Category Archives: Media

The Censorship Industrial Complex, by C.J. Hopkins

Posted on March 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

It’s nice the Twitter revelations pulled back a bit of the curtain, but it barely debts the complex. From C.J. Hopkins at consentfactory.org:

I think something is seriously wrong with my brain. Yesterday, I hallucinated that Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives about the Censorship Industrial Complex, i.e., the US arm of the global official propaganda and disinformation apparatus that has been waging an all-out war on dissent for the better part of the last six years.

I know this couldn’t have actually happened, and was just an extended hallucination (probably the result of the copious amount of drugs I consumed in my misspent youth, or the effects of a Commie bio-weapon with a fatality rate of less than one percent, because I’ve been writing about The War on Dissent (2018), and The Criminalization of Dissent (2021), and the global Corporate COINTELPRO op (2017), and The War on Reality (2021), and The Manufacturing of Reality (2021), and Manufacturing Truth (2018), and Manufacturing Normality (2016), and The Road to Totalitarianism (2022), and The Gaslighting of the Masses (2022) … well, for quite some time. So, I’m sure it was just an hallucination, because there’s no way Matt and Shellenberger were actually sitting there talking about how …

“We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation ‘requests’ from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and others, many taxpayer-funded.” (Matt Taibbi’s Statement to Congress)

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The Censored Generation, by Thomas Buckley

Posted on March 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Censorship protects the bubble-wrapped cohort when what’s needed is a lot of pins. From Thomas Buckley at mises.org:

Incredulity. Astonishment. Disgust. Anger.

It is these feelings—amongst others—that describe the general reaction to the revelations of the Twitter Files and other egregious episodes of Big Tech censorship of the electronic public square.

The implicit deal with companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. is very simple: we will look at your ads if you give us a service for free. The deal did not include censorship.

But what is society to expect when those doing the censorship seem to see absolutely nothing wrong with it, and that it didn’t even occur to them that what they were engaged in—often at the specific request of governmental agencies—was at all a problem?

For a generation that has grown up with speech codes, enforced nicety, automatic deference to the feelings of others, and has been swaddled in bubble wrap against the vagaries of life, censoring of speech is not only not an ethical leap, it is the right thing to do.

Couple that with a permanent, purposeful self-infantilization that makes them defer to (or incoherently rage at for NOT censoring speech) anyone they perceive to be a grown-up—such as former FBI bigwig James Baker at Twitter—and the stage is not only set, but the terrifying end of the play writes itself.

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The Empire of Lies Strikes Back… Extraordinary Cover-Up of Nord Stream Terrorism, by The Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on March 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

The U.S. government launched a incredibly flimsy story from a select few house organs to divert attention from Seymour Hersh’s story. From The Strategic Culture Editorial Board at strategic-culture.org:

Western news outlets pompously claim to be pinnacles of journalism and defenders of public interest and democracy. They are nothing but the propaganda ministry for Washington – the Empire of Lies.

The New York Times and other Western news media ran with clumsy and blatantly diversionary claims this week, which in the end only serve to draw even more attention to the guilt of the United States in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

Not only is the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden even more indictable over the criminal act; the absurd cover-up attempt this week exposes the Western media as nothing but a ministry of propaganda masquerading as journalism.

Four weeks ago, the eminent independent American journalist, Seymour Hersh, published a blockbuster investigative report that revealed how President Biden and senior White House staff ordered the explosive detonation of the natural gas pipelines connecting Russia to the European Union via the Baltic Sea and Germany. The legendary Hersh has an impeccable record of groundbreaking stories, from the My Lai massacre committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam in 1968 to the Abu Ghraib prison torture in Iraq under American occupation to the operation of ratlines to funnel weapons and mercenaries from Libya to Syria to fight Washington’s proxy war for regime change in Damascus.

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When it comes to Nordstream and F-16s the U.S. Opts For Ham Handed Political Gestures, by Larry Johnson

Posted on March 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

The crew and passengers of the S.S. Minnow, the ill fated boat in Gilligan’s Island, blew up the Nordstream pipelines. From Larry Johnson at sonar21.com:

In theory, a covert operation is supposed to be elegant, sophisticated and smart. But that is not the case with the United States these days. Ham-fisted and clumsy are more apt descriptors.

Yesterday’s simultaneous release of a new account of who destroyed the Nordstream pipeline in the New York Times, Die Zeit and a London paper placing the blame on shadowy pro-Ukrainians was not a coincidence. This was a coordinated information operation and the media reaction to this news is quite telling. The same news outlets that strenuously ignored Sy Hersh’s explosive, detailed revelation that it was a U.S. operation with help from Norway stumbled over themselves to breathlessly report that an unidentified pro-Ukrainian group was the guilty party.

Die Zeit provided the most hilarity with their fantastic tale of six people on a private yacht carrying out the deed. Looks to me like Die Zeit was channeling a Gilligan’s Island episode. We had Ginger and Mary Ann, accompanied by the Professor, the Skipper, Thurston Howell and Gilligan. They set to sea with a 1000 pounds of high explosive and used their snorkel gear to plant the charge. I bet you it was Ginger and Mary Ann who planted the bomb, of course, was built by the crafty Professor.

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A Handy January 6 Fact Sheet, by Julie Kelly

Posted on March 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

The facts certainly don’t support the “insurrection” story. From Julie Kelly at amgreatness.com:

In another example of Washington’s inexorable slide into banana republic territory, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to call for the removal of an American journalist. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anchor treat the American people, and American democracy, with such disdain,” Schumer said during his seven-minute authoritarian tirade. “And he’s going to come back tonight with another segment. Fox News should tell him not to. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch—tell Mr. Carlson not to run a second segment of lies. You know it’s a lie.”

Schumer later reiterated his demand to a group of journalists who, rather than denounce one of the most powerful government officials in the country attempting to silence an influential member of the media, dutifully reported Schumer’s bleating without question.

Republican senators including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) joined the fray, echoing Schumer’s faux concerns over “national security.”

Clearly, it’s panic time. The White House, Congress, and the Democratic Party propaganda arm that is the corporate media realize their carefully engineered narrative about January 6 is imploding in real time. Which is why they’re accusing Carlson of “whitewashing” and “rewriting” the events of January 6. Anything less than total fealty to regime-approved talking points about what happened before and after that day now is considered a “threat to democracy.”

But facts are facts. And no amount of pearl-clutching by the hags on “The View” or threats made by U.S. senators can alter the reality of January 6. Between video recordings, witness testimony, court filings, and news reporting, the undeniable truth about January 6 cannot be willfully wished away even by the most skilled spinmeisters.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Media, Politics, Propaganda

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They Work So Hard To Manufacture Our Consent Because They Absolutely Require It, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on March 10, 2023 | 1 comment

Remember, there are a lot more of us than there are of them. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Australian media are awash with reporting on the war-with-China propaganda series by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that I’ve been writing about for the last few days. Which is really quite extraordinary, because it’s not an actual news story.

It really isn’t. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age just asked five warmongering China hawks what they think about war with China, wrote down their very predictable answers saying Australia must prepare for war with China within three years, and then passed it off as journalism. Obviously if you ask a bunch of China hawks if they think Australia should prepare for war with China they’re going to tell you yes; that’s not news, that’s just you reporting that five random warmongers think warmongery thoughts.

Yet SMH and The Age stretched this ridiculous non-story into a multi-part series titled “Red Alert” — all without ever noting the massive conflict of interest posed by the extensive ties its “panel” of “experts” have to US-aligned governments and the military industrial complex — and now it’s being covered like a real news story by the rest of Australian media. TV news segments have filled the airwaves reporting on the opinions of the most wildly biased people you could possibly find on this subject, the most appalling of which appeared on the Australian government’s ABC.

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Dems Blast “Threat” Of “So-Called Journalists” As Taibbi, Shellenberger Expose “State-Sponsored Thought-Policing”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Democrats are making asses of themselves trying to explain away videotapes we can all see and threatening those associated with their release. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update (1300ET): Well, that escalated quickly…

As one might expect, the Judiciary hearing on the “weaponization” of federal agencies, featuring Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger as witnesses was full of fireworks, facts, and ad hominem friction.

Out of the gate, Ranking Member Democratic Del. Stacey E. Plaskett labeled the two “so-called journalists” as dangerous and a “threat” to former Twitter employees.

She claimed that Republicans brought “two of Elon Musk’s ‘public scribes'” in “to release cherry-picked out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative – Elon Musk’s chosen narrative – that is now being parroted by the Republicans” for political gain.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say you have called two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them,” Plaskett said after the video.

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, had a simple response to her accusations:

“It’s crazy what you were just saying.”

“You don’t want people to see what happened,” Jordan continued.

“The full video, transparency. You don’t want that, and you don’t want two journalists who have been named personally by the Biden administration, the FTC in a letter. They say they’re here to help and tell their story, and frankly, I think they’re brave individuals for being willing to come after being named in a letter from the Biden FTC.”

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Dear Conservatives, I Apologize, from Dr. Naomi Wolf

Posted on March 9, 2023 | 1 comment

No, this is not one of those half-assed apologies that leaves you angrier after you’ve seen it than you were before. This one is sincere, and Naomi Wolf has some interesting observations about January 6. From Wolf at naomiwolf.substack.com:

My “Team” was Taken in By Full-Spectrum Propaganda

There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere.

It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without every acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways.

But that erasure of personal and public history would be wrong.

I owe you a full-throated apology.

I believed a farrago of lies. And, as a result of these lies, and my credulity — and the credulity of people similarly situated to me – many conservatives’ reputations are being tarnished, on false bases.

The proximate cause of this letter of apology is the airing, two nights ago, of excepts from tens of thousands of hours of security camera footage from the United States Capitol taken on Jan 6, 2021. The footage was released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson [https://www.axios.com/2023/03/08/mccarthy-defends-jan-6-footage-tucker-carlson-fox-news].

While “fact-checkers” state that it is “misinformation” to claim that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on that day [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/27/fact-check-nancy-pelosi-isnt-in-charge-capitol-police/8082088002/], the fact is that the USCP is under the oversight of Congress, according to — the United States Capitol Police: [https://www.uscp.gov/the-department/oversight].

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What Have We Learned? By Visayas Outpost

Posted on March 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

In an increasingly complex world, adopt the contrarian strategy. Simplify! From Visayas Outpost at theburningplatform.com:

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil

to one who is striking at the root.”

-Henry David Thoreau

That is an aerial view of the chemical fire in Palestine, Ohio, looking for all the world like a bruise on the Earth.  As the story is still unfolding, and seems to be competing with “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” as the distraction du-jour, let me doff my hat to the man who surely ignited all this media firestorm:  Mr. Seymour Hersh.  By now you have undoubtedly read his work on the Nordstream pipeline sabotage, a story which itself still has more pages to be turned.

Nordstream should not come as a shock to anyone paying attention.  Between Cognitive Warfare and the downright evil machinations of the Borg, we need distraction events to round out the narrative intake.  It keeps us from noticing the real stories, like the US attacking its own NATO allies, or Pfizer producing vaccines they knew had a 44% miscarriage rate in women.  You know, the actual stories that you mustn’t focus on lest civilization itself be undermined.  So balloons, funny clouds, earthquakes, anything will do.  Literally just 20 minutes ago Mrs. Outpost sent me a link about a fireball streaking through the Texas sky.  Yes, Facebook will be all abuzz, so congratulations to the ever-vigilant netizens who like to poke this giant beehive.  Take a lunch break, take a deep breath.  Enjoy a smoke.

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Nord Stream Attack – ‘Officials’ Throw More Chaff To Hide The Real Perpetrators, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on March 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

The U.S. government hasn’t told the truth about the Ukraine-Russia war since before it began. Why would they start now? From Moon of Alabama at moonofalabama.org:

Right at the same moment the New York Times publishes a shoddy ‘officials say’ story about alleged intelligence about the Nord Stream terror attack the Germany weekly Die Zeit, which has strong U.S. secret services ties, comes up with an equally unbelievable tale of a ‘Ukrainian owned’ sailing boat playing the major role in the attack:

Nord-Stream-Ermittlungen: Spuren führen in die Ukraine
Ermittler haben das Boot identifiziert, von dem aus die Anschläge auf Nord Stream ausgeführt wurden. Offenbar wurde es von einer Firma gemietet, die Ukrainern gehört.

My translations:

Nord Stream investigation: Traces lead to Ukraine
Investigators have identified the boat from which the attacks on Nord Stream were carried out. Apparently, it was rented by a company owned by Ukrainians.

No, it is not the USS Kearsarge, the U.S. amphibious assault ship which ‘trained’ ‘mine removals’ near Bornholm island next to the pipelines just days before they blew up,  which the ‘investigators’ identified.

AZ @AZmilitary1 – 13:52 UTC · Sep 27, 2022

An expeditionary detachment of US Navy ships led by the universal amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge days ago was in the Baltic Sea
It was 30 km from the site of the alleged sabotage on the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline and 50 km from the threads of Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline


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The new claim is that some rather small yacht, which would not even be able to carry the necessary equipment to perform such a deed, was the main instrument in this:

Following joint research by [German main public TV news unit] (ARD’s capital city studio), the ARD political magazine Kontraste, [German public TV] SWR and DIE ZEIT, it was possible to reconstruct to a large extent in the course of the investigation how and when the explosive attack was prepared. According to this, traces lead in the direction of Ukraine. However, investigators have so far found no evidence of who ordered the destruction.
…

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Posted in Crime, Governments, Media, War

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