Saturday, August 11, 2018

Free-Speech Monopoly - The Game Is Rigged

ORIGINAL LINK

Via Ben Garrison's GrrrGraphics.com,

In early America many cities had ‘town squares’ in which citizens could stand on soapboxes and shout out various messages. Our First Amendment protects such speech.

The Internet is today’s town square. The soapboxes are social media.

The Deep State and the left are intertwined with Silicon Valley. The CIA helped Google and Facebook get started. Why? To make it easier to spy on people. Over time, millions gravitated toward Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Conservative and Libertarian voices became very strong and that alarmed the Deep State. So they began demonetizing conservatives. Then they shadow-banned them. Now they are deleting them outright.

For many years, Alex Jones reached millions with his journalism and rants. His tirades helped wake people up. He yelled at us about the Deep State, including the corrupt security agencies, the Bohemian Grove, the CFR, the Bilderbergs, fluoride in our water, the lies about 9-11, and yes, even Sandy Hook. The latter had many anomalies that should be questioned. Alex brought all of this up and more before anyone else had a inkling about what was really going on with such matters. He was routinely dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ by the establishment. However, much of what he has been saying over the years is now acknowledged as self-evident. The legacy media, the Deep State, and Silicon Valley could not stomach the fact that he was informing and influencing minds and elections. They all got together and confiscated his soapbox. Their lame excuse? They claimed he was a purveyor of ‘hate speech.’

Having previously endured years of hate speech aimed toward me, I know what it is and what it isn’t. To me, it’s libel, defamation and death threats. Alex Jones has never engaged in hate speech. Questioning climate change is not hate speech. Jones is not a racist, a bigot or any of the other ‘phobic’ names the left enjoy pinning on ideological opponents. ‘Hate speech’ sounds alarming and terrible, but it’s also vague. Who gets to decide what it is?

The Supreme Court ruled it was legal speech, but apparently the Silicon Valley and Deep State commissars want to overrule that decision. They own their social media game and they’ve rigged it in their favor. They have all the money in the world, so they can afford to lose revenue from the millions of conservatives and libertarians they’re forcing out of the game. They can’t win the argument, so they’re resorting to censorship.

Censorship is what China does, and companies like Facebook and Apple are eager to please the communist oligarchs. The Deep State wants what President Xi enjoys - a rigged Internet that does not allow dissent or criticism of the political elite. Right now, even Winnie the Pooh is being banned in China. Why? Because Xi opponents in China were using the cartoon bear as a ‘meme’ to criticize their leader. Remember, conservatives greatly out-memed the left during the last presidential election. Hillary is no doubt very angry that we have the ability to meme and ridicule her pomposity. She once said herself that the Internet needs an ‘editor.’ She would welcome a Chinese-style, well-censored Internet that she and her ilk would control.

The leftist media have dominated American minds for decades. The lies they told were readily accepted as facts. That kind of mind control is no longer working for them, thanks to the Internet. We know their ‘Russia collusion’ narrative is bunk. We’re not going along, so now they want to force us to go along and if we don’t, we get banned as ‘haters.’

It will get worse. PayPal is already banning users who are being smeared as ‘haters.’ The left will make that tactic seem fashionable, so it’s a matter of time before banks get in on the act. Maybe even the Bezos-owned Amazon?

What can we do? Many think conservatives should develop their own social media. That is no easy task and we will receive no generous funding from the Deep State to do it. What we should NOT do is ask government to ‘regulate’ social media. That would only add bureaucracy and regulations on free speech and if the left regains political control, they will use it to their advantage. Just like they used the IRS to harass conservatives.

The only thing we can do now is keep our cool and let the leftist oligarchs play their game and reveal themselves for who they are - tyrants who want control over our minds via their game of monopoly.



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Twitter Bans Gavin McInnes, Proud Boys After They Denounce White Supremacist Rally

ORIGINAL LINK

Silicon Valley has claimed yet another conservative scalp after Twitter banned Gavin McInnes - the outspoken founder of the "Proud Boys" and co-founder of VICE magazine, along with several related accounts. 

The timing of Mcinnes's account suspension is suspect, has he was banned shortly after declaring that his organization is in no way associated with the "Unite the Right II" white supremacist rally taking place in Washington D.C. this weekend. The Proud Boys are a "pro-Western fraternal organization" which have made recent headlines following physical confrontations with leftists, particularly Antifa. 

"It goes without saying #ProudBoys have NOTHING to do with this and won't go near it. We are a multi-racial group that eschews the Alt-Right and despise DNC operatives such as #OccupyWallStreet's Jason Kessler." 

Gavin was suspended after tweeting this pic.twitter.com/go3Ri7pYp6

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2018

In 2017, as noted by journalist and pundit Ali Alexander, the Proud Boys disavowed the original Unite the Right rally: 

In a rare decision, Gavin McInnes has officially announced that the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, scheduled on August 12th, has been disavowed. I personally am not surprised by this. The rally is not about “uniting the right,” it is an attempt to lump civic-nationalists in with ethno-nationalists in order to make them seem like the same thing.
FUCK.
THAT.

Of course, this didn't stop publications from linking the Proud Boys ban to support of Unite the Right II after McInnes was banned. 

Variety ran with the headline, “Twitter Shuts Down Accounts of Vice Co-Founder Gavin McInnes, Proud Boys Ahead of ‘Unite the Right’ Rally” and leftwing The Hill screamed, “Twitter suspends far-right “Proud Boys” accounts ahead of “Unite the Right” rally” atop of its coverage. Mashable tried linking the group with the rally exclaiming, “Twitter suspends Proud Boys before white supremacist rally.” -Ali Alexander

There's a coordinated effort to frame the #ProudBoys. I've been quiet and observing it. Screenshot this.

— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 6, 2018

What's more, Twitter has reportedly been blocking links to the Proud Boys website: 

Twitter will not allow me to even link the Proud Boys website.

This is insane and blocks journalism, @TwitterSafety. Scary. @delbius @jack pic.twitter.com/GR2VRfH1QD

— Ali Alexander (@ali) August 11, 2018

same here @ali pic.twitter.com/br7G4yYLGB

— Jason Belich 🇺🇸 (@JasonBelich) August 11, 2018

In reaction to his ban, McInnes told Big League Politics "They think this is going to stop Trump," adding "Maybe if they deplatform us, the socialists will win – but they won’t. We’ve already won. You can’t stump the Trump."

The left is trying to make this about Unite the Right. It’s a lie,” said McInnes. "Antifa and the socialists are the mainstream now and we’re the Rebels."

Yesterday we noted that a flood of conservatives over various platforms vehemently denounced the event organized by Kessler - who was a leftist "Occupy" activist less than two years ago before shifting into his white supremacist schtick

McInnes's ban comes on the heels of an appearance by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sean Hannity's radio show last week, in which he assured the conservative host that he hoped to address terms of service violations "with warnings, with notices, with a temporary lock of the account" as opposed to summarily banning people. 

Twitter’s decision came just days after InfoWars host Alex Jones was kicked off multiple social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Pinterest. It also comes little more than a week after Twitter was castigated by President Trump himself for suppressing the accounts of top Republicans in the platform’s search results.

Just yesterday, the New York Times ridiculed fears of mass censorship of conservatives on social media, calling the concerns “overblown.” -Breitbart

Meanwhile, uber-popular politically agnostic podcast h3h3 had its YouTube live broadcast banned mid-stream after the show's hosts began simply discussing the censorship of Alex Jones

Wow @TeamYouTube just shut down our @theh3podcast live stream and gave us a strike for talking about Alex Jones??... What.

— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 10, 2018

As Breitbart's Allum Bokhari notes, McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned "a little over an hour later." 

We're guessing not even a well-coached Jack Dorsey doing softball damage-control interviews can explain this.



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A White, Trump-Voting Charlottesville Survivor Reflects On "An Entire Failed System Propped Up On Lies"

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by 'Charlottesville Survivor' via Unz.com,

It’s surreal to have lived through an event that is even now being mythologized. It’s nothing short of infuriating to see a mythology growing up that is almost an exact opposite of what actually happened. The lies being told about what happened at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville VA a year ago this weekend are so outrageous and so demonstrably untrue that it makes you question all of history.

What other historical events and movements have we been lied to about? And can you prop up an entire failing system based on lies?

Main Stream Media coverage throughout the country is being dominated by commemorations of the ill-fated rally [Charlottesville making final preparations for anniversary of deadly rallyby Talya Cunningham, WAVY, August 10, 2018]. The media is also eagerly hyping the second “Unite the Right 2” rally in front of the White House even though few participants in the original rally seem to be going [It’s right there in front of the White House.’: Is D.C. ready for Unite the Right? By Caroline Simon, USA Today, August 10, 2018]. The obvious intention: to claim the Alt Right has been defeated after almost no one shows up.

But it’s more likely that patriots have simply learned their lesson: not to put their trust in the law, the police, or the First Amendment. Flagrantly-biased law enforcement since last August has convinced many on the Dissident Right that they not only will not be defended by police, they will not even be permitted to defend themselves. Since the release of the Heaphy Report on the events in Charlottesville, it has been undeniable that the local police department deliberately fostered a climate of instability and unrest so it would have an excuse to shut down the rally.

This chaos culminated with James Fields driving into a crowd of screaming protesters, an act which led to the death of Heather Heyer, now being celebrated as a martyr. Of course, as Ann Coulter bravely pointed out earlier this week, Fields had good reason to fear for his life. In the end, he may well be acquitted like George Zimmerman or found guilty of a lesser offense - unless, as Coulter half-joked, “his defense lawyer is planning on intentionally throwing the case for the greater good.” Of course, if Fields is acquitted, we can probably expect another riot.

Aside from VDARE.com, no media outlets seem curious about the questionable cases being brought against defendants who are still jailed in Charlottesville - even as “anti-fascist” protesters caught on tape engaged in violence are let off scot free.

Even more serious: this double standard seems to be spreading across the country. Eric Clanton, a college professor caught on tape hitting people with a bike lock in Berkeley last spring, was let go with only probation. Somehow, no one died. He probably would never have been arrested at all if online activists at /pol hadn’t done the job the cops didn’t want to do and actually investigated these assaults.

Establishment reporters seem remarkably uninterested in confronting city and state officials to demand answers about why a climate of violence was deliberately cultivated in Charlottesville - including by Antifa against reporters [Female reporter for The Hill allegedly punched by ‘antifa’ protester in Charlottesvilleby Adam Shaw, Breitbart, August 12, 2017]. Instead, the “free press” that constantly brags to us about its role in curbing the powerful is doing things like hunting down pizza delivery guys with far more moderate views than the newest member of The New York Times Editorial Board[When the pizza delivery guy is also ‘Nazi Bob,’ by Matt Viser, Boston Globe, November 18, 2017].

Over the last year, this has also meant a concerted effort to dox and economically destroy people for simply commenting on unapproved websites [Dov Bechhofer Did Nothing Wrongby Greg Johnson, Counter-Currents, August 1, 2018]. This blunt exercise of power is especially disgusting as journalists continue to pose as martyrs because President Trump has criticized their dishonest tactics [Newspaper calls for war of words against Trump media attacksby Bob Salsberg, Associated Press, August 10, 2018].

In contrast, as opposed to the hypothetical violence supposedly encouraged by President Trump, reporters seem totally comfortable with the long record of physical attacks on journalists by Antifa in the recent past [Physical assault on journalists’ rap sheet reveal antifa: 10—Trump Supporters: 0by John Nolte, Breitbart, August 31, 2017].

Indeed, after Portland police used to separate the two sides at a recent rally in that city, reporters have responded with a public relations campaign against the cops. Some examples of their agitprop include:

Of course, as it is Antifa who create the violent conditions at any patriot protest. Police restraint only fuels chaos, as the antifa then turn their destructive tendencies on the larger community, as they did on Inauguration Day.

Since the tragedy of Charlottesville, America has experienced anarcho-tyrannyon a mass scale. In a classic example of victim-blaming, Unite The Right was exploited not just to enable a crackdown on public Alt Right demonstrations, but even on the expression of opinion online. What’s more, as shown by the recent deplatforming of Alex Jones and one-time VDARE.com contributor Gavin McInnes, more recently founder of the explicitly multicultural (and pro-Israel) Proud Boys, the censorship is expanding to targets that have nothing to do with race. The campaign is also being cheered on by System media outlets, most of whom are urging that more targets be taken down [Deplatforming works, Motherboard, August 10, 2018].

Ultimately, it will extend even to “mainstream” hosts with large audiences. CNN, which played a large part in promoting the anti-Jones campaign, is now targeting Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson for supposedly giving a voice to “white anxiety” [White anxiety finds a home at Fox Newsby Tom Kludt and Brian Stelter, CNN, August 9, 2018]. It’s no exaggeration to say that most journalists see their job as shutting up other people they disagree with. The line between “journalist” and SPLC apparatchik is practically nonexistent.

It can be expected that most Establishment conservatives will do nothing to oppose this, allegedly because much of the censorship is perpetrated by ostensibly “private” institutions. However, even that may not be true much longer: Senate Democrats, using the excuse of “Russian disinformation” campaigns, are already circulating a memo that would establish more government control over Internet content, including the de facto end of online anonymity [Senate Democrats Are Circulating Plans for Government Takeover of the Internet: Reason Roundupby Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason, July 31, 2018].

Slowly, America is moving toward a system where only favored groups will be allowed to express their opinion. Arguably, America is already at the point where groups such as Antifa simply do not have to obey the law at all, while ruinous lawsuits and “lawfare” are unleashed against conservative groups.

However, because of the nature of far-Left groups, and the high level of frenzy needed to keep the campaign against the Alt Right going, it is practically guaranteed the climate is going to grow more hysterical in the future, regardless of whether patriots continue to take to the streets or not.

The end result: a country that increasingly seems on the brink of madness as it is gaslighted by a media growing ever more shrill. America is being put on a permanent war footing—and the enemy its people are being mobilized against is the historic American nation, those European-Americans who live this country and its heritage.

President Trump, who seems to have far less power over this country than do the media and technology conglomerates, must act forcefully to ensure freedom of speech and the objective rule of law is re-established.

Otherwise, if there is ever a true history of the United States, Unite the Right in Charlottesville will be remembered as the day America truly came under enemy occupation.

*  *  *

Charlottesville Survivor [Email him] is a white man who voted for Trump. The Left hates all white men who voted for Trump, whether they were in Charlottesville or not.



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Conservatives Sound Alarm Over "Unite The Right II" Rally Organized By Known Provocateur

ORIGINAL LINK

Conservatives across the country have been sounding the alarm over this weekend's "Unite the Right II" anniversary rally in Washington D.C.'s Lafayette Park. Those on the right ranging from Dinesh D'Souza to Jack Posobiec to 4chan users have called the event everything from a bad idea to a trap designed to sow discord ahead of midterm elections.

In fact, many conservatives have been urging people to donate to a fund for Heather Heyer, a counter-protester who was killed when a Unite the Right attendee drove his card into a crowd. 

In anticipation of violence, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency, stating “I am urging Virginians to make alternative plans" to avoid the event- while the Alt-Right Exposed blog noted that a left-wing "Resist" group called Shut It Down is planning to confront attendees. 

A setup? 

Fueling speculation that the event is a setup is organizer Jason Kessler - a known provocateur who was a leftist "Occupy" activist less than two years ago, only to be kicked out of gatherings after he allegedly advocated for violence against the police

“I don’t remember exactly what he brought with him, but it was very violent in nature,” he says. “He quickly went from talking about this and that to ‘we need to have Molotov cocktails’ and ‘we need to dig up the bricks to throw them at the cops.'” -WINA.com

In a December 9, 2015 blog post, Kessler stated "I can’t think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage & self-determination to court controversy despite all slings & arrows of the world." 

Kessler also had a Jewish girlfriend, two roommates from Africa and even performed African revenge-porn poetry in 2014 - slamming the "evil" white man for stealing natural resources and African women. Not exactly material for a David Duke rally - a former KKK  grand wizard who will be speaking at this weekend's Unite the Right event

After counter-protester Heather Heyer died, Kessler tweeted "Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time."

This caused white nationalist Richard Spencer to disavow Kessler: 

Kessler would later blame his tweet on drug and alcohol use. 

Life comes at you fast, scumbag pic.twitter.com/7Cc52RM889

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 19, 2017

Conservatives push back

In response to the event, conservatives have been warning the right to steer clear of the event. Conservative author and scholar Dinesh D'Souza told C-Span on August 3rd that the Charlottesville event does not represent the right

Greta Brawner, host of  the C-SPAN program “Washington Journal“, asked D’Souza:

“How do you respond to people when they point to Charlottesville, and the president said there were bad people on both sides?”

Dinesh D’Souza responded:

“This is really, I would say, the trump card, and I use that terminology in the movie, because, I have uncovered an aspect of Charlottesville, that is not in the public debate, and that is… the whole point of Charlottesville, there was a tragedy in Charlottesville, and that won’t change. Somebody was run over and killed, and so it was a tragic event in that sense.”

“What I am contesting is the meaning of that event. Because, from the left’s point of view this was right wing white supremacy, and that was the whole point for Trump to condemn it. I deny that. I deny that, and I deny it, based on a close analysis of who was there and who these white supremacists are, and in this book, “Death of a Nation,  I go through the list.”

“Jason Kessler, the organizer of Charlottesville, turns out to be an Obama activist, and an Occupy Wall Street guy.”  -Alt Right Exposed

“Think about this. Does it make sense, someone who is an Obama voter and supporter becomes a white supremacist? That makes no sense to me. You think the media would be, like ‘Let’s check this guy out.’ , but there was a Charlottesville paper that did. It looked into his background, and it turns out he has a long left-wing history. They interviewed his girlfriend, and she goes ‘he broke up with me because I am too conservative.’ This guy, Jason Kessler.”

And as the Gateway Pundit's Cassandra Fairbanks reports, "supporters of President Donald Trump are taking a firm stance against it and urging people on the right to donate to the Heather Heyer Foundation as a show of goodwill."

As the next event looms, and people in the media — and even rally attendees — attempt to blur the line between the people who would attend such an event and your every day Trump voter, many on the right wanted to strongly come out against what Unite the Right represents

The large group of outspoken Trump supporters banded together and decided that the purest way to condemn the event would be to ask followers to donate at least $8.12, representing August 12, the day she died, to the scholarship fund in Heyer’s name. -The Gateway Pundit

The one-year anniversary of Charlottesville is 8/12

Let’s use this as an opportunity for unity for the USA

Donate $8.12 to the Heather Heyer Scholarship Foundation #812Campaign https://t.co/fu3954FuS5 pic.twitter.com/f1kO2WQGQZ

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 10, 2018

Meanwhile, attorney and conservative commentator Will Chamberlain said "we vehemently denounce this overtly racist spectacle," and encouraged Trump supporters to donate to the Heather Heyer Foundation as well. 

“Apparently not content with causing the death of Heather Heyer at Charlottesville, these noxious white nationalists have decided to reprise their disastrous rally. We want to make America great again for all Americans — not just white people — and we vehemently denounce this overtly racist spectacle,” Chamberlain said. “We encourage Trump supporters to donate to the Heather Heyer Foundation as a way of opposing this contemptible display.”

Join the #812Campaign and take a stand against Jason Kessler and his idiocy https://t.co/ImsuSQdh5s

— Will Chamberlain 🇺🇸 (@willchamberlain) August 10, 2018

Also noted by Fairbanks was author and journalist Mike Cernovich's opposition to the event, who said of Jason Kessler: 

“Jason Kessler is a toad. He looks like the kind of creepy person that you could imagine staring into someone’s bedroom late at night. We of course want nothing to do with him and recognize that he is so desperate for attention that he will use the death of a woman — and step over her body — as a way to get it. That is disgusting and he’s a loser,” Cernovich said.

Also voicing his opposition is conservative film director and producer Robby Starbuck, who urged people not to give the rally any attention. 

The Republican Party has a proud history of anti-racist activism and progress. That’s why what we’re seeing happen with White Supremacists marching in D.C. is so distressing. It reminds me of the pain Heather Heyer’s mom must be feeling. I believe in advancing progress and extinguishing hate so I’ve decided the best way forward is to remove the outrage and instead take action. I believe in taking action by ignoring these hateful racists. Turn your backs on them. Let them be the sad splinter group that they are. Let’s remove what they crave the most: Attention,” Starbuck said. “Instead I choose to honor a wonderful young woman who lost her life senselessly just one year ago. I urge everyone who can to take part and donate $8.12 to Heather Heyer’s scholarship fund, together we can counteract the evil that seeks to divide us. Together we are a force for change, do not let hateful people divide us. We can disagree but at the end of the day we are all Americans.” -Via The Gateway Pundit

This weekend a group of racists plan to march in D.C. I urge everyone to turn their backs on them. Let them be the sad splinter group they are. I’m a Republican and I choose to counteract their evil with good. Join me in donating $8.12 to https://t.co/NyNRZmAk4N #812Campaign pic.twitter.com/H3zDOQLR9E

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 10, 2018

Also opposing the event is the Black Conservatives Fund, who told the Gateway Pundit: “There are three groups that will enjoy the circus in Charlottesville: the Antifa Left, the Fake ethno-right, and Media. No Trump conservative or Trump republican would be caught dead at an event at doesn’t want to make America great again, but instead seeks to enthrall us into some fake proxy race war using talking heads on cable TV channels. Everyday Americans get along with all other persons. These fake right-wingers won’t fool anyone. We’re still mourning those injured and lost in last year’s careless actions by a crazed Democratic governor and these fake-right organizers.”

You don’t fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.

This is an opportunity ALL sides to unite and stand against this abhorrent ideology.

I just donated $8.12 to the Heather Heyer Scholarship Foundation.#812campaign https://t.co/lU8AWdcT3M pic.twitter.com/qxmYxxzSmg

— Kambree Kawahine Koa (@KamVTV) August 10, 2018

Just donated $8.12 to the Heather Heyer Scholarship Foundation as part of the #812campaign. Consider the same at https://t.co/7JWUj0TaHF pic.twitter.com/tkRKPzuWcn

— Jeff Giesea🌿 (@jeffgiesea) August 10, 2018

Donated to the Heather Heyer Foundation in opposition to the rally that’s taking place in my city this weekend.
We’re urging everyone to do the same by donating $8.12 or more here—>> https://t.co/q9JCJDimOU#812Campaign pic.twitter.com/7sE0rRvpXl

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) August 10, 2018

Jason Kessler is organizing an anniversary Charlottesville rally and has invited 7 white supremacist speakers.

Take a stand against Kessler by joining in the #812campaign and make a donation to Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer’s foundation.

Link: https://t.co/258blb9hir pic.twitter.com/QsixJq0CR2

— Mike Tokes (@MikeTokes) August 10, 2018

Even 4chan users warned people about the event:

With any luck, it will be a dud. 



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The Real Victim Of Social Media Censorship Is Personal Responsibility

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Brittany Hunter via The Foundation for Economic Education,

Only the individual is responsible for their consumption of information...

Between Trump’s tirades against alleged “fake news” outlets and the recent banning of Alex Jones from Facebook, Apple, and YouTube, our society appears to be obsessed with trying to silence the opposition by controlling the flow of information. And while the recent Jones prohibition has sparked a national debate over who the First Amendment applies to, there is more to this story than just the issue of state-protected free speech.

To be sure, the Bill of Rights is vital to individual liberty and was written explicitly to restrain the government from infringing upon the rights of the people. And while Facebook may sometimes be more accommodating to the government than many of us would like, the fact remains that it is a private company and it has the right to ban whomever it chooses. The same goes for YouTube and Apple.

And while we are each free to disagree with the decision to censor certain users, debating the constitutionality of Facebook and Apple’s decision ignores the real heart of the matter: Facebook, CNN, Apple, YouTube, and Fox News are not responsible for the spread of misinformation, no matter how much believing so may reinforce our own narratives. When all is said and done, the only person responsible for distinguishing fact from fiction is the individual.

Individual Responsibility Still Exists

When I was a child and used to accompany my mother to the grocery store, I would always stare in wonder at the sensational tabloid magazines that sat near the registers. “Saddam Hussein is Really a Woman,” one headline read. Another claimed to have an exclusive interview with a man with four heads while another had the scoop on the exorcism of a demonic cat. Even as a child, I understood these headlines were false, but I was still confused.

“Why are these magazines allowed to tell lies? Shouldn’t this be illegal?” I asked my mother. “What if someone believes them?”

“Some people do believe them,” she said as she told me about her friend from school who never missed an issue of World Daily News. She continued, “But each person is responsible for making that decision for themselves.”

The freedom to choose and think for ourselves is one of the most sacred attributes of the individual. But over the last several years, many Americans have adopted an attitude that puts political opinions ahead of individual responsibility.

Politics has created a divide in which everyone is accusing those with different opinions of spreading misinformation. And to be sure, in the political world, there is a lot of misinformation. This is not exclusive to just one party; everyone is guilty of it. But the finger-pointing has gotten out of hand. And the recent banning of Alex Jones and the Infowars podcast has demonstrated just how severe the problem has become.

While Facebook and others have denied that the banning of Jones has anything to do with the fear of spreading “misinformation,” that is essentially what their argument boils down to. Facebook, YouTube, and Apple have all stated that Jones was removed from their platforms for violating their respective terms of use. Specifically, the social media giants have each cited hate speech and bullying as the primary causes. And out of fear that people will subscribe to Jones’ beliefs, which some do, these organizations have made the decision to censor information they deem to be false or misleading.

Hateful opinions will exist whether Jones is on social media or not, but at least by allowing him to say his peace, we allow people to make their own decisions about his views. And if those decisions include the foolish choice to judge someone based on their race, immigration status, or sexual orientation, then at least we know who to avoid. By allowing people to freely associate with unsavory people, we can make better use of that same freedom by choosing to disassociate ourselves. Alleged “hate speech” should be treated as a social signal, not an excuse to ban.

The best way to combat bad ideas is with good ideas. And by allowing a plethora of different opinions to be circulated on social media, you give individuals the opportunity to judge the merits of each opinion and ultimately make their own decision. And if our ideas are truly the “right” ideas, then we have nothing to fear.

The rise of the alt-right and the alt-left has brought all sorts of weirdos out of hiding and yes, some of them have views that most of us would deem inappropriate and even immoral. But banning them only shows that we fear what they have to say. There is a market of ideas where different viewpoints compete with others. And if we, as individuals, believe that our view is the “right” or “good” view, then we should let that it compete on its own merits in the marketplace of ideas.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears to understand this, as he has refused to participate in the Jones ban, saying:

If we succumb and simply react to outside pressure, rather than straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints, we become a service that’s constructed by our personal views that can swing in any direction. That’s not us.

And even though this decision has resulted in backlash from the left who have attacked him for not taking a “stand” against Jones, Dorsey has stood his ground. He even responded to the criticism via tweet, telling journalists that if they are concerned with Jones’ views, they should be diligently combating them with their own opinions.

“Accounts like Jones’ can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors, so it’s critical journalists document, validate, and refute such information directly so people can form their own opinions. This is what serves the public conversation best.” He also released a statement stating that his platform cannot, and I would argue should not, be “the arbiter of truth” in regards to determining which information is true or false.

But no matter who you side with, this problem is hardly exclusive to the left. Trump seized on the term “fake news” (originally deployed by his political enemies) because he disagreed with what CNN and other news outlets had to say about him. But while these private companies are entitled to ban those they disagree with, they should be aware that this act is opening up the door to something much more threatening: government censorship.

Censorship by Any Other Name…

The prohibition of Alex Jones has led Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to call for increased censorship in order to “protect our democracy.” In a chilling tweet, he said:

Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.

If the flow of all information, true or false, is tearing our nation apart, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with. And for an elected official who, unlike Facebook, has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution is calling for further censorship, then every single one of us has cause for concern.

We can argue until we are blue in the face over whether or not Facebook and Twitter should censor information, but the government has no business calling for such an act.

So, if Facebook can, but probably shouldn’t, ban users and posts it doesn’t like, and the government most certainly should not and is constitutionally prohibited from censoring opinions, what are we to do to stop the spread of misinformation? It may bother some of you to hear that the answer is: absolutely nothing.

All we can do is create and circulate information and trust that our ideas are strong enough to speak for themselves. Only the individual is responsible for their consumption of information. And by constantly trying to ban everything, we are really demonstrating that we do not trust the individual’s ability to make the right decision.



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The Freedom Of The Press: George Orwell On The Media's Toxic Self-Censorship

ORIGINAL LINK

Authored by Maria Popova via BrainPickings.org,

“The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.”

In 1937, George Orwell got the idea for his now-classic dystopian allegory exploring the ferocious dictatorship of Soviet Russia in a satirical tale eviscerating Stalin’s regime. In his 1946 essay Why I Write, Orwell remarked that this was his first conscious effort “to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.” But by the time he finished it six years later, in the middle of World War II and shortly before the start of the Cold War, the book’s decidedly anti-Soviet message presented an obvious challenge in politically cautious Britain. The manuscript was rejected by four major houses, including Orwell’s publisher of record, Gollancz, and T.S. Eliot himself at Faber and Faber.

Perhaps even more interesting than the story of the book, however, is the prescient essay titled “The Freedom of the Press,” which Orwell intended as a preface to the book. Included in Penguin’s 2000 edition of Animal Farm (public library) as “Orwell’s Proposed Preface to Animal Farm,” the essay — penned more than seven decades after Mark Twain bewailed that “there are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press" - tackles issues all the more timely today in the midst of global media scandals, vicious censorship, and near-ubiquitous government-level political surveillance.

Orwell begins by excerpting a letter from a publisher who had originally agreed to publish the book but later, under the Ministry of Information’s admonition, recanted:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think … I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offense to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

Noting the general menace of such governmental meddling in the private sector of publishing and the resulting censorship, Orwell bemoans the broader peril at play:

The chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of … any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face. … The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

(Exactly thirty years later, E. B. White would come to redirect this critique at commercial rather than governmental pressures.)

The picture he paints of the press and its relationship with dissent and public opinion is ominously similar to what Galileo faced with the Catholic church nearly half a millennium earlier:

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines — being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that “it wouldn’t do” to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was “not done” to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

Orwell critiques the groupthink of the intelligentsia and the odd flip-flopping of moral absolutism and moral relativism they employ when confronted with the question of whether Animal Farm should be published:

The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: “It oughtn’t to have been published.” Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not the whole of the story. One does not say that a book “ought not to have been published” merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did the opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are.

At the heart of the question is an ethical dilemma manifest all the more viscerally today, when opinions can be — and are, prolifically — expressed on more platforms than Orwell could have possibly imagined:

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say “Yes.” But give it a concrete shape, and ask, “How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?” and the answer more often than not will be “No.” In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you.

But his most prescient point is his concluding one:

To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

On August 17, 1945, Animal Farm was at last published. It went on to sell millions of copies and has been translated into more than seventy languages.

Complement Orwell’s essay with E. B. White on the free presscultural icons on censorship and Rudyard Kipling’s satirical poem poking fun at the press.

*  *  *

The Freedom Of The Press

Authored by George Orwell,

This material remains under copyright and is reproduced by kind permission of the Orwell Estate and Penguin Books.

This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think… I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.

This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian ‘co-ordination’ that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news - things which on their own merits would get the big headlines - being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. And this nation-wide conspiracy to flatter our ally takes place, curiously enough, against a background of genuine intellectual tolerance. For though you are not allowed to criticise the Soviet government, at least you are reasonably free to criticise our own. Hardly anyone will print an attack on Stalin, but it is quite safe to attack Churchill, at any rate in books and periodicals. And throughout five years of war, during two or three of which we were fighting for national survival, countless books, pamphlets and articles advocating a compromise peace have been published without interference. More, they have been published without exciting much disapproval. So long as the prestige of the USSR is not involved, the principle of free speech has been reasonably well upheld. There are other forbidden topics, and I shall mention some of them presently, but the prevailing attitude towards the USSR is much the most serious symptom. It is, as it were, spontaneous, and is not due to the action of any pressure group.

The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. To name only one instance, the BBC celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army without mentioning Trotsky. This was about as accurate as commemorating the battle of Trafalgar without mentioning Nelson, but it evoked no protest from the English intelligentsia. In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so. A particularly glaring case was that of Colonel Mihailovich, the Jugoslav Chetnik leader. The Russians, who had their own Jugoslav protege in Marshal Tito, accused Mihailovich of collaborating with the Germans. This accusation was promptly taken up by the British press: Mihailovich’s supporters were given no chance of answering it, and facts contradicting it were simply kept out of print. In July of 1943 the Germans offered a reward of 100,000 gold crowns for the capture of Tito, and a similar reward for the capture of Mihailovich. The British press ‘splashed’ the reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued. Very similar things happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, too, the factions on the Republican side which the Russians were determined to crush were recklessly libelled in the English leftwing press, and any statement in their defence even in letter form, was refused publication. At present, not only is serious criticism of the USSR considered reprehensible, but even the fact of the existence of such criticism is kept secret in some cases. For example, shortly before his death Trotsky had written a biography of Stalin. One may assume that it was not an altogether unbiased book, but obviously it was saleable. An American publisher had arranged to issue it and the book was in print — I believe the review copies had been sent out — when the USSR entered the war. The book was immediately withdrawn. Not a word about this has ever appeared in the British press, though clearly the existence of such a book, and its suppression, was a news item worth a few paragraphs.

It is important to distinguish between the kind of censorship that the English literary intelligentsia voluntarily impose upon themselves, and the censorship that can sometimes be enforced by pressure groups. Notoriously, certain topics cannot be discussed because of ‘vested interests’. The best-known case is the patent medicine racket. Again, the Catholic Church has considerable influence in the press and can silence criticism of itself to some extent. A scandal involving a Catholic priest is almost never given publicity, whereas an Anglican priest who gets into trouble (e.g. the Rector of Stiffkey) is headline news. It is very rare for anything of an anti-Catholic tendency to appear on the stage or in a film. Any actor can tell you that a play or film which attacks or makes fun of the Catholic Church is liable to be boycotted in the press and will probably be a failure. But this kind of thing is harmless, or at least it is understandable. Any large organisation will look after its own interests as best it can, and overt propaganda is not a thing to object to. One would no more expect the Daily Worker to publicise unfavourable facts about the USSR than one would expect the Catholic Herald to denounce the Pope. But then every thinking person knows the Daily Worker and the Catholic Herald for what they are. What is disquieting is that where the USSR and its policies are concerned one cannot expect intelligent criticism or even, in many cases, plain honesty from Liberal writers and journalists who are under no direct pressure to falsify their opinions. Stalin is sacrosanct and certain aspects of his policy must not be seriously discussed. This rule has been almost universally observed since 1941, but it had operated, to a greater extent than is sometimes realised, for ten years earlier than that. Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. This attitude was usually defended on the ground that the international situation, and the urgent need for an Anglo-Russian alliance, demanded it; but it was clear that this was a rationalisation. The English intelligentsia, or a great part of it, had developed a nationalistic loyalty towards the USSR, and in their hearts they felt that to cast any doubt on the wisdom of Stalin was a kind of blasphemy. Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine. And if this was true before the war, the intellectual atmosphere is certainly no better now.

But now to come back to this book of mine. The reaction towards it of most English intellectuals will be quite simple: ‘It oughtn’t to have been published.’ Naturally, those reviewers who understand the art of denigration will not attack it on political grounds but on literary ones. They will say that it is a dull, silly book and a disgraceful waste of paper. This may well be true, but it is obviously not the whole of the story. One does not say that a book ‘ought not to have been published’ merely because it is a bad book. After all, acres of rubbish are printed daily and no one bothers. The English intelligentsia, or most of them, will object to this book because it traduces their Leader and (as they see it) does harm to the cause of progress. If it did the opposite they would have nothing to say against it, even if its literary faults were ten times as glaring as they are. The success of, for instance, the Left Book Club over a period of four or five years shows how willing they are to tolerate both scurrility and slipshod writing, provided that it tells them what they want to hear.

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ‘Yes’. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ‘How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?’, and the answer more often than not will be ‘No’. In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street – partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them – still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they ‘objectively’ harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.

These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalisation of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the ‘anti-Fascism’ of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?

It is important to realise that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World — first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution — the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech — the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilisation over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:

By the known rules of ancient liberty.

The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country — it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today — it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.

Proposed preface to Animal Farm, first published in the Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 with an introduction by Sir Bernard Crick. Ian Angus found the original manuscript in 1972.



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Friday, August 10, 2018

YouTube Shuts Down H3 Podcast During Live Stream For Talking About Alex Jones

ORIGINAL LINK
If you haven't been following the current war on free speech being waged by the ruling tech giants, YouTube and a multiple of other websites have banned right-wing radio host Alex Jones in a coordinated plot to deplatform him. Now, one of YouTube's most well-known channels, H3H3 Productions has had its podcast shot down mid-stream for talking about Alex Jones and commenting on his clips.blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Wow a href="https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@TeamYouTube/a just shut down our a href="https://twitter.com/theh3podcast?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@theh3podcast/a live stream and gave us a strike for talking about Alex Jones?? What./pmdash; Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) a href="https://twitter.com/h3h3productions/status/1028047008144080896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"August 10, 2018/a/blockquotescript async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script Related coverage: a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/33268-Alex-Jones-Targeted-By-Facebook-And-Apple-Over-Hate-Speech"Alex Jones Targeted By Facebook And Apple Over "Hate Speech"/aNow YouTube has given the H3 Podcast's YouTube channel a strike and removed their ability to live stream.blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Our ability to Livestream a href="https://twitter.com/theh3podcast?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@theh3podcast/a has

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Thursday, August 9, 2018

The Media and Our “Ignorant, Credulous and Propagandized People”

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I find it sad and sickening that most Americans, and the corporate media that shapes them, are more concerned about the effects of Russian “meddling” on our “democracy” than they are about our own home-grown oligarchs, who are not only meddling, but have bought Congress and turned this wonderful democracy we’ve been told we have into a joke—an anti-democratic cesspool.

In my view, the Koch brothers, among a host of others, present more danger to the U.S. than Putin could ever dream of.  Christ, when are people ever going to accept the truth; the real danger is home-borne?

Like any other disease on the Centers for Disease Control’s fluctuating, potentially terminal watch list.

All nations fail on their own accord—it doesn’t take meddling from abroad when the cards are stacked against the oppressed in their own nation.

People watch too much TV.  It’s sad they choose to ignore how duped they are by corporate media.

A mass uprising against the American oligarchs would leave Putin with nothing.  After all, his American friends are our real enemies. Trump doesn’t even register, because he’s an incompetent flailing in the wind.  Paul Ryan counts.  Mitch McConnell counts.  They’re Koch friends and benefactors, and business with Russia counts for them. They’re all for it, as long as it’s done properly—oligarch-to-oligarch, and in a far-less messy tyle than Trump’s deals.

You simply cannot trust the wall of obfuscation that surrounds us now, filtered through corporate media.  With the party elites fighting each other over the “spoils of globalization” and the press-release media following along, the situation is untenable for ordinary men and women who cannot keep up with the cost of housing, education, health care and a Sundae at the local ice cream parlor.

As for the media? There’s a lot of steno-work out there now, and far too little investigative reportage.

Paul Edwards wrote astutely in CounterPunch last month:

“The claim that all that is wrong with America is due to the malignant machinations of Putin is the most blatantly false, potentially disastrous bucket of bullshit ever inflicted by the matrix on this ignorant, credulous, propagandized people.”

This is how I put it down a little over eight years ago in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, when a notable right-wing insurgency had emerged and the Tea Party rose out of the muck. The president had his drone wars and secret kill lists in order, if not a plan to democratize the United States:

Dear Mr. President,

One presumes you had access to or knew all along about the trove of Afghanistan War documentation that has surfaced via WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Yet you persisted in your quest to expand the war. At what point in your ascendancy did you make this pact with the corporate hooligans who must have told you to jump aboard the kill machine or be banished? Was it during your first campaign in the Illinois legislature? Or during your run to the U.S. Senate? Or did your sudden dash past Clinton in the primaries occur precisely because you took the payoff – “give us permanent war and you get another day in the sun?”

President Obama, you are hope(less). The people were tired of dirty tricks and denial and the imperialist war machine when they voted you in over John McCain. And they remain tired of it. And all you can do is play the game that we were inspired to believe you might help finish off—the old game of Imperial Monopoly. It did not take you long to expose yourself as a fraud, Mr. President. Knowing this makes me sad.

Yours truly,

TS

Tea Party racists and retrograde Republican congressmen had their own brand of kill lists, of course—but theirs was unimpeded by secrecy.  They attacked in broad daylight, and darkness soon spread over the land.

By the date of my open letter, July 26, 2010, I’d had enough of Obama’s lies and deception. Two years into his presidency it was clear; the first black American president was a fraud.

I took him to task, as did many others on the left, for his duplicity.  The right was busy bullying him for the color of his skin, his theoretical birthplace in Kenya, and his “socialism.”

Obama hardly fought in return.  He droned people abroad, listened to the bankers, and shrugged.

Yet today he is still revered in most Democrats’ eyes, in a deeply disturbing nostalgic way—despite making a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Dems had a problem back then, and they refused to deal with it, perhaps because of their corporate myopia and pathetic search for the golden urinal—the seductive status-quo jobs they revered more than good governance and democracy.

Now they pay lip-service to the loss they inspired.

This piece is a good intro for the centrist mob that still mourns for Hillary and the ineptitude surrounding her ’16 run for the top job.

America was cheated out of a presidential race that year, via corporate-groomed subterfuge, and what we got is exactly what we deserved.

As much as Dems would love me to join the party and blame the Russians, it ain’t gonna happen. “Comrade,” as centrist liberals have taken to calling anyone who disputes the Russia-did-it narrative, our mess is the fault of the American oligarchy—not Russia’s.



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Ian56 retweeted: I certainly know that Wikileaks didn’t get it from Russia. I know who was the Wikileaks DNC source. I was involved. The Mueller indictment of 12 Russians will never be tested in Court, it’s a scam, initiated by Hillary Clinton. Mueller is a political hitman tasked to end Trump. https://t.co/AM2YaeB1t9

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9qheijpvtu9g5dteqvvw_normal.jpeg Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom
Ian56 retweeted:
I certainly know that Wikileaks didn’t get it from Russia. I know who was the Wikileaks DNC source. I was involved. The Mueller indictment of 12 Russians will never be tested in Court, it’s a scam, initiated by Hillary Clinton. Mueller is a political hitman tasked to end Trump. https://t.co/AM2YaeB1t9


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Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Bankrupt America: Bankruptcy Soars As The Country Grapples With An Unprecedented Debt Problem

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America, you officially have a debt problem, and I am not just talking about the national debt.  Consumer bankruptcies are surging, corporate debt has doubled since the last financial crisis, state and local government debt loads have never been higher, and the federal government has been adding more than a trillion dollars a year to the federal debt ever since Barack Obama entered the White House.  We have been on the greatest debt binge in human history, and it has enabled us to enjoy our ridiculously high standard of living for far longer than we deserved.  Many of us have been sounding the alarm about our debt problem for a very long time, but now even the mainstream news is freaking out about it.  I have a feeling that they just want something else to hammer President Trump over the head with, but they are actually speaking the truth when they say that we are facing an unprecedented debt crisis.

For example, the New York Times just published a piece that discussed the fact that the bankruptcy rate among retirees is about three times higher than it was in 1991…

For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy.

The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.

Overall, Baby Boomers are doing a whole lot better financially than the generations coming after them, and so this is very troubling news.

And here is another very troubling fact from that same article

Not only are more older people seeking relief through bankruptcy, but they also represent a widening slice of all filers: 12.2 percent of filers are now 65 or older, up from 2.1 percent in 1991.

The jump is so pronounced, the study says, that the aging of the baby boom generation cannot explain it.

Of course it isn’t just Baby Boomers that are drowning in debt.

Collectively, U.S. households are 13.15 trillion dollars in debt, which is the highest level in American history.

All over the nation, companies are also going bankrupt at a staggering pace.  This week we learned that the biggest mattress retailer in the entire country “Is considering a potential bankruptcy filing”

Mattress Firm Inc, the largest U.S. mattress retailer, is considering a potential bankruptcy filing as it seeks ways to get out of costly store leases and shut some of its 3,000 locations that are losing money, people familiar with the matter said.

Mattress Firm’s deliberations offer the latest example of a U.S. brick-and-mortar retailer struggling financially amid competition from e-commerce firms such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O).

We have seen retailer after retailer go down, and it is being projected that this will be the worst year for retail store closings ever.

But it isn’t just retailers that are hurting.  Yesterday, I came across an article about a television manufacturer in South Carolina that just had to lay off “94 percent of their workforce”

A TV manufacturer based in South Carolina have blamed Trump’s trade tariffs for laying off 94 percent of their workforce.

Element Electronics now has just eight employees in their company after letting 126 members of staff go.

They said the tariffs imposed on goods from China mean they can no longer buy essential components for their TVs.

During this next economic downturn, I believe that we are going to see the biggest wave of corporate bankruptcies that this country has ever seen.

State and local governments don’t go bankrupt, but they are drowning in debt as well.  State and local government debt has ballooned to the highest levels on record in recent years, and one of the big reasons for this is because we are facing a coming pension crisis that threatens to absolutely overwhelm us

Many cities and states can no longer afford the unsustainable retirement promises made to millions of public workers over many years. By one estimate they are short $5 trillion, an amount that is roughly equal to the output of the world’s third-largest economy.

Certain pension funds face the prospect of insolvency unless governments increase taxes, divert funds or persuade workers to relinquish money they are owed. It is increasingly likely that retirees, as well as new workers, will be forced to take deeper benefit cuts.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to engage in incredibly reckless financial behavior.  When Barack Obama was elected, we were 10 trillion dollars in debt, and now we are 21 trillion dollars in debt.

What that means is that we have been adding more than a trillion dollars to the national debt per year since 2008, and we continue to steal more than 100 million dollars every single hour of every single day from future generations of Americans.

And even though the Republicans have been in control in Washington, very few of our leaders seem to want to alter the trajectory that we are on.  But if something is not done, absolute disaster is a certainty.  At this point, it is being projected that our debt will reach 30 trillion dollars by 2028 if we stay on this current path.  It would be difficult to overstate the grave danger that we are facing, but nothing is being done to turn things around.  Here are some more projections from the Congressional Budget Office

In 2022, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of full funding. In 2026, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund follows. In 2032, the Social Security trust fund surpluses run dry, and all beneficiaries regardless of age or income level will face a 21 percent across-the-board benefit cut. Before 2030, we could have trillion-dollar annual interest payments. Interest rates have been low until now, but that is changing. As rates go up, we have to pay more on new debt and on all accumulated debt.

The amount we pay in interest on the debt is set to triple over the next ten years. But if interest rates rise just 1 point higher than expected, the government will owe an extra $1.9 trillion over 10 years.

On top of everything else, everyone else around the world has been on a massive debt binge as well.

Total global debt is well above 200 trillion dollars, and it has nearly quadrupled over the past 17 years.

Are you starting to understand why they call this a “debt bubble”?

Unfortunately, all debt bubbles must burst eventually, and the one that we are in right now is definitely on borrowed time.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The post Bankrupt America: Bankruptcy Soars As The Country Grapples With An Unprecedented Debt Problem appeared first on The Economic Collapse.



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