#and not trust every lie western media feeds you

[pent-up-disappointment]

The latest WandaVision episode hit a bit too close to home, so I’ll tell you a story (tw: death).

I don’t know if people generally agree with this hypothesis, but there’s a theory that Sokovia is actually based on Serbia, and there are many things to prove this point: for example, the language used for street signs in Avengers: Age of Ultron is Serbian, and now I watched this episode of WandaVision I heard many Serbian words (I heard mostly Serbian and Russian, and I think some Ukrainian), like Здраво (Zdravo), meaning Hi. But perhaps the biggest similarity is that of the twins’ backstory: the bombing. 

In 1999, NATO launched an unauthorized attack on March 24, showering the country with depleted uranium for 78 days. The Serbian government estimates that at least 2,500 people died and 12,500 were injured, but the exact death toll and the full extent of the damage remains unclear. It is estimated that the bombing damaged 25,000 houses and apartment buildings and destroyed 470 kilometres of roads and 600 kilometres of railway. The air strikes caused many more deaths ‘indirectly’, since Serbia has the highest cancer mortality rate in Europe, and the fourth highest in the world, thanks to the 15 tons of depleted uranium they dropped on us. 

So, back to WandaVision. The bomb that hit the Maximoff family’s home didn’t go off. You know which one did? The one landing in the apartment of the Rakić family, killing three-year old Milica instantly. 

So this scene: 

...was real for many children here. And much worse. 

Milica Rakić was one of 89 children killed in NATO air strikes, and most major Western news outlets didn’t even bother to report about it. The final NATO report on the bombing of Yugoslavia made no mention of Rakić's death, even under the category of "special incidents".

In 2000, a monument dedicated to the children killed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was unveiled in Belgrade's Tašmajdan Park. 

(photo is mine, taken last year):

[deniscollins]

Playing on Kansas City Radio: Russian Propaganda

What would you do if you owned Alpine Broadcasting Corporation of Liberty, Missouri, and Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, offered to pay $324,000 for three years, or $49.27 per hour, of which you would earn $27.50 an hour, to broadcast Russian propaganda in Kansas City: (1) accept the offer based on freedom of speech or (2) reject the offer based on misuse of freedom of speech? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision? 

When commuters spin the radio dial as they drive through Kansas City, Mo., these days, between the strains of classic rock and country hits they can tune in to something unexpected: Russian agitprop.

In January, Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, started broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive times, even sharing one frequency with a station rooted in the city’s historic jazz district.

“Who needs a ridiculous Red Dawn invasion,” a participant in one online forum wrote about the new broadcasts. “Your overlord, Mr. Putin, will be addressing you soon, so it’s best to prepare now,” another commenter wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the United States, talk radio on Sputnik covers the political spectrum from right to left, but the constant backbeat is that America is damaged goods.

Sputnik’s American hosts follow a standard talk radio format, riffing on the day’s headlines and bantering with guests and callers. They find much to dislike in America, from the reporting on the coronavirus epidemic to the impeachment of President Trump, and they play on internal divisions as well.

On a recent show, one host started by saying he was broadcasting “live from Washington, D.C., capital of the divided states of America.”

Critics in Kansas City called Radio Sputnik’s arrival an unabashed exploitation of American values and openness. Those behind the deal defended it as a matter of free speech, as well as a simple business transaction.

Peter Schartel, the owner of Alpine Broadcasting Corporation of Liberty, Mo., the company airing Sputnik in Kansas City, said that he started the broadcasts on Jan. 1 both because he liked what he heard during a trial run last fall and because he was getting paid.

The deal was brokered by RM Broadcasting, a Florida firm that hunts for airtime to sell to Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian state media organization behind Sputnik.

Last year a federal judge in Florida ruled against RM Broadcasting’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, after he sued to prevent the Justice Department from forcing him to register as a foreign government agent. (Various news media organizations linked to Russia had already been ordered to register.)

The ruling outraged Mr. Ferolito, who said he made his first deal to get Russian state radio on the air in the United States in 2009. “They are paying for airtime and I make a percentage,” he said in an interview. “I am not being paid to represent the Russian government.”

Anyone tuned to Sputnik on 104.7 FM while driving across the historic 18th & Vine district in Kansas City, Mo., will find that it fades for a few minutes of music from KOJH — the call letters refer to Kansas City’s oldest jazz house — before Sputnik takes back over.

For years, Anita J. Dixon, a community organizer, dreamed of creating a radio station built around the music of such legendary Kansas City musicians as Count Basie and Charlie Parker. Ms. Dixon said having Sputnik dominate the same frequency was jarring.

“What was supposed to be a historic jazz station in a historic jazz community is now broadcasting Alex Jones and Sputnik,” Ms. Dixon said. “Ever heard the expression of being sold up the river? That is how it felt.”

Mr. Schartel disputed the notion that Kansas City is getting Sputnik instead of jazz. Radio Sputnik does beam its signal on the same frequency as KOJH, he said, but outside the limited geographic area awarded to the Mutual Musicians Foundation for the nonprofit, low-power jazz station.

Ms. Dixon still found it galling that Russia had gained space on the radio dial on the same frequency she had envisioned as a beacon for a black community that, among other things, had sent soldiers to die defending American values like free speech.

People ask how Russia managed to interfere in U.S. elections, Ms. Dixon said. “Because they get free airwaves,” she said. “It is called propaganda.”

Before Kansas City, Washington had been the only American city with Sputnik broadcasts — round the clock on one AM station and one FM station. Public disclosure forms show that the Russian government is paying more than $2 million over three years, starting in December 2017, for the Washington broadcasts.

In Kansas City, the fee is $324,000 for three years, or $49.27 per hour, according to RM Broadcasting’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing. Mr. Schartel said he gets $27.50 of that hourly rate.

When it began in January, the Sputnik broadcast on KCXL was met with strong condemnation from locals. The station received a lot of hate calls, including a threat to burn it down, Mr. Schartel said.

An editorial in The Kansas City Star noted that the free press was a prime target of Mr. Putin’s attempts to weaken public trust in American institutions. “It’s sad, but not astonishing, that an American entrepreneur would put business above patriotism,” the paper wrote. “Listener, beware.”

Those involved in putting Sputnik on the air defended it as free speech. “I am not a bumpkin that fell off a wagon; I encourage people to listen for themselves,” Mr. Schartel said.

What was once Radio Moscow was reborn as Radio Sputnik in 2014. Mr. Putin backed the effort to create a central, state-run news organization — called Rossiya Segodnya, or Russia Today in English — designed to challenge the West’s global dominance on reporting news.

In a modern spin on propaganda, it focuses on sowing doubt about Western governments and institutions rather than the old Soviet model of selling Russia as paradise lost.

American intelligence agencies have concluded that Sputnik; its television sibling, RT; and other Russian-controlled media outlets were part of the Kremlin’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in the United States, and could star in a repeat performance this year.

In Russia, the government controls the main television stations and an ever-growing list of news agencies.

Anna Starkova, the head of Rossiya Segodnya’s press service, said by email from Moscow that broadcasting in Kansas City would “not only broaden our audience but also give us valuable new experience locally.”

Sputnik now broadcasts in 90 cities worldwide, she said, dismissing as “absurd” the idea that listeners are the target of Russian election meddling.

Working through the news headlines on recent Sputnik broadcasts, the hosts found much to fault.

The impeachment of Mr. Trump is bad.

“The entire impeachment is a lie,” said Lee Stranahan, a former Breitbart reporter and the right-wing co-host of Sputnik’s morning show.

The American political system is bad.

Politics here is meant “to make sure that the masses of poor and working people don’t have access to even the most essential things,” said Sean Blackmon, a host of an evening program.

The American military presence in Iraq is bad.

United States forces should withdraw to allow Russia and China to rebuild Iraq and Syria, an Iraqi guest suggested.

Above all, the American press is beyond redemption.

“The wheels are coming off the establishment media,” Mr. Stranahan said. That is the Greek chorus across Sputnik.

Sputnik argues that the station is not trying to sow distrust or to undermine public confidence, but rather is seeking to express opinions that cannot be heard in other venues. “They know perfectly well that they are not going to be allowed to say that on CNN or Fox or MSNBC,” said Mindia Gavasheli, a veteran Russian television journalist who runs Sputnik’s Washington bureau.

Sputnik produces eight hours of daily material in Washington, filling the rest with feeds from its bureau in Edinburgh, from RT broadcasts and from shows that highlight aspects of Russia, like traveling to the Caspian Sea. In Kansas City, Sputnik airs six hours every day, during commuting times in the morning and evening as well as on weekends.

There are no immediate plans to expand elsewhere, Mr. Gavasheli said, although what he described as the “brouhaha” over Kansas City had prompted inquiries from other markets in the United States.

The Sputnik hosts seemed to revel in having a new audience. The morning show did a couple of segments on Kansas City barbecue and tried to make light of Russian influence by joking that Mr. Putin had ordered that the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl. (That was before the game, which the Chiefs won.)

Sputnik shares its Kansas City stations with a cast of far-right conspiracy theorists, evangelical pastors and anti-Semites. The host of one program, TruNews, recently described the impeachment of Mr. Trump as a “Jew coup.”

“He calls things the way that he sees them,” Mr. Schartel said of Rick Wiles, who made the remark. “I feel that he has got a right to say what he is saying.”

“We’ve always put on voices and people that wouldn’t be able to get on anyplace else,” said Mr. Schartel, who has owned the station for 26 years.

A mission statement on KCXL’s website says the United States has become a different country that now looks down on traditional values. “We tell you the things that the liberal media” will not, it said.

[mcdouglecompany-blog]

The Left’s Leadership Infiltrates Big Tech, Stealing the Next Election, U.S. Social Credit, Hong Kong Battles Big Brother and The Healthcare CURE that Works!

The Left’s Leadership Infiltrates Big Tech, Stealing the Next Election, U.S. Social Credit, Hong Kong Battles Big Brother and The Healthcare CURE that Works!

  Here's how big tech and progressive Democrats are working together to sway the next election.

GOODBYE FREEDOM: Silicon Valley, big tech wants social credit system in US.

Hong Kong Protesters Combat the Surveillance State

Author Sean Flynn and The Healthcare CURE that Works!

  Here's how big tech and progressive Democrats are working together to sway the next election.

https://youtu.be/H17xnHxLDZY

Glenn Beck

Have you noticed how the DNC doesn't seem at all concerned about the 2020 election, even though the Democratic candidates are pushing policies that are even too radical for the left? Why would they do that if they're trying to win the hearts and minds of Americans? A website called Spinquark just released a chilling article that reveals exactly how many people who are directly connected to the progressive political machine are now working for big tech to control our conversations online — and they're unquestionably interfering with the 2020 election. ► Click HERE to subscribe to Glenn Beck https://bit.ly/2UVLqhL ► Click HERE to subscribe to BlazeTV: https://www.blazetv.com/glenn Connect with Glenn on Social Media: http://twitter.com/glennbeck http://instagram.com/glennbeck http://facebook.com/glennbeck

    GOODBYE FREEDOM: Silicon Valley, big tech wants social credit system in US.

https://youtu.be/Ct13zVU2oGM

Glenn Beck

Glenn reads a white paper report from Penn State professor Larry Backer, showing exactly why leaders and scientists in Silicon Valley support socialism. The report details why the Western world needs to create a "narrative" that shifts law away from the Constitution and towards human algorithms, all with a social credit system as the end goal. Big tech wants you to give up any privacy you currently have, and it's already started with the Google Homes, Apple Watch, and more.

 ► Click HERE to subscribe to Glenn Beck https://bit.ly/2UVLqhL ►Click HERE to subscribe to BlazeTV: https://www.blazetv.com/glenn Connect with Glenn on Social Media: http://twitter.com/glennbeck http://instagram.com/glennbeck http://facebook.com/glennbeck

    Hong Kong Protesters Combat the Surveillance State

https://youtu.be/VXog6t4kNyc

ReasonTV

Encryption, other privacy measures, and decentralization have made the protest movement possible. ------------------ A major priority of the protest movement that has consumed Hong Kong for the past three and a half months has been to thwart the surveillance apparatus that's virtually everywhere. Demonstrators have felled camera poles with chainsaws, spray-painted security camera lenses, used green lasers to destroy sensors, and shielded themselves with umbrellas while marching through the streets. "I think there a growing concern [in Hong Kong] about surveillance, and this [is] totally understandable because there's a total lack of trust in the government with this whole saga over the last several months," says Charles Mok, a legislator representing the city's technology sector. Though Hong Kong is politically autonomous under the "one country, two systems" model, local authorities have wired up the city, enabling them to keep an eye on every corner of public life—and protesters suspect they may be sharing that information with the Chinese government. Hong Kong officials deny that cameras on the top of the city's so-called Smart Lampposts  feed location or facial recognition data to Beijing, but that may be a lie. Activists with the political organization Demosisto analyzed the internal components of one of these cameras and found an ethernet switch that could conceivably connect to the mainland's surveillance network. They also found components inside that were manufactured by a known supplier of surveillance technology to the Chinese government. Many demonstrators use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access the internet, and they communicate through Telegram, which fully encrypts their messages. "Without safe communication, I don't think this revolution [could] last for that long," says Wincent Hung, founder of Genesis Block, a Hong Kong–based cryptocurrency exchange. "The government [could] track down everybody very, very easily if there [were] no encryption in this revolution." Demonstrators are also refraining from using their credit cards or the digital payments system Octopus, which is an option in Hong Kong's public transit system and most stores. "People are quite wary about cybersecurity and their digital footprints," says Amon Liu, an activist with Demosisto. "All their personal information [have been used] for past prosecutions by the police. So that's why they use cash this time." To discuss strategy, demonstrators use LIHKG, a social media site that allows anonymous posting and is known as the Reddit of Hong Kong. They've also created decentralized networks for sharing information through AirDrop, a function on the iPhone that transfers data directly to another person via Bluetooth without a third-party intermediary. "This is a movement that is totally leaderless and decentralized," says Denise Ho, a Hong Kong–based singer and pro-democracy activist. "[Youth activists] have used…the tools on the Internet to really find a newer way to organize this sort of movement and to really sustain it in the longer term."  The protest movement's unofficial motto is "be water," a Bruce Lee phrase that's meant to convey that in battle, a more fluid and malleable adversary is harder to stop. A major factor motivating the protesters in their fight to maintain autonomy from mainland China is the surveillance apparatus that the Beijing government imposes on its own citizens. Under the "social credit system," for example, individuals are rated for good behavior and a bad score can impede their ability to travel, attend the best schools, or get hired for the best jobs. The Hong Kong government has stopped answering protesters' demands, and the conflict grew more acrimonious on October 1, after a police officer shot and injured an 18-year-old demonstrator who had attempted to hit him with a rod. Last week, the government announced a ban on wearing face masks in the streets. "It has escalated to a point where people are realizing what we need is a political reform in the whole Hong Kong legislative system," says Ho. "And also, of course, the communist government is not backing down either. So we are preparing ourselves for an even longer fight." Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.

    Author Sean Flynn and The Healthcare CURE that Works!

https://youtu.be/UAqrsAWVe-c

The Zandbergen Report

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-x9mzx-... Letitia Berbaum was back in the studio with a very special guest, Sean Flynn. Sean is the author of the best selling book, Economics for Dummies, and is also an Economics Professor at Scripps College. Sean's candid take on our nation's healthcare state, combined with his extensive economic background set the stage for a lively conversation complete with facts, figures and policy truths that will have you saying, that can't be true!  In the episode you'll gain access to: -Current statistics relating to our national healthcare system and the impact they have on our finances -An understanding of how other countries like Singapore approach healthcare and how they see benefits from it -How a company like Whole Foods can create an enhanced culture and have a great impact on their employees through their unique approach to employee healthcare benefits. Sean Flynn just released his latest book, The Cure That Works, which dives deeper into the above topics. His book can be found on Amazon here. The Zandbergen Report, where wealth strategies and investment wisdom collide, is led by host Bart Zandbergen, and is LIVE every Tuesday at 2pm on OC Talk Radio. The show is also available on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify and Stitcher. Interested in being a guest on The Zandbergen Report? Email podcast@bartzandbergen.com. Learn more about Bart by visiting www.BartZandbergen.com

  -------------------------------------------------------------------- 

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[clubofinfo]

Expert: Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was “useful idiots” and it applied to a good many people who should have known better. I now propose a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites. That’s you and me, folks, and it’s how the masters of the digital universe see us. And they have pretty good reasons for seeing us that way. They hear us whingeing about privacy, security, surveillance, etc., but notice that despite our complaints and suspicions, we appear to do nothing about it. In other words, we say one thing and do another, which is as good a working definition of hypocrisy as one could hope for. — John Naughton, The Guardian “Who needs direct repression,” asked philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?” In an Orwellian age where war equals peace, surveillance equals safety, and tolerance equals intolerance of uncomfortable truths and politically incorrect ideas, “we the people” have gotten very good at walking freely into the slaughterhouse, all the while convincing ourselves that the prison walls enclosing us within the American police state are there for our protection. Call it doublespeak, call it hypocrisy, call it delusion, call it whatever you like, but the fact remains that while we claim to value freedom, privacy, individuality, equality, diversity, accountability, and government transparency, our actions and those of our government rulers contradict these much-vaunted principles at every turn. For instance, we claim to disdain the jaded mindset of the Washington elite, and yet we continue to re-elect politicians who lie, cheat and steal. We claim to disapprove of the endless wars that drain our resources and spread thin our military, and yet we repeatedly buy into the idea that patriotism equals supporting the military. We claim to chafe at taxpayer-funded pork barrel legislation for roads to nowhere, documentaries on food fights, and studies of mountain lions running on treadmills, and yet we pay our taxes meekly and without raising a fuss of any kind. We claim to object to the militarization of our local police forces and their increasingly battlefield mindset, and yet we do little more than shrug our shoulders over SWAT team raids and police shootings of unarmed citizens. And then there’s our supposed love-hate affair with technology, which sees us bristling at the government’s efforts to monitor our internet activities, listen in on our phone calls, read our emails, track our every movement, and punish us for what we say on social media, and yet we keep using these very same technologies all the while doing nothing about the government’s encroachments on our rights. This contradiction is backed up by a Pew Research Center study, which finds that “Americans say they are deeply concerned about privacy on the web and their cellphones. They say they do not trust Internet companies or the government to protect it. Yet they keep using the services and handing over their personal information.” Let me get this straight: the government continues to betray our trust, invade our privacy, and abuse our rights, and we keep going back for more? Sure we do. After all, the alternative—taking a stand, raising a ruckus, demanding change, refusing to cooperate, engaging in civil disobedience—is not only a lot of work but can be downright dangerous. What we fail to realize, however, is that by tacitly allowing these violations to continue, we not only empower the tyrant but we feed the monster. In this way, what starts off as small, occasional encroachments on our rights, justified in the name of greater safety, becomes routine, wide-ranging abuses so entrenched as to make reform all but impossible. We saw this happen with the police and their build-up of military arsenal, ostensibly to fight the war on drugs. The result: a transformation of America’s law enforcement agencies into extensions of the military, populated with battle-hardened soldiers who view “we the people” as enemy combatants. The same thing happened with the government’s so-called efforts to get tough on crime by passing endless laws outlawing all manner of activities. The result: an explosion of laws criminalizing everything from parenting decisions and fishing to gardening and living off the grid. And then there were the private prisons, marketed as a way to lower the government’s cost of locking up criminals. Only it turns out that private prisons actually cost the taxpayer more money and place profit incentives on jailing more Americans, resulting in the largest prison population in the world. Are you starting to notice a pattern yet? The government lures us in with a scheme to make our lives better, our families safer, and our communities more secure, and then once we buy into it, they slam the trap closed. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about red light cameras, DNA databases, surveillance cameras, or zero tolerance policies: they all result in “we the people” being turned into Enemy Number One. In this way, the government campaign to spy on our phone calls, letters and emails was sold to the American people as a necessary tool in the war on terror. Instead of targeting terrorists, however, the government has turned us into potential terrorists, so that if we dare say the wrong thing in a phone call, letter, email or on the internet, especially social media, we end up investigated, charged and possibly jailed. If you happen to be one of the 1.31 billion individuals who use Facebook or one of the 255 million who tweet their personal and political views on Twitter, you might want to pay close attention. This criminalization of free speech, which is exactly what the government’s prosecution of those who say the “wrong” thing using an electronic medium amounts to, was at the heart of Elonis v. United States, a case that wrestled with where the government can draw the line when it comes to expressive speech that is protected and permissible versus speech that could be interpreted as connoting a criminal intent. The case arose after Anthony Elonis, an aspiring rap artist, used personal material from his life as source material and inspiration for rap lyrics which he then shared on Facebook. For instance, shortly after Elonis’ wife left him and he was fired from his job, his lyrics included references to killing his ex-wife, shooting a classroom of kindergarten children, and blowing up an FBI agent who had opened an investigation into his postings. Despite the fact that Elonis routinely accompanied his Facebook posts with disclaimers that his lyrics were fictitious, and that he was using such writings as an outlet for his frustrations, he was charged with making unlawful threats (although it was never proven that he intended to threaten anyone) and sentenced to 44 months in jail. Elonis is not the only Facebook user to be targeted for prosecution based on the content of his posts. In a similar case that made its way through the courts only to be rebuffed by the Supreme Court, Brandon Raub, a decorated Marine, was arrested by a swarm of FBI, Secret Service agents and local police and forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward because of controversial song lyrics and political views posted on his Facebook page. He was eventually released after a circuit court judge dismissed the charges against him as unfounded. Rapper Jamal Knox and Rashee Beasley were sentenced to jail terms of up to six years for a YouTube video calling on listeners to “kill these cops ‘cause they don’t do us no good.” Although the rapper contended that he had no intention of bringing harm to the police, he was convicted of making terroristic threats and intimidation of witnesses. And then there was Franklin Delano Jeffries II, an Iraq war veteran, who, in the midst of a contentious custody battle for his daughter, shared a music video on YouTube and Facebook in which he sings about the judge in his case, “Take my child and I’ll take your life.” Despite his insistence that the lyrics were just a way for him to vent his frustrations with the legal battle, Jeffries was convicted of communicating threats and sentenced to 18 months in jail. The common thread running through all of these cases is the use of social media to voice frustration, grievances, and anger, sometimes using language that is overtly violent. The question the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to decide in Elonis is whether this activity, in the absence of any overt intention of committing a crime, rises to the level of a “true threat” or whether it is, as I would contend, protected First Amendment activity. (The Supreme Court has defined a “true threat” as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”) In an 8-1 decision that concerned itself more with “criminal-law principles concerning intent rather than the First Amendment’s protection of free speech,” the Court ruled that prosecutors had not proven that Elonis intended to harm anyone beyond the words he used and context. That was three years ago. Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Elonis, Corporate America has now taken the lead in policing expressive activity online, with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube using their formidable dominance in the field to censor, penalize and regulate speech and behavior online by suspending and/or banning users whose content violated the companies’ so-called community standards for obscenity, violence, hate speech, discrimination, etc. Make no mistake: this is fascism. This is fascism with a smile. As Bertram Gross, former presidential advisor, noted in his chilling book Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America: Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties, or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of creeping fascism. . . . In America, it would be super modern and multi-ethnic—as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards, and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile. As a warning against its cosmetic façade, subtle manipulation, and velvet gloves, I call it friendly fascism. What scares me most is its subtle appeal. The subtle appeal of this particular brand of fascism is its self-righteous claim to fighting the evils of our day (intolerance, hatred, violence) using the weapons of Corporate America. Be warned, however: it is only a matter of time before these weapons are used more broadly, taking aim at anything that stands in its quest for greater profit, control and power. This is what fascism looks like in a modern context, with corporations flexing their muscles to censor and silence expressive activity under the pretext that it is taking place within a private environment subject to corporate rules as opposed to activity that takes place within a public or government forum that might be subject to the First Amendment’s protection of “controversial” and/or politically incorrect speech. Alex Jones was just the beginning. Jones, the majordomo of conspiracy theorists who spawned an empire built on alternative news, was banned from Facebook for posting content that violates the social media site’s “Community Standards,” which prohibit posts that can be construed as bullying or hateful. According to The Washington Post, Twitter suspended over 70 million accounts over the course of two months to “reduce the flow of misinformation on the platform.” Among those temporarily suspended was Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute. Rightly contending that tech companies are just extensions of the government, former Texas congressman Ron Paul believes that social media networks under the control of Google, Apple, Twitter and Facebook are working with the U.S. government to silence dissent. “You get accused of treasonous activity and treasonous speech because in an empire of lies the truth is treason,” Paul declared. “Challenging the status quo is what they can’t stand and it unnerves them, so they have to silence people.” Curiously enough, you know who has yet to be suspended? President Trump. Twitter’s rationale for not suspending world leaders such as Trump, whom critics claim routinely violate the social media giant’s rules, is because “Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.” Frankly, all individuals, whether or not they are world leaders, should be entitled to have their thoughts and ideas aired openly, pitted against those who might disagree with them, and debated widely, especially in a forum like the internet. Why does this matter? The internet and social media have taken the place of the historic public square, which has slowly been crowded out by shopping malls and parking lots. As such, these cyber “public squares” may be the only forum left for citizens to freely speak their minds and exercise their First Amendment rights, especially in the wake of legislation that limits access to our elected representatives. Unfortunately, the internet has become a tool for the government—and its corporate partners—to monitor, control and punish the populace for behavior and speech that may be controversial but are far from criminal. Indeed, the government, a master in the art of violence, intrusion, surveillance and criminalizing harmless activities, has repeatedly attempted to clamp down on First Amendment activity on the web and in social media under the various guises of fighting terrorism, discouraging cyberbullying, and combatting violence. Police and prosecutors have also targeted “anonymous” postings and messages on forums and websites, arguing that such anonymity encourages everything from cyber-bullying to terrorism, and have attempted to prosecute those who use anonymity for commercial or personal purposes. We would do well to tread cautiously in how much authority we give the Corporate Police State to criminalize free speech activities and chill what has become a vital free speech forum. Not only are social media and the Internet critical forums for individuals to freely share information and express their ideas, but they also serve as release valves to those who may be angry, seething, alienated or otherwise discontented. Without an outlet for their pent-up anger and frustration, these thoughts and emotions fester in secret, which is where most violent acts are born. In the same way, free speech in the public square—whether it’s the internet, the plaza in front of the U.S. Supreme Court or a college campus—brings people together to express their grievances and challenge oppressive government regimes. Without it, democracy becomes stagnant and atrophied. Likewise, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if free speech is not vigilantly protected, democracy is more likely to drift toward fear, repression, and violence. In such a scenario, we will find ourselves threatened with an even more pernicious injury than violence itself: the loss of liberty. More speech, not less, is the remedy. http://clubof.info/

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The Problem Isnt Just Trump. Its Our Ignorant Electorate.

For many of us, mornings have taken on a certain nauseating sameness. We roll out from beneath the blankets and, before the scent of coffee has reached our nostrils, we are checking the news feeds for the latest semi-literate tweet coughed up by the ranting, traitorous squatter occupying the Oval Office.

The rest of the day is spent in a kind of horrified suspension, holding our breath, waiting for whatever outrage will inevitably belch forth from the White Houseonce a bastion of seriousness and decorum, now ground zero for the demise of western democracy. How many lies will Trump spew today? Which dictators will he suck up to? Will he smear a Gold Star family? Attack a woman who dares to call out his smarmy predations? Unveil a puerile, racist nickname for a Senator or member of his own cabinet?

As much as we loathe it, however sickening it might have become, every day seems all about him, a former game show host and real estate failure, a hawker of rot-gut vodka and bullshit degrees from a fraudulent University who once styled himself as the Donald. The cable news shows lead with his most recent flatulence, the op-ed pages brim with intimations of doom, late night comedians are having a field day.

He is the president and, thus, bears watching. But we would be mistaken to think that he is truly the center of our universe, a man with a plan, commanding the heights, directing the action.

Virulent as he may be, Donald J. Trump is a symptom not the disease. Without us, he would amount to nothing more than what he had always been before the bizzaro presidential election of 2016: a foppish narcissist desperate for any measure of affirmation; a joke; a nothing. He did not create his voters. They have been there all along, seething with sometimes justifiable anger and suffering their various insecurities. They created and enabled Trump. And make no mistake, in all their vulnerable humanity, they are us: Gullible, compliant, distracted, marinating in irony.

At root, we the people are the problem.

We are understandably reluctant to impugn the intelligence and integrity of our fellow citizens. It is arrogant, uncivil, bad form. Who are we, any of us, to hold ourselves superior? When Hillary Clinton referred to some Trump supporters as deplorables, she was roundly castigated on all sides. How dare she? Yet it is an uncomfortable reality that anywhere from a fifth to a third of our electorate can be fairly (if gently) described as low-information voters. If the results of numerous polls and questionnaires are to be trusted, they know very little about the world they inhabit and what they do know is often woefully incorrect.

Surveys conducted every two years by the National Science Foundation consistently demonstrate that slightly more than half of Americans reject the settled science concerning human evolution. They are not unaware that virtually all credible scientists accept the overwhelming evidence that we evolved from earlier species. They simply choose not to accept that consensus because it doesnt comport with their deeply held beliefs. Many also embrace the absurd notion that the earth is only six thousand years old. Astonishingly, in the early 21st century, around a quarter of our citizenry seems unaware that said earth revolves around the sun.

It is a mistake to regard concern about such ignorance as effete snobbery or elitist condescension. While misapprehensions about basic astronomy, earth science and biology may have little impact on these folks daily lives, does anyone actually believe that similarly uninformed views arent likely to affect their grasp of policies regarding, say, climate change? Income inequality? Gun violence? Immigration?

Profound knowledge gaps like the aforementioned reveal an inability to think critically and leave a person vulnerable to all manner of chicanery. We are all ignorant about many things. Dont get me started on my dismal grasp of mathematics! But the hallmark of a sound education is not glorying in what you think you know, but, instead, appreciating the vastness of what you dont know.

If ignorance is the key that opens the door for charlatans like Trump, improved education, whether in school or in the public square, would seem to provide an obvious solution. But here we confront the perverse Dunning-Kruger Effect identified by psychologistsessentially, the less we know, the more certain we become of our superior knowledge. We have also discovered that exposure to facts and evidence does not always have the expected impact. Many people, when confronted by irrefutable proof that some core belief is incorrect, dont change their minds but dig in their heels. What feels right to them must be right and no amount logic and reasoning will dissuade them. Emotion trumps evidence.

Not too long ago, I fell into conversation with a woman aboard an airplane. Our chat somehow turned to health care. She offered the opinion that people who couldnt afford health insurance didnt deserve medical services. Why should she pay for someones care when they were obviously too lazy to earn their own money?

Because Im my own kind of fool, I rose to the bait. Did that mean they should be allowed to die in the street? I wondered. Well, no, she said. That would be inhumane. They could always go to an emergency room. So she was willing to pay for their care, I observed, but only in the least efficient, most expensive manner. This gave her momentary pause, but she quickly regrouped, simply repeating her prior assertion: Why should she pay? I didnt ask who she planned to vote for in the then-upcoming presidential election, but given that she had also voiced the opinion that women were, by virtue of their gender, unqualified to be news anchors, Im guessing it wasnt Hillary Clinton or Jill Stein.

She is hardly the worst example of an unthinking voter. Bill Maher once invited onto his show former GM Executive Bob Lutz. One supposes that such a fellow has benefited from an adequate education and that hes open to reason. Yet, when the subject of climate change arose, Lutz denied it was happening. A bunch of nonsense as far as he was concerned.

As it happened, Maher had also invited Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, educator and Director of the Hayden Planetarium. Tyson patiently explained why Lutz was misinformed. The planet was warming. Humans were largely to blame. This is how we know.

You might expect an educated person to respond by at least engaging on the topic. Tyson was, after all, vastly more knowledgeable on the subject at hand. Had their roles been reversed, with the topic being cars, I have no doubt he would have deferred to the automaker, asking questions, trying to improve the state of his own knowledge. Not Lutz. You could see him shutting down before Tyson had even warmed to the topic (no pun intended). As Upton Sinclair famously put it, Its hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.

Anyone who has watched the focus groups of Trump voters has seen this sorry dynamic played out again and again. Everything, no matter how tawdry or malicious, is excused or minimized. You get the feeling these folks would accept the sexual molestation of teenage girls as a trade-off for Neil Gorsuch. In fact, many did in supporting Roy Moore.

Welcome to the Post-Truth Era.

Much has been written about the impact social media and the internet in general have had on how people receive and absorb information. By now, we are all familiar with bots, trolls, phony scandals and the tendency of folks to hunker down in their own info-silos. The old adage that a lie is halfway round the world before the truth gets its socks on has never been more salient.

Consider the recent attacks on one of the young Parkland shooting survivors. A teenager who had just witnessed classmates being gunned down at his own school quickly discovered that speaking up for common-sense gun regulation resulted in vicious trolling and the viral lie that he was a paid crisis actor. This was similar to what befell the grieving families of the small children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Imagine waking one morning in a state of searing grief over the violent death of your baby to discover that some odious prankster like Alex Jones is telling his gullible audience that the whole tragic incident was staged, that your child was actually a paid performer doused in artificial gore and posed in a gruesome tableaux of death.

That Jones and his ilk have not been thoroughly shamed and driven from the public sphere says a lot about our growing tolerance for vile nonsense.

Trump did not invent Fake News. The Big Lie has been the stock in trade of con men and tyrants since time immemorial. But he understands its value. Alternative facts as his lickspittle factotum, Kellyanne Conway infamously put it, has long been his metier. Hes a bullshitter, a phony and now hes our president.

This shouldnt have happened. But we let it happen, though Trump did have plenty of help

Unsurprisingly, the Fox propaganda machine and any number of right-wing radio ranters enthusiastically clambered aboard the Trump Train. They were abetted by many in the mainstream media who, mindful that Trump lured eyeballs to advertisers and too timid to call him out as the carnival barker he so obviously was, went along for the ride. A number of Republicans in Congress dismissed him at first. But when it became clear he had a shot at winning and that his devotees comprised at least half of their party, they scurried to adopt him as their useful idiot.

Its true that we are not all equally culpable. Roughly three million more people voted for Trumps chief opponent. But the right-minded among us didnt do enough to forestall the plainly looming disaster. The proof of that is the Trump presidency itself.

So, if we in our various incarnations are the problem, then what is the solution? Is there any way out? Wed better hope so. Whats certain is that its on us. We made a wreck of our government and its up to us to fix it.

There are positive signs:

A once compliant media has begun to take the gloves off. Genuine conservatives, outraged that their movement has been hijacked by philistines, are sounding the alarm. People are rising up and calling BS. For every Sean Hannity there is a Rachel Maddow, Jake Tapper or even Shepard Smith (at Fox News, no less!). For every Paul Ryan, there is a David Frum or Max Boot. Frothing crowds at CPAC are countered by the #MeToo movement and impressively eloquent teenagers fed up with politicians of any stripe who cower before the gun industry. On a good day, a John McCain or Jeff Flake will stand up to the cringing accommodationists in their own party. And, of course, Donald Trump himself, along with his corrupt lackeys, face a formidable foe in the person of Robert Mueller.

NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers recent testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee should mark a turning point, though he merely confirmed what has been apparent for some time: that even as our nation is under attack from a Russia determined to subvert our democracy, the president has not directed any relevant agencies to defend the country. This is a violation of the oath Trump swore on inauguration day and smacks of treason. We have entered uncharted waters.

Whats clear is that we need to use all non-violent resources at our disposal to rid ourselves and our country of the dangerous infection spreading from the White House into our body politic. These are not normal times and our usual reflexes will no longer suffice.

Trump is a problem of our own creation. We must become the solution.

Ron Reagan is an author and political commentator who lives in Seattle and Arezzo, Tuscany.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-problem-isnt-just-trump-its-our-ignorant-electorate

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