Government officials and their lackeys in the media often speak of the term “misinformation” as though it has some sort of universally-accepted, politically neutral definition. That’s always been total BS, but generating the mirage of neutrality has been a necessary ingredient in popularizing the “misinformation” concept over the past five years. Those who reject the impositions of mainstream cultural and political elites must not be simply wrong, but maliciously brainwashed by “misinformation” that complicit entities such as the social media platforms allow to proliferate.
The number one lesson of history, the omnipresent lesson is - governments oppress their people. This informed the American experiment, this is America‘s gift to the world, remember - “of” “for”and “by” the people.
I blame the left for this. Guns and God conservatives have not gone this way. The left has gone nuts, they don’t believe history applies to them, they believe they are in possession of superior knowledge and are morally correct so trifling matters such as freedom of speech and due process can be suspended in the name of what is right.
Any proper lefty should have been howling when Alex Jones and Trump were de-platformed.
I am on the left and I abhor censorship. You are talking about liberals. They used to be different but this is who they are now: authoritarian elitists.
I think there’s liberals and then there’s progressives. At least that’s the way I view this bizarre totalitarian movement. I don’t really see classic liberals, like yourself, accepting this sort of madness. Generally when I speak to people I know, liberals tend to voice their disagreement, while those I know that self identify as progressives tend to think the governments move is the best idea, for all our sake’s. And the progressives are vocally for this. What I’ve seen from the classic liberals is that they are against, but some also have issue with getting out there and calling for action. There’s some sympathy voiced wherein they see the supposed complicated nature of the “issue” with the unvaxxed. I think there’s a lot of trepidation with siding with the opinion of (what they perceive to be) Trumpers. After four years of insane anti-Trump action wherein everything he said, even if it made sense, it was packaged by the elites as some sort of Hitlerian menace. So now that classic liberals are seeing that Biden is actually doing those things they feared Trump may have done, they’re having a hard time breaking away from their bias. I don’t know. That’s what I’ve noticed from conversations with my friends on the left. They’re either happy about this (progressives) or unhappy but would rather not face the uncomfortable truth.
That pretty much sums up what I have noticed. They were so enamored of the idea of Trump being Hitlerian that they have a very hard time seeing that the phone call is coming from inside the house, so to speak. Over many, many years they have bought into the idea that the right are, in principle if not in fact, the bad guys and they are the good guys, and it's going to take a lot to show them that it isn't the case anymore, and hasn't been since the nineties.
Indeed. Given what’s transpiring in the open, I’m inclined to believe that it’s willful blindness. Obviously some are migrating the idea that the democrats are toxic right now, given that Substack’s best contributors are classic liberals. But it’s not enough.
Gallup in September last year showed that media trust is at an all time high of 76% in democrats and lowest in republicans at 10%. Based on that, I believe that 76% of democrats are cool with totalitarians.
Ya. I can see about 25 to 30 percent starting to turn away. That sound about right. Even looming at the progressives that troll Greenwald, it’s clear that there’s a substantial amount of democrats that remain cool with if not neutral to what Biden is doing. I suspect that things will change again and that dissatisfaction number will begin to increase. It’s inevitable. Liberalism cannot live with what’s happening. Progressives on the other hand…this is their wet dream.
As long as the (previously liberal) left continues to support this, it will continue to deteriorate. We need more principled liberals to stand up against this. No one will listen to conservatives. This is a bipartisan issue that will affect all Americans. I believe that is the bottom line that Michael is presenting here.
The bigger problem is that the sane non-cowardly liberals like Michael Tracey, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi who are speaking out against this censorship are getting labelled nazis and far right sympathizers. The rest are cowards.
He gets it half right. Sullivan wants to have his cake and eat it too on this, but he is a huge part of the loss of civil discourse. In that piece, he wants to talk, correctly, about the loss of liberalism and how the left moved so far in that direction, but he is also one of the people who directed that exodus, having been one of the people who supported the Iran thing and then tried to wash his hands of it when it went pear-shaped. He was also one of the people who constantly drove the dialog that the R's, who didn't move further right but only moved slower on a few things that the left cared about, were simply crazy. And that is a huge part of the problem right now, the ability of the left to totally disregard half of the population, as opposed to taking those ideas and moral positions into consideration.
And he really isn't that great of a writer, way too self-centered. No matter the topic, he wants to put himself in the middle of it, make himself look more important than he is.
Sullivan’s price was great. But he talks about Obama as a benign actor. It’s weird. I generally think his writing is accurate and I appreciate it. But Obama was the start of the whole, “us vs. them” attitude. Gods and guns? Anyone remember that? Hard to ignore an elitist statement like that. And we’re not even talking about his drone strike of an American family.
He was pretty hard on Trump voters. He’s a typical lefty that can not forgive Trump for his stylistic faux pas and heavily disregarded the trump voters concerns. Snobby highly educated distain for the trump voters was fashionable.
I have to agree with you on his writing style, I find it fantastic.
You know who the true left leaning liberals are by where they stand on this issue. As far as I'm concerned, Michael, Glenn, Matt, Andrew and Bari all qualify for this.
They are true American journalists. I do not agree with them on all issues but I have a tremendous amount of respect for each and every one of them. They are the American dissidents that we need.
You just named all five (and the only five)”substacks” to which I subscribe…have I become predictable or does everyone see the common strain of truth and genius these 5 true journalists?
Prior to Substack, these voices were marginalized. This is why they tried to vilify Substack. It provided a collective voice to the disenfranchised. They are more influential as a collective voice without the establishment guardrails. It is natural to coalesce around a common thread when using a platform that supports free speech. It is brilliant.
Ya, that is an improvement on my version. Corporations are supranational giants that are very much enabled by government: regulatory capture it is called I believe. Excellent thanks.
> "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private companies.
> Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all this out. She says, “This is one of the features of Chinese internet censorship and surveillance—that it's actually carried out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run China's internet services and platforms are acting as an extension of state power.”
> The people who make that argument don’t realize how close we are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone’s familiar with “The Great Firewall of China,” where they’re blocking out foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down Press TV, which is Iran’s PBS, for instance. We mimic that first layer as well, and now there’s also the second layer, internally, that involves private companies doing most of the censorship."
Easy peasy! First, label your political opponents as nazis, extremists, conspiracy theorists etc. Then get the military general to cry about the white rage boogeyman. Next force companies to ban said "extremists" and "conspiracy theorists" from every platform. Lastly, get that military general to use the military on these "extremists".
I am not surprised that they are (and have been?) doing this. I am surprised that they decided to publicize this during a White House press briefing. They went so far as to release policy guidance for platforms. They must be really confident about their polling numbers on this issue. I thought that this was something that would be confined to authoritarian regimes like Canada or New Zealand.
Whenever I start to feel bad about what is happening in the US, I just take a look at Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many other countries that were once free. I concede that it is a cheap coping mechanism that just makes me feel better. But it may also be a roadmap for where the US is headed. The Bill of Rights is the only thing that may prevent this.
I never realized how unique civil liberties are to the US until recently. That is obviously true for the right to bear arms but the restrictions on free speech seem to be commonplace. It has gotten "progressively" worse with COVID public health restrictions. Dragging a pastor away from his church with a goon squad is some next level shit.
I wasn’t particularly paying attention, but I watched your YouTube attachment, thanks . It puts hate in my heart. Everything about Justin Trudeau upsets me especially my belief that he’s likely to win the next election.
Lefties are suspending freedom of speech. The left are putting us on a very dangerous path. Many of our progenitors fought and died for freedom and these dummies are giving it away, wilfully throwing it away.
I ask you rhetorically (because I trust you get this stuff). What do you think teachers think? What do you think young people are being taught? What is the belief system of government mandarins? What do corporate HR departments believe? What does MSM say every day? What does your neighbour think?
We are lost at sea. People are happily, enthusiastically ceding power to government to control us.
The people doing this are your brother your sister your mother your father your children your neighbours your friends your enemies your colleagues your green grocer and they, these fools are going to re-elect Pierre’s idiot son.
I come from an academic family; my father was a prof, my uncle was a prof, various great uncles, and my great grandfather, among many other family members, and not to overdetermine the issue, but a big part of the hole we are in is the right ceding control of universities to the left. There is nothing there to challenge the often weak ideas being proposed, nothing to give alternate possibilities to impressionable minds. And even more important, there is nothing to stop these ideas from spinning up to greater and greater levels of panic at simple expressions of conservatism.
Now, I am not a conservative, I am a libertarian, but I know that we need a balance in our education, otherwise it really isn't worth anything as it is no longer tempered with practicality.
Yes fantastic “knowledge tempered with practicality”. I’m a libertarian as well, government is the enemy, governance should remain as small as possible.
Unfortunately even Doug Ford has become cucked. I see him worse than Trudeau now because he’s a fake conservative. Did you read the latest “subjective mathematics” curriculum and CRT nonsense? After some backlash, they decided to remove it from mathematics but it getting this far alone should scare us.
Subjective mathematics can only exist in social sciences, in real science subjective math would lead to engineers not putting enough concrete and rebar in a building and it would fall down.
I'm not so sure that this crew cares about their poll numbers. They seem to latch on to many ideas that will likely be electoral poison. Examples:
1. Dumping the Hyde amendment. This will likely hurt Dems in flyover country.
2. The buy in on CRT. It's only getting started, but I predict this could kill Dems with suburban parents, especially suburban mothers. Just look at the backlash in very liberal northern Virginia.
3. Over the top "new Jim Crow" rhetoric on red state voting laws. If you look at the polling, a substantial majority of all voters support most of these changes, including voter ID. This may play well with core Dem bicoastal voters, but not the persuadable middle.
You may very well be right about all of that. I just assumed that they performed some level of due diligence prior to going full authoritarian. If they did, I suspect that they would find that censorship of so-called, "misinformation" is quite popular these days. It's important to understand what we are up against.
If they had a rational long term outlook I'd say they would do that due diligence. I just wonder if they know people aren't buying what they are selling, so they are trying to cram through as much as they can through 2022, secure in the knowledge they will likely lose the House, and possibly the Senate. This latter approach is also rational even as it may end up hitting them in the polls. I speculate because I see strange things happening that don't seem to make electoral political sense
"I was a loyal Soviet citizen until age 20. What it meant to be a loyal citizen is to say what you are supposed to say, to read what you are permitted to read, to vote the way you are told to vote and, at the same time, to know that all this is a lie"
Michael, this unbelievably spot on. I was dumbfounded (well, not really coming from her, but you get my point) when I heard Psaki's comments last week. The Gov "helping" FB decide is unbelievably scary and smells of Marxism as much if not more than any comments made by the current administration. History has shown over and over again that "misinformation" and "propaganda" in the wrong hands can be melded together for nefarious purposes. Replace nefarious with political, depending on which sounds worse.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think some 20-something FB employees should decide what to censor either, but having the Gov "help" is clearly worse.
One of the problems, both for this admin and because of this admin, is that they have so insulated themselves from any counter opinion that they have no idea how bad this sounds or that it opens them up for serious trouble on 1A grounds; conspiracy to deprive someone of civil rights. They, and the people who support them, honestly think they are doing the right thing here and cannot see how there is massive disgust regarding it.
You can see this happening with CRT at the same time. They just cannot understand how someone could be against it, notwithstanding how racist it is.
Initially, I had the same reaction. But I don't know that they are insulated. Until recently, it was my assumption that Americans broadly supported free speech. I'm starting to wonder if that has ever been true. I find it hard to believe that the White House would publicize something like this unless they had the polling to back it up.
The best thing about Voter ID debate is that Monmouth University released a poll on early voting and voter ID. The poll found the majority of Americans support voter ID, and MORE minorities support voter ID than white people.
I would never be so foolish as to assume that they are trying to operate as a representative government. Should they exist, the high polling numbers for censorship conveniently align with their objective. Voter ID does not align with their objectives so they use propaganda to try to stifle dissent and suppress the will of the people.
I found a fascinating article on propaganda from Rob Henderson. I have cited him in several other comments because his area(s) of study are incredibly informative in light of where we are as a society. I cannot see propaganda in the same way after reading this. Here is a excerpt:
"People are deterred from dissenting against authoritarians not because they believe in their dull messages but because they believe the authoritarians have more power than themselves. Moreover, these official messages dictate the terms of acceptable public discourse and drive alternative ideas underground. They habituate citizens into acting “as if” they believe in the official doctrine, if for no other reason than that they do not publicly question it."
"We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie." — Alexander Solschenizyn
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” ― Theodore Dalrymple
I haven't but that excerpt was interesting. I shouldn't be able to relate to a dissertation on the nature of dissent in the Soviet Bloc but alas, I did.
I would say it's about 50/50 true believers and opportunists. One of the things pointed out to me years ago is we were able to infiltrate the Soviet hierarchy pretty well as by the 50's it was mostly opportunists, but we were never able to infiltrate any of the Islamic groups as they were mostly true believers.
The right is correct about the dangers that are coming out of the left regarding things like CRT, censorship, etc. but they are missing the boat about what is truly driving it, which is a religious-like fervor. I think this comes from the fact that up until Trump the party was lead by people who were RINOs and so they tend to place anyone else in the same category, that they are DINOs and should therefore be easily diverted with logic. But there is no logic to much of this.
While it is not directly correlated, there is evidence that younger demographics are more likely to support "cancelation". The young appear to be the true believers. Over half of them do not appear to value a diversity of viewpoints in interpersonal relationships.
If they are willing to cut off personal relationships because of "problematic" views, it is my assumption that the polling would be even higher for strangers. It would be even worse for public figures.
Note: I view cancelation as the mob rule version of state-sanctioned coersion. Here is the data:
% who say they have stopped talking to someone because of their political stance:
18-29 year olds: 52 percent
30-49: 33 percent
50-64: 18 percent
65+: 14 percent
This is based on British polling but it may point to an overarching trend.
Millenials would be both better people and better adjusted, too, had they been sexually abused by priests who at least gave them a traditional education.
It turns out that coddling a generation to protect it from ever encountering an idea it disagrees with is more psychologically damaging than sexual molestation.
Disagree? The facts speak for themselves. They are the unhappiest, dumbest, and most authoritarian generation in American history.
I'm going to go with option C on this one. Classical education with more exposure to a variety of ideas and no childhood trauma from sexual molestation. I also believe that a well rounded education should include exposure to conflict. I believe that is what you are going for but with more hyperbole.
"but they are missing the boat about what is truly driving it, which is a religious-like fervor."
Some on the right may be missing this but it is all too obvious to me. The left has been taken over by faith-based actors that I refer to as the religious left. I do that because I assume that most lefties would hate to be compared to the religious right even if it is an accurate depiction of what they have devolved into.
Authoritarian utopianism sounds like something with far too much credibility. Too many syllables. The religious left is more fitting because it is demeaning. The religious right was always idiotic. The religious left carries on the tradition.
> they have so insulated themselves from any counter opinion. They just cannot understand how someone could be against it, notwithstanding how racist it is.
That's not a bug. That's a feature. That's how real authoritarians dictate.
You are mistaken in giving them even a tiny sliver of doubt. It's on purpose. It's the classic Divide And Conquer Method.
Former Black Communist Leonard Patterson Exposes Racial Psyops of The Divide And Conquer Method:
There’s no question Fauci is the single biggest disseminated of covid disinformation. No one else comes close. Proof comes from his own mouth, repeatedly admitting lies while being applauded for it. I’d be in favor of silencing Fauci because of his malicious hidden agenda.
The Guardian is another disinformation spreader that needs silencing. Again, it needs silencing because of its undisclosed commercial and non commercial conflicts of interest. It lyingly reported this week that reports of ivermectin’s efficacy are based on fraud. WHO data analyst Tess Lawry showed live on air on Bret Weinstein’s podcast the effect of removing the single questionable study from her meta analysis. Surprise, the overall weight of evidence still shows Ivermectin is effective.
This is fast on the heels of yet another Russiagate fraud perpetrated by the Guardian just this week, one so egregiously fraudulent even its #resostance fellow travelers often refused to pick up. If we’re going to silence people for mis- or disinformation, the Guardian should definitely be closed down.
First they came for Alex Jones and Milo. Then they went for Tulsi Gabbard by Google stopping her AdSense account. Next came the President. Do you think us poor deplorables stand a chance?
Hillary calling us deplorable‘s is a gift that just keeps on giving. She let the cat out of the proverbial bag. The left absolutely still believe, adamantly believe that Trump supporters are deplorable. This is the foundation upon which the culture war is built. They hate us and believe we deserve the pain they inflict upon us . Their (lefty) bigotry and intolerance towards blue collar working class white industrial worker, NASCAR, Americana Culture is for them a badge of honour, they are proudly leaving behind their Neanderthal distant cousins.
Right now, it’s information they seek to control, but through it, they seek to control YOU (for your own good and the betterment of mankind, of course)…
> for your own good and the betterment of mankind, of course
I know you are being sarcastic but it reminds me of Bret Weinstein's censorship from YouTube and he labelled these people "Intellectual Authoritarians". Alex Jones called them "they are trying to play God":
That was great and very informative -- THANK YOU. There are also bipartisan taboo themes though.
Much reported, including Ed Snowden "Topic of this year – Pegasus, etc.", is disclosure of continuous over time surveillance ability of all smart-phones of all conversations and pin-point location-accuracy even when phone is turned off.
Therefore, certainly many governments (certainly of Israel and the US) know EXACTLY and for ALL Epstein's associates and "guests" -- who, when, where, how long, and why they were with pedophile Epstein !! Yet we still don't know, after all this time, for example, even what Epstein's multiple passports show.
As courageous Eric Weinstein stated -- Epstein was "a construct" - by one or more intelligence services. And – the buck for these spywares for authoritarian governments stops -- at Israel apartheid government.
The white liberal progressive is a power hungry, short sighted jackass. They aren't stupid, yet when the wind blows the other way they scream and howl about "injustice". No wonder areas are breaking away that are openly unfriendly to this most unappealing sector of the human race.
"Please don’t even try to argue that Psaki’s dictum is somehow going to be limited to “misinformation” surrounding vaccines . . . "
I 100% agree. I also got the vaccine (in my case the J&J). I'm 64 and would definitely recommend that older people get it because the risks are so much greater. But I wholeheartedly agree that available information should not be limited to the government approved party line. ALL vaccines involve some health risks. Even if the risks are generally rare, that doesn't mean they don't exist. The paternalist attitude, and bent towards propaganda, from the White House is dangerous. First, it assumes people are too stupid to figure out what information is reliable, and what is questionable. Second, anyone who relies on government to provide them with "the truth" is, ipso facto, an idiot. How many times during the Covid-19 pandemic has the CDC and NIH reversed course on "the truth"? Don't wear masks, wear a mask, wear two masks, etc. No way the virus came from the Chinese lab, maybe it did come from the lab. Dr. Fauci change his tune repeatedly.
I don't want to be protected by the government. I want to be protected FROM the government!
This insane dictate by the government is also an opportunity to challenge the idea in court. What stranger evidence of a 1st Amendment violation is there than the Administration press secretary claiming, on video, that they are scouring SM for “misinformation” and then working directly with SM to have them banned? It’s a gift. I’m not shocked in the slightest bit by this action. Progressives are hell bent on some pretty radical action, and Biden’s seemingly pliable mental status is their opportunity. I could be wrong, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that the Biden of the Obama admin would think this is a wise and legally sound maneuver. He may have been a partisan democrat, and a demagogue, but he was usually politically wise. So, what’s shocks me right now is that I haven’t heard a peep about a lawsuit. Not a single peep. That’s more disturbing to me. They government handed us an opportunity to challenge massive state overreach, and the ACLU is silent - not so surprising - but not even one of the 12 individuals that was temporary or permanently switched off have opened a civil rights suit against the government.
To the extent that centralized social media usage declines as a result & censorship-resistant options become more popular, it's good for the American public too.
So I'm cautiously optimistic about this whole thing.
Trying to ban someone everywhere will only result in them being banned from social media where censorship is possible. The "don't be evil" platforms (lol) will be separated from the "can't be evil" ones.
Given the way substack is based on email lists, it's not really possible to prevent a "banned" substack writer from getting in touch w their audience even if they do get booted off Substack.
Urbit has a peer-to-peer structure rather than a centralized database so censorship isn't really possible there either.. although Urbit's still young & raw & a lot harder for normal people to use than Substack.
"To understand the intelligentsia it is imperative to keep in mind its deliberate detachment from reality...when they come to power, revolutionary intellectuals immediately seize control of the means of information and institute a tight censorship"
No. She actually seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable with the messaging. It is equally possible that the architect(s) behind this messaging wouldn't qualify themselves as revolutionaries. But the detachment from reality for the intelligentsia is a feature not a bug.
The message is not intended to inform or persuade. They are dictating the terms of acceptable discourse while they denote how they will directly censor speech. It is a demonstration of power. This is a hallmark for an authoritarian regime. They are new at this but it is like they say, practice makes perfect.
The number one lesson of history, the omnipresent lesson is - governments oppress their people. This informed the American experiment, this is America‘s gift to the world, remember - “of” “for”and “by” the people.
I blame the left for this. Guns and God conservatives have not gone this way. The left has gone nuts, they don’t believe history applies to them, they believe they are in possession of superior knowledge and are morally correct so trifling matters such as freedom of speech and due process can be suspended in the name of what is right.
Any proper lefty should have been howling when Alex Jones and Trump were de-platformed.
I am on the left and I abhor censorship. You are talking about liberals. They used to be different but this is who they are now: authoritarian elitists.
I think there’s liberals and then there’s progressives. At least that’s the way I view this bizarre totalitarian movement. I don’t really see classic liberals, like yourself, accepting this sort of madness. Generally when I speak to people I know, liberals tend to voice their disagreement, while those I know that self identify as progressives tend to think the governments move is the best idea, for all our sake’s. And the progressives are vocally for this. What I’ve seen from the classic liberals is that they are against, but some also have issue with getting out there and calling for action. There’s some sympathy voiced wherein they see the supposed complicated nature of the “issue” with the unvaxxed. I think there’s a lot of trepidation with siding with the opinion of (what they perceive to be) Trumpers. After four years of insane anti-Trump action wherein everything he said, even if it made sense, it was packaged by the elites as some sort of Hitlerian menace. So now that classic liberals are seeing that Biden is actually doing those things they feared Trump may have done, they’re having a hard time breaking away from their bias. I don’t know. That’s what I’ve noticed from conversations with my friends on the left. They’re either happy about this (progressives) or unhappy but would rather not face the uncomfortable truth.
That pretty much sums up what I have noticed. They were so enamored of the idea of Trump being Hitlerian that they have a very hard time seeing that the phone call is coming from inside the house, so to speak. Over many, many years they have bought into the idea that the right are, in principle if not in fact, the bad guys and they are the good guys, and it's going to take a lot to show them that it isn't the case anymore, and hasn't been since the nineties.
Indeed. Given what’s transpiring in the open, I’m inclined to believe that it’s willful blindness. Obviously some are migrating the idea that the democrats are toxic right now, given that Substack’s best contributors are classic liberals. But it’s not enough.
Gallup in September last year showed that media trust is at an all time high of 76% in democrats and lowest in republicans at 10%. Based on that, I believe that 76% of democrats are cool with totalitarians.
Ya. I can see about 25 to 30 percent starting to turn away. That sound about right. Even looming at the progressives that troll Greenwald, it’s clear that there’s a substantial amount of democrats that remain cool with if not neutral to what Biden is doing. I suspect that things will change again and that dissatisfaction number will begin to increase. It’s inevitable. Liberalism cannot live with what’s happening. Progressives on the other hand…this is their wet dream.
Yup. Totalitarians on "their team" are apparently a good thing.
Should Trump be allowed his platform back, Twitter?
As long as the (previously liberal) left continues to support this, it will continue to deteriorate. We need more principled liberals to stand up against this. No one will listen to conservatives. This is a bipartisan issue that will affect all Americans. I believe that is the bottom line that Michael is presenting here.
The bigger problem is that the sane non-cowardly liberals like Michael Tracey, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi who are speaking out against this censorship are getting labelled nazis and far right sympathizers. The rest are cowards.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/archive
Check out Andrew on this he kills it.
He gets it half right. Sullivan wants to have his cake and eat it too on this, but he is a huge part of the loss of civil discourse. In that piece, he wants to talk, correctly, about the loss of liberalism and how the left moved so far in that direction, but he is also one of the people who directed that exodus, having been one of the people who supported the Iran thing and then tried to wash his hands of it when it went pear-shaped. He was also one of the people who constantly drove the dialog that the R's, who didn't move further right but only moved slower on a few things that the left cared about, were simply crazy. And that is a huge part of the problem right now, the ability of the left to totally disregard half of the population, as opposed to taking those ideas and moral positions into consideration.
And he really isn't that great of a writer, way too self-centered. No matter the topic, he wants to put himself in the middle of it, make himself look more important than he is.
Sullivan’s price was great. But he talks about Obama as a benign actor. It’s weird. I generally think his writing is accurate and I appreciate it. But Obama was the start of the whole, “us vs. them” attitude. Gods and guns? Anyone remember that? Hard to ignore an elitist statement like that. And we’re not even talking about his drone strike of an American family.
He was pretty hard on Trump voters. He’s a typical lefty that can not forgive Trump for his stylistic faux pas and heavily disregarded the trump voters concerns. Snobby highly educated distain for the trump voters was fashionable.
I have to agree with you on his writing style, I find it fantastic.
I meant to say disagree, I find Andrew Sullivan a fantastic writer
OK I may not of done it right. Check out his peace “what happened to you”
You know who the true left leaning liberals are by where they stand on this issue. As far as I'm concerned, Michael, Glenn, Matt, Andrew and Bari all qualify for this.
They are true American journalists. I do not agree with them on all issues but I have a tremendous amount of respect for each and every one of them. They are the American dissidents that we need.
You just named all five (and the only five)”substacks” to which I subscribe…have I become predictable or does everyone see the common strain of truth and genius these 5 true journalists?
Prior to Substack, these voices were marginalized. This is why they tried to vilify Substack. It provided a collective voice to the disenfranchised. They are more influential as a collective voice without the establishment guardrails. It is natural to coalesce around a common thread when using a platform that supports free speech. It is brilliant.
I am subbed to those exact same sub stacks too lol. And watch Jimmy Dore on videos.
Great minds think alike
Jimmy Dore too.
I could not have said it any better myself.
I think you meant this link:
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-you
But... it is only for subscribers, and I haven't decided just how many substacks I want to subscribe to!
I have hit my limit at four. It is a self-imposed restriction that I may overrule some day.
I pay for two and get the freebies from a couple more. Keeps my commenting time down to a manageable level.
Great article.
Andrew Sullivan is truly remarkable.
Gotcha save your money.
But Andrew Sullivan is exceptional, did you read that piece, he kills it. I pointed out because you said the same thing.
It wouldn't be possible without the "DNC left" going along with it though.
Ya, that is an improvement on my version. Corporations are supranational giants that are very much enabled by government: regulatory capture it is called I believe. Excellent thanks.
Psaki definitely blew up the whole, "it's a private company, build your own platform" argument.
I would recommend reading the last 3 paragraphs from Taibbi's substack:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
> "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private companies.
> Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all this out. She says, “This is one of the features of Chinese internet censorship and surveillance—that it's actually carried out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run China's internet services and platforms are acting as an extension of state power.”
> The people who make that argument don’t realize how close we are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone’s familiar with “The Great Firewall of China,” where they’re blocking out foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down Press TV, which is Iran’s PBS, for instance. We mimic that first layer as well, and now there’s also the second layer, internally, that involves private companies doing most of the censorship."
Yep.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration-completely-kills
So, I guess these censorship types also get to define what constitutes “Hate” speech as well? It’s a sad day in America.
Easy peasy! First, label your political opponents as nazis, extremists, conspiracy theorists etc. Then get the military general to cry about the white rage boogeyman. Next force companies to ban said "extremists" and "conspiracy theorists" from every platform. Lastly, get that military general to use the military on these "extremists".
The New York Times and WaPo appear to think this is fine.
How has the news become so corrupted?
> The New York Times and WaPo
You mean the CIA
I am not surprised that they are (and have been?) doing this. I am surprised that they decided to publicize this during a White House press briefing. They went so far as to release policy guidance for platforms. They must be really confident about their polling numbers on this issue. I thought that this was something that would be confined to authoritarian regimes like Canada or New Zealand.
Canada is an authoritarian state, we have our own Pravda, the CBC.
Whenever I start to feel bad about what is happening in the US, I just take a look at Canada, New Zealand, Australia and many other countries that were once free. I concede that it is a cheap coping mechanism that just makes me feel better. But it may also be a roadmap for where the US is headed. The Bill of Rights is the only thing that may prevent this.
You and me both, friend. Being the prettiest horse in the glue factory may not be much... but it's something.
The Canadian state is so aggressively in everyone’s lives
I never realized how unique civil liberties are to the US until recently. That is obviously true for the right to bear arms but the restrictions on free speech seem to be commonplace. It has gotten "progressively" worse with COVID public health restrictions. Dragging a pastor away from his church with a goon squad is some next level shit.
Have you been following the latest on the Bill C-16?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z6VSfVTeo
Have you been following the latest on the Bill C-16?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Z6VSfVTeo
I wasn’t particularly paying attention, but I watched your YouTube attachment, thanks . It puts hate in my heart. Everything about Justin Trudeau upsets me especially my belief that he’s likely to win the next election.
Lefties are suspending freedom of speech. The left are putting us on a very dangerous path. Many of our progenitors fought and died for freedom and these dummies are giving it away, wilfully throwing it away.
I ask you rhetorically (because I trust you get this stuff). What do you think teachers think? What do you think young people are being taught? What is the belief system of government mandarins? What do corporate HR departments believe? What does MSM say every day? What does your neighbour think?
We are lost at sea. People are happily, enthusiastically ceding power to government to control us.
The people doing this are your brother your sister your mother your father your children your neighbours your friends your enemies your colleagues your green grocer and they, these fools are going to re-elect Pierre’s idiot son.
I come from an academic family; my father was a prof, my uncle was a prof, various great uncles, and my great grandfather, among many other family members, and not to overdetermine the issue, but a big part of the hole we are in is the right ceding control of universities to the left. There is nothing there to challenge the often weak ideas being proposed, nothing to give alternate possibilities to impressionable minds. And even more important, there is nothing to stop these ideas from spinning up to greater and greater levels of panic at simple expressions of conservatism.
Now, I am not a conservative, I am a libertarian, but I know that we need a balance in our education, otherwise it really isn't worth anything as it is no longer tempered with practicality.
Yes fantastic “knowledge tempered with practicality”. I’m a libertarian as well, government is the enemy, governance should remain as small as possible.
Unfortunately even Doug Ford has become cucked. I see him worse than Trudeau now because he’s a fake conservative. Did you read the latest “subjective mathematics” curriculum and CRT nonsense? After some backlash, they decided to remove it from mathematics but it getting this far alone should scare us.
Subjective mathematics can only exist in social sciences, in real science subjective math would lead to engineers not putting enough concrete and rebar in a building and it would fall down.
I'm not so sure that this crew cares about their poll numbers. They seem to latch on to many ideas that will likely be electoral poison. Examples:
1. Dumping the Hyde amendment. This will likely hurt Dems in flyover country.
2. The buy in on CRT. It's only getting started, but I predict this could kill Dems with suburban parents, especially suburban mothers. Just look at the backlash in very liberal northern Virginia.
3. Over the top "new Jim Crow" rhetoric on red state voting laws. If you look at the polling, a substantial majority of all voters support most of these changes, including voter ID. This may play well with core Dem bicoastal voters, but not the persuadable middle.
You may very well be right about all of that. I just assumed that they performed some level of due diligence prior to going full authoritarian. If they did, I suspect that they would find that censorship of so-called, "misinformation" is quite popular these days. It's important to understand what we are up against.
If they had a rational long term outlook I'd say they would do that due diligence. I just wonder if they know people aren't buying what they are selling, so they are trying to cram through as much as they can through 2022, secure in the knowledge they will likely lose the House, and possibly the Senate. This latter approach is also rational even as it may end up hitting them in the polls. I speculate because I see strange things happening that don't seem to make electoral political sense
"I was a loyal Soviet citizen until age 20. What it meant to be a loyal citizen is to say what you are supposed to say, to read what you are permitted to read, to vote the way you are told to vote and, at the same time, to know that all this is a lie"
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/activi
Credit: https://mobile.twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1415801378879021059
Michael, this unbelievably spot on. I was dumbfounded (well, not really coming from her, but you get my point) when I heard Psaki's comments last week. The Gov "helping" FB decide is unbelievably scary and smells of Marxism as much if not more than any comments made by the current administration. History has shown over and over again that "misinformation" and "propaganda" in the wrong hands can be melded together for nefarious purposes. Replace nefarious with political, depending on which sounds worse.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think some 20-something FB employees should decide what to censor either, but having the Gov "help" is clearly worse.
One of the problems, both for this admin and because of this admin, is that they have so insulated themselves from any counter opinion that they have no idea how bad this sounds or that it opens them up for serious trouble on 1A grounds; conspiracy to deprive someone of civil rights. They, and the people who support them, honestly think they are doing the right thing here and cannot see how there is massive disgust regarding it.
You can see this happening with CRT at the same time. They just cannot understand how someone could be against it, notwithstanding how racist it is.
Initially, I had the same reaction. But I don't know that they are insulated. Until recently, it was my assumption that Americans broadly supported free speech. I'm starting to wonder if that has ever been true. I find it hard to believe that the White House would publicize something like this unless they had the polling to back it up.
Eh, they are going whole hog on the voting thing, but polling shows strong support for Voter ID across every demographic, even dems:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/voter-id-rules-popular-among-public-polls/ar-BB1ff46x
The best thing about Voter ID debate is that Monmouth University released a poll on early voting and voter ID. The poll found the majority of Americans support voter ID, and MORE minorities support voter ID than white people.
84% of minorities. vs. 77% of white people.
Question 31 on page 7:
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_062121.pdf/
But the dumbfuck "DNC leftists" claim voter id is racist lol
I would never be so foolish as to assume that they are trying to operate as a representative government. Should they exist, the high polling numbers for censorship conveniently align with their objective. Voter ID does not align with their objectives so they use propaganda to try to stifle dissent and suppress the will of the people.
I found a fascinating article on propaganda from Rob Henderson. I have cited him in several other comments because his area(s) of study are incredibly informative in light of where we are as a society. I cannot see propaganda in the same way after reading this. Here is a excerpt:
"People are deterred from dissenting against authoritarians not because they believe in their dull messages but because they believe the authoritarians have more power than themselves. Moreover, these official messages dictate the terms of acceptable public discourse and drive alternative ideas underground. They habituate citizens into acting “as if” they believe in the official doctrine, if for no other reason than that they do not publicly question it."
https://www.robkhenderson.com/past-newsletter/purpose-propaganda
"We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie." — Alexander Solschenizyn
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” ― Theodore Dalrymple
Ok, I can see that. By the way, have you ever read Vaclav Havels The Power of the Powerless?
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/the-power-of-the-powerless/
I haven't but that excerpt was interesting. I shouldn't be able to relate to a dissertation on the nature of dissent in the Soviet Bloc but alas, I did.
They do believe in it, they are infinitely sincere, they truly believe they are doing the right thing when they de platform people.
I would say it's about 50/50 true believers and opportunists. One of the things pointed out to me years ago is we were able to infiltrate the Soviet hierarchy pretty well as by the 50's it was mostly opportunists, but we were never able to infiltrate any of the Islamic groups as they were mostly true believers.
The right is correct about the dangers that are coming out of the left regarding things like CRT, censorship, etc. but they are missing the boat about what is truly driving it, which is a religious-like fervor. I think this comes from the fact that up until Trump the party was lead by people who were RINOs and so they tend to place anyone else in the same category, that they are DINOs and should therefore be easily diverted with logic. But there is no logic to much of this.
While it is not directly correlated, there is evidence that younger demographics are more likely to support "cancelation". The young appear to be the true believers. Over half of them do not appear to value a diversity of viewpoints in interpersonal relationships.
If they are willing to cut off personal relationships because of "problematic" views, it is my assumption that the polling would be even higher for strangers. It would be even worse for public figures.
Note: I view cancelation as the mob rule version of state-sanctioned coersion. Here is the data:
% who say they have stopped talking to someone because of their political stance:
18-29 year olds: 52 percent
30-49: 33 percent
50-64: 18 percent
65+: 14 percent
This is based on British polling but it may point to an overarching trend.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/half-of-young-cancel-people-over-opinions-x82mjxp9h
Millenials would be both better people and better adjusted, too, had they been sexually abused by priests who at least gave them a traditional education.
It turns out that coddling a generation to protect it from ever encountering an idea it disagrees with is more psychologically damaging than sexual molestation.
Disagree? The facts speak for themselves. They are the unhappiest, dumbest, and most authoritarian generation in American history.
I'm going to go with option C on this one. Classical education with more exposure to a variety of ideas and no childhood trauma from sexual molestation. I also believe that a well rounded education should include exposure to conflict. I believe that is what you are going for but with more hyperbole.
Credit: https://mobile.twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1416325632686968832
"but they are missing the boat about what is truly driving it, which is a religious-like fervor."
Some on the right may be missing this but it is all too obvious to me. The left has been taken over by faith-based actors that I refer to as the religious left. I do that because I assume that most lefties would hate to be compared to the religious right even if it is an accurate depiction of what they have devolved into.
I like that, the religious left I would find that very irksome. Wesley Yang called it authoritarian utopianism.
Authoritarian utopianism sounds like something with far too much credibility. Too many syllables. The religious left is more fitting because it is demeaning. The religious right was always idiotic. The religious left carries on the tradition.
The it about infiltrating Soviet versus Islamic groups is very interesting. Thanks.
> they have so insulated themselves from any counter opinion. They just cannot understand how someone could be against it, notwithstanding how racist it is.
That's not a bug. That's a feature. That's how real authoritarians dictate.
You are mistaken in giving them even a tiny sliver of doubt. It's on purpose. It's the classic Divide And Conquer Method.
Former Black Communist Leonard Patterson Exposes Racial Psyops of The Divide And Conquer Method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ksHW1mnlA
https://streamable.com/4lgzh2
https://twitter.com/intheMatrixxx/status/1304789461813911552
I see it as a creative blend of the best of Maoism and Nazism.
Creative blend of <Insert two horrific things that should never ever go together>.
There’s no question Fauci is the single biggest disseminated of covid disinformation. No one else comes close. Proof comes from his own mouth, repeatedly admitting lies while being applauded for it. I’d be in favor of silencing Fauci because of his malicious hidden agenda.
The Guardian is another disinformation spreader that needs silencing. Again, it needs silencing because of its undisclosed commercial and non commercial conflicts of interest. It lyingly reported this week that reports of ivermectin’s efficacy are based on fraud. WHO data analyst Tess Lawry showed live on air on Bret Weinstein’s podcast the effect of removing the single questionable study from her meta analysis. Surprise, the overall weight of evidence still shows Ivermectin is effective.
This is fast on the heels of yet another Russiagate fraud perpetrated by the Guardian just this week, one so egregiously fraudulent even its #resostance fellow travelers often refused to pick up. If we’re going to silence people for mis- or disinformation, the Guardian should definitely be closed down.
But I think Michael’s point is let’s not silence people for information you don’t like.
"If we’re going to silence people for mis- or disinformation..."
I believe that this is a call for consistency. I don't believe that Sevender is an advocate for stifling free speech but I could be wrong.
Here's some outstanding reporting by TheGuardian (same author too, one month apart):
> Why Ivanka Trump’s new haircut should make us very afraid
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/18/why-ivanka-trumps-new-haircut-should-make-us-very-afraid
> The uproar over AOC's hair is a reminder that women can't win under the patriarchy
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-haircut-uproar-aoc-reminder-women-cant-win-under-the-patriarchy
First they came for Alex Jones and Milo. Then they went for Tulsi Gabbard by Google stopping her AdSense account. Next came the President. Do you think us poor deplorables stand a chance?
Hillary calling us deplorable‘s is a gift that just keeps on giving. She let the cat out of the proverbial bag. The left absolutely still believe, adamantly believe that Trump supporters are deplorable. This is the foundation upon which the culture war is built. They hate us and believe we deserve the pain they inflict upon us . Their (lefty) bigotry and intolerance towards blue collar working class white industrial worker, NASCAR, Americana Culture is for them a badge of honour, they are proudly leaving behind their Neanderthal distant cousins.
It is aspirational for young people to be like them and to reject free speech and due process in the name of moral clarity.
NASCAR killed them selves when they bowed down to BLM nonsense.
Right now, it’s information they seek to control, but through it, they seek to control YOU (for your own good and the betterment of mankind, of course)…
Great article, Michael, as always..
Keep it up…
> for your own good and the betterment of mankind, of course
I know you are being sarcastic but it reminds me of Bret Weinstein's censorship from YouTube and he labelled these people "Intellectual Authoritarians". Alex Jones called them "they are trying to play God":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQNvhNfIRME
That was great and very informative -- THANK YOU. There are also bipartisan taboo themes though.
Much reported, including Ed Snowden "Topic of this year – Pegasus, etc.", is disclosure of continuous over time surveillance ability of all smart-phones of all conversations and pin-point location-accuracy even when phone is turned off.
Therefore, certainly many governments (certainly of Israel and the US) know EXACTLY and for ALL Epstein's associates and "guests" -- who, when, where, how long, and why they were with pedophile Epstein !! Yet we still don't know, after all this time, for example, even what Epstein's multiple passports show.
As courageous Eric Weinstein stated -- Epstein was "a construct" - by one or more intelligence services. And – the buck for these spywares for authoritarian governments stops -- at Israel apartheid government.
The white liberal progressive is a power hungry, short sighted jackass. They aren't stupid, yet when the wind blows the other way they scream and howl about "injustice". No wonder areas are breaking away that are openly unfriendly to this most unappealing sector of the human race.
"Please don’t even try to argue that Psaki’s dictum is somehow going to be limited to “misinformation” surrounding vaccines . . . "
I 100% agree. I also got the vaccine (in my case the J&J). I'm 64 and would definitely recommend that older people get it because the risks are so much greater. But I wholeheartedly agree that available information should not be limited to the government approved party line. ALL vaccines involve some health risks. Even if the risks are generally rare, that doesn't mean they don't exist. The paternalist attitude, and bent towards propaganda, from the White House is dangerous. First, it assumes people are too stupid to figure out what information is reliable, and what is questionable. Second, anyone who relies on government to provide them with "the truth" is, ipso facto, an idiot. How many times during the Covid-19 pandemic has the CDC and NIH reversed course on "the truth"? Don't wear masks, wear a mask, wear two masks, etc. No way the virus came from the Chinese lab, maybe it did come from the lab. Dr. Fauci change his tune repeatedly.
I don't want to be protected by the government. I want to be protected FROM the government!
This insane dictate by the government is also an opportunity to challenge the idea in court. What stranger evidence of a 1st Amendment violation is there than the Administration press secretary claiming, on video, that they are scouring SM for “misinformation” and then working directly with SM to have them banned? It’s a gift. I’m not shocked in the slightest bit by this action. Progressives are hell bent on some pretty radical action, and Biden’s seemingly pliable mental status is their opportunity. I could be wrong, obviously, but I find it hard to believe that the Biden of the Obama admin would think this is a wise and legally sound maneuver. He may have been a partisan democrat, and a demagogue, but he was usually politically wise. So, what’s shocks me right now is that I haven’t heard a peep about a lawsuit. Not a single peep. That’s more disturbing to me. They government handed us an opportunity to challenge massive state overreach, and the ACLU is silent - not so surprising - but not even one of the 12 individuals that was temporary or permanently switched off have opened a civil rights suit against the government.
This is bad for Facebook & Twitter & YouTube.
It's good for Substack & Urbit.
To the extent that centralized social media usage declines as a result & censorship-resistant options become more popular, it's good for the American public too.
So I'm cautiously optimistic about this whole thing.
Also, just looked up Urbit. I am going to dig into it.
Not if she's also talking about censoring people from all social media. If one person is banned at one place, they want them to be banned everywhere.
Trying to ban someone everywhere will only result in them being banned from social media where censorship is possible. The "don't be evil" platforms (lol) will be separated from the "can't be evil" ones.
Given the way substack is based on email lists, it's not really possible to prevent a "banned" substack writer from getting in touch w their audience even if they do get booted off Substack.
Urbit has a peer-to-peer structure rather than a centralized database so censorship isn't really possible there either.. although Urbit's still young & raw & a lot harder for normal people to use than Substack.
"To understand the intelligentsia it is imperative to keep in mind its deliberate detachment from reality...when they come to power, revolutionary intellectuals immediately seize control of the means of information and institute a tight censorship"
https://amzn.to/2UaXSeP
Credit: https://mobile.twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1415323149453996038
No. She actually seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable with the messaging. It is equally possible that the architect(s) behind this messaging wouldn't qualify themselves as revolutionaries. But the detachment from reality for the intelligentsia is a feature not a bug.
The message is not intended to inform or persuade. They are dictating the terms of acceptable discourse while they denote how they will directly censor speech. It is a demonstration of power. This is a hallmark for an authoritarian regime. They are new at this but it is like they say, practice makes perfect.
She's not the one pushing this. She's just the mouth piece of the establishment. She's a "useful idiot" as Yuri would call her.
Yuri Bezmenov's warning to America (Reaction):
https://youtu.be/dPpy6ZGnK2c
I'm sure she'll circle back to that ... sometime