Neoconservative publication The Atlantic has published an article authored by two university professors titled “Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal”, subtitled “In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong.”
The article is actually worth reading in full, not just because it’s outrage porn for anyone who values human communication that is unregulated by oligarchs and government agencies, but because it’s actually packed full of extensively sourced information about the way Silicon Valley tech giants are collaborating with western governments to censor speech. The only difference between this article and something you might read on some libertarian website is that this article argues that all of these regulations on speech are a good thing.
Here’s an archive of the article if you don’t want to give clicks to The Atlantic, whose editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg once assured the world that “the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality.” Do give it a look if this interests you and you have time.
https://twitter.com/anthonyLfisher/status/1254557981087334400?s=20
“In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong,” argue the article’s authors, one of whom is a former Bush administration lawyer. “Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.”
The article paints an accurate picture of the ways in which supposedly independent social media platforms have been collaborating with governments and with each other to regulate speech and have increased that collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic, noting how “In March 2019, Zuckerberg invited the government to regulate ‘harmful content’ on his platform” and how “As in other contexts, Facebook relies on fact-checking organizations and ‘authorities’ (from the World Health Organization to the governments of U.S. states) to ascertain which content to downgrade or remove.”
“These platforms have engaged in ‘strategic collaboration‘ with the federal government, including by sharing information, to fight foreign electoral interference,” The Atlantic reports after outlining ways in which Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have been censoring speech in “aggressive but still imperfect steps to fend off foreign adversaries.”
“The harms from digital speech will also continue to grow, as will speech controls on these networks,” the article’s authors assert. “And invariably, government involvement will grow. At the moment, the private sector is making most of the important decisions, though often under government pressure. But as Zuckerberg has pleaded, the firms may not be able to regulate speech legitimately without heavier government guidance and involvement. It is also unclear whether, for example, the companies can adequately contain foreign misinformation and prevent digital tampering with voting mechanisms without more government surveillance.”
Last May, a govt org outlined an extremely Orwellian vision for what the US must to do to win "the tech war" against China in AI. It essentially called to remake the entire American economy and society. Now, thanks to Covid19,their vision is taking shape.https://t.co/fhWkyQR5n3
— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) April 20, 2020
This article comes out days after journalist Whitney Webb published another article worth reading titled “Techno-Tyranny: How The US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision“. Webb details how FOIA-obtained document by a US government organization called the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) argues for the need to implement authoritarian measures like increased surveillance more in line with those used in China, in order to prevent the PRC from technologically surpassing the United States.
Webb notes for example how the document “cites the use of mass surveillance on China’s ‘huge population base’ is an example of how China’s ‘scale of consumer market’ advantage allowing ‘China to leap ahead’ in the fields of related technologies, like facial recognition.”
We’re also seeing an increase in surveillance being pushed for in a new report by the think tank Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, arguing that a drastic increase in tech surveillance is “a price worth paying” in order to fight Covid-19. Which is of course hilarious, because having the think tank of a Bush lapdog Prime Minister argue that more surveillance is a price worth paying to stop coronavirus is a lot like a bunch of muggers arguing that time saved by cutting through dark alleyways is worth the increased risk of mugging.
Surveillance a price worth paying to beat coronavirus, says Blair thinktank https://t.co/AAb1nnv4pG
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) April 24, 2020
So that’s great. We’re seeing mainstream narrative managers shriek about the need for new cold war escalations against China’s bad, bad authoritarian government, while simultaneously arguing that western governments should espouse Beijing’s worst authoritarian impulses. This as we’ve discussed previously is because consent needs to be manufactured in order for the US-centralized empire to take drastic steps to prevent China from surpassing it and creating a multipolar world, and the freer people are to think and act and organize, the harder that’s going to be.
Oligarchs have no business controlling what we can and cannot say to each other. Governments have no business bringing more and more transparency to us while bringing more and more opacity to themselves. This is ugly, it is abusive, and it must end.
Freedom of speech is actually about freedom of thought. Speech is the carrying agent of thought; controlling human communication is actually about controlling the spread of ideas. Censorship is about controlling the thoughts that the public think in their heads. Speech control is mind control.
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33 responses to “Narrative Managers Argue China-Like Internet Censorship Is Needed”
It appears unbelievable changes have been happening in the world over the past few weeks.
But as far as I am concerned, I was waiting for those changes.
They are not unbelievable.
We have all become passive victims in a long planned sinister global totalitarian agenda, a full fascist takeover of all our wealth, our health, our freedom and the complete well being of this planets inhabitants.
Humanity is enslaved.
Where is the rebellion?
At what point do we come to realize the full treachery of our criminal politicians, the criminal banksters, and our criminally bloated corporate oligarchic psychopaths.
These criminals, the ones who really control all power on this planet, and who are not in the slightest concerned at all what happens to humanity.
Their only concern is whether power remains in their hands or not.
Moments come in history when a small group of psychopathic criminals, cunning and clever, but with absolute evil intentions, they start exploiting the whole society, the whole world.
All the money goes on gathering on one side and all the poverty and starvation on the other.
Naturally this state cannot be continued forever.
Sooner or later those who have nothing are going to overthrow those who have all.
And we cannot waste another second.
That time is now!
We have to rebel in a thousand and one ways so that everything that has been imposed upon us by this one percent criminal cult and their minions is thrown out.
We have to use our massive numbers to swiftly overwhelm and outmaneuver the plans of all of these criminals, the oligarchs, the politicians, the banksters and all of the corporate fascists.
We have to treat them as the disease that they are, remove them all from power immediately, remove them all from their homes and their families, and lock them all down and quarantine them, remove all their ill-gotten wealth and prepare them all for mass trials.
We have to lock down and end all their criminal institutions, their security agencies and endless committees, The U.N., EU, IMF, W.H.O, World Bank. C.D.C, Federal Reserve Bank, C.I.A, N.S.A, G.C.H.Q, N.A.TO.
We have to secure all the armed forces, the police and the judiciary to work for the people, to return the rule of law.
They are either with the people, or against us, they must decide now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zijmsZGFpO4
Only this will change the so called elites fascist intentions, there has to be no question of them ever again accumulating these obscene amounts of money, to gain absolute power, to be able ever again to enslave humanity.
Because of these parasites deplorable behavior, everything has deteriorated, the morality, the character, the integrity, everything has become a commodity.
As it is now, you can purchase anybody in government, in any positions of power, all you need is money.
Everybody is purchasable, judges are purchasable, police commissioners are purchasable, politicians are purchasable.
This whole planet has to break the hold of these criminal psychopaths.
Break it now!
This whole earth is ours, but what kind of freedom is there if we cannot even move?
Everywhere there are barriers, every nation has become a big imprisonment.
Just because you cannot see the boundaries you think you are still free?
Just try to pass through any imposed boundary and immediately you will be faced with a loaded gun,
“Go back inside your prison.
You belong to this prison.
You cannot enter into another prison without permission.”
These are your lock downs, these are your nations!
Is there is no rebellious spirit left?
Without rebellion there can be no freedom.
Only rebellion brings intelligence in you, makes you more alert, more aware, makes you more conscious.
Rebellion is absolutely individual and has to spread from individual to individual.
In the coming weeks because of the disruption to the food production and distribution chains, we will begin to witness un-imaginable food shortages with massively inflated prices on what little food there is still available.
Tens of millions of people are going to starve to death.
For what?
The usual criminals, the oligarchs, the banksters, all the national governments and their advisers, we will personally hold you all accountable for this most wicked and colossal tragedy.
We demand that governments and their medical advisors answer these three questions about this plandemic, and provide the people immediate proof of evidence of this virus, and with honest answers?
1) Is there an electron micrograph of the pure and fully characterized virus?
2) What is the name of the primary specialist peer review paper, in which the virus is illustrated and it’s full genetic information described?
3) What is the name of the primary publication that provides proof that a particular virus is a sole cause of a particular disease?
Senior experienced virologists know that you cannot catch a virus, a virus is not a living organism, the only way to get a virus into the body is through an injection, a vaccine.
So what misinformation have you been feeding the people of the world over the last few weeks, and more importantly why?
To all governments, we await your immediate reply to all these critical questions?
The people of the world just have to be made more alert and aware.
They have to be made more conscious of what these sociopathic politicians have been doing.
Only then will the criminal elite overlords see the utter fragility of their own positions, up against the overwhelming strength of the coming mass uprisings, the rebellions, of the enslaved peoples unwavering resistance.
When will the elites realize the people are no longer supporting their politicians in these unconstitutional national lock downs, these forced quarantines, with the coming mandatory vaccination threats?
We have to fully destroy and end all government surveillance and personal tracking methods of all people in every nation.
Yet, until this is nightmare is over, we must fully turn this around and track, hack and surveil all of the elites, and all of their governments criminal activity, including locating all of their personal wealth.
This will force the globalists hand to be made more transparent, more visible.
Follow the money!
We have to inform the masses of all of the globalists full criminal intentions and movements.
Of their absolutely unconstitutional, illegal and criminal actions!
For us then, we can play elite whack-a-mole!
We will have to totally destroy the social contract, erase in totally all their authoritarian and collective authority.
We have a very short time.
These next few days are very valuable, as they were never so valuable before.
Because the final act is upon us.
‘The Third World War’ is coming.
China, China, China!
Before, there was always time.
Now it seems, any moment, all life on earth will be extinguished.
It can happen tomorrow?
The fact is, intelligent fully aware rebels are already prepared, fully afire, fully aflame.
They would rather die than to be enslaved.
Death will not matter much to those who have been already stripped of their whole lives.
For they cannot sell their lives to all kinds of stupidities, to all kinds of stupid people.
They cannot serve them.
Inform all the people of these existential dangers, using alternative media, through all social media sites, online chat rooms and community message boards, and anywhere some intelligence still exists.
Share the truth far and wide.
Now, before it is too late!
It is a question of our very life, our love, our intelligence, and all our freedoms being totally destroyed.
My message is not special, it is the same for every human being, wherever they exist.
We have to give the globalists a real psychological death.
So that a real birth becomes possible.
Resurrection is possible only after crucifixion.
Start building the crosses.
There is no other way.
We have to draw a line in the sand.
Midnight, 1st of May 2020.
At this time, come out of your prisons en masse, and vow never to return to slavery again.
Only this will fulfill the deepest longing of humanity for truth, for freedom, for love.
Recommended reading: https://www.unz.com/runz/chinas-rise-americas-fall/, and a very important point relative to communication/media control made in that article:
“We know from the collapsed communist states of Eastern Europe that control over the media may determine public perceptions of reality, but it does not change the underlying reality itself, and reality usually has the last laugh.”
The boys in the back room in Capitalist Cowboy HQ are gettin’ pretty worried that the Commie Rice-farmers are gonna take over the (their) world and, as an inverse to the commies adopting capitalistic features into their economy, are now thinking that the commies may have some really good ideas on info-media control. It’s not that the cowboys don’t already have a pretty good propaganda system running but that maybe it could be made a bit more effective by borrowing some ideas from the rice-farmers for more direct control, and then beat’em at their own game.
Although the concern as to trying to achieve an unbiased, totally truthful, nonpropagandistic info-media system, “free press”, one that would support optimal decisiom-making in a democratic government is certainly a desirable one, it is basically an exercise in futility, like trying to build a utopia, as virtually all human communication at every level contains “propaganda”. For self-protection the goal is always to be able to detect the BS…to expect it to be there and be educated and experienced enough to see it, and to be scientific…relying on experiment and observation, not being too quick to judge and not biased by one of Bacon’s idols.
The much bigger problem in the background here is a continuing, and maybe now increasing, sense of Us-vs-Them…the Cowboys vs the Rice Farmers, the free-styling individual-centered vs the disciplined-traditional-styling and community-centered, the West vs the East, The US-led vs China-Russia-led amoral amoebae. Certainly there are differences in genes and culture between the two global-scale amoebae and those differences have brought us into an Us-vs-Them competition as we push up against Spaceship Earth’s resource and sink limits. Sadly, there are even certain players (the MIC) who feed on maintaining and intensifying the competition. Can we de-emphasize the diffs, even harmonize them and accentuate our Common Humanity? Can we tear down the MIC?
Then there’s the over-arching problem that both amoebae are bent on maximizing economic growth along with “progress” toward ever-higher levels of technology. They share the same goal of ever-increasing/building and maintaining their power (resource control and throughput per capita) and differ only rather slightly in the bias of their approach to seeking that… The West tending toward more brute force and exploitation, and the East by patience and partnership (though with “their” bureaucrats usually on the better side of the bargains). Can we make the transition to steady-state economics, to living within the Earth’s limits without first overshooting too far to recover?
Ultimately then, it most likely won’t matter which side has the free-er and more truthful press if both sides are bent on us-vs-them and growthism to the max. There will be ongoing conflicts for resources, possibly even globally-destructive wars, and then, or in tandem, the collapse of modern economics.
Common Humanity + Spaceship Earth Consciousness…
Without these being deeply internalized globally, our species is on the road to extinction along with a lot of others or, if we’re lucky, back to the stone age.
Serious, intelligent, open-minded, committed dissidents should study, understand and collectively put into practice the revolutionary strategy and tactics which Yeshua, the Great Liberator trained His Ambassadors to teach and practice. Yeshua implies “Liberator” in Hebrew. Unfortunately, His revolutionary strategy and tactics are so different, powerful and brilliant, that this is way above the mental abilities even for highly intelligent and well-educated people who fail to grasp what Yeshua said and meant. We need local groups of wise, alert, resourceful, generous, peace-loving, eco-friendly dissidents who network with neighboring local groups and start breaking free from mainstream media, from government support, from electronic surveillance and control and effectively from the medical-industrial-military complex. We also need local groups to choose leaders who will network with other leaders. This is what Yeshua trained His Ambassadors to teach and practice and the hidden powers ruling the world today will have no strategy to prevent the growing revolution from withdrawing power out of their medical-industrial-military complex. Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf
First Manning and Assange, now old man Craig Murray.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/27/craig-murray-indicted-blog-posts/
Maybe the UK psychopaths will assign Vanessa Baraitser to send Craig to a covid-infested prison for a couple of years, while of course stealing every penny he’s managed to accumulate in is life.
One person’s story:
As a writer, I have been censored twice based on coronavirus correctness.
First, March 22, I published a Medium piece pointing out with links to medical research that lockdown unemployment would result in more stress deaths than lockdowns were likely to prevent. Medium promptly took it down as ” to public health.”
Second, I created an Amazon ad for my 2017 novel about a rogue bacterium. The ad headline was “Exploding from a lab”, and it was an ad I had used before among hundreds of ads for the same group. Amazon disapproved the ad because it was “controversial”.
The era of moderator censorship has reached the fascist media-governmental-corporate complex.
Ironically, I find myself reverting to the strategy I used in the 1990s to get a wide variety of news and analysis: subscriptions by e-mail. That’s how I get your work, Caitlin, because Medium pushes it to the bottom of my feed.
The things that are going on in these United States should not be happening; but they are. There seems to be absolutely no difference between organized crime and our federal government. The acts revealed in this article are just plain revolting. I guess Mr. Jared Kushner is our new head ” capo ” to be obeyed without question.
Please read this revealing article here:
Post-Corona World: Recrimination and Defederation by Wayne Madsen!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/27/post-corona-world-recrimination-and-defederation/
Ah, the “Futility of Resistance” argument:
…A former Borg Administration lawyer. “Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.”
I did not understand the logic of the article in the _Atlantic_. ‘The harms of the Internet’ seem in the view of its author to consist of the Russiagate fables and domestic bullshit made up and spread by dumb people and the President. There seems to be little or no actual concrete material in favor of authoritarian control. In addition, many of the obvious arguments against authoritarianism, like the growth of bureaucracy and the obstruction of information flow and distribution are not accounted for. It’s a dumb article but I suppose it’s useful to see what the ruling class is thinking about as it circles the drain.
Years ago, The Atlantic, magazine published a front cover article which was titled, “The Coming War with China”.
They have been part of the problem for decades.
Fuck the *Criminal Corporatist Class Cabal* at the top of almost every country in *our* world!! We seen and experienced their “trickle down” disaster Capitalism… their top-down hardcore Communism by a different name. It’s all the same *unless* it is truly in *The People’s* hands, folks.
We, The People of the World!
Seth Meyers had a great piece recently about Chinese kids using Apple’s performance ranking to undermine their teachers’ app; basically by disliking it, the kids were able to get it off the platform, thereby undermining their teachers’ ability to give them homework. Meyers’ spoke about it, once. Did it even make the news, Ms Johnstone? Sometimes when I get overwhelmed by this mind control fear, paranoia about surveillance, I remember the ambitions of Chairman Mao. Y’know, I think he was a dictator? Definitely a Communist. Most importantly, an American bogeyman. Chairman Mao could not get the Chinese people to stop smoking.
They didn’t want to. I know there is a lot of rhetoric about addiction, but I think some people just enjoyed a cigarette; at one time, it was a very popular activity. Now, people don’t smoke but they undermine apps because there are just some things they don’t want to do. Like homework. Personally, I think the more rigid the structures become to control things, the more obvious it is, they can’t be controlled. I think your idea about narrative control is the point: tell people enough times you are limiting their speech, they believe it. In effect, censor themselves. But, the many ways there are to control speech demonstrates the less likely they can; the threat isn’t in the Military watching everything you say, but in the 12 year old who is trying to prove they can’t.
With respect, the big deal isn’t in popular writers, the published ones, it is in the lonely voices who just want to be read. Because no one can control what they say or to whom they speak. To paraphrase some Great Comedians, the internet is an open shelf of ideas; when the shelf is already constantly expanding, it is too late to try to put on cupboard doors. They can create a narrative threatening to do so, I just choose to not believe it.
An overhaul of the American economy and Society would tackle only two of the three crucial arms of the trident. The final one to be tackled, without which the other two are nearly meaningless, is the political system. What is needed, in the U.S. (and elsewhere, is a radically new system of choosing our leaders, funded solely by the federal government and that will level the playing field for all legitimate participants. All of the excesses of the current, 18th century, system must be banned and criminalized – and the needs of the people must be first and foremost. Term limits at all levels, simple methods for recall and on and on must become the norm.
The alternative, a high-degree of control over the internet and other forms of communication actually does not serve the interests of the people, nor of those at the top. For, as censorship tightens, it is looking more and more as though ‘the’ revolution will become a reality. Open discussion may cause concern among government and those at the top. However, extreme censorship and control of communication can serve only to drive it underground. In that case, government and those at the top, pulling the strings, are likely, eventually, to become so complacent that, until it is too late, they never see the hot iron when it finally strikes.
There is one, and only one justification for censorship in any form, on any platform, from any source. “I cannot reasonably and rationally argue my position, so yours must be eliminated”. In other words, there is no justification. The Sociopaths In Charge spend the vast majority of their efforts convincing us their lies are truth. They have no choice but to silence opposition. Any sane person will immediately realize their lies if there is any exposure at all. Governments have forever proven themselves to be good at only one thing. KILLING PEOPLE! Any thing else they propose is a bald faced lie, yet they presume to hold a gun to our heads and force us to comply “for our own good”.
So if I wake up one morning and cannot find your website, I will know why. You will have been regulated out of existence for the good of society. How dare you suggest we think for ourselves.
This is what we get when we embolden those who seek to silence those with whom they disagree. It doesn’t matter if somebody’s speech offends you, nobody has the right to prevent another person from sharing their point of view and explaining why they believe what they do. This is the problem with the concept of “hate speech.” Who gets to be the arbiter of the definition of hate speech? Who gets to decide what “our” social norms and values are supposed to be? These are the crucial questions, because we can be sure that these definitions will change over time, and it’s only a matter of time before one’s own opinion becomes the target of these attacks. The most effective way to counter bad ideas is to bring facts, data, and logic to the debate, and demonstrate why you think one idea is wrong and another is right. Sometimes, the only way to manage disagreement is to agree to disagree. Shaming, censoring, canceling, and all other means of silencing dissident voices needs to end now, before it’s too late.
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They’ve been desensitizing us to these authoritarian controls over time. They’ve been doing this in increments. First, they get us accustomed to cameras and microphones everywhere — in our phones, in stores, in our houses, on the streetlights, in our cars, etc. They get us accustomed to sharing all of our private information on social media sites, we “agree” (though nobody reads the TOS and privacy policies all the way through) to let them go through out computers, our private pictures, our documents and other files. Foolish people say, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” not realizing that in nearly ever case when mass atrocities were committed, they were committed against people who were perfectly “boring” and who were doing nothing illegal or wrong on one day…but a law was changed, or a new ruler was imposed, and the actions (or existence) of these “boring” people suddenly becomes illegal. It can happen overnight.
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Again, people need to look into the Green New Deal and Agenda 21/2030 to see that these benevolent-sounding plans have nothing at all to do with protecting us. These plans are all about surveillance and control. Read their documents, watch their videos, pay attention to their meeting agendas. This is not about protecting free people; it’s a plan to impose corporate/government control. The greatest danger to humanity is the concentration of wealth and power. It does not matter at all if it’s under the banner of capitalism, socialism, communism, or any other -ism; centralized power is our #1 threat.
For the record, this is what the “Green New Deal” is all about. It’s for the benefit of energy companies, real estate and development, technology, and finance. It is not about environmentalism, it’s about surveillance and control. Remember that “smart” technology is “surveillance and control” technology.
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“This next phase of infrastructure modernization is rooted in the convergence of 5G communications, a renewable energy Internet (clean technologies and smart grids), and a digitized mobility and logistics platform (autonomous electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and the Internet-of-Things).”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielaraya/2019/10/08/the-green-new-deal-jeremy-rifkin-and-the-coming-collapse/#3999de944053
You’re right JM. We are being set up for a digital dictatorship using fear generated by an obedient press – all because of a questionable ‘virus’.
the ‘virus’ is also being used as a scapegoat to distract from the gigantic financial collapse caused by greed, corruption and theft of the 1% and their servants – and by the lockdowns.
however, i’m hoping for the lesser of the two evils – that the financial crash is likely to also crash the installation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
expect an on-going breakdown of society including a breakdown in energy supplies of many countries. without constant electricity supply, 5G is dead.
Yes. The Bush administration lawyer, quoted by Caitlin, distilled, inadvertently, the essence of this evil when he expressed the desire to “ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.” Society’s norms and values have been, through much of history, more of a problem for human flourishing than a solution. To confine the voices on the internet to those which do not challenge the status quo, only support it, is to put every human being in a cage who seeks to cross the border from ignorance, superficiality, and manipulation to knowledge, wisdom, and liberation. If this lawyer and those like him get their way, blogs like Caitlin’s will be the first to go.
Censorship of Internet is not something new dating only from the current coronavirus crisis.
Since the eruption of this magnificat technology of communication, Internet, used previously by American army, and later by academics and researchers, it is becoming a nightmare for the ruling class holding up till then, a total monopoly on human thought, on the manner to think and to feel the things.
The advent of Internet has crushed ruling class monopoly and managed to open a breach in the dominant ideology. therefore, it was predicable that the ruling class must react vigorously in order to regain control of ideological and intellectual monopoly by legislating and by making repressive rules, limiting and restricting rhe free speech and the freedom of thought.
Like in the USA, under the fallacious pretext of fight against terrorism, European dictatorship has put in place a whole lot of legislative arsenal aiming at internet, free speech and freedom of thought censorship,
The advent of Internet, by crushing the monopoly of the ruling class on the manner to definite the reality and to think it differently, called into question the dominant ideology as a whole and and beyond the economic and political structures of the societies
In order to well understand why Internet is becoming the scapegoat of the ruling class, It is worth quoting Karl Marx in the German Ideology
““The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”
Another philosophe and thinker worth reading in order to understand current Police state and its concomitant tool, the mass surveillance under fallacious pretext, today the coronavirus, yesterday, Islamic terrorism, is the French philosophe Michel Foucault who analyses in his classic book ” Discipline and punish” the hidden and invisible mechanism and sophisticated web of surveillance in modern societies,
Michel Foucault opened in new field of study, what it can be called the BIOPOLITICS showing that citizens in modern societies are subjected to a myriad of secret and invisible tools of control, disseminated in all areas of social and daily life, functioning as a “Micro physics of power”
Excelente!!!
Excellent comment!
The fundamental premise is “we have a new viral threat, never seen before”, with the notion it is novel, unique, special in its basic character, not merely another cold or flu corona virus”, and this demands a new means of conquering it.
The fact is, it is novel, however it is only slightly different from “cold and flu viruses”, but its novelty has been used to suggest its unique attributes as being “extremely deadly”, and being able to do so, precisely because the narrative of its emergence, its origin, and its actual impact, has been under full control from the start.
The facts belie everything said about it, other than it’s a virus, however, having gotten the attention of the vast majority, in fear, facts mean almost nothing, and the effectiveness of the propaganda from the start, has ensured the majority followed demands, and will continue.
The plan to control all our speech went into overdrive, for consideration, with the wealth of independence the internet was filled with immediately, a surprise to the politico’s, but not the techies. It’s taken three decades to get the once “independent minded techies” to sign on to world government, but having gone from millionaires, to billionaires in that time, they now have every reason to fear what they designed and developed, with our money, taken for “personal computers, and personal independence” on this “internet”, we fund with taxes, a slight bit, and with our constant use, feeding money into the world controlling our “social networking”, having convinced most of the western world, we can’t live without electronic social networking.
We have only ever had “control over our own destinies” while we held the reins of government, and this has never been very long, for any people with true liberty. The mere existence of such a state is a threat to the security of every other “ruled” people’s, and the very notion of “rational free people, deciding the communist/socialist ideals of China are necessary for the U.S., only assures us, U.S. government already has the power and desire to be exactly like China, yet we never can, such imposition can only cause the collapse of a people, who are not raised up generations, accepting total control of life.
All of those who were part and parcel to “pioneering this unique electronic open community” were fearless freedom searchers, at their inception, intent on finding freedom to communicate, with so many who’ve “never had such opportunity”, they sold it to us, on the premise we’d break down barriers, open new vistas, enlighten the world, because never was opportunity to great.
“They” never saw the slightest hint, “they” would be the next generation “oligarchs” riding to that position on the “electronic technology” they got on to ride, for freedom’s sake, the ideal of liberty they literally experienced, opening a new arena, and turned into a perfect control situation, with their bleating fealty to government power, they finally got the chance to experience, “from the driver’s seat”. They never believed “they could be tyrants”, and when they arrived, they see no “tyranny here, just safety, security, the right truth” because “they would never be like that”, not even when they are, to a degree never seen before in history.
Technology among a free and independent people is enlightening, progress, and good. Every bit of power it can provide for independence, is equally available to be assumed by tyrants, only if we allow such to rule us. We haven’t kept ourselves as “The People”, mostly because we’ve, one bite at a time, bought into being “fed by government when things go bad”, to the point we are completely controlled when government makes things go bad, and we no longer can say no. The U.S. is the pinnacle of a fascist state, and fascism is merely a means to socialist control of government, the removal of all authority from “the people”, which always leads to being ruled, not governed.
Perhaps we can use the postal system, written letters, we expect to receive, unopened, uncensored, and regain our “private communication and social connecting”, however there is no hope for taking control of “the internet”, having given it away so eagerly, by cleaving to “social media, so strongly, so completely enveloping lives.
We are born into freedom, what our parents choose, will determine if we have liberty, or rule, governed, or ruled, constant war, or peace as the normative. All our rights emanate from the fact we are each and all, born exactly the same, helpless, to die in minutes, if not fed, and no chance of life, except we be cared for, with love, for years.
Not one of us was born able to survive, except we were loved, cared for, and this took place because all “our good parents valued life as most valuable”. When we cease to be amazed by life itself, when it is no longer a “miracle” from our first moment, we become fodder for those who would rule, not live. All our ancestors lived better than we do, because all lived in liberty, until we got populated enough to begin warring for want.
How we organized our “extended family, our tribe, our tribes, together” has always determined how “mere people would live and engage each other”. Few means established, lived long enough to be history. Those which did, have value we ought not discard, for the errors also contained. The world is on a cusp, change is awaiting, we can choose for freedom, and fight, or we can follow a “putative leader”, and be led to a different form of slavery. This has ever been the choice, and almost always chosen wrong.
Semper Fidelis,
God Bless those who would be free,
John McClain
Vanceboro, NC, USA
The US would do better to carry out a widespread purge of corruption in their information, political, legislative, judicial, health, education, energy, business, waste management, etc. etc. systems before it attempts to emulate China in any area of social development
Hmmm
Rather than write a letter to the Atlantic and risk their editing it beyond recognition or simply ignoring it because I am forced to agree to their submission policies granting them that power, I have posted here instead.
Ben Franklin sums up the argument against article’s seditious call to surrender our most sacred Rights and Freedoms by allowing the government to take actions which in practical terms eviscerate the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the point of irrelevance in a single sentence written centuries ago: “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
By publishing this vicious attack on not just our unalienable Rights and Freedoms, but the very essence of our way of life, the Atlantic is aiding and abetting a blatant act of sedition and should therefore be treated as a co-conspirator. Sedition is a Federal Felony and those that commit this crime should be treated like any other criminal. And upon conviction, those found guilty should suffer the full force of the law.
It is a tragic irony indeed that the likes of the authors referred to in this article Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Dean Woods along with the publisher of the Atlantic that are the real threat to the Republic given they are desperately trying to take away our basic Rights and Freedoms in order to elevate and further abuse their own.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler began the attack on net neutrality during the Obama Adm, then Agit Pai stepped in to pick up the ball and finish the job…
If you were ever in doubt whether the Atlantic was an establishment mouthpiece for social control, now they’ve gone full Autocratic State Sanctioned Propaganda!
Media censorship is the new book burning!
Orwell’s 1984 should be re-released as George Orwell 2020!
Making this problem worse is the heavy reliance so many people have on mainstream media and social media – both of which are controlled by the oligarchs, and through them our governments. These platforms control the narrative both ways – outbound news, articles, opinion pieces, and advertising, – and inbound with comments, discussions, and even voting / liking. Obvious examples are the mainstream newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc. Our interactions with these platforms is subject to censorship with no right of appeal.
In my view, we need personalised and independent platforms, preferably open sourced to we can check the code, that enable us to communicate amongst ourselves in multiple ways, to effectively replace the large centralised platforms. A form of distributed global network with each ‘node’ totally independent of others, like a block-chain that doesn’t allow anyone to control or influence the information once it is submitted. Each person would have, in effect, a mini-website that performed the same functions as the platforms it replaces, but without the centralised control and censorship. I think this is going to be the only way we can fight the ever growing centralised narrative control.
To be sure, whoever comes up with a privacy-focused, oligarch-proof (public or private) communications tool will become the next great billionaire. It can be a part of the internet, or something altogether different. The most important thing is that NO government or corporation or individual can control it. It needs to be easily accessible, easy to use, and free or relatively low-cost. Personally, I would pay good money to have access to a totally separate, parallel internet environment where speech, privacy, and anonymity are fully protected.
When I was a young boy, I was a patient of the doctor, Dr. Sauer, who perfected the whooping cough vaccine. I later learned that he had refused to take even a nickel for his innovation, saying, when interviewed, that one did something like that for humanity, to take money for it would cheapen it. I have a feeling that the same applies here to an oligarch-proof internet platform, which would be tarnished and self-contradictory if it brought another billionaire oligarch into the world, especially if making all that money was the principal force behind its creation. Neoliberalism is all and only about money, and, as they say, you can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools.
The ” Internet “, it seems, is the only place left where any ” freedom ” is allowed anymore. It should not surprise anyone that the ” owners and the masters ” are determined to eliminate all dissent from the depraved world that they have created. To them ” freedom ” is something that only they should ever be allowed to have; everyone else must be kept in slavery and in complete and total submission at all times.
Hurrah for Caitlin Johnstone!! A sane and courageous voice in what is rapidly becoming the wilderness. I send up thanks to the pantheon of all the gods that we are blessed enough to have her. And may we, please, keep her for a long time.
Eric Larsen
Jeffrey Goldsmith is a bad man.
Jack Goldberg is the adopted son of the man that drove Jimmy Hoffa to his death. Jack is still talking about who he believes, “really” murdered Hoffa. His stint as assistant AG to President Bush convinced me not to trust him. No suprise his thoughts in China being right.
Thanks for this column.
Count me in the group of people “who values human communication that is unregulated by oligarchs and government agencies.”
We all understand that we can’t trust oligarchs and government agencies to regulate human communication.
Why can’t we get to understanding that we can’t trust them to regulate anything?
I truly believe we can.
If not today, tomorrow.