What this all shows is that the Red and Blue teams are both extremely conservative control freaks who could care less about First Amendment freedoms or about facts, as they are hell bent on hiding all the damning evidence pointing to malfeasance. The only time they accept any facts at face value is when it looks bad exclusively for the other team (e.g., Republicans accepting the Hunter Biden laptop story as valid). But more than that, it shows that both teams are composed of people who regularly do horrible things that they want to remain hidden. You don't have to censor anything if you don't have anything to hide.
Thanks for writing about this, Bill as it is a vitally important topic.
We seem to be at a very dangerous point in terms of the existential threats to democracy.
There is first, the complete disappearance, within both 'our government representatives' and their aligned media, of any questioning of the narratives and reasons for war; much less and real, principled opposition whatsoever to it.
I use 'war' comprehensively here; for it includes in my view not just direct military conflict between the U.S. and some 'enemy' state, but of course the myriad proxy wars, in which we encourage and enable others to war against such putative enemies, in furtherance of the Imperium's usually unspoken agenda.
And I also include in 'war', not just active military conflicts involving our troops, but also the other kinds of war- which may or may not precede and precipitate direct war. These include political meddling, economic warfare, informational/ psychological attacks to sabotage targeted leaders, direct engineering and support for coups, and other 'regime change' efforts. All are acts of war, in my view, for even when they do not ultimately involve U.S. military troops, they share many of the same characteristics and results. And the U.S. is the world's undisputed non-pareil in the conducting of all these forms of war against other states.
That effectively none among our political class will discuss any of this is frightening enough; for it signals the complete sublimation of representative democracy. Yet, the other facet of this is just as scary. It has two major components.
The first is the growth in government-originating propaganda that is dutifully repeated ad nauseam by a willfully submissive Press.
The second is the proliferation of calls and moves for censorship. This takes many forms but the result is the same, i.e. the gradual elimination of almost all dissenting information and perspective from the views of most of the electorate.
That people like Taibi- and there are still a fair number of honest progressive journalists in the same boat- are smeared, and denied main stream speaking platforms;, are de-monetized, investigated and thereby threatened, etc.,, should make all uncomfortable if not scared shitless.
So along with the disappearance of any serious political debate about direct or proxy wars or the absurdity of spending a near-trillion dollars annually just on war and war preps (thereby not only increasing dangers of thermonuclear ecocide but also national economic suicide), the political class is successfully inhibiting the greater public from doing anything other than marching along and waving the appropriate flags against imagined enemies.
That's exactly why we need you, Bill, and all these other writers to do what you are doing... hopefully turning on few more lightbulbs every day.
Given this [and all] Government’s history of mis-, dis-, and mal-information, and the dutiful complicity of its Media in perpetrating and perpetuating all that Bullshit, all that the Twitter Files indicates is that nothing has changed except the technology with which to do it.
Just remember folks: You carry Big Brother’s telescreen along with You in Your hip pocket, backpack, or purse.
A lot of those politicians would feel right at home in the old Soviet Union. If, of course, if they were part of the ruling party structure. Maybe that's why they hate contemporary Russia so much, as it reminds them of the passing of the good old days.
Matt Taibbi recently posted on his surreal experience here: https://www.racket.news/p/the-democrats-have-lost-the-plot
Also, a powerful rejoinder of Democrats' tactics here at Breaking Points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEtAO4jQcUU
What this all shows is that the Red and Blue teams are both extremely conservative control freaks who could care less about First Amendment freedoms or about facts, as they are hell bent on hiding all the damning evidence pointing to malfeasance. The only time they accept any facts at face value is when it looks bad exclusively for the other team (e.g., Republicans accepting the Hunter Biden laptop story as valid). But more than that, it shows that both teams are composed of people who regularly do horrible things that they want to remain hidden. You don't have to censor anything if you don't have anything to hide.
Thanks for writing about this, Bill as it is a vitally important topic.
We seem to be at a very dangerous point in terms of the existential threats to democracy.
There is first, the complete disappearance, within both 'our government representatives' and their aligned media, of any questioning of the narratives and reasons for war; much less and real, principled opposition whatsoever to it.
I use 'war' comprehensively here; for it includes in my view not just direct military conflict between the U.S. and some 'enemy' state, but of course the myriad proxy wars, in which we encourage and enable others to war against such putative enemies, in furtherance of the Imperium's usually unspoken agenda.
And I also include in 'war', not just active military conflicts involving our troops, but also the other kinds of war- which may or may not precede and precipitate direct war. These include political meddling, economic warfare, informational/ psychological attacks to sabotage targeted leaders, direct engineering and support for coups, and other 'regime change' efforts. All are acts of war, in my view, for even when they do not ultimately involve U.S. military troops, they share many of the same characteristics and results. And the U.S. is the world's undisputed non-pareil in the conducting of all these forms of war against other states.
That effectively none among our political class will discuss any of this is frightening enough; for it signals the complete sublimation of representative democracy. Yet, the other facet of this is just as scary. It has two major components.
The first is the growth in government-originating propaganda that is dutifully repeated ad nauseam by a willfully submissive Press.
The second is the proliferation of calls and moves for censorship. This takes many forms but the result is the same, i.e. the gradual elimination of almost all dissenting information and perspective from the views of most of the electorate.
That people like Taibi- and there are still a fair number of honest progressive journalists in the same boat- are smeared, and denied main stream speaking platforms;, are de-monetized, investigated and thereby threatened, etc.,, should make all uncomfortable if not scared shitless.
So along with the disappearance of any serious political debate about direct or proxy wars or the absurdity of spending a near-trillion dollars annually just on war and war preps (thereby not only increasing dangers of thermonuclear ecocide but also national economic suicide), the political class is successfully inhibiting the greater public from doing anything other than marching along and waving the appropriate flags against imagined enemies.
That's exactly why we need you, Bill, and all these other writers to do what you are doing... hopefully turning on few more lightbulbs every day.
Given this [and all] Government’s history of mis-, dis-, and mal-information, and the dutiful complicity of its Media in perpetrating and perpetuating all that Bullshit, all that the Twitter Files indicates is that nothing has changed except the technology with which to do it.
Just remember folks: You carry Big Brother’s telescreen along with You in Your hip pocket, backpack, or purse.
A lot of those politicians would feel right at home in the old Soviet Union. If, of course, if they were part of the ruling party structure. Maybe that's why they hate contemporary Russia so much, as it reminds them of the passing of the good old days.
democrats’ ‘our democracy’ is fascism.