The direction the West is powering towards

[Chester]

There are discussions right now going on all over every social media with the end game being censorship.

What is more brazenly ramping up here in the West and is backed (openly encouraged) by many who do not understand the end game should watch this video - it is extremely relevant -

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170706702001#sp=show-clips

[Chester]

Further relevant -

The incident occurred after Hawley’s office sent a news release detailing a letter he planned to send NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, criticizing the league’s decision to limit messages players can wear on their uniforms to “pre-approved, social justice slogans” while “censoring support” for law enforcement and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/espn-...hawley-reports

[TomKat]

Posted by Chester (here)
There are discussions right now going on all over every social media with the end game being censorship.

What is more brazenly ramping up here in the West and is backed (openly encouraged) by many who do not understand the end game should watch this video - it is extremely relevant -

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170706702001#sp=show-clips

I don't get it. This lady from the WHO has to escape China in April to come to the US to tell us to wear masks and social distance? It's presented like one of those internet ads where they tease you for 30 minutes to learn the secret so that by the time you get to what they're selling, you're worn down and in a buying mood. But she's selling face masks and social distancing -- such a revolutionary! She probably never left China.

[Arcturian108]

TomKat,
The main point of her story is not what she is telling the pubic about staying safe, but that she is confirming that the Chinese government covered up human-to-human transmission for many weeks, along with W.H.O. lying to the world, and thus they are culpable in a legal sense. She is providing professional proof of malfeasance.

[Satori]

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
TomKat,
The main point of her story is not what she is telling the pubic about staying safe, but that she is confirming that the Chinese government covered up human-to-human transmission for many weeks, along with W.H.O. lying to the world, and thus they are culpable in a legal sense. She is providing professional proof of malfeasance.

I think she is also taking the position that the Covid 19 disease [so-called] should not be politicized, but that it has become more of a political cause than a healthcare issue. That is certainly the case in the USA in this 2020 [s]election cycle.

[silvanelf]

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
The main point of her story is not what she is telling the pubic about staying safe, but that she is confirming that the Chinese government covered up human-to-human transmission for many weeks, along with W.H.O. lying to the world, and thus they are culpable in a legal sense. She is providing professional proof of malfeasance.

American propaganda at its best.

In November 2019 the CDC warned Israel and other Western governments about the danger of Covid-19, before the Chinese researchers realized what was going on. You should blame the U.S. administration, not China.

Report: US warned Israel about COVID-19 in November

The information was also handed over to the White House, 'which did not deem it of interest'

The US government reportedly gave Israel advanced warning over the emerging threat the coronavirus posed in China around mid-November.

According to Israeli broadcaster Channel 12, US intelligence agencies became aware of the danger posed by COVID-19 as it battered the central city of Wuhan in China's Hubei province.

The information was then handed over to the White House, “which did not deem it of interest,” according to Channel 12.

Despite the Trump administration's dismissal of the information, US intelligence decided to warn its close allies of the contagious disease, specifically NATO and Israel.

Channel 12 reported that the impact of COVID-19 on Israel and the larger region was discussed at length by Israeli military officials.

--- snip ---

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israe...19-in-november

[Chester]

Posted by silvanelf (here)

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
The main point of her story is not what she is telling the pubic about staying safe, but that she is confirming that the Chinese government covered up human-to-human transmission for many weeks, along with W.H.O. lying to the world, and thus they are culpable in a legal sense. She is providing professional proof of malfeasance.

American propaganda at its best.

In November 2019 the CDC warned Israel and other Western governments about the danger of Covid-19, before the Chinese researchers realized what was going on. You should blame the U.S. administration, not China.

Report: US warned Israel about COVID-19 in November

The information was also handed over to the White House, 'which did not deem it of interest'

The US government reportedly gave Israel advanced warning over the emerging threat the coronavirus posed in China around mid-November.

According to Israeli broadcaster Channel 12, US intelligence agencies became aware of the danger posed by COVID-19 as it battered the central city of Wuhan in China's Hubei province.

The information was then handed over to the White House, “which did not deem it of interest,” according to Channel 12.

Despite the Trump administration's dismissal of the information, US intelligence decided to warn its close allies of the contagious disease, specifically NATO and Israel.

Channel 12 reported that the impact of COVID-19 on Israel and the larger region was discussed at length by Israeli military officials.

--- snip ---

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israe...19-in-november

The report you are citing has been falsified. Just more fake news.

[silvanelf]

Posted by Chester (here)

Posted by silvanelf (here)
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israe...19-in-november

The report you are citing has been falsified. Just more fake news.

Source? Let me guess, your "source" is just another propaganda channel ...

[rgray222]

[norman]

Posted by TomKat (here)

I don't get it. This lady from the WHO has to escape China in April to come to the US to tell us to wear masks and social distance?

Exactly. You saved me the trouble TomCat.

[ has a Disney or Murdock exec showed up on the Epstein lists yet ? ]

[Chester]

Posted by rgray222 (here)

It has become a hybrid Orwellian 1984 / Huxleyan Brave New World technotyranny.

[Justplain]

Despite this lady in the OP vid claiming that CV could be the deadliest virus in human history, why is it that even with 'exploding' infections in many hotspots which are supposedly not following lockdown procedures, that the death rates are declining, even when so many deaths are fakely attributed to this 'disease'? And even despite the lack of publicity for effective treatments for this virus, such as hydroxy-quloroquine and vitamin c, that the death rate still declines.

The question in my mind is that regarding her alarmbell ringing, is that the real point of this vid, even if there is some truth to what she says about the who/PRC coverups? Since we already knew about these truths long ago, I assume this 'whistleblower' is really here to hype the fake danger of cv and stoke anti-prc sentiment.

[Chester]

Posted by Justplain (here)
Despite this lady in the OP vid claiming that CV could be the deadliest virus in human history, why is it that even with 'exploding' infections in many hotspots which are supposedly not following lockdown procedures, that the death rates are declining, even when so many deaths are fakely attributed to this 'disease'? And even despite the lack of publicity for effective treatments for this virus, such as hydroxy-quloroquine and vitamin c, that the death rate still declines.

The question in my mind is that regarding her alarmbell ringing, is that the real point of this vid, even if there is some truth to what she says about the who/PRC coverups? Since we already knew about these truths long ago, I assume this 'whistleblower' is really here to hype the fake danger of cv and stoke anti-prc sentiment.

"Since we already knew..." I suggest you consider using the word "assume" there instead of "knew."

Dr. Yan's statements featured first hand experience of the attempts by the to control the critical information (human to human transmission) and to delay the dissemination of that information to a.) the WHO (the organization the world relies on with regards to pandemics) b.) the world.

The PRC, the People's Republic of China (completely controlled by the Communist Party of China) has, for at least a decade now, overtly become an authoritarian style government.

"favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom." (source)

Because of what the PCR has become in this regard, when the "virus" emerged, due to a combination of the impact of this shift in government, people were afraid to speak out, people were operating under fear, fear for their lives but even more powerful, fear for their family, loved ones and friends lives.

The result is that at the minimum, the world lost three weeks (and likely six or seven weeks) in having the chance to mitigate the spread. I do not need to explain the damage this caused the world.

Now go back to my OP (opening post) and the point of the thread - censorship and the forms of "thought dissemination management" that have arisen in the West over the last few years.

In China, we have a government that imposes its will via draconian measures I described above - the end result being that people are afraid for the lives of their loved ones and their own life too (of course).

In the West, the same result is emerging albeit via a different route but a route that will end up achieving the exact same result as we have in China today - rule by a soulless authoritarian government (with a ruler for life by the way). Don't dream he won't be re-elected as long as he wants to remain president - the CPC is in complete control of everything including elections.

In the West, we have witnessed the implementation of everything but this final overt phase where the governments "we elect" take the final steps as the CPC did to ensure one party rule, forever.

Censorship is the most important tool in the toolkit for achieving final, total authoritarian rule. In the West, this has already gone way past the point of no return. The point of this thread is simply to point that out. Kansas went by-by long ago.

So why, Chester, are you making such a post if its a done deal?

I am making the post on the Project Avalon forum for members and readers of the forum in hopes that at least here, on this forum, the march towards full-blown censorship (which has already gone way past acceptable), can be reversed. IMO, the forum's future in relation to its past, is at stake. THAT is why I created this thread.

[Chester]

from Bari Weiss -

https://www.bariweiss.com/resignatio...campaign=13157

Dear A.G.,

It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.

I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.

I was honored to be part of that effort, led by James Bennet. I am proud of my work as a writer and as an editor. Among those I helped bring to our pages: the Venezuelan dissident Wuilly Arteaga; the Iranian chess champion Dorsa Derakhshani; and the Hong Kong Christian democrat Derek Lam. Also: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Masih Alinejad, Zaina Arafat, Elna Baker, Rachael Denhollander, Matti Friedman, Nick Gillespie, Heather Heying, Randall Kennedy, Julius Krein, Monica Lewinsky, Glenn Loury, Jesse Singal, Ali Soufan, Chloe Valdary, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Wesley Yang, and many others.

But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.

There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.

I do not understand how you have allowed this kind of behavior to go on inside your company in full view of the paper’s entire staff and the public. And I certainly can’t square how you and other Times leaders have stood by while simultaneously praising me in private for my courage. Showing up for work as a centrist at an American newspaper should not require bravery.

Part of me wishes I could say that my experience was unique. But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world? And so self-censorship has become the norm.

What rules that remain at The Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.

Op-eds that would have easily been published just two years ago would now get an editor or a writer in serious trouble, if not fired. If a piece is perceived as likely to inspire backlash internally or on social media, the editor or writer avoids pitching it. If she feels strongly enough to suggest it, she is quickly steered to safer ground. And if, every now and then, she succeeds in getting a piece published that does not explicitly promote progressive causes, it happens only after every line is carefully massaged, negotiated and caveated.

It took the paper two days and two jobs to say that the Tom Cotton op-ed “fell short of our standards.” We attached an editor’s note on a travel story about Jaffa shortly after it was published because it “failed to touch on important aspects of Jaffa’s makeup and its history.” But there is still none appended to Cheryl Strayed’s fawning interview with the writer Alice Walker, a proud anti-Semite who believes in lizard Illuminati.

The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry.

Or perhaps it is because they know that, nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record.

All this bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers. Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule Two: Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative. Rule Three: Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.

For these young writers and editors, there is one consolation. As places like The Times and other once-great journalistic institutions betray their standards and lose sight of their principles, Americans still hunger for news that is accurate, opinions that are vital, and debate that is sincere. I hear from these people every day. “An independent press is not a liberal ideal or a progressive ideal or a democratic ideal. It’s an American ideal,” you said a few years ago. I couldn’t agree more. America is a great country that deserves a great newspaper.

None of this means that some of the most talented journalists in the world don’t still labor for this newspaper. They do, which is what makes the illiberal environment especially heartbreaking. I will be, as ever, a dedicated reader of their work. But I can no longer do the work that you brought me here to do—the work that Adolph Ochs described in that famous 1896 statement: “to make of the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”

Ochs’s idea is one of the best I’ve encountered. And I’ve always comforted myself with the notion that the best ideas win out. But ideas cannot win on their own. They need a voice. They need a hearing. Above all, they must be backed by people willing to live by them.

Sincerely,

Bari

[Justjane]

Being partisan doesn’t equal censorship. I don’t see anyone here complaining about Fox News.

I’ve said this elsewhere, but there is something larger at play here than censorship. In this age of the internet, no one is actually cancelled, there are plenty of options for people wanting to share their ideas and information. Cancellation and censorship has become something of a badge of honour among some groups, evidence that they’re doing it ‘right’, and cancellation also doesn’t seem to come until after they’ve amassed a significant presence and following.

And we know that censorship has the opposite effect of its apparent proponents intentions. It only serves to make something more interesting and intriguing and more likely to be considered ‘true’.

This isn’t the 1950s. Surely I’m not the only one thinking the whole thing is some kind of facade?

[Chester]

A Brief History of the Freedom of Speech in America

“I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire (1694-1778)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists’ grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints that the British government infringed upon the freedom of speech.

In those days, speech was as acerbic as it is today. If words were aimed at Parliament, all words were lawful. If they were aimed directly and personally at the king — as Jefferson’s were in the Declaration — they constituted treason.

Needless to say, Jefferson and the 55 others who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed.

Of course, the colonists won the war, and, six years afterward, the 13 states ratified the Constitution. Two years after ratification, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights. The first ratified amendment prohibited Congress from doing what the colonists never seriously complained about the British government doing — infringing upon the freedom of speech.

James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, insisted upon referring to speech as “the” freedom of speech, so as to emphasize that it preexisted the government. If you could have asked Madison where he believed the freedom of speech came from, he’d have said it was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration.

Stated differently, each of the signatories of the Declaration and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights manifested in writing their unambiguous belief that the freedom of speech is a natural right — personal to every human. It does not come from the government. It comes from within us. It cannot be taken away by legislation or executive command.

Yet, a mere seven years later, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.

So, how could the same generation — in some cases the same human beings — that prohibited congressional infringement upon speech have enacted a statute that punished speech?

To some of the framers — the Federalists who wanted a big government as we have today — infringing upon the freedom of speech meant silencing it before it was uttered. Today, this is called prior restraint, and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it.

To the antifederalists — or Democratic-Republicans, as they called themselves — the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing any speech.

Adams’ Department of Justice indicted and prosecuted and convicted antifederalists — among them a congressman — for their critical speech.

When Jefferson won the presidency and the antifederalists won control of Congress, the Federalists repealed the speech suppression parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control, lest it be used against them.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North who were critical of his war efforts. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson — whom my alma mater Princeton University is trying to erase from its memory — arrested folks for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud or singing German beer hall songs.

Lincoln argued that preserving the Union was more important than preserving the First Amendment, and Wilson argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Both arguments have since been rejected by the courts.

In the 1950s, the feds successfully prosecuted Cold War dissenters on the theory that their speech was dangerous and might have a tendency to violence. Some of the victims of this torturous rationale died in prison.

The government’s respect for speech has waxed and waned. It is at its lowest ebb during wartime. Of course, dissent during wartime — which challenges the government’s use of force to kill — is often the most important and timely speech.

It was not until 1969, in a case called Brandenburg v. Ohio, that the Supreme Court gave us a modern definition of the freedom of speech. Brandenburg harangued a crowd in Hamilton County, Ohio and urged them to march to Washington and take back the federal government from Blacks and Jews, whom he argued were in control. He was convicted in an Ohio state court of criminal syndicalism — basically, the use of speech to arouse others to violence.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed his conviction and held that all innocuous speech is absolutely protected, and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to rebut it. The same Supreme Court had just ruled in Times v. Sullivan that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage and protect open, wide, robust, even caustic and unbridled speech.

The speech we love needs no protection. The speech we hate does. The government has no authority to evaluate speech. As the framers understood, all persons have a natural right to think as we wish and to say and publish whatever we think. Even hateful, hurtful and harmful speech is protected speech.

Yet, in perilous times like the present, we have seen efforts to use the courts to block the publication of unflattering books. We have seen state governors use the police to protect gatherings of protestors with whose message they agreed and to disburse critical protestors. We have seen mobs silence speakers while the police did nothing.

Punishing speech is the most dangerous business because there will be no end to it. The remedy for hateful or threatening speech is not silence or punishments; it is more speech — speech that challenges the speaker.

Why do folks in government want to silence their opponents? They fear an undermining of their power. The dissenters might make more appealing arguments than they do. St. Augustine taught that nearly all in government want to tell others how to live.

How about we all say whatever we want and the government leaves us alone?

[Chester]

A not so oldie, but indeed, a goodie -

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LCNdTLHZAeo

[Chester]

Next step?

Cancel thinking