14 Comments

When I was young there was a meme -- of course we didn't call it that -- of an old man wearing several sweaters sitting on a park bench mumbling about the government. I've come to realize this is me now.

How did America become so spectacularly wall-to-wall rotten? I hope someday I can grow to laugh at all this but I'm currently stuck in that awkward phase of giving a shit.

Keep writing, Caitlin. Every day. Every word.

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I disagree that the corporate media shut up when they realized that a journalist was going to be charged under the Espionage Act. They shut up after their smear campaign because it worked, and anything else they said about Julian Assange eventually would bring about more sympathy for him than harm. They're using blackout now - that's all it is - and they haven't connected the dots with their position as journalists because they aren't journalists. They aren't remorseful.

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the DNC is scary fake. the suppressed cognitive dissonance of being DNC is .... outta this world.

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Damn right that's what western nations need to do! The blatant and unbridled tyranny would almost be a refreshingly honest state of affairs if it didn't come with the insane levels of gaslighting and the perpetuation of their outrageously cynical handwringing.

No doubt they'll put an effigy of Snowden in the dock and find him in contempt of court for refusing to plead guilty.

In the style of Caligula, expect a horse (or something equine) to be made senator, a mad hatter's tea party, and the queen will cry "Off with their heads!"

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A regime which legally extradites and imprisons journalists right out in the open for reporting on its crimes is more evil and more tyrannical than a regime which disappears journalists in secret, because its entire system supports such acts of tyranny and publicly asserts that it is fine.

Indeed, it's an indication they have, or think they have the approval of a significant segment of a propagandized society. They see the mass formation coming about and they react with policies they think the mass movement is demanding.

More on mass formation, its prerequisites, how it can be challenged and what its ultimate effect will be if it goes full monty: https://larryturner.substack.com/p/mass-formation-and-consequent-totalitarian

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What amazes me are the number of people who still parrot "vote blue no matter who!" and come up with a sad litany of justifications for doing so.

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The only true "leftists" are those who agree with the title of this essay. Anyone who tells you that the Democratic Party can be reformed from within or that the donor-class behind the Democratic Party Establishment will allow any change are just lying to you and themselves if they believe it.

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Let's Go Brandon!

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It is indeed true that the UK & US governments along with virtually the entire media have treated Julian Assange disgracefully. However, let's not forget that, according to Reporters sans frontières, China currently holds 47 journalists in custody for doing their job of exposing state crimes. Bahrain currently incarcerates 12 for the offence of criticising the government.

In Saudi Arabia, "Human Rights Watch said yesterday that Sudanese journalist Ahmed Ali Abdulgadir was sentenced on 8 June to four years in prison for “insulting the state’s institutions and symbols” and “negatively speaking about the kingdom’s policies.” On Twitter, he criticised Saudi Arabia’s relations with the Sudanese government after the 2018 revolution and Saudi involvement in the war in Yemen, HRW said."

https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-calls-release-sudanese-journalist-jailed-saudi-arabia

I am sure that the conditions in which Mr Assange is being held in HMP Belmarsh here in the UK, whilst difficult, are nowhere close to those suffered by these other journalists who are denied even the pretence of justice that Mr Assange enjoys and vital attention by Western Left media and activists. Those conditions in Belmarsh are suffered by every other male prisoner, too.

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Fictional Fun for your readers (think of it as SNL for Caitlin's audience) :

Scene: Final presentation to Mark Zuckerberg and Board from the tail end of a management consultant's assignment.

Consultant: "As you're aware, we've been embedded with FB now for over two months, reviewing operations, and outside impact on the same. We know you have a problem, and it's unfortunately rather perennial: You need people and souls to stay attached to your matrix, baring all. At the same time, use of cutting edge AI tactics in service of high paying political "ad buyers" has tended to create....disgust. We know very well that if FB were to lose engagement by those souls, it'd be game over. Therefore we are suggesting that you change the name of FB to "Umbrella". If anything goes wrong vis-a-vis management agression on its users, nobody need tarnish FB. "Umbrella is to blame". This way you create the necessary separation between management's nuanced but sharp AI decisions, and the beloved and popular, public-facing FB product which is a cash cow."

Consultant: "As you know, the other threat we've been tasked to address has been the scenario where disgruntled FB souls start using FB itself to promote competitor platforms on FB. Mark has personally conveyed to me that he sometimes lays awake at night trying to come up with a suitable publicly acceptable way of handling that....well....we suggest our sister organization Black Ops".

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