions that may or may not have been by design - or may have just "rhymed" with certain general political tendencies, to use their terminology.
"A sharp turn in an unexpected direction almost immediately." Once again, given all we have learned was the sharp turn really unexpected? I may be more cynical than most but that is the safest way to bet in the current environment.
Getting sloppy in your opposition is worse than doing nothing.
And, if you trust Matt's reporting on this topic, I'm a bit surprised you don't trust his direct response to your concern. Don't you think he might actually have done his research?
It's possible to trust his reporting but disagree with his conclusions. In both this topic and all the russiagate work he has pointed out what was incorrect but never seems to get around to pinpointing who was behind it all. Over at the site the conservative tree house this tendency to pull punches has also been noticed.
Nobody is behind "it all". That framing basically presupposes a centralized conspiracy. In reality, sometimes things just turn out bad.
It seems like your disagreement with Matt's conclusions boils down to your willingness to speculate and jump to conclusions, versus his reliance on actually investigating and talking to people who would know.
Remember, willingness to trust in a comfortable and simplistic narrative is what allowed us to arrive at this point in the first place. Cynicism might feel good, but it's a heuristic, and placing your trust in a heuristic is never the start of a good process.
Good of you Matt to read these comments as I know it helps you get different points of view. I support your characterization of Obama and not pointing to him just yet (as much as I disagreed with his policies) as doing so would subject you to even more ridicule as a far right hack.
"unexpected direction" strikes me as a very generous interpretation. Concentrating power is always in Big Gov's personal interest, so it was a natural outcome of the original mission.
ISIS had very, very few recruits in the US (more in Europe). The original mission was arguably fake.
In what sense does "Big Gov" have personal interests?
And everything is "arguably fake". In case you didn't notice, though, the U.S. went a *teensy* bit overboard in the "post-911" era fight against Islamic extremism. It seems to me that you're retrofitting the current political climate *onto things that happened a decade or so ago... in context of the time it happened, "fighting ISIS" makes perfect sense as a motivation.
Good intentions don't protect government programs and powers from corruption and abuse. By taking the paranoid cynical view that bad outcomes suggest bad intentions, you're obscuring one of the most crucial political lessons of this quarter-century.
This typically happens with government programs. They grow beyond anyone's wildest imagination and undergo mission drift. Whether "malfunction or design", the result is the same. We need to hold the government to the same standards we do the private sector.
Don’t want to cite the CIA cliché, but USIA -formally USIS - was under its watch as during the Cold War. Many in it as well were sincere & apropos nothing favored summer villas in Croatia. The Adriatic San Tropez
This is the danger of ALL government power - that a benign or even beneficent "intent" can have horrendous consequences. Conservatives give a tiny bit of consideration to that, progressives give none whatsoever. To the extent Obama was a progressive (and that depends on the perspective of the progressive you are talking to) it means he was blind to it.
So you don't think "defund the police" expresses robust skepticism about the "beneficent intent" of government power?
Whether or not you agree with "defund the police" is a different question, although given the ideological bubble you've just outlined around yourself, I'm predicting that you do not.
Currently, there's a news item on Yahoo (FWIW) indicating that LAPD union ALSO supports "defunding" the police; that is, they offered a list of calls that do not require armed police and should be served by someone else - social workers? Orderlies? That is defunding the police, in a nutshell.
How are you going to enforce law without police? You could turn over investigation to a prosecutorial agency, but what exactly would make that different?
We shouldn't have police enforcing tax law, like they did on Eric Garner, but that's as much a failure of the law that was passed as it was how it was enforced.
I would very much end qualified immunity - that's the "get out of jail free" card in this game. Hold accountable those who hold that power.
As I predicted, you oppose defunding the police. So do I. But the existence of that movement clearly puts the lie to your claim that progressive don't care about the perversion of well-intentioned exercises of governmental power.
Too clever by half. Defund the police isn't an answer to a problem, least of all a problem created by progressive policy in the first place. It's an expression of ignorance and anger, not informed policy making.
Thank you -- the exponentially bigger than Watergate cancer was created by still “Saint” Obama and his executives of State Security agencies many of whom are now “consultants” to corporate
Have you started drinking again? Nixon removal was State Security coup -- St. Obama’s total censorship, Ukraine 2014 coup, protection of bank mega-gangsters, Russia-gate hoax is infinitely more horrible than anything Nixon has done.
"The notion that there was some kind of shared rhetorical playbook just seemed too fanciful to believe. While the messages did not exactly repeat each other, they certainly rhymed."
I can't think of a better description of the response to Woody Harrelson's SNL monologue where everyone from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair to MSNBC all described Harrelson as some version of "a stoner spreading anti-vax conspiracy theories."
Yep, Woody's 30 second joke, where he didn't mention vaccines or Big Pharma even once, needed an immediate full court press of MSM smear. The speed that the MSM came to Big Pharma's defense, like it was a damsel in distress, couldn't have illustrated Woody's "They bought the media" line any better.
I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist. Scientologists have their suppressives who they smear & attack while 21st century pseudo libs have their conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers/domestic terrorists/MAGA-ists/Trumpers/right wingers/Nazis/QAnon-er who they smear & attack.
I don't think it is even remotely possible to see the DNC & their loyal quislings as anything other than a cult.
I can remember when liberals talked about universal health care as recently as when Obama ran for the Presidency. To watch those same liberals abandon that talk so they can defend Big Pharma and, worse still, demand that people who didn't want the COVID-19 vaccine should be denied health care or charged more for it, was one of many big tells about how those liberals really think.
They’ve been co-opted by Big Pharmacy. They’ve taken the passion the left normally has for the lower classes/marginalized and brought them to the heel. I’m not suggesting that *individuals* do not have a good-faith belief in where they stand - but I am suggesting that the wealthy elite like Big Pharma does not. They’re just following the money - i.e., the rich don’t actually buy what they’re selling, they’re just inflaming passions & keeping the focus off themselves. (The SBF/FTX debacle is Exhibit A here…the federal indictment in that case is something else.)
The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos is always amazing to watch. In any other era the left would see Davos for the disgusting display of conspicuous consumption & elite vanity that it is. But instead, those claiming to be progressive look at Davos and see their values being represented. It’s genius. Especially through Big Pharma with Covid and the green movement, they’ve created what the left always accused the right of doing – a value system that makes the difference between the billionaire class and the educated elites fungible. Both of these groups are on board with the idea of an apocalyptic vision. They agree that the most important thing is x, and that there will be no justice & people will die if we don’t solve it.
Getting the top 20 per cent to see their interests as aligned with billinares is what is greasing the wheels of the war we find ourselves in over…well, everything. It’s frankly one of the greatest Machiavellian tricks ever pulled.
"I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist. Scientologists have their suppressives who they smear & attack while 21st century pseudo libs have their conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers/domestic terrorists/MAGA-ists/Trumpers/right wingers/Nazis/??? who they smear & attack."
Interesting point, Spiderbaby...there are some similarities there.
The fact is that MSM was bought makes me thinking of me my favorite sayings. “That every man has his price is no surprise, the surprise is how low that price is”. They sold their souls to popular at cocktail parties
"I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist."
I cannot possibly accept that you believe this obvious hyperbole. Either way, though, thanks for letting the rest of us know not to take you seriously.
Y'know, on 2nd thought, I see your point. Scientologists have far more integrity than the average 21st century DNC lovin' Joe Biden fellating liberal Democrat. Insinuating they're comparable does a grave disservice to Scientologists everywhere.
In addition Scientologists have a nifty science fiction style backstory with Overlord Xenu & interplanetary war & such. What's the DNC backstory? "Ummm, we used to pay lip service to the working class but...aaaaah...we got greedy so...y'now, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
Look bud, you need to maintain consistency. If you tell me I'm an idiot but then complement me it just causes the few, feeble brain cells that I have left to go FZZZZZZT & short out.
I'd say that we've finally hit the Land Of Even Steven but I don't think that I've ever read anything you've written here. Tell you what, I'll continue ignoring you & you can start ignoring me right now, I'd offer you a refund but you're not paying me anything.
Matt has been asked by Jim Jordan to testify about the Twitter Files. Perhaps it's not exactly what you are referring to, but it will be interesting, nonetheless.
If by "interesting", you mean "Matt cramming his journalistic credibility into the shredder by participating in a circus of partisan hackery", you're spot on.
I predict Matt won't do that, and good on him for it.
Most politicians these days don't believe in divided government, but that the legislative and executive should work together in harmony (as long as both are held by the same party) and the courts subservient to that. Nearly every one of them that takes the oath of office is committing perjury by falsely swearing to uphold the Constitution.
Of course nothing changes because the voters are content with this arrangement.
"[N]othing changes because the voters are content with this arrangement"
Exactly. Until it bites them in the ass -- then they're finally conscious, and screaming "Why wasn't this done yesterday??!!!" As if (U.S.) government needs no monitoring, because it's composed of nothing but good little do-bee's scurrying around selflessly in service of humankind.
Once you face up to the fact that we are governed by sociopaths, then you have to start making choices, and those choices can have very real and very personal consequences (see, e.g.: Assange, J.; Snowden, E.). Even if you do nothing, you still have a guilty conscience.
If you pretend that all is well, you can avoid those consequences, and the goodies still flow, maybe not like in the past, but it beats a SuperMax, right?
Also, keep in mind that, if the Establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to buy off, whom to co-opt, whom to neutralize, whom to ignore.
"If you pretend that all is well, you can avoid those consequences, and the goodies still flow, maybe not like in the past, but it beats a SuperMax, right?"
- I like to remind people of the eventual "What did you do in the war, grandpa?" Generations will be cursing grandpa's name. They're already doing it, generically, to the boomers. But that case looks like another of the many division-making psy-ops to me. It seems too early to make sense as something truly organic and sticky.
"[I]f the Establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to buy off, whom to co-opt, whom to neutralize, whom to ignore."
- Agreed. Way past time to up our game. Unlike, apparently, 50 years ago and earlier, a public forum (like this) does not solve anything, except turning a few peoples' switches on. Certainly no place for tactical discussions, nor even strategic ones. Not any more.
That was always a joke as well. I want to play poker by "the living Hoyles", which is basically Calvinball with playing cards. "Turns out that this time around, three twos beats a full house!"
1. What happens when you are digitally blacklisted by these creeps? You can no longer post on Twitter? Or are you put on "double secret probation" by people grifting tax money?
2. This does seem like Joe McCarthy's "Here in my hand I have a list of communists . . ." when the page was blank. Political theater that has bad and real consequences for innocent Americans, who lost their jobs as Hollywood writers and in other professions?
"What happens when you are digitally blacklisted by these creeps?"
Well, you start leaving a lot more comments on blogs, for starters. True. comments don't get retweeted, but before Twitter locked my account neither did my tweets.
most likely the double secret probation but really piss them off and good luck getting your money out of the bank or doing anything in the digital world, ou know, like work for a living. At that point the purpose of your life will be to serve as a warning to others.
Trudeau is a piece of work. Parliamentary democracy at its worst... it's a black mark on any government that U.S.-style presidential elections could actually *improve* its democratic system.
It's a shame the opposition are such repugnant assholes. You'd need a dozen Trudeaus to wash the Harper stink off the PCs.
John Stockwell, former CIA officer "running" Angola, commented that for decades before the "Smith Mundt Modernization Act", the CIA would regularly plant stories in friendly non-US media outlets, knowing that US media would pick up the story and publish. These stories were often entirely fabricated.
For that matter, according to Stockwell, the CIA routinely ignored Smith Mundt whenever it felt like it. Since the CIA spent decades hounding Stockwell, I suspect that he knew whereof he spoke.
For that matter, when I google the words "propagandizing US citizens", the first link I get is the "US Agency for Global Media", a US Government entity, link to "facts about Smith Mundy Modernization".
As a lifelong conservative, I am very surprised that I am currently getting my best information from the likes of Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles, Michael Shellenberger and Glenn Greenwald
These are the Colmeses to the right's Hannitys. Intentionally or not, they mostly serve to legitimize right-wing narratives by presenting an anemic strawman version of leftism or liberalism that helps bubble-ensconced conservatives relieve the nagging suspicion they're living in a bubble.
Dwhy- You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't agree with you. I think the opposite. In fact, I see your comment as fairly common these days. When Classic Liberals demonstrate they are not leftists, they are often attacked as right-wingers, when they are simply behaving as Classic Free-Speech Liberals.
We have also seen Bill Maher, Russell Brand, and Joe Rogan criticized that way. Those 3 comedians are the same Classic Liberals they always were. They are just espousing opinions that other Liberals do not like to hear. Like Maher often says, he didn't leave Liberalism, Liberalism left him.
“But paying taxes for the pleasure? This supertanker needs turning around.”
No, the supertanker need to be scuttled and sunk… to be replaced with a modern small and nimble yacht with a small and transparent mission to identify only foreign money working to both influence elections and corrupt politicians and government officials.
Then another larger yacht with a transparent mission to identify and root out politician and government official self-dealing, graft and conflicts of interest.
And lastly, a new regulation that prevents FBI and CIA ex employees from working in media, and also rules to revoke their security clearance.
By equating the modern American state with Nazism (via references to Nuremberg), you're implying that a Nazi-like system wouldn't be worse than what we have now.
Spin it however you want, but you're going to hell for this one.
Our government commits the same crimes that men hanged for at Nuremberg. Both are crimes. If I call Jeffrey Dahmer and some dude who killed someone else over a drug deal gone bad murderers, I am not rehabilitating Dahmer.
I cannot wait for this drop, Matt. You are one of a very few real journalists left who has managed to keep me sane in an otherwise scary, sad, 1984ish time. And whether it is because they are all evil or just ignorantly malevolent, it makes no difference. This is virtually the opposite of what the US is supposed to be and stand for.
Go for it and I hope there is no one left standing when you are done.
New Twitter Files drop is unrolled here, if interested: https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-twitter-files-part-xvii-unrolled
Bless you. Many thanks. I am not on Twatter so depend on brilliant folks like you to unveil this. Most appreciated.
For future reference: I believe you don't have to be "on" Twitter to read the piece as posted there, though it's not a friendly format if not familiar. You have to join to comment - on Twitter.
Brad is still providing a very real service.
Hi Brad -- this unrolled is INVALUABLE -- thank you sooo much and -- subscribed !!!
Thank you for subscribing!
Thank you !! And please - see Moscow university:
https://thedreizinreport.com/2023/03/05/dreizin-on-belief-and-unbelief/ -- March 5, 2023
Thanks brad. That is well put together
ma·lev·o·lent
/məˈlevələnt/
adjective
having or showing a wish to do evil to others
What is "ignorantly malevolent" supposed to mean?
A eugyppius commenter coined the term "malignorance".
Think banality of evil.
Our biggest problem we face is the corruption of our systems.
Why isn't anyone talking about solutions?
Let's build a decentralized and transparent "4th branch of government" that is 100% built and controlled by the people as a parallel system that holds all of the other branches accountable.
They are using technology to organize against us. We must use it back against those who are corrupting our systems.
Like this:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/lets-build-a-4th-branch-of-government
"...that is 100% built and controlled by the people..."
Permit me to be skeptical of any institution that claims to be "100% built and controlled by the people..." Such language is a smokescreen for the rule of a powerful few.
All tyrannies rule in the name of "the people."
This is so big I don’t know how to feel. Who is governing us? What methods do we have to communicate with same? What is democracy?
Pulling on this thread is unsettling, especially when the “media class” has such confidence in their pronouncements and so smug when dealing with their detractors.
The saddest and most frightening part is you can never really attach faces/names to your question. It is an amorphous assemblage of shifting individuals - this is the death of every conspiracy theory, the lack of a single entity to blame.
"[T]his is the death of every conspiracy theory"
"Was" the death. Big data can now be used to identify sufficiently high probabilities about the actors even where direct evidence has been carefully suppressed. Enough of that toothpaste is already out of the tube; meanwhile, suppression creates its own trail.
We just have to get to it.
It is important not forget that the direct beneficiaries of this was the major media outlets. It was just as important who was upgraded as who was downgraded.
Rather, that is a fine and subtle point
"media class"??
There is no "media class". NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS are all controlled by the CIA.
400 "journalists" under CIA payroll in 1977.
How many today? 4,000? 40,000?
Anderson Cooper, Mika Brzezinski, Don Lemon, Rachel Madcow - and all the rest of them: all under CIA payroll, CIA puppets.
At the top of the food chain of the Censoring, "Deplatforming" and "deboosting" of Americans you will always find the CIA and their minions: George Soros and BlackRock.
(John Brennan, anyone? plus Gina Haspel (Brennan's lapdog), Michael Hayden, Michael Morell & co.)
Wow. What a litany of nonsense.
“John Unger” is a paid troll
"Boris Petrov" wishes someone would pay for his performance art...
Truths that may cause heart attack in paid Sub-stack paid trolls:
https://www.youtube.com/live/eeVd2XWlNWk?feature=share
The UKRAINE CONFLICT Exposes the hypocrisy of the Neo-Liberal/Conservative ideology.
Retired Business Strategy Executive! How many companies did you sink as an overpaid consultant!
Truths that may cause heart attack in paid Sub-stack paid trolls:
https://www.youtube.com/live/eeVd2XWlNWk?feature=share
The UKRAINE CONFLICT Exposes the hypocrisy of the Neo-Liberal/Conservative ideology.
Tethering George Soros and Blackrock to the same operations. Imaginative.
Yes, it is. It's good to see people overcoming the elegant obfuscation each modern totalitarian practices.
Even this conspiracy can't attach a single name/face as the one in command, the one that sustains the conspiracy.
Auric Goldfinger?
Goldstein
The Bush family?
"This is so big I don’t know how to feel."
Next time use more lube.
Mr. Taibbi is a pupil in the "media class."
“This is so big I don’t know how to feel Ditto. Like tendrils of a malignant tumor.
"Who is governing us?"
Bingo.
I was a happier fellow when I could believe I lived in a democracy. And Harelson is right. Vaccine mandates are unjust and authoritarian. The problem is that the majority of educated people—seemingly the more educated, the worse it is—refuse to see our perilous predicament for what it is and continue to love Big Brother. There is no hope—to take back Obama’s favorite word—if there is no organized resistance to this Gulag they are constructing around us.
The PMC loves it some mandates, censorship, and authoritarianism in general because the PMC has the whip hand.
Vaccines work. Polio, measles, mumps and small pox for example. One reason we won the Revolutionary War was Washington inoculated his troops against small pox and the British didn't.
Vaccines work against a stable target - thus the ones you mention. Against flu and/or the common cold, not so much.
They work great against flu. A proven fact. There is no common cold vaccine.
Go check the numbers again. The flu vaccine doesn't work great and comes nowhere close to performing as do chicken pox, measles, etc. Influenza is no more stable than Covid and even Dr. Fauci admits that the vaccine was never going to work very well.
From the CDC (link below) in the last 18 years the highest performing flu vaccine was in 2010-2011 at 60%, the second highest was 2014-2015 at 52%. No other year was over 50%. The lowest was 2004-2005 at 10%. The last five years were:
2015–2016: 48%
2016–2017: 40%
2017–2018: 38%
2018–2019: 29%
2019–2020: 39%
Reference the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html
I take the flu shot after a nasty case 10 years. Ago. I am willing to accept it might be the placebo affect but it seems to work. I would also add that healthy people, which I am, are more likely to get shots and skew the data. But I still get the shot as I see it as low risk.
flu *shot*
I wouldn’t say great. Rather, they lower morbidity and mortality for specifics influenza strains. Which is exactly what they’re designed to do. Sadly, these past few years have made parents doubt ALL vaccines, even the most effective ones. This disinformation campaign hurts the most vulnerable.
Agree with you completely. As soon as a product is oversold then the consumers lose faith in the producer and don't buy any of the products -- even the ones that work. It's the situation we are in. Would that we aggressively protect the vulnerable and allow the rest to determine their own course.
do they John, its a proven fact?
I think Tony Faucci among others might say otherwise: from a recently published article in the journal Cell host & Microbe, Tony was one of three authors on a paper titled:
Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses
link: https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(22)00572-8#%20
from the paper:
"As of 2022, after more than 60 years of experience with influenza vaccines, very little improvement in vaccine prevention of infection has been noted. As pointed out decades ago, and still true today, the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases.7 Even decades-long efforts to develop better, so-called “universal” influenza vaccines—vaccines that would create more broadly protective immunity, preferably lasting over longer time periods8,10—have not yet resulted in next-generation, broadly protective vaccines, although a large number of experimental vaccines are in preclinical or early clinical development."
here is the part that matters:
"the rates of effectiveness of our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases."
so the flu shot works great...so great that even the captured FDA would not likely license the product if it had a different therapeutic target.
Another amateur virologist. "Stable target." "Common cold." Ha! Vaccines do, however, work beautifully on tinea pedis. Seriously. Try it.
Those are good examples having gone through years of rigorous and required FDA testing and trials. There was no reason for Operation Warp Speed and EU authorization for the COVID vaccine.... like the common cold, it is a Corona virus. And the immediate banning of long FDA approved oral treatments made NO sense...and enabled the arcane chicanery to commence. And Fauci’s initial 180 on masks spoke volumes...of BS.
The common cold is not itself a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are often the source of common symptoms of common colds---runny nose, scratchy throat, cough, etc.
Last I heard, around 10% of "common colds" are caused by one of several human coronaviruses. Covid is gradually joining the herd, adapting to its new host.
Prior infection with other coronviruses is commonly given as a reason some people are relatively immune.
The common cold can be caused by a rhinovirus or a coronavirus or perhaps others. At any rate, the current outbreak of the novel, science created Covid-19, presents as a common cold or flu-like symptoms in almost all cases. Which means there is no longer a need for vaccines, mandates, masks or testing.
Huh... so much for quoting what my own doctor tells me......
My doctor once told me that all the teens who committed suicide while using accutane were probably just depressed because they had severe acne.
Doctors are just people.
Unfortunately, a lot of them are ignorant, too. We’re too much in thrall to whatever a doctor says.
I originally thought the same thing about the speed with which the vaccine came out. But then I learned that mRNA technology had been in the works for years
Thank you
So you don't see any potential other explanation for why educated people don't share your point of view?
All hail ignorance, I guess.
It’s always dicey to make generalizations like that. However, I have found many educated people are obsessed with their own credentials. Many sign their names with an alphabet soup of letters, as if to guarantee whatever they say is correct.
An example might be the typical person that believes everything broadcast or publicized on NPR—often has at least a bachelor’s degree. Does having a bachelor’s degree make one educated? Only if after getting it, that person continues on with self-educating. That means much more than simply continuing education required for licensure.
I read some of the abuse you take on Twitter. We appreciate what you do. By exposing the truth, you are doing more to help our country than most of our politicians. Please don't be distracted or discouraged by the haters!
If you are taking fire, you must be on target.
One of Churchill's great quotes: "you have enemies? Good, it means you stood up for something."
Then I guess Kanye must have been on target, huh?
What a dumbass cliche.
Just fucking wow. Just overnight I was thinking about McCarthy’s Hollywood blacklist, which cast a cloud over an entire decade. Now we have solid evidence of hundreds, maybe thousands, of similar BS blacklists, being created and used *by our own government* to nudge the populace in whatever direction it so chooses.
This is exponentially bigger than Watergate.
You’re absolutely right -- it’s way bigger than Watergate and yet, because the MSM will bury it (by looking the other way), it won’t have any real impact.
We live in dangerous times... frustration is building.
"The revolution will not be televised"
It will not be brought to you by Pfizer or Moderna or Aetna or Northrop Grumman
I think we already lived through a revolution brought to us by Pfizer.
Well, some of us lived through it.
I've been following the Twitter Files from the very beginning and read every thread and unfortunately, people still don't know about it or think what's happened is not a problem. With every revelation, I think, "This is it! This will finally break through!" And it doesn't. It's getting depressing. I'm right of center and am disheartened that my liberal friends (the few who still talk to me) think that censoring people and ideas is okay because those ideas are "dangerous." All the areas I used to find common ground (i.e. censorship, free speech) is disappearing.
What happened is that the liberals got the whip hand, and once they did, they made The Church Lady look like G.G. Allin.
Meanwhile, the people skewering received pieties, the subversives, the roasters of sacred cows and speakers of outrageous truths that you aren't supposed to say out loud are all on the alt-right (and to a lesser extent, the Dirtbag Left).
This is NOT because of any inherent priggishness of liberals, nor is it because of any inherent virtue on the part of the right. Rather, it is the result of their current relationship toward power.
So, in a previous comment you assert that the PMC has the "whip hand." And now a bit later you're telling us that the "liberals" have the "whip hand." Who, exactly, has the whip hand? And who might the "whip hand" belong to next?
It is altogether possible that a right-wing populist movement could take it - this is the fear that Trump (and Bernie to a lesser extent) roused. The PMC (which leans liberal, since liberal politicians love them some big govt) will align with whoever supports the status quo (you know, like establishment GOP versus those insurgent types). The false belief that will infect just about everyone is that someone will look out for you.
Team D (aka "liberals") is but the political expression of the PMC made manifest, albeit with minorities as junior partners. (For its part, Team R is the party of Local Gentry, with white evangelicals as junior partners).
As to how things will play out, I don't own a crystal ball.
“ With every revelation, I think, "This is it! This will finally break through!"
Ditto. When they refuse to print I always promise myself I won’t get my hopes up next time, but the revelations are so important,especially collectively, I refuse to give up hope now.
Most people just don't give a shit about Twitter.
Shocking, I know.
I agree -- but I'd think more people would care about literal government censorship of speech regardless of where.
Yes, if the Twitter Files showed literal government censorship, I imagine they would.
Thanks again for an illuminating article. I take exception with only one comment regarding whether the GEC abuse was by "malfunction or design." After all we've seen the safe bet is design. I am bothered about the line about this "may" tarnish Obama's legacy. I think it quite clearly does, as does the whole russiagate affair. He was president when all this started.
Thanks for this. I should say I've talked to a number of people from this world, and I think as with any venture you get people of all types in any project. Some are sincere. A lot are just ignorant. GEC was originally designed to address ISIS recruitment, and its mission took a sharp turn in an unexpected direction almost immediately, which led to a lot of bad decisions that may or may not have been by design - or may have just "rhymed" with certain general political tendencies, to use their terminology.
"A sharp turn in an unexpected direction almost immediately." Once again, given all we have learned was the sharp turn really unexpected? I may be more cynical than most but that is the safest way to bet in the current environment.
Why jump to conclusions?
Getting sloppy in your opposition is worse than doing nothing.
And, if you trust Matt's reporting on this topic, I'm a bit surprised you don't trust his direct response to your concern. Don't you think he might actually have done his research?
It's possible to trust his reporting but disagree with his conclusions. In both this topic and all the russiagate work he has pointed out what was incorrect but never seems to get around to pinpointing who was behind it all. Over at the site the conservative tree house this tendency to pull punches has also been noticed.
Nobody is behind "it all". That framing basically presupposes a centralized conspiracy. In reality, sometimes things just turn out bad.
It seems like your disagreement with Matt's conclusions boils down to your willingness to speculate and jump to conclusions, versus his reliance on actually investigating and talking to people who would know.
Remember, willingness to trust in a comfortable and simplistic narrative is what allowed us to arrive at this point in the first place. Cynicism might feel good, but it's a heuristic, and placing your trust in a heuristic is never the start of a good process.
Of course someone is behind it. What on earth is your problem? Try reading this:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/02/20/twitter-files-matt-tiabbi-sniffing-around-the-senate-intel-committee-connection-to-manipulation-of-social-media/#more-243524
Good of you Matt to read these comments as I know it helps you get different points of view. I support your characterization of Obama and not pointing to him just yet (as much as I disagreed with his policies) as doing so would subject you to even more ridicule as a far right hack.
Great work.
Are you implying that Matt paces out his criticisms of Obama, as some kind of "boil the frog" tactic to duck media blowback?
Maybe you think that's a smart tactic, but to me your comment is just an insult to Matt's journalistic integrity.
"unexpected direction" strikes me as a very generous interpretation. Concentrating power is always in Big Gov's personal interest, so it was a natural outcome of the original mission.
ISIS had very, very few recruits in the US (more in Europe). The original mission was arguably fake.
In what sense does "Big Gov" have personal interests?
And everything is "arguably fake". In case you didn't notice, though, the U.S. went a *teensy* bit overboard in the "post-911" era fight against Islamic extremism. It seems to me that you're retrofitting the current political climate *onto things that happened a decade or so ago... in context of the time it happened, "fighting ISIS" makes perfect sense as a motivation.
Good intentions don't protect government programs and powers from corruption and abuse. By taking the paranoid cynical view that bad outcomes suggest bad intentions, you're obscuring one of the most crucial political lessons of this quarter-century.
This typically happens with government programs. They grow beyond anyone's wildest imagination and undergo mission drift. Whether "malfunction or design", the result is the same. We need to hold the government to the same standards we do the private sector.
Yep, then Obama and Holder decided that the right was more violent than ISIS, and turned the security apparatus against his political enemies.
Don’t want to cite the CIA cliché, but USIA -formally USIS - was under its watch as during the Cold War. Many in it as well were sincere & apropos nothing favored summer villas in Croatia. The Adriatic San Tropez
This is the danger of ALL government power - that a benign or even beneficent "intent" can have horrendous consequences. Conservatives give a tiny bit of consideration to that, progressives give none whatsoever. To the extent Obama was a progressive (and that depends on the perspective of the progressive you are talking to) it means he was blind to it.
As a Green, I think they're ALL f'ing Republicans, at least since Slick Willy C.
You're in the progressive camp, at the left fringe.
Incidentally, judging by your screen portrait, we look quite similar.
Or else the scales fell from my eyes decades ago. Take your pick.
So you don't think "defund the police" expresses robust skepticism about the "beneficent intent" of government power?
Whether or not you agree with "defund the police" is a different question, although given the ideological bubble you've just outlined around yourself, I'm predicting that you do not.
Currently, there's a news item on Yahoo (FWIW) indicating that LAPD union ALSO supports "defunding" the police; that is, they offered a list of calls that do not require armed police and should be served by someone else - social workers? Orderlies? That is defunding the police, in a nutshell.
Yeah, LAPD can do whatever they want as far as I'm concerned. If you still live in California that's on you.
How are you going to enforce law without police? You could turn over investigation to a prosecutorial agency, but what exactly would make that different?
We shouldn't have police enforcing tax law, like they did on Eric Garner, but that's as much a failure of the law that was passed as it was how it was enforced.
I would very much end qualified immunity - that's the "get out of jail free" card in this game. Hold accountable those who hold that power.
Yes, but you haven't answered my question.
As I predicted, you oppose defunding the police. So do I. But the existence of that movement clearly puts the lie to your claim that progressive don't care about the perversion of well-intentioned exercises of governmental power.
Too clever by half. Defund the police isn't an answer to a problem, least of all a problem created by progressive policy in the first place. It's an expression of ignorance and anger, not informed policy making.
So, refusing to answer the question, and just moving the goalposts, got it.
Just a pompous windbag you are, no substance and no ability to answer for your own ideas, it would seem.
Thank you -- the exponentially bigger than Watergate cancer was created by still “Saint” Obama and his executives of State Security agencies many of whom are now “consultants” to corporate
==state media.
What's with this whacky campaign to rehabilitate Nixon? We need a Godwin's Law for Watergate now...
Have you started drinking again? Nixon removal was State Security coup -- St. Obama’s total censorship, Ukraine 2014 coup, protection of bank mega-gangsters, Russia-gate hoax is infinitely more horrible than anything Nixon has done.
PS: I didn’t vote for either Nixon or Trump...
Holy word salad batman!
Truths that may cause heart attack in paid Sub-stack paid trolls:
https://www.youtube.com/live/eeVd2XWlNWk?feature=share
The UKRAINE CONFLICT Exposes the hypocrisy of the Neo-Liberal/Conservative ideology.
I knew it, you ARE a Nixon-lover
"The notion that there was some kind of shared rhetorical playbook just seemed too fanciful to believe. While the messages did not exactly repeat each other, they certainly rhymed."
I can't think of a better description of the response to Woody Harrelson's SNL monologue where everyone from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair to MSNBC all described Harrelson as some version of "a stoner spreading anti-vax conspiracy theories."
Yep, Woody's 30 second joke, where he didn't mention vaccines or Big Pharma even once, needed an immediate full court press of MSM smear. The speed that the MSM came to Big Pharma's defense, like it was a damsel in distress, couldn't have illustrated Woody's "They bought the media" line any better.
I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist. Scientologists have their suppressives who they smear & attack while 21st century pseudo libs have their conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers/domestic terrorists/MAGA-ists/Trumpers/right wingers/Nazis/QAnon-er who they smear & attack.
I don't think it is even remotely possible to see the DNC & their loyal quislings as anything other than a cult.
I can remember when liberals talked about universal health care as recently as when Obama ran for the Presidency. To watch those same liberals abandon that talk so they can defend Big Pharma and, worse still, demand that people who didn't want the COVID-19 vaccine should be denied health care or charged more for it, was one of many big tells about how those liberals really think.
They’ve been co-opted by Big Pharmacy. They’ve taken the passion the left normally has for the lower classes/marginalized and brought them to the heel. I’m not suggesting that *individuals* do not have a good-faith belief in where they stand - but I am suggesting that the wealthy elite like Big Pharma does not. They’re just following the money - i.e., the rich don’t actually buy what they’re selling, they’re just inflaming passions & keeping the focus off themselves. (The SBF/FTX debacle is Exhibit A here…the federal indictment in that case is something else.)
The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos is always amazing to watch. In any other era the left would see Davos for the disgusting display of conspicuous consumption & elite vanity that it is. But instead, those claiming to be progressive look at Davos and see their values being represented. It’s genius. Especially through Big Pharma with Covid and the green movement, they’ve created what the left always accused the right of doing – a value system that makes the difference between the billionaire class and the educated elites fungible. Both of these groups are on board with the idea of an apocalyptic vision. They agree that the most important thing is x, and that there will be no justice & people will die if we don’t solve it.
Getting the top 20 per cent to see their interests as aligned with billinares is what is greasing the wheels of the war we find ourselves in over…well, everything. It’s frankly one of the greatest Machiavellian tricks ever pulled.
"I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist. Scientologists have their suppressives who they smear & attack while 21st century pseudo libs have their conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers/domestic terrorists/MAGA-ists/Trumpers/right wingers/Nazis/??? who they smear & attack."
Interesting point, Spiderbaby...there are some similarities there.
The fact is that MSM was bought makes me thinking of me my favorite sayings. “That every man has his price is no surprise, the surprise is how low that price is”. They sold their souls to popular at cocktail parties
"I'm not seeing any difference between a 21st century pseudo liberal and a Scientologist."
I cannot possibly accept that you believe this obvious hyperbole. Either way, though, thanks for letting the rest of us know not to take you seriously.
Y'know, on 2nd thought, I see your point. Scientologists have far more integrity than the average 21st century DNC lovin' Joe Biden fellating liberal Democrat. Insinuating they're comparable does a grave disservice to Scientologists everywhere.
In addition Scientologists have a nifty science fiction style backstory with Overlord Xenu & interplanetary war & such. What's the DNC backstory? "Ummm, we used to pay lip service to the working class but...aaaaah...we got greedy so...y'now, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
Dripping with cringe don't ya think?
Ah yes, the classic dummy double down.
Oh no, the classic Xenu-phobic Xenist pucker up.
wow, did you make that up on the spot? that's pretty good
Look bud, you need to maintain consistency. If you tell me I'm an idiot but then complement me it just causes the few, feeble brain cells that I have left to go FZZZZZZT & short out.
I'd say that we've finally hit the Land Of Even Steven but I don't think that I've ever read anything you've written here. Tell you what, I'll continue ignoring you & you can start ignoring me right now, I'd offer you a refund but you're not paying me anything.
and thank you - we already know not to take you seriously .....
Well yes, that's what "living in a bubble" means... you're pre-insulated from views that challenge the narrative in your head.
Right, that open mind of yours.
You left out Q-Anon. They are everywhere, dont'cha know......
There I've given them their due place on the hierarchy of dismissive labeling.
If you haven't been subpoenaed by congress yet, you are gonna get subpoenaed.
That would be cool, actually. Congress would rue the day it made Matt testify about this government scourge.
Matt has been asked by Jim Jordan to testify about the Twitter Files. Perhaps it's not exactly what you are referring to, but it will be interesting, nonetheless.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1631045566422474752
Good.
That will be interesting ... if anyone bothers to cover the hearings so we can read about them.
Can’t wait for this ( testifying)
There’s an odd couple
If by "interesting", you mean "Matt cramming his journalistic credibility into the shredder by participating in a circus of partisan hackery", you're spot on.
I predict Matt won't do that, and good on him for it.
Or you follow the lead where it goes. Whether something is accurate or not should never be judged by who says it. Alas that appears the case nowadays
I'm not sure if you meant to respond to my comment, or else I'm totally missing the relevance to what I said.
AFAICT, Congress seems to be taking the "ostrich" approach to The Twitter Files.
Lest we forget, the CIA was caught spying directly on members of the Senate, and nothing else happened.
That should have resulted in the total dissolution of the agency and the prosecutions of all involved.
Was it the CIA or the NSA? Never mind, I am sure that both have their fingers in the pie, so to speak.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers
Thanks. IIRC, the NSA also was spying on Senators, or maybe my memory is playing me up.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/nsa-spying-bernie-sanders-members-congress
Most politicians these days don't believe in divided government, but that the legislative and executive should work together in harmony (as long as both are held by the same party) and the courts subservient to that. Nearly every one of them that takes the oath of office is committing perjury by falsely swearing to uphold the Constitution.
Of course nothing changes because the voters are content with this arrangement.
"[N]othing changes because the voters are content with this arrangement"
Exactly. Until it bites them in the ass -- then they're finally conscious, and screaming "Why wasn't this done yesterday??!!!" As if (U.S.) government needs no monitoring, because it's composed of nothing but good little do-bee's scurrying around selflessly in service of humankind.
Once you face up to the fact that we are governed by sociopaths, then you have to start making choices, and those choices can have very real and very personal consequences (see, e.g.: Assange, J.; Snowden, E.). Even if you do nothing, you still have a guilty conscience.
If you pretend that all is well, you can avoid those consequences, and the goodies still flow, maybe not like in the past, but it beats a SuperMax, right?
Also, keep in mind that, if the Establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to buy off, whom to co-opt, whom to neutralize, whom to ignore.
"If you pretend that all is well, you can avoid those consequences, and the goodies still flow, maybe not like in the past, but it beats a SuperMax, right?"
- I like to remind people of the eventual "What did you do in the war, grandpa?" Generations will be cursing grandpa's name. They're already doing it, generically, to the boomers. But that case looks like another of the many division-making psy-ops to me. It seems too early to make sense as something truly organic and sticky.
"[I]f the Establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to buy off, whom to co-opt, whom to neutralize, whom to ignore."
- Agreed. Way past time to up our game. Unlike, apparently, 50 years ago and earlier, a public forum (like this) does not solve anything, except turning a few peoples' switches on. Certainly no place for tactical discussions, nor even strategic ones. Not any more.
Rep
eating myself but we will lose our freedom the same way people go bankrupt. Slowly than all of the sudden
The Constitution has long been a dead letter.
sigh. Can't really argue that - the alternative seeming to be the living Constitution.
That was always a joke as well. I want to play poker by "the living Hoyles", which is basically Calvinball with playing cards. "Turns out that this time around, three twos beats a full house!"
Wanna bet?
Taibbi writes:
“With an inference, you can smear, and with a smear, you can do damage.”
This so clearly encapsulates today’s discourse...
1. What happens when you are digitally blacklisted by these creeps? You can no longer post on Twitter? Or are you put on "double secret probation" by people grifting tax money?
2. This does seem like Joe McCarthy's "Here in my hand I have a list of communists . . ." when the page was blank. Political theater that has bad and real consequences for innocent Americans, who lost their jobs as Hollywood writers and in other professions?
"What happens when you are digitally blacklisted by these creeps?"
Well, you start leaving a lot more comments on blogs, for starters. True. comments don't get retweeted, but before Twitter locked my account neither did my tweets.
One of the reasons I quit Twitter years ago was I'd rather post on blogs. The other is that Twitter is such a cesspool.
most likely the double secret probation but really piss them off and good luck getting your money out of the bank or doing anything in the digital world, ou know, like work for a living. At that point the purpose of your life will be to serve as a warning to others.
As we saw with Trudeau and the Canadian truckers, him cutting off their credit cards and banking . . .
Trudeau is a piece of work. Parliamentary democracy at its worst... it's a black mark on any government that U.S.-style presidential elections could actually *improve* its democratic system.
It's a shame the opposition are such repugnant assholes. You'd need a dozen Trudeaus to wash the Harper stink off the PCs.
John Stockwell, former CIA officer "running" Angola, commented that for decades before the "Smith Mundt Modernization Act", the CIA would regularly plant stories in friendly non-US media outlets, knowing that US media would pick up the story and publish. These stories were often entirely fabricated.
For that matter, according to Stockwell, the CIA routinely ignored Smith Mundt whenever it felt like it. Since the CIA spent decades hounding Stockwell, I suspect that he knew whereof he spoke.
For that matter, when I google the words "propagandizing US citizens", the first link I get is the "US Agency for Global Media", a US Government entity, link to "facts about Smith Mundy Modernization".
They've been at it for years. See the novel, Restless, by William Boyd which is about
British Security Co-ordination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Security_Co-ordination
May I use this opportunity to pimp Stockwell's IN SEARCH OF ENEMIES? Great book. Free to read with archive.org account.
https://archive.org/details/insearchofenemie00stoc
Thanks for the link. Great book. Popped my cherry on that one, and it lead me to so many other things--and I am feeling virginal enough for a reread.
Ew.
Yes, I believe I will.
As a lifelong conservative, I am very surprised that I am currently getting my best information from the likes of Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles, Michael Shellenberger and Glenn Greenwald
Yea who would of thought. They are models of journalistic integrity. I'm sure they are doing well on Substack
and not from the conservative stalwarts, makes one think you have been duped. I do.
You shouldn't be.
These are the Colmeses to the right's Hannitys. Intentionally or not, they mostly serve to legitimize right-wing narratives by presenting an anemic strawman version of leftism or liberalism that helps bubble-ensconced conservatives relieve the nagging suspicion they're living in a bubble.
Dwhy- You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't agree with you. I think the opposite. In fact, I see your comment as fairly common these days. When Classic Liberals demonstrate they are not leftists, they are often attacked as right-wingers, when they are simply behaving as Classic Free-Speech Liberals.
We have also seen Bill Maher, Russell Brand, and Joe Rogan criticized that way. Those 3 comedians are the same Classic Liberals they always were. They are just espousing opinions that other Liberals do not like to hear. Like Maher often says, he didn't leave Liberalism, Liberalism left him.
Knowing that the deep state is little more than a malevolent jobs program makes all of this much worse.
Yes, and add the weapons industries to that.
“But paying taxes for the pleasure? This supertanker needs turning around.”
No, the supertanker need to be scuttled and sunk… to be replaced with a modern small and nimble yacht with a small and transparent mission to identify only foreign money working to both influence elections and corrupt politicians and government officials.
Then another larger yacht with a transparent mission to identify and root out politician and government official self-dealing, graft and conflicts of interest.
And lastly, a new regulation that prevents FBI and CIA ex employees from working in media, and also rules to revoke their security clearance.
The supertanker not only needs to be sunk, but the crew put in the dock at a latter day Nuremberg.
would that be a court dock or a boat dock? Sorry could not help help myself. ITs late long day, should not have the last glass of wine.
The defendants can take a long walk off a short pier?
What a shameful minimization of the horrors of Nazism.
This is exactly the kind of irresponsible flirtation with rehabilitating fascism that leads people to turn a blind eye to censorship.
The judges at Nuremberg described the waging of aggressive war as "the supreme war crime".
Well, we've waged a lot of wars of aggression in case you haven't noticed, so if the shoe fits....
And how am I "rehabilitating fascism" by supporting the Nuremberg verdict?
By equating the modern American state with Nazism (via references to Nuremberg), you're implying that a Nazi-like system wouldn't be worse than what we have now.
Spin it however you want, but you're going to hell for this one.
Our government commits the same crimes that men hanged for at Nuremberg. Both are crimes. If I call Jeffrey Dahmer and some dude who killed someone else over a drug deal gone bad murderers, I am not rehabilitating Dahmer.
Sorry the truth hurts.
Spin it however you want.
Hell being getting involved in a twitter like debate I suspect
Our government was hi-jacked quite some time ago.
Yeah, it gets hijacked every few years... we call it "elections".