The comparison to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system is very apt. My parents left China in search of religious freedom here in America. When I was little, I learned about how America was a bastion of free speech and free expression. I admired the fact that people were allowed to speak without fear of persecution.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies. It's everywhere these days: in academia, in the media, and in tech. I’m glad to see people like Bari fight back on alternative platforms like Substack. I write a Substack myself where I discuss how the new "woke" culture is harming our nation. Cancel culture is the antithesis of the civil liberties many Americans take for granted.
Same here, left post communist Romania in 1996 and I am terrified by the last 3 years, especially as I experienced first hand the many punishments inflicted upon me for doing “the ultimate anti social act” of not taking the jab.
Yes! I’ve noticed that it is people like us, with family histories from authoritarian governments, that are the most passionate about freedom of expression here in America. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, former Soviet bloc... we have seen firsthand or heard from our parents about the dangers of banning free speech.
I have had many unpleasant flashbacks of my childhood in the former Soviet Union during the past 3 years. Illicit get-togethers with friends during strict stay-at-home orders, fear of being snitched on by neighbours, discussions of forbidden topics, obvious censorship of "wrong" opinions, official praise of "approved" dissent.
At the same time, substandard and mostly unavailable healthcare, shortages of common and essential products, and generally, enforced compliance with performative and ineffective measures such as masks, disinfection and vax passports.
I LIKE the Russians. I want to be friends with them. As I posted on another blog, I am a bit of a history buff, and the history of Russia is the most fascinating yet tragic I can imagine. No people has withstood the almost unfathomably deep and interminable suffering and abuse as have the Russians. Second, again as a history buff, I am overwhelmed by their bravery and suffering during the Second World War and then again under Stalin. Third, I have met and worked with several Russians over the years. I found them always friendly, happy, outgoing - and of course like myself, they love their chess and their wodka. The men I have met have all been Men - real, masculine men - men to admire - and the women are beautifully feminine but hard as steel balls if needs be.
And I am baffled by my nation's continuous meddling in Other People's Affairs, paused in recent history only during the Eisenhower administration (There's nothing like being Supreme Allied Commander and sending tens of thousands of young men to their deaths to drain out the warmonger in you.), and the administration of the Orange Man. Why do they have such a hard-on for Russia? It has 1/14 the US GDP; three states have a bigger economy than all of Russia. If not for their nuclear arsenal, there's no telling what sort of adventure the Americans would have cooked up. Ukraine is case-in point, actually. But of course, the Military-Industrial-Complex that owns Washington is ecstatic. After all, think of the profits! it's just blood.....
Putin's an arse-hole, but at least he's a Real Man and intends By God to defend his country. We're not helping the average Russian with our meddling, so why don't we just leave them alone?
Well, I also like the Russians, and their history is interesting, but you're not going to buy me with this cheap propaganda... Russia was also an empire, and I'm not sure how people manage to forget that. Nobody plays victim better than a bully....
Let's see, this "real man" invaded a sovereign country, bombed civilians in hospitals, noncombatants in schools, apartment buildings, and malls. Encouraged his soldiers to commit war crimes against noncombatants, oh and, threatens to annihilate the world through nuclear war.
Putin's a real man just defending his country? Sure.
It will be exciting to experience the descent into authoritarianism. We totally are not turning this around so at least enjoy the ride.
Just look at China. It’s a billion people and they are letting some chubby communist imbecile lock them in their homes for 3 years. Same thing will happen here.
People need to feel extreme pain before they rise up. So we shall experience extreme pain. Unfortunate to be sure.
Sorry to say I think you're right. People are still too comfortable. Next to your kids and loved ones, your Constitutional rights are your most precious possession. But, as the pandemic demonstrated, most people will trade them for a little security, even if illusory. Maybe the soaring costs - including energy and utilities - will wake people from this laziness. Maybe a good electric blackout with riots. Who knows. But we've become very soft and too easy to push around.
True Kevin and it’s turned into a bit of rush, they have to implement cancel culture, esg, vaccine mandates and crt all before 2024. Extreme pain is upon us I just hope we rise up to do something about it or else we will have these clowns forever in power.
Kevin I wish I could say you're right about the extreme pain thing. I often try to tell myself that, but then I remember places like North Korea and I realize people can put up with a lot of extreme pain and just stay that way. And if we look back at Communist Russia and China, even those regimes didn't end by revolts. They ended by decisions from the top down when the leaders had a change of heart and realized this way wouldn't work. The resulting collapses of the satellite countries in Easter Europe and SE Asia only fell only when they no longer had USSR and Mao China to prop them up. The jubilant "revolts" by the people made it look like revolts, but in fact everything collapsed from the top down. So I don't have faith that extreme pain will lead to a tipping point.
You have voiced my deepest fear. This is why I am hoping the Elons and Thiels of the world will somehow manage to open a path to restore civil liberties, even as I fear their own agendas will be the next thing we're all fighting, having traded the frying pan for the fire.
The leftists have learned well from the CCP. Indoctrinate the children. There are now generations that have been immersed in their dogma. Teacher unions and the state have formed a symbiotic relationship that all but insures their power.
Thank God for the Democrats and their totalitarian PC/Woke buddies, tyrants all. Apple. Nike and other left wing US companies support the road to oppression and love the CCP and support China's oppressive, murderous actions.
I too lived in a US/Democrat Party sanctioned police state and know the fear and terror of wondering "Am I next?", going to sleep at night to the rattle of gunfire.
When we moved back to the States, it took my wife years to be comfortable around a policeman or woman. She would not look them in the eye. Now every time she or I meet a police officer, we thank them for the job they do. Democrats demonize the police. Those who demonize the police, have never lived in a real police state.
Our police warts and all are saints compared to the police in Russia, the workers' paradises' of China, Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela.
The woke left with the active support of the Democrats, is rapidly turning us into a totalitarian police state. and the voters on the left embrace this. If you don't believe me, just ask the left wingnuts on this BBS. I often wonder if the two most vocal wingnuts everyday sing "The Internationale"
We’re glad to have you here with us in the US. All of your firsthand perspectives on how bad it can get are valuable and useful. As I’ve said for several years: It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. But the mechanics of the getting better part might get pretty messy.
Exactly. Those born in authoritarian countries actually appreciate American freedom. People don’t know what freedom is until it’s taken away from them, then they realize they’ve been taking it for granted.
Again, thank you. One can do no better than to quote The Gipper:
"Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again."
I respectfully disagree. This attitude is no different than Nancy Pelosi believing that the Cape Cod visitors should have been left in Florida to pick the crops there. While recent immigrants from.oppressive nations are no doubt an asset to those opposed to oppression, and this article is about oppression, to assume all of the natives are "complacent" is erroneous.
Re the Pelosi analogy she wants to use the Cap Cod aliens to stay in Florida because they have crops that need picking there. You seem to want to use newcomers from countries with oppressive regimes to speak up about the dangers thereof. I welcome their comments but disagree that they are more passionate. Or of more significance. Saying, as the commenter did, that she and others like her are more passionate infers that the long-time citizens are complacent. That is neither biased, prejudiced, or an assumption. Rather it is a logical inference. Plus I am pretty sure another center did use the word complacent but do not have the time to crawl back through the thread to verify that.
Edited to say found it. In this thread actually. The Cape Cod commenter said American passivity is a big part of this and Peng confirmed "[E]xactly. Those born in authoritarian countries ACTUALLY [emphasis added] appreciate American freedom. . .." While I understand that may be true of many here it is certainly not true of all and is frankly condescending and insulting to those who understand what is taking place. As for your comment that freedom is not inherited that is literally true to an extent but I did inherit a very good understanding of the American ideal, including freedom. It is literally in my DNA.
BS. You are a newcomer with a different passion perhaps but many of shall we say a deeper understanding of what is at stake understand full well what is and has happened. And what it takes to resist it. What exactly are you doing about it?
I am not a newcomer. As I mentioned earlier, my parents are the ones that immigrated to America. I grew up here in New York City. And for what I am doing to resist it, I am actively speaking up against what I see as an authoritarian ideology. I write a newsletter on Substack that informs people about woke ideology.
My point about freedom is that Americans that have been here for generations have no baseline to compare it to. You’ve had freedom for generations. But for people like me, we’ve heard firsthand from our families what the loss of freedom feels like. Of course, this is a generalization. Yet I have consistently seen it play out that those from authoritarian governments are the most likely to appreciate American freedom.
Is it possible you are in an echo chamber? Could that be why you see it "play out that those from authoritarian governments are most likely to appreciate American freedoms? BTW I neither dispute nor discredit your unique position. But I do not appreciate the insinuation that it somehow elevates your appreciation of American freedom above mine. I am descended from.generations that shed their blood for those American freedoms in more than one conflict. Freedom is not free as the saying goes. But your comment does provide context for your belief that Americans do not appreciate their freedoms. But be advised that growing up in NYC did not give you a fair representation of America or her freedoms. Or her freedom fighters for that matter. There are millions of us that both appreciate American freedoms and speak out for them. We are your allies.
Stop parsing her comments looking for something to be insulted about. I think that she expressed herself beautifully. You might want to read her second paragraph again.
Being a "newcomer" does not make one wrong. And, I might add, neither does being an "oldcomer" make one right. In my experience it USUALLY takes a fresh point of view to address ossified problems and attitudes.
Then by that logic we should just surrender to that "fresh point of view" being churned out of American colleges and universities. "Ossified" indeed. For what it is worth I welcome newcomers, but did not appreciate being classified as "complacent" regarding the destruction.of my country IMO that is just further divisiveness. The newcomers are not white knights on steeds rushing in to save the day.
"Then by that logic we should just surrender to that "fresh point of view" being churned out of American colleges and universities."
Uh, no. Nobody said that.
'"Ossified" indeed. For what it is worth I welcome newcomers, but did not appreciate being classified as "complacent" regarding the destruction.of my country"
Nobody said that, either.
"The newcomers are not white knights on steeds rushing in to save the day."
A third thing nobody said. Are you familiar with the concept of the straw man? If not, I can give you a leg up:
straw man
/ˌstrô ˈman/
noun
- an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.
e.g. "her familiar procedure of creating a straw man by exaggerating their approach"
Referring to the article I would say that a majority of Americans today are ok with PayPal’s practice. I bet most don’t even know because I get this on Substack and not in MSM.
The majority of Americans don't want to be bothered with thinking about any of this and are therefore complacent. They're going about their daily lives hoping someone else has the com, and that everything will be ok. That's the kind of complacency that I see.
“Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies.”
—————————————————-
These are not authoritarian policies from ‘companies’. These are DEMOCRATS who are defrauding shareholders and embezzling company assets in order to make illegal in-kind donations to the Democrat party.
It’s at least three different felonies.
We don’t need to fix Section 230. We need to arrest people for the crimes they are committing.
I just saw that the Fried Bankman was arrested for fraud. Will the DNC and all the mostly Democrat pols who cuddled up to him and took his bribes give back the money to defrauded investors? Will they be charged as accessories to the fraud if they don't? Inquiring minds want to know.
There will be no charges. The reason we have fascism is because DC, and all other relevant jurisdictions, are 95% Democrat.
It actually requires changing civil service laws because the executive literally can’t fire people in the executive branch right now, which is totally unconstitutional and the thing that enables the Democrat’s permanent fascist power.
So you change civil service laws and fire everyone in DC and then replace them with right-wing Sheriffs and DAs.
Totally won’t happen but it’s what is required. If you ask me my opinion I’d say it’s over. End times.
SBF was arrested 24 hours before he was going to speak the House Banking and Finance committee. Now he's on ice. Interesting timing by the SDNY, no? Maxine must be relieved.
Just saw Kevin McCarthy on FOX Business. His PAC received money from an "associate" of SBF. McCarthy told Larry Kudlow that if the donation were suspect, he would send the donation on to a charity. WTH?!? Send it to the Bankruptcy Trustee, or to the CEO of SBF's now defunct company. The pols on BOTH sides just want the dough. SBF was smart in that he gave to both parties, displaying a perfect understading of pols morality.
Real protection at the federal level would come about if political idealogy is made a protected class. But IMO 230 does need to be fixed. It is true that crimes are being committed but the left has gotten away with so much for so long without suffering consequences that they are absolutely emboldened. To the extent that the White House is nothing more than a campaign rally. They simply have no shame. And they are intent on eliminating conservative idealogy.
Political ideology MUST become a protected class. But I don't think Democrats would get on board with such a bill, even if Republicans had the guts to put it forward.
230 is OK, they just have to pick are they a publisher or a communication platform. Another issue these platforms might have is engaging in deceptive trade practices. They all advertised themselves as being "open to all" then as they gained market share and became dominant, they tightened their T's & C's often without notice or real disclosure (think credit card companies about 20-30 years ago).
I like the deceptive trade practices angle with PayPal. But I think 230 needs re-evaluation as to the self-proclaimed town squares. Right now they are not deemed publishers thus are not liable for the content posted by others. But I think all this content moderation has established that they do in fact control content. And not in an unbiased fashion. They should not be able to have it both ways.
Relax, Kevin. Please. Hyperbole does not suit you. Or the rest of us, for that matter. (And I can be guilty of it too).
What PayPal is doing I believe is illegal. Full stop.
But how does anyone know Dems are in complete control? That's like saying all whites who stay silent are racist. Patently absurd.
As far as I can tell there are a hell of a lot of old (and new) school Republicans owning many millions of shares in the very 'Dem' companies you decry. They want to make money. And money is America, is it not?
How do you know your personal 401K mutual funds don't have investments in Silicon Valley firms. Of course they do. They're soaring in value (market swings aside). And you might be quite happy about that.
And if these companies are making 'illegal in-kind' donations to the hated Dems or embezzling company assets wouldn't the SEC be aware of it? The very SEC that is apparently trying to nail 'Fried Bankman' (a la our friend Bruce)? I don't think the SEC is controlled by either party. At least I hope not.
Make your points, but you could be slightly more realistic.
Gentler was the CFO of Hillary Rotten Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. And he More recently, as Chair of the SEC, he has altered his private and public calendars with regard to meetings with George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary. Move along, nothing to see here.
Maybe companies is too broad and specific companies should be discussed. Most of them are not forthcoming but we know some about Twitter, thanks to Musk. We know that James Baker was a lawyer for the FBI who colluded on the Steel Dossier. After concluding his nefarious deeds with the federal goverent or Democratic party he then went to work for Twitter as a lawyer and was instrumental in the laptop suppression. Sounds pretty partisan to me. We also know that Yoth, the Twitter ethics guy had expressed anti-Trump sentiments and when the issue of removing Trump from the Twitter platform post Jan 6 arose he did it despite Trump's content not violating the Twitter standards. Sounds pretty partisan to me. Then you have the suppression of any content questioning Covid protocols while the odious Dr. Fauci's daughter was a Twitter employee. Sounds pretty partisan to me. In fact it all sounds downright incestuous. And I have not even discussed the refusal to remove child porn. These are some twisted folks. Subverting the free flow of information they disagree with. We, the public have been treated like mushrooms by these people - kept in the dark and fed manure. The other platforms are no better is my bet.
The story here started with PayPal but now you’ve expanded it to Twitter.
PayPal is a financial services company with clients who pay to have transactions enacted with third parties. It has nothing to do with free speech. The fact that PayPal somehow has gone rogue and denying clients service because of their right of center ideas is blatantly illegal. Their clients’ political slant has nothing whatever to do with the product PayPal provides.
Twitter on the other hand is a platform where their clients political bias, ideas, manner of expression has everything to do with the service THEY provide. By which, derived from the freedom of the press in the First Amendment, they can edit and censor what they want when they want. They have that right.
The government does not. Our right to speak and publish freely cannot be prohibited by the US government. But if we use a private platform? Absolutely.
And if I were to use Parler or Truth Social and lambaste Trump and his family and I’m denied access, that is their right.
You’re correct. Twitter was partisan. But that is not illegal. Their right to deny speech is protected.
But if it's the gov't telling Facebook and Twitter it's disinformation for example that anti-vaxx supporters are peddling and they must not give them access - isn't the blame you (and others) ascribe to Twitter/Facebook be better directed to the US Gov't?
For decades prior to 1971 the gov't routinely told the mainstream press that certain topics were verboten and the press just as routinely held off. Of course, the publication of the Pentagon Papers forever changed the rules of the game. But the game still exists. Twitter easily could have said to the CDC and the NIH etc..no way, we will publish every and all comments, opinions for and against your Covid policies. That all of it was valid. And I for one wish they would have. But the fact they did not does not suggest some kind of conspiracy of like minded Dem Far Left Woke corporate/gov't titans directed to pull down a curtain on free speech in America.
Instead it suggests, that on the part of Twitter and Facebook, they took the easy road, did what was asked since they didn't need the blowback, and made the practical decision to stay out of the way. They didn't adhere to free speech absolutists, no. But as corporate entities - they didn't have to.
You used the plural "these companies" and referenced investment in "Silicon Valley firms" so forgive my confusion that you intended to discuss only PayPal. I am well aware of the distinction between government action and private action and was before your attempted explanation. However what Twitter did was beyond that - it either acted as a agent of the government or collaborated with it. So it is in no position to maintain that it was unbiased or objective. Whether its actions were illegal has not been ascertained. Although I do not believe there will be an investigation forthcoming as the Democrats in office have a clear vested interest in not conducting one. But the questionable actions have been exposed. They should trouble everyone.
Actually, if poor Kevin McCarthy can be elected Speaker over his fringe right wingers in caucus, the House might want to launch an investigation into the very Twitter 'questionable' actions at that time. It'll be interesting to see what they find - probably that Twitter was hardly impartial in collaborating with the Biden Presidential campaign. Which was their decision to make, as it would have been had they declined. They can publish or decline to publish as they see fit.
A similar case can be made for the Murdoch owned NY Post, who were insatiable supporters of Trump throughout his campaign and Presidency and clearly had a conservative bias in most if not all of its articles (until very recently). As was their right under the First Amendment. But I doubt anyone will ever investigate them (or the flagship Fox, for that matter).
Sheluyang, what PayPal is doing is patently illegal and should be sued for such. They are a financial services company where political bias should have no place.
But having said that, we can choose to ignore PayPal and other virtue signalling firms and use something else more palatable. We do have choice. And I see choice everywhere I look. So let's exercise that.
Choice under authoritarianism, either Communist or otherwise, is not something that is yours to have.
Honestly, what choices do we have to conduct financial business online? Stripe is somewhat difficult to setup. I use FreshBooks, no idea who owns them. It’s difficult for a small business person to keep up. Great article. I rarely comment, but this one hit home.
There is nothing new about cancel culture. All we have to do is study history. True that Americans are too comfortable and too arrogant. They think they are too exceptional for this catastrophe to happen here. To me, what is going on feels like deja vu. We haven’t gotten to the brutality of Stalin’s repressions yet. We are a lot more humane - we just ruin people’s lives and their finances. But we may be getting there eventually.
I eagerly await Elon’s creation of a Pay Pal rival. I’ll sign on faster than I did Twitter after his purchase of that warped monstrosity. Who’s to tell me I can’t give money to Canadian truckers if I damn well feel like it?
Elon has massive capabilities, but as my father used to say, "You can ride a good horse to death." I'd love to have a Tesla phone, too, but Musk is spreading himself so thin that I worry about his health. And of course, he is such a threat to the Globalists and their Great Reset that Arkancide is always only a breath away....
I agree that we can’t put all our hopes on one man. They will probably kill him. However if Elon can show that freedom and privacy are marketable goods - then that is a good thing. I would definitely buy a freedom phone.
The problem is that, as we have seen, one can invent something with the best of intentions, but the spirit of the age will take over once the inventor walks away. That is what the article says - so one man, or a few, can't really change the tide. The schools are churning out an indoctrinated workforce, and they will continue to subvert any business they work at. This is a "hand that rocks the cradle" problem, as noted above.
I cancelled my PayPal account right after they removed the clause and then added it again in regards to dining people for wrong think. Truly bizarre that anyone at PayPal thinks this stuff is good. It’s full on communism.
I did the same. The threat of fining users for anything the company decides it doesn't like was the last straw. I heard a lot of apologetics--"oh, it's only people who use PayPal itself to commit fraud who will be fined." Nope, as long as it's in their terms of service, they can fine anyone for anything they choose, and as we've seen with the account suspensions--you don't have to actually commit a crime in order for them to steal your money.
I'm not sure I would trust any online payment service again after this. Low-limit credit cards seem to be the safest way to buy stuff online now.
Elon Musk was an original founder of PayPal........... he already did that and as soon as he and Theil walked away to do other things the company started down this path. I wish Elon Musk well with Twitter, but one dude isn’t going to save the world alone. God helps those who help themselves and we either take back our institutions by each of us doing everything we can to influence those around us and to support economic competition or we’ll go the route of China despite Musk’s best efforts.
I'm thinking the same thing. Why don't the original PayPal founders get together and start a rival? They already know how to, and they seem to care about the issue enough.
Musk has already said he wants to add a payments function to Twitter, so the rival is coming soon. His idea is to steal back the very lucrative payments business from PayPal. This may have been his intent from the beginning. His turn to free speech and transparency is just a way a telling PayPal customers, "hey, you can trust Twitter not to do what PayPal is doing"
THAT is a great idea. The problem moving to another platform is you need something that is ubiquitous. I spent last year busking all day and a fair portion of my donations came through Venmo. Switching to a donation platform other people don't already have just means I would forfeit those donations. Many people don't carry or prefer not to give cash.
We are witnessing the problem with fiat currencies and as young Mr. B-F has demonstrated there is not yet a viable "crypto" alternative. The US has only been off the gold standard since Nixon. FDR made it illegal for US citizens to own gold, bought it at all at a nominal price, then raised the price of gold considerably within a week thereby enriching the US goverent.
The correct answer to jemarr's question, of course, is Canada's Prime Minister: he'll decide to what extent "unCanadians" like jemarr qualify as eligible to keep shopping for groceries. Better have a good cache at home if you're planning to post any more subversive comments, jemarr.
I’d say probably keep a ready supply of water, long life milk and cans of food if you in Canada. Think next year the Sh.. will hit the fan for Canadians, but when the elections come round for Justin I think he is going to be voted out unless of course he rigs the vote, then again stranger things have happened.
This is nothing new. 4 years ago my son & I had a nutrition website. PayPal was one of the payment options. Many people used it. All of a sudden PayPal decided that they didn’t like some of our products so they put a 6 month hold on our money. They paid it out in tiny amounts which really hurt our cash flow. There was no one to talk to, there was no appeal, it was just take it & deal with it. It was thousands of dollars. They finally paid it out but it took forever. I would never have anything to do with them again.
No it isn’t. Stripe also did the same thing to us. We had to get a high risk processor & by the time we straightened everything out we lost many customers .
It’s more than criminal Jules it’s like nazism, the gestapo and the KGB all wrap into one. You can’t go to a rally or a protest March, if it’s not to liking of the radicals, the Democrats or the Biden administration you get your mobile hacked or your bank account closed. If it’s the wrong go fund me cause or a question about our kids education you get branded a domestic terrorist and can’t do any business. What is actually happening here it’s as scary as hell
It’s a pleasure I’m standing with you Leslie, it won’t last forever. It may feel like it at this stage but I think there is light at the end of the tunnel🇺🇸🇺🇸
99.9% of the time, when someone uses the term "fascist" they don't understand what the word actually means. Mussolini's fascist system was one which merged the public and the private. Yes, public companies were allowed to exist and operate, but only if they followed the party line. If they strayed, a party apparatchik who would sing the proper hymnal would be put in place.
What we have emerging in the western world is a true fascist system, in the real sense of the word, with Paypal just being the most recent, but certainly not the last, iteration on this theme.
This is simply a further extension of a theme I have written about in the past, which is that modern liberalism is an anti-human ideaology.
I wrote about this previously. Just as the problem with communism is that real communism has never been tried, the problem with fascism is that real fascism HAS been tried.
So when there isn’t a guy with tall boots and a weird mustache people say
And those folks will never define what fascism means or how one determines what makes someone worthy of the label fascist. Nor will they define any other term , word or concept they use or support the use of to deter or punish speech or thought. That is why the word racist morphed into white supremacist which morphed into fascist past year or so. Note also how we never hear anymore of his or her truth but we are back to THE truth with the proviso that only the enlightened are good enough or smart enough to DICTATE (caps intended) what is true or false. And then there is "hate speech," a phrase that needs no clear definition or boundaries because... ( you know the rest).
Not sure where you are going. If no votes then what? who governs and gets to decide how people live? Voting in theory in a free country allows for changes to those in power. Hence the need for peaceful transitions. But again I am not sure where you are heading with your question
I am concerned about the future manipulation of elections via a number of methods including legacy media and tech becoming Izvestia for the US security state, ballot harvesting, voting machine hacking and plain old fraud. Not to mention court packing and adding regime friendly states to maintain power.
Or they like it because it embraces their idealogy. Until it doesn't. Then they will whine they did not know, they did not understand. Of course they did, or should have, they just did not care because it was being done to the others.
Hahahaha, I usually like your posts, Kevin. But you honestly think Communism is good but it just hasn’t been implemented properly. So you think you can do Communism better?
By dint of its very nature Communism requires forced cooperation. So you think you would be a benevolent enforcer. You can’t be serious.
Too many on the Left believed Stalin's lie that fascism is a right-wing ideology (everything but his Soviet "republic" was right-wing to Stalin).
Likewise, too many on the Left believe that nationalism is a necessary component of fascism. It's not. The only thing necessary is a central ideology to rally people around. Nationalism was still useful for that in the 20th century, with national hatreds still simmering after WWI. But today's progressive ideology serves the same purpose: it allows easy identification of who is loyal to the cause and who is not.
I would modify Umberto Eco's list of fascist hallmarks thus:
- The cult of postmodernism/CRT--a new tradition that cannot be questioned. ("The cult of tradition.")
- The rejection of liberalism. ("The rejection of modernism.")
- "The cult of action for action’s sake." <--This one is on the nose. Change for the sake of change. Smashing windows and burning buildings.
- "Disagreement is treason." <--This one is also on the nose. Notice the Democrats' recent embrace of the word "treason" and their determination to make it apply to anyone who disagrees with them.
- "Fear of difference." Eco thinks this is only applicable to racism, but as we see with our university campuses, anything that does not fall in line with Woke ideology is labeled dangerous and is banned.
- "Appeal to social frustration." <--This is the historical appeal of all Leftist movements, and the central talking point of the Democratic party.
- "The obsession with a plot." As Eco describes further, "The followers must feel besieged." <--This is Oppression ideology in a nutshell.
- "The enemy is both strong and weak." <--This has been the constant refrain of the Left since at least 2000. Republicans are both highly dangerous and easily defeated.
- "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy." As Eco describes further, "life is lived for struggle." <--Again, this is central to Leftist thinking. There is always another battle to be fought. And no compromise is allowed.
- "Contempt for the weak." Or as Eco labels it, “Elitism." <--Today's elitism is focused more on contempt for the non-Woke and non-college-educated, contempt for the rural, contempt for blue-collar workers--people who lack political and economic power.
- "Everybody is educated to become a hero." <--Teachers are training Social Justice Warriors right now.
- Virtue Signaling. ("Machismo and weaponry.") I think Eco is way off on this one, assuming that the personality of 20th century dictators is an inherent component of fascism. On the contrary, I would describe this point as a means of showing off one's power and influence, in whatever way is most popular at the time.
- "Selective populism." Eco explains further: "There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People." <--Legacy media is serving this purpose quite thoroughly.
- "Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak." <--Again, on the nose.
I really don’t understand how fascism and communism ever came to be defined as different things. Obviously it’s all fascism. How could you ever possibly do communism without fascism……….
Okay never mind I just realized how they became defined as different things. Same way ‘sexual preference’ was changed in Merriam-Webster *during* a SCOTUS hearing in order to smear Amy Coney Barrett.
I guess we should just call them “totalitarian communist fascists”. Cover all your bases. It’s one thing.
Totalitarian or authoritarian covers it for me. They’re easy terms to define. Covid mandates are authoritarian for example. Even covidiots don’t disagree. Try it sometime! I usually get some response along the lines of “well authority is important in some instances.” It’s fun to watch them squirm as they try to justify themselves.
The difference is in communism the State owns everything and the Leader assigns it to whoever he wants, while everyone works for the greater good.
In fascism, everything is in private hands, but the Leader seizes anything he wants and hands the title to whoever he wants, while everyone works for the greater good.
My point exactly. Its the definition of a distinction without a difference. Communism, fascism, socialism, feudalism, tribalism, doesn't matter. You can wrap an infinite amount pseudo-intellectualism around it, and its still just the "rule of the few over the many."
Exactly. Gub'ment plus corporate: fascism. Thanks for bringing that to the fore.
As for the anti-human aspect, it's not that the radical liberals, global-warming nutters, environmentalists and eco-terrorists love the environment; it's that they hate humanity.
And, Gordon, you can bet that, just as in Italy and Germany where people just wanted a government that worked for them, the rot will set in quickly and you won't hear a peep when people start to get midnight knocks on their doors and begin to disappear.
If our government worked, then I would propose that we should have legislation against PayPal being able to de-bank people. If a Christian baker can be sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, then PayPal shouldn't be able to take away your ability to do business.
However, our government does not work. Thank God for Elon Musk.
Agreed - stop voting Democrat and enabling this progressive movement. Also stop donating to colleges and universities. And finally, don’t patronize woke businesses- Coke, Netflix, Disney, etc - we need a comparable rating system like ESG but for woke businesses.
They have the right to vote as they see fit. The problem as I see it is the campaign finance of outsiders. On both sides. But in my jurisdiction the left did an outstanding job turning out a graciously uninformed youth vote to Vote Blue No Matter Who. They managed to elect a 19 year old landscaper (he mowed lawns) to a $92,000 a year job as the District Clerk overseeing a staff of 30 or 40, millions of dollars in funds in the registry of the court, all court documents including court filings, bonds and bail monies, issuing citations and writs, and overseeing the jury panels including issuing summons, registering those in attendance, and maintenance of the list of eligible jurors. It is going to be a hoot. I predict he will walk off the job pronto or wind up being arrested for mismanagement. On the national level Fetterman was elected this cycle and Biden the last one.
True. Just read an article on Bankman-Fried and his mama's political ties. He stole from.people to donate $40 million to candidates his mom's PAC suggested.
The idolizing of Elon Musk is rather disconcerting. The amount of government money that Musk's ventures have received is immense. The quotes are from 4.9 billion to 7 billion dollars in federal government money. Newsom claims that 3.2 billion dollars from CA taxpayers in direct and indirect subsidies were funneled to Musk's companies. Musk is invested heavily in China which suggest that he will support and comply with a dictatorship to maintain his investment just like Tim Cook from Apple.
Not taking away from Musk's current move to expose Twitter, but skepticism towards his motives and his actions is appropriate. God doesn't need to be thanked for him, at least not yet!
I agree to an extent. I think idolizing anyone is what has got us into this cult of personality conundrum. And he is almost too good to be true. I don't care though that he has gamed the system for subsidies and tax incentives. In the modern climate he would be foolish not to do so. The China thing is concerning however. Sort of Nike/LeBron James on a large scale
I never understood the purpose or value of PayPal. You need a credit card to not need to use a credit card. You keep your money at another third party account, and they had arcane rules to follow to allow you to get it. Who needs that? I buy things with my credit cards, and if I sold things, I would insist on payment that way. OK, fine. But frankly, I never knew that PayPal had gone woke. Just as Coke, Disney, MLB, and Netflix got the message, PayPal will cut the crap too if enough of us boycott it and they start losing money. Woke capitalists are still capitalists and they will respond to that kind of protest. Thanks for this “woke up” call.
Disney did switch out CEOs recently. Netflix laughed at the cry bully uproar over Chappelle a few months back. Big Capitalism is slowly realizing that Woke is not really a good marketing strategy in certain corners. But part of the problem is that so many of these companies are Too Big to Even Notice that a few thousand are boycotting them. And they're manned by freshly minted young ideologues who think that they have a moral obligation to change Wrongthink. The rot is deep and the band plays on.
FWIW, Disney's change of CEO's was back to the more woke Bob Iger...aka the guy who started all of the woke bullshit projects that have recently bombed (Think: She-Hulk, Strange World, etc.) Their change in management is a regression likely meant to cover their asses after a huge loss in profits. This particular point is one that MSM is getting completely backwards: the projects that failed were begun under Iger not Chapek, 'Tis a bait-and-switch.
Worth adding that while Iger is slightly more to blame for work Disney, he may also be using this chaos as a chance to reverse course. If you want some fun gossip check out ol’ Doomcock:
Coke stopped political statements. Disney fired their CEO after earnings dropped and Florida rebuked them. MLB hasn’t peeped again after they pulled the All-Star game from Atlanta because fans and viewership declined, and Netflix publicly stated that all their DEI programming was not winning new subs.
And if he didn’t make money for them, they’d be acting differently. Don’t kid yourself. These are also the people that are bringing you the markle Whinge and Ginge festival.
Yep. It's all about money. I don't expect anything else from large corporations.
Woke "entertainment" had its moment, and it was mildly successful b/c people wanted to feel virtuous. But let's be honest, all that woke content is boring, didactic, finger-wagging and there is only so much people can take. The vast majority of people want to laugh or cry ... you know, be entertained.
That's why the Top Gun sequel did so well this summer—it's by far the most successful movie in years. And why Don't Worry Darling bombed.
We winning this battle - I loved Top Gun went and put my bottom in a movie seat bought popcorn had the best night ever. The next movie in the theater was Bullet Train with Brad Pitt it was pure magic no wokism nothing to feel guilty about, nobody worrying about anybody else privilege just an amazing night out. Get out of your houses get back to your community start living like Americans please!
Or if people are watching it they’re doing it to gawk or laugh at them. Markle is as crazy as a real housewife. People love that kind of thing for some reason.
PayPal made a lot of sense in the early days. You could buy things using a credit card from small business owners (or individuals) who could not otherwise take payment by a credit card. Among other things, this massively increased the customer base of small businesses and artists. You could use your credit card to send money to a friend, or to pay one back for a loan. These things all seem "old hat" today, in a world with Square, Venmo, etc., but they were revolutionary at the time. Those were the early days with the original founders, not the woke, fascist nightmare that PayPal has evolved into.
Why don’t WE just shut it down. PayPal like all corporations need massive amounts of people to run. Their attitude and behavior is unAmerican we need to put an end to it now.
Also my friends don’t seem to understand your post. When I say I’m boycotting Coke they say but how does it help? I say it doesn’t but I feel absolutely terrific doing it. It still goes over their heads though.
I’m with you girl!!! It’s already starting with Disney they had to bring back Bob Iger and their shares have lost 35-40% value this year. They must be hurting!
Yes, they quietly reduced their DEI leftist messaging. Coke stopped political comments related to voting, Disney fired their CEO due to poor performance, MLB lost fans and TV money (not all due to Covid), Netflix blew off the Chappelle debate. Woke doesn't sell drinks, tickets or subscriptions - it offends half of their customers, and the customers withdrew support for their products.
We are right Lynn, we have to keep at it though, we not going to see major success overnight, we have our work cut out for us but soldier on its going to be good!
So much of the media is focused on Twitter, while the real problem is much more pervasive than any single platform. I am so happy to see the true extent of this problem finally coming to light. Two years ago I was censored by the college where I taught, and no one noticed. The little guys are hurt the most because they have no big voice to protect them.
We owe Musk a debt of gratitude for bringing the Twitter debauchery to light. I am still not satisfied as to his true intentions for doing so but I appreciate it nevertheless. The kiddie porn stuff is stunning.
The fact that the thousands of laid-off workers couldn't manage to get rid of the child porn distributors, but Musk's people have apparently already wiped out most of it, suggests that no one at Twitter actually WANTED to get rid of it. That's a truly disturbing revelation.
Thanks RUPA! I knew PayPal was shady, but this is next level and I’m closing both my personal and business accounts. As always, keep up the good work and know this, we LOVE you so much up here in Canada and cannot thank-you enough for your fearless reporting of our truckers🙏
I wonder if the day is coming when you can only buy or sell via a government appointed/sanctioned vehicle which may be, let’s say, Pay Pal. Then what ?
I don't often talk about religion here, but this can't help bringing Rev. 13:17 strongly to my mind: "that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark."
“Finally, there’s Dan Schulman—poster child for stakeholder capitalism, who has been CEO since 2014.”
———————————————————
You are inciting violence against Dan Schulman. This is stochastic terrorism. Hold on let me check and see if he’s Jewish. I can accuse you of more things then…….
Am I doing this right?? I’m not a Democrat so I’m not that efficient when it comes to being a manipulative dishonest sack of shit.
Democrats are the worst people on earth. Treat them accordingly.
Yes. Good start. You also need to work in “causing harm” somewhere plus something about “underrepresented communities” (even though he’s a white guy, no one even pretends to want to make sense anymore, just say the words).
My husband is dealing with this right now. PayPal will not tell him and his business partners what lead to their suspension, which is down right evil. They have a significant amount of their money locked up for 180 days! They are fortunate enough to manage this receivables issue, but this policy will kill many small businesses. They asked PayPal to refund the original payments to their clients so they could collect another way, and PayPal won’t. It’s almost like a Ponzi scheme! No company should be able to behave this way.
I actually heard from my MP this morning on this very subject.
He was incredibly concerned to learn of PayPal’s decision to shut down certain accounts citing its “Acceptable Use Policy”. It is deeply worrying that a company can so quickly, and without warning, withdraw financial services from users likely reliant on continued funding.
He understands that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has met with both PayPal and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on this issue. He welcomes that PayPal have stated that they are dedicated to providing safe and affordable financial services to people of all backgrounds with a diversity of views, and are a strong supporter of freedom of expression and open dialogue and, as such, do not seek to be an arbiter of free speech.
The Government has confirmed that the legislative framework in this area remains effective. One such area of regulation is the Payment Services Regulations (2017), which sets out the rules for online payments. There are further protections in the Consumer Rights Act (2015) and Equality Act (2010).
He welcomes that the Government has pledged that the issue of free speech and freedom of expression will be included as part of a review of the regulations in January 2023.
Furthermore, he understands that further legislative protections can be brought about swiftly due to changes which the Financial Services and Markets Bill is bringing in by repealing retained EU law.
Hello, I’m from the UK, now a US citizen. Why does your MP sound like they are simply appeasing the pitchfork holders I wonder. It’s possible PayPal took things too far too fast so parliament had to look like they’re doing something about it. Thoughts?
I think they didn't know. My MP is probably best described as a Tory wet and a fully paid up member of the green side of the Tory party. Member of the Government (pensions) and I don't think really has a clue of the implications. PayPal took things too far which has alerted them to some of the difficulties. They now are going to do something. It remains to be seen if it will be effective or not.
Well it happened same thing that happened to other big tech. They got taken over by woke ideologues, that how used them as efficient tools to promote their ideology and punish ostracize everyone else. This has been made possible by Section 230, that was useful in early days of internet, but now has been weaponized to make big tech judge, jury and executioner with 0 accountability.
Sadly, this situation of made possible by failure of Republicans (under Bush/McConnel) that in the past prevented breaking up of large tech companies, since they were always more pro business.
Now the chicken has come home to roost, those same tech companies have become so larege and powerful that they control internet discourse and by one decision can make person effectively disappear. This has been especially used against conservatives on the internet. The moment big tech censored Trump, should have been red flag for every single republican in congress, to start demanding for breaking up big tech and preventing misuse of Section 230.
Sadly, currently only Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and several others are talking about what needs to be done.
At same time democrats have understood the power of big tech and are actively harnessing its power to support their own regime in power. We had 2 years of rampant misinformation in form of Russiagate, while at same time Hunter Biden Laptop was suppressed actively.
Big Tech needs to be broken up, and section 230 reworked, with out it, Big teck will just get more and more out of contoll.
Yes, the only way to break this hold is through legislation passed but the government. And sadly, those in government are happy to sit in their hands. It was great to learn that some folks in the U.K. appealed to their government for assistance. Smart move.
We either build new institutions or purge the poison (people) within them.
The first absolute monarch aka modern totalitarian leader was Louis XIV. Do you think he constructed a modern road system throughout France out of the goodness of his heart, because he felt bad for the poor peasants trudging in the mud? Of course not. The populace might have been thankful at first for nice roads… until the Sun King used them to quickly send his representatives and bureaucrats quickly around the country to boss everyone around more effectively! This is history 101, anything that centralizes power is always first sold as making your life better - and then is used to more efficiently control you! It’s happened a million times before, will happen a million times to come, and will continue to shock and surprise the naive fools who thought the prom queen was being nicer to them because she loved their sense of humor…
Yes, but my sense is that the founders of PayPal: Musk, Theil, Sachs, did not have this mind when they started the company. This happened long after they sold it.
Be just a little more skeptical of Musk, please. It is great that he is exposing the over-the-top bureaucracy of Twitter, but there are a lot of things not so great about Musk like how much his companies are subsidized by the US government, like how he is in China (just like Tim Cook), etc.
The Twitter file dump is an incredibly brilliant PR move by Musk. He did good for the people (i.e. free speech) and his company at the same time. but Elon Musk as the internet version of Mother Teresa of free speech is a little off putting. The adoration of Musk as a free speech savior has the potential disastrous result as welcoming a Trojan Horse.
I agree about both the brilliant strategy (lots of free publicity) and the Trojan Horse aspect. I am wary of the too good to be true aspect. But I am suspicious by nature. Thank heaven!
I do not know how he is with China. I know it is a huge market and the CCP does not suffer insult. As far as the subsidies I will not fault him for that. Our government passes out subsidies like candy. That is, IMO, the fault of the government and those that vote them in. I had read early on that Twitter would be ideal for space communication as it uses short messaging, is already built and would be cheaper than starting from.the ground up. If this is true I think he may be deliberately destroying it as a commercial.platform. But man 'o man am I enjoying the show. And it has absolutely confirmed my suspicions about how corrupt social media platforms and the federal government is. This makes Watergate look like a picnic. Say what you will about Republicans they are willing to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds. I have yet to see that from.any Democrats with few exceptions (Barney Frank).
Ever since it was revealed that the Feds got permission to wire-tap candidate Trump on the basis of a spurious dossier, I've been wondering how this does not rise to the level of Watergate.
This is so eerily similar to how the Nazis progressively isolated the Jews. The Reich passed laws to make it impossible for Jews to make a living or to own property. They made it impossible for other German businesses to do business with them, so banks could not have Jewish clients (and tbh most banks were Nazi supporters and didn't want to deal with Jews either). All these institutions and liberals keep keep screaming "fascism" and "Nazis" when in fact they are the ones acting like Nazis. Yet they think they're "on the right side of history". Yeah, they'll be on the right side of history if Hitler and the Nazis had won.
The comparison to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system is very apt. My parents left China in search of religious freedom here in America. When I was little, I learned about how America was a bastion of free speech and free expression. I admired the fact that people were allowed to speak without fear of persecution.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies. It's everywhere these days: in academia, in the media, and in tech. I’m glad to see people like Bari fight back on alternative platforms like Substack. I write a Substack myself where I discuss how the new "woke" culture is harming our nation. Cancel culture is the antithesis of the civil liberties many Americans take for granted.
Same here, left post communist Romania in 1996 and I am terrified by the last 3 years, especially as I experienced first hand the many punishments inflicted upon me for doing “the ultimate anti social act” of not taking the jab.
Yes! I’ve noticed that it is people like us, with family histories from authoritarian governments, that are the most passionate about freedom of expression here in America. Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, former Soviet bloc... we have seen firsthand or heard from our parents about the dangers of banning free speech.
We need need your voices!!! Thanks!
I have had many unpleasant flashbacks of my childhood in the former Soviet Union during the past 3 years. Illicit get-togethers with friends during strict stay-at-home orders, fear of being snitched on by neighbours, discussions of forbidden topics, obvious censorship of "wrong" opinions, official praise of "approved" dissent.
At the same time, substandard and mostly unavailable healthcare, shortages of common and essential products, and generally, enforced compliance with performative and ineffective measures such as masks, disinfection and vax passports.
And the fear that it could all happen again.
I LIKE the Russians. I want to be friends with them. As I posted on another blog, I am a bit of a history buff, and the history of Russia is the most fascinating yet tragic I can imagine. No people has withstood the almost unfathomably deep and interminable suffering and abuse as have the Russians. Second, again as a history buff, I am overwhelmed by their bravery and suffering during the Second World War and then again under Stalin. Third, I have met and worked with several Russians over the years. I found them always friendly, happy, outgoing - and of course like myself, they love their chess and their wodka. The men I have met have all been Men - real, masculine men - men to admire - and the women are beautifully feminine but hard as steel balls if needs be.
And I am baffled by my nation's continuous meddling in Other People's Affairs, paused in recent history only during the Eisenhower administration (There's nothing like being Supreme Allied Commander and sending tens of thousands of young men to their deaths to drain out the warmonger in you.), and the administration of the Orange Man. Why do they have such a hard-on for Russia? It has 1/14 the US GDP; three states have a bigger economy than all of Russia. If not for their nuclear arsenal, there's no telling what sort of adventure the Americans would have cooked up. Ukraine is case-in point, actually. But of course, the Military-Industrial-Complex that owns Washington is ecstatic. After all, think of the profits! it's just blood.....
Putin's an arse-hole, but at least he's a Real Man and intends By God to defend his country. We're not helping the average Russian with our meddling, so why don't we just leave them alone?
Get out of Ukraine.
Well, I also like the Russians, and their history is interesting, but you're not going to buy me with this cheap propaganda... Russia was also an empire, and I'm not sure how people manage to forget that. Nobody plays victim better than a bully....
Let's see, this "real man" invaded a sovereign country, bombed civilians in hospitals, noncombatants in schools, apartment buildings, and malls. Encouraged his soldiers to commit war crimes against noncombatants, oh and, threatens to annihilate the world through nuclear war.
Putin's a real man just defending his country? Sure.
I mean, most of that suffering and abuse was inflicted on Russians, by Russians.
Jim Wills
Putin is an evil totalitarian. You are as misinformed as Tucker Carlson.
Wow! Thank you! Made my whole day.
It will be exciting to experience the descent into authoritarianism. We totally are not turning this around so at least enjoy the ride.
Just look at China. It’s a billion people and they are letting some chubby communist imbecile lock them in their homes for 3 years. Same thing will happen here.
People need to feel extreme pain before they rise up. So we shall experience extreme pain. Unfortunate to be sure.
Sorry to say I think you're right. People are still too comfortable. Next to your kids and loved ones, your Constitutional rights are your most precious possession. But, as the pandemic demonstrated, most people will trade them for a little security, even if illusory. Maybe the soaring costs - including energy and utilities - will wake people from this laziness. Maybe a good electric blackout with riots. Who knows. But we've become very soft and too easy to push around.
Franklin said it best, “those who will trade liberty for security deserve neither”
True Kevin and it’s turned into a bit of rush, they have to implement cancel culture, esg, vaccine mandates and crt all before 2024. Extreme pain is upon us I just hope we rise up to do something about it or else we will have these clowns forever in power.
Kevin I wish I could say you're right about the extreme pain thing. I often try to tell myself that, but then I remember places like North Korea and I realize people can put up with a lot of extreme pain and just stay that way. And if we look back at Communist Russia and China, even those regimes didn't end by revolts. They ended by decisions from the top down when the leaders had a change of heart and realized this way wouldn't work. The resulting collapses of the satellite countries in Easter Europe and SE Asia only fell only when they no longer had USSR and Mao China to prop them up. The jubilant "revolts" by the people made it look like revolts, but in fact everything collapsed from the top down. So I don't have faith that extreme pain will lead to a tipping point.
You have voiced my deepest fear. This is why I am hoping the Elons and Thiels of the world will somehow manage to open a path to restore civil liberties, even as I fear their own agendas will be the next thing we're all fighting, having traded the frying pan for the fire.
I think its more trading the fire for the frying pan at least
The leftists have learned well from the CCP. Indoctrinate the children. There are now generations that have been immersed in their dogma. Teacher unions and the state have formed a symbiotic relationship that all but insures their power.
Bend the twig so grows the tree and the hand that rocks the cradle. Two cliches but true.
Thank God for the Democrats and their totalitarian PC/Woke buddies, tyrants all. Apple. Nike and other left wing US companies support the road to oppression and love the CCP and support China's oppressive, murderous actions.
I too lived in a US/Democrat Party sanctioned police state and know the fear and terror of wondering "Am I next?", going to sleep at night to the rattle of gunfire.
When we moved back to the States, it took my wife years to be comfortable around a policeman or woman. She would not look them in the eye. Now every time she or I meet a police officer, we thank them for the job they do. Democrats demonize the police. Those who demonize the police, have never lived in a real police state.
Our police warts and all are saints compared to the police in Russia, the workers' paradises' of China, Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela.
The woke left with the active support of the Democrats, is rapidly turning us into a totalitarian police state. and the voters on the left embrace this. If you don't believe me, just ask the left wingnuts on this BBS. I often wonder if the two most vocal wingnuts everyday sing "The Internationale"
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+internationale+lyrics&view=detail&mid=1FF11C1EA0897D4756641FF11C1EA0897D475664&FORM=VIRE
Bless you all. Teach the rest of us what we have forgotten.
Thank you - keep it up and I hope the rest of your communities will speak out .
We’re glad to have you here with us in the US. All of your firsthand perspectives on how bad it can get are valuable and useful. As I’ve said for several years: It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. But the mechanics of the getting better part might get pretty messy.
Thank you for speaking up. The passivity of the US born is a big part of this. We don't realize how good we had it...until we don't.
Exactly. Those born in authoritarian countries actually appreciate American freedom. People don’t know what freedom is until it’s taken away from them, then they realize they’ve been taking it for granted.
Again, thank you. One can do no better than to quote The Gipper:
"Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again."
I respectfully disagree. This attitude is no different than Nancy Pelosi believing that the Cape Cod visitors should have been left in Florida to pick the crops there. While recent immigrants from.oppressive nations are no doubt an asset to those opposed to oppression, and this article is about oppression, to assume all of the natives are "complacent" is erroneous.
It is? Like Bella Lugosi Pelosi? How so? I don't get the analogy. Can you elaborate?
And I must also have missed that part about "assuming the natives are 'complacent." Where does it say that?
Don't conflate your own prejudices and assumptions with the words of others who never said any of those things.
"Bella Lugosi Pelosi" wonderful! You made me laugh and there is not too much to laugh about right now.
Re the Pelosi analogy she wants to use the Cap Cod aliens to stay in Florida because they have crops that need picking there. You seem to want to use newcomers from countries with oppressive regimes to speak up about the dangers thereof. I welcome their comments but disagree that they are more passionate. Or of more significance. Saying, as the commenter did, that she and others like her are more passionate infers that the long-time citizens are complacent. That is neither biased, prejudiced, or an assumption. Rather it is a logical inference. Plus I am pretty sure another center did use the word complacent but do not have the time to crawl back through the thread to verify that.
Edited to say found it. In this thread actually. The Cape Cod commenter said American passivity is a big part of this and Peng confirmed "[E]xactly. Those born in authoritarian countries ACTUALLY [emphasis added] appreciate American freedom. . .." While I understand that may be true of many here it is certainly not true of all and is frankly condescending and insulting to those who understand what is taking place. As for your comment that freedom is not inherited that is literally true to an extent but I did inherit a very good understanding of the American ideal, including freedom. It is literally in my DNA.
Amen!
BS. You are a newcomer with a different passion perhaps but many of shall we say a deeper understanding of what is at stake understand full well what is and has happened. And what it takes to resist it. What exactly are you doing about it?
I am not a newcomer. As I mentioned earlier, my parents are the ones that immigrated to America. I grew up here in New York City. And for what I am doing to resist it, I am actively speaking up against what I see as an authoritarian ideology. I write a newsletter on Substack that informs people about woke ideology.
My point about freedom is that Americans that have been here for generations have no baseline to compare it to. You’ve had freedom for generations. But for people like me, we’ve heard firsthand from our families what the loss of freedom feels like. Of course, this is a generalization. Yet I have consistently seen it play out that those from authoritarian governments are the most likely to appreciate American freedom.
Is it possible you are in an echo chamber? Could that be why you see it "play out that those from authoritarian governments are most likely to appreciate American freedoms? BTW I neither dispute nor discredit your unique position. But I do not appreciate the insinuation that it somehow elevates your appreciation of American freedom above mine. I am descended from.generations that shed their blood for those American freedoms in more than one conflict. Freedom is not free as the saying goes. But your comment does provide context for your belief that Americans do not appreciate their freedoms. But be advised that growing up in NYC did not give you a fair representation of America or her freedoms. Or her freedom fighters for that matter. There are millions of us that both appreciate American freedoms and speak out for them. We are your allies.
Stop parsing her comments looking for something to be insulted about. I think that she expressed herself beautifully. You might want to read her second paragraph again.
Who are you replying to? Are you in the right thread, Lynne?
Yes.
Being a "newcomer" does not make one wrong. And, I might add, neither does being an "oldcomer" make one right. In my experience it USUALLY takes a fresh point of view to address ossified problems and attitudes.
Then by that logic we should just surrender to that "fresh point of view" being churned out of American colleges and universities. "Ossified" indeed. For what it is worth I welcome newcomers, but did not appreciate being classified as "complacent" regarding the destruction.of my country IMO that is just further divisiveness. The newcomers are not white knights on steeds rushing in to save the day.
"Then by that logic we should just surrender to that "fresh point of view" being churned out of American colleges and universities."
Uh, no. Nobody said that.
'"Ossified" indeed. For what it is worth I welcome newcomers, but did not appreciate being classified as "complacent" regarding the destruction.of my country"
Nobody said that, either.
"The newcomers are not white knights on steeds rushing in to save the day."
A third thing nobody said. Are you familiar with the concept of the straw man? If not, I can give you a leg up:
straw man
/ˌstrô ˈman/
noun
- an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.
e.g. "her familiar procedure of creating a straw man by exaggerating their approach"
These leftist morons who scream that the US is oppressive, don't know what oppression really is.
I say to all of them move to the workers' paradise. It is just 90 miles south of Miami.
America is hardly recognizable now days.
Bingo.
I haven't gone through the full comment section yet, but so far this is probably the most poignant thing I've read. You're absolutely right.
That is simply not true. And fairly insulting.
Referring to the article I would say that a majority of Americans today are ok with PayPal’s practice. I bet most don’t even know because I get this on Substack and not in MSM.
Look no further than the MSM response to Matt Taibbi's and Bari Weiss' reporting on the issues at Twitter
Nothing burger appears to be the agreed upon term.
All I hear is J6, Griner,, and Trump tax fraud.
Did the January 6th show trial get renewed for a second season?
The majority of Americans don't want to be bothered with thinking about any of this and are therefore complacent. They're going about their daily lives hoping someone else has the com, and that everything will be ok. That's the kind of complacency that I see.
We have been dumbed down for decades now.
I think therein lies the problem. Blind acceptance of technology without consideration of consequences, unintended or otherwise.
“Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies.”
—————————————————-
These are not authoritarian policies from ‘companies’. These are DEMOCRATS who are defrauding shareholders and embezzling company assets in order to make illegal in-kind donations to the Democrat party.
It’s at least three different felonies.
We don’t need to fix Section 230. We need to arrest people for the crimes they are committing.
I just saw that the Fried Bankman was arrested for fraud. Will the DNC and all the mostly Democrat pols who cuddled up to him and took his bribes give back the money to defrauded investors? Will they be charged as accessories to the fraud if they don't? Inquiring minds want to know.
There will be no charges. The reason we have fascism is because DC, and all other relevant jurisdictions, are 95% Democrat.
It actually requires changing civil service laws because the executive literally can’t fire people in the executive branch right now, which is totally unconstitutional and the thing that enables the Democrat’s permanent fascist power.
So you change civil service laws and fire everyone in DC and then replace them with right-wing Sheriffs and DAs.
Totally won’t happen but it’s what is required. If you ask me my opinion I’d say it’s over. End times.
End times for sure the Democrats control everything it’s becoming terrifying.
I don't know, but the House investigations will be fantastic this coming year between this, Hunter's laptop, Fauci, and the border disaster.
The NYT, WaPo, etc will ignore these as much as they can, however.
I get the impression that he was arrested in order to prevent him from testifying before Congress at this time.
That would be highly amusing, watch him testifying and keep looking over at his Congress critters for guidance
Fried Bankman might wind up Epstein'd
SBF was arrested 24 hours before he was going to speak the House Banking and Finance committee. Now he's on ice. Interesting timing by the SDNY, no? Maxine must be relieved.
He will be Epsteined and the scam will continue.
Just saw Kevin McCarthy on FOX Business. His PAC received money from an "associate" of SBF. McCarthy told Larry Kudlow that if the donation were suspect, he would send the donation on to a charity. WTH?!? Send it to the Bankruptcy Trustee, or to the CEO of SBF's now defunct company. The pols on BOTH sides just want the dough. SBF was smart in that he gave to both parties, displaying a perfect understading of pols morality.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/13/enough-of-that-the-justice-department-faces-questions-after-effectively-preventing-bankman-fried-from-testifying-in-congress/
Real protection at the federal level would come about if political idealogy is made a protected class. But IMO 230 does need to be fixed. It is true that crimes are being committed but the left has gotten away with so much for so long without suffering consequences that they are absolutely emboldened. To the extent that the White House is nothing more than a campaign rally. They simply have no shame. And they are intent on eliminating conservative idealogy.
Political ideology MUST become a protected class. But I don't think Democrats would get on board with such a bill, even if Republicans had the guts to put it forward.
It is the cleanest, quickest solution.
230 is OK, they just have to pick are they a publisher or a communication platform. Another issue these platforms might have is engaging in deceptive trade practices. They all advertised themselves as being "open to all" then as they gained market share and became dominant, they tightened their T's & C's often without notice or real disclosure (think credit card companies about 20-30 years ago).
I like the deceptive trade practices angle with PayPal. But I think 230 needs re-evaluation as to the self-proclaimed town squares. Right now they are not deemed publishers thus are not liable for the content posted by others. But I think all this content moderation has established that they do in fact control content. And not in an unbiased fashion. They should not be able to have it both ways.
I agree 100% and if 230 allows them to have it both ways, it does need amending.
That was my question. Aren't these companies handling money subject to some regulation?
Well if you ask David French he will tell you that private companies can do whatever they want because we live in an anarchy with zero regulation.
I’m with you Kevin!
Relax, Kevin. Please. Hyperbole does not suit you. Or the rest of us, for that matter. (And I can be guilty of it too).
What PayPal is doing I believe is illegal. Full stop.
But how does anyone know Dems are in complete control? That's like saying all whites who stay silent are racist. Patently absurd.
As far as I can tell there are a hell of a lot of old (and new) school Republicans owning many millions of shares in the very 'Dem' companies you decry. They want to make money. And money is America, is it not?
How do you know your personal 401K mutual funds don't have investments in Silicon Valley firms. Of course they do. They're soaring in value (market swings aside). And you might be quite happy about that.
And if these companies are making 'illegal in-kind' donations to the hated Dems or embezzling company assets wouldn't the SEC be aware of it? The very SEC that is apparently trying to nail 'Fried Bankman' (a la our friend Bruce)? I don't think the SEC is controlled by either party. At least I hope not.
Make your points, but you could be slightly more realistic.
LOL the SEC. Yes I’m sure the agency staffed by 100% Democrats is right on top of it.
Hyperbole not only suits me but is my entire shtick. You know this.
😇😇😇🙏🙏
My first smile of the day (and it's late)..
Enjoy the evening, Kevin..
:)
Gentler was the CFO of Hillary Rotten Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. And he More recently, as Chair of the SEC, he has altered his private and public calendars with regard to meetings with George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary. Move along, nothing to see here.
Maybe companies is too broad and specific companies should be discussed. Most of them are not forthcoming but we know some about Twitter, thanks to Musk. We know that James Baker was a lawyer for the FBI who colluded on the Steel Dossier. After concluding his nefarious deeds with the federal goverent or Democratic party he then went to work for Twitter as a lawyer and was instrumental in the laptop suppression. Sounds pretty partisan to me. We also know that Yoth, the Twitter ethics guy had expressed anti-Trump sentiments and when the issue of removing Trump from the Twitter platform post Jan 6 arose he did it despite Trump's content not violating the Twitter standards. Sounds pretty partisan to me. Then you have the suppression of any content questioning Covid protocols while the odious Dr. Fauci's daughter was a Twitter employee. Sounds pretty partisan to me. In fact it all sounds downright incestuous. And I have not even discussed the refusal to remove child porn. These are some twisted folks. Subverting the free flow of information they disagree with. We, the public have been treated like mushrooms by these people - kept in the dark and fed manure. The other platforms are no better is my bet.
The story here started with PayPal but now you’ve expanded it to Twitter.
PayPal is a financial services company with clients who pay to have transactions enacted with third parties. It has nothing to do with free speech. The fact that PayPal somehow has gone rogue and denying clients service because of their right of center ideas is blatantly illegal. Their clients’ political slant has nothing whatever to do with the product PayPal provides.
Twitter on the other hand is a platform where their clients political bias, ideas, manner of expression has everything to do with the service THEY provide. By which, derived from the freedom of the press in the First Amendment, they can edit and censor what they want when they want. They have that right.
The government does not. Our right to speak and publish freely cannot be prohibited by the US government. But if we use a private platform? Absolutely.
And if I were to use Parler or Truth Social and lambaste Trump and his family and I’m denied access, that is their right.
You’re correct. Twitter was partisan. But that is not illegal. Their right to deny speech is protected.
Except that they were taking marching orders from the government. As was Facebook.
I take your point.
But if it's the gov't telling Facebook and Twitter it's disinformation for example that anti-vaxx supporters are peddling and they must not give them access - isn't the blame you (and others) ascribe to Twitter/Facebook be better directed to the US Gov't?
For decades prior to 1971 the gov't routinely told the mainstream press that certain topics were verboten and the press just as routinely held off. Of course, the publication of the Pentagon Papers forever changed the rules of the game. But the game still exists. Twitter easily could have said to the CDC and the NIH etc..no way, we will publish every and all comments, opinions for and against your Covid policies. That all of it was valid. And I for one wish they would have. But the fact they did not does not suggest some kind of conspiracy of like minded Dem Far Left Woke corporate/gov't titans directed to pull down a curtain on free speech in America.
Instead it suggests, that on the part of Twitter and Facebook, they took the easy road, did what was asked since they didn't need the blowback, and made the practical decision to stay out of the way. They didn't adhere to free speech absolutists, no. But as corporate entities - they didn't have to.
You used the plural "these companies" and referenced investment in "Silicon Valley firms" so forgive my confusion that you intended to discuss only PayPal. I am well aware of the distinction between government action and private action and was before your attempted explanation. However what Twitter did was beyond that - it either acted as a agent of the government or collaborated with it. So it is in no position to maintain that it was unbiased or objective. Whether its actions were illegal has not been ascertained. Although I do not believe there will be an investigation forthcoming as the Democrats in office have a clear vested interest in not conducting one. But the questionable actions have been exposed. They should trouble everyone.
Actually, if poor Kevin McCarthy can be elected Speaker over his fringe right wingers in caucus, the House might want to launch an investigation into the very Twitter 'questionable' actions at that time. It'll be interesting to see what they find - probably that Twitter was hardly impartial in collaborating with the Biden Presidential campaign. Which was their decision to make, as it would have been had they declined. They can publish or decline to publish as they see fit.
A similar case can be made for the Murdoch owned NY Post, who were insatiable supporters of Trump throughout his campaign and Presidency and clearly had a conservative bias in most if not all of its articles (until very recently). As was their right under the First Amendment. But I doubt anyone will ever investigate them (or the flagship Fox, for that matter).
Sheluyang, what PayPal is doing is patently illegal and should be sued for such. They are a financial services company where political bias should have no place.
But having said that, we can choose to ignore PayPal and other virtue signalling firms and use something else more palatable. We do have choice. And I see choice everywhere I look. So let's exercise that.
Choice under authoritarianism, either Communist or otherwise, is not something that is yours to have.
Honestly, what choices do we have to conduct financial business online? Stripe is somewhat difficult to setup. I use FreshBooks, no idea who owns them. It’s difficult for a small business person to keep up. Great article. I rarely comment, but this one hit home.
Thank you, from a Native American (I was born here 😃).
There is nothing new about cancel culture. All we have to do is study history. True that Americans are too comfortable and too arrogant. They think they are too exceptional for this catastrophe to happen here. To me, what is going on feels like deja vu. We haven’t gotten to the brutality of Stalin’s repressions yet. We are a lot more humane - we just ruin people’s lives and their finances. But we may be getting there eventually.
I eagerly await Elon’s creation of a Pay Pal rival. I’ll sign on faster than I did Twitter after his purchase of that warped monstrosity. Who’s to tell me I can’t give money to Canadian truckers if I damn well feel like it?
Elon has massive capabilities, but as my father used to say, "You can ride a good horse to death." I'd love to have a Tesla phone, too, but Musk is spreading himself so thin that I worry about his health. And of course, he is such a threat to the Globalists and their Great Reset that Arkancide is always only a breath away....
I agree that we can’t put all our hopes on one man. They will probably kill him. However if Elon can show that freedom and privacy are marketable goods - then that is a good thing. I would definitely buy a freedom phone.
The problem is that, as we have seen, one can invent something with the best of intentions, but the spirit of the age will take over once the inventor walks away. That is what the article says - so one man, or a few, can't really change the tide. The schools are churning out an indoctrinated workforce, and they will continue to subvert any business they work at. This is a "hand that rocks the cradle" problem, as noted above.
Good one:
arkancide
The act of being murked by one of any member of a formerly powerful political family from Arkansas.
"Last night I heard four gunshots in my neighborhood!" "Probably another former Clinton associate committing Arkancide."
I cancelled my PayPal account right after they removed the clause and then added it again in regards to dining people for wrong think. Truly bizarre that anyone at PayPal thinks this stuff is good. It’s full on communism.
I did the same. The threat of fining users for anything the company decides it doesn't like was the last straw. I heard a lot of apologetics--"oh, it's only people who use PayPal itself to commit fraud who will be fined." Nope, as long as it's in their terms of service, they can fine anyone for anything they choose, and as we've seen with the account suspensions--you don't have to actually commit a crime in order for them to steal your money.
I'm not sure I would trust any online payment service again after this. Low-limit credit cards seem to be the safest way to buy stuff online now.
Sounds like the folks at Twitter to me. The former folks.
I not only closed an old PayPal account we never used, I called my investor to make sure I didn't have any stock in it.
Elon Musk was an original founder of PayPal........... he already did that and as soon as he and Theil walked away to do other things the company started down this path. I wish Elon Musk well with Twitter, but one dude isn’t going to save the world alone. God helps those who help themselves and we either take back our institutions by each of us doing everything we can to influence those around us and to support economic competition or we’ll go the route of China despite Musk’s best efforts.
"Praise the country that produces heroes. Pity the country that needs them"
I'm thinking the same thing. Why don't the original PayPal founders get together and start a rival? They already know how to, and they seem to care about the issue enough.
Musk has already said he wants to add a payments function to Twitter, so the rival is coming soon. His idea is to steal back the very lucrative payments business from PayPal. This may have been his intent from the beginning. His turn to free speech and transparency is just a way a telling PayPal customers, "hey, you can trust Twitter not to do what PayPal is doing"
THAT is a great idea. The problem moving to another platform is you need something that is ubiquitous. I spent last year busking all day and a fair portion of my donations came through Venmo. Switching to a donation platform other people don't already have just means I would forfeit those donations. Many people don't carry or prefer not to give cash.
Possibly a non-compete in the original offer? Most have an end date, though, which I think would have passed.
We are witnessing the problem with fiat currencies and as young Mr. B-F has demonstrated there is not yet a viable "crypto" alternative. The US has only been off the gold standard since Nixon. FDR made it illegal for US citizens to own gold, bought it at all at a nominal price, then raised the price of gold considerably within a week thereby enriching the US goverent.
Ditto!
The correct answer to jemarr's question, of course, is Canada's Prime Minister: he'll decide to what extent "unCanadians" like jemarr qualify as eligible to keep shopping for groceries. Better have a good cache at home if you're planning to post any more subversive comments, jemarr.
I’d say probably keep a ready supply of water, long life milk and cans of food if you in Canada. Think next year the Sh.. will hit the fan for Canadians, but when the elections come round for Justin I think he is going to be voted out unless of course he rigs the vote, then again stranger things have happened.
I hope sooner than later jemarr!
Careful. There are plenty of ways for the state to strangle Bitcoin, most having to do with translating Bitcoin into fiat money.
This is nothing new. 4 years ago my son & I had a nutrition website. PayPal was one of the payment options. Many people used it. All of a sudden PayPal decided that they didn’t like some of our products so they put a 6 month hold on our money. They paid it out in tiny amounts which really hurt our cash flow. There was no one to talk to, there was no appeal, it was just take it & deal with it. It was thousands of dollars. They finally paid it out but it took forever. I would never have anything to do with them again.
Sounds like theft.
Is your business still in business? I hope so. We need good nutrition access.
No it isn’t. Stripe also did the same thing to us. We had to get a high risk processor & by the time we straightened everything out we lost many customers .
I am so sorry that happened to you....I send you a big hug...
That's criminal. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
It’s more than criminal Jules it’s like nazism, the gestapo and the KGB all wrap into one. You can’t go to a rally or a protest March, if it’s not to liking of the radicals, the Democrats or the Biden administration you get your mobile hacked or your bank account closed. If it’s the wrong go fund me cause or a question about our kids education you get branded a domestic terrorist and can’t do any business. What is actually happening here it’s as scary as hell
Thank you.
It’s a pleasure I’m standing with you Leslie, it won’t last forever. It may feel like it at this stage but I think there is light at the end of the tunnel🇺🇸🇺🇸
Gosh how terrible!
99.9% of the time, when someone uses the term "fascist" they don't understand what the word actually means. Mussolini's fascist system was one which merged the public and the private. Yes, public companies were allowed to exist and operate, but only if they followed the party line. If they strayed, a party apparatchik who would sing the proper hymnal would be put in place.
What we have emerging in the western world is a true fascist system, in the real sense of the word, with Paypal just being the most recent, but certainly not the last, iteration on this theme.
This is simply a further extension of a theme I have written about in the past, which is that modern liberalism is an anti-human ideaology.
https://www.gordoncomstock.com/p/modern-liberalism-is-an-anti-human
I wrote about this previously. Just as the problem with communism is that real communism has never been tried, the problem with fascism is that real fascism HAS been tried.
So when there isn’t a guy with tall boots and a weird mustache people say
“Oh don’t be crazy this isn’t fascism.”
And those folks will never define what fascism means or how one determines what makes someone worthy of the label fascist. Nor will they define any other term , word or concept they use or support the use of to deter or punish speech or thought. That is why the word racist morphed into white supremacist which morphed into fascist past year or so. Note also how we never hear anymore of his or her truth but we are back to THE truth with the proviso that only the enlightened are good enough or smart enough to DICTATE (caps intended) what is true or false. And then there is "hate speech," a phrase that needs no clear definition or boundaries because... ( you know the rest).
Brilliant post! one questions does the vote still matter yes or no.
Not sure where you are going. If no votes then what? who governs and gets to decide how people live? Voting in theory in a free country allows for changes to those in power. Hence the need for peaceful transitions. But again I am not sure where you are heading with your question
I am concerned about the future manipulation of elections via a number of methods including legacy media and tech becoming Izvestia for the US security state, ballot harvesting, voting machine hacking and plain old fraud. Not to mention court packing and adding regime friendly states to maintain power.
All good points. Whether GOP gets and stays focused remains to be seen. Imagine if there were no Elon musk
You have answered Michael JM, there is no need for me to say any more.
Or they like it because it embraces their idealogy. Until it doesn't. Then they will whine they did not know, they did not understand. Of course they did, or should have, they just did not care because it was being done to the others.
Hahahaha, I usually like your posts, Kevin. But you honestly think Communism is good but it just hasn’t been implemented properly. So you think you can do Communism better?
By dint of its very nature Communism requires forced cooperation. So you think you would be a benevolent enforcer. You can’t be serious.
Definitely misinterpreted his comment.
No I’m just saying that’s a cliche about communism. Communism bad.
Oh good. Had me worried for a minute.
Too many on the Left believed Stalin's lie that fascism is a right-wing ideology (everything but his Soviet "republic" was right-wing to Stalin).
Likewise, too many on the Left believe that nationalism is a necessary component of fascism. It's not. The only thing necessary is a central ideology to rally people around. Nationalism was still useful for that in the 20th century, with national hatreds still simmering after WWI. But today's progressive ideology serves the same purpose: it allows easy identification of who is loyal to the cause and who is not.
I would modify Umberto Eco's list of fascist hallmarks thus:
- The cult of postmodernism/CRT--a new tradition that cannot be questioned. ("The cult of tradition.")
- The rejection of liberalism. ("The rejection of modernism.")
- "The cult of action for action’s sake." <--This one is on the nose. Change for the sake of change. Smashing windows and burning buildings.
- "Disagreement is treason." <--This one is also on the nose. Notice the Democrats' recent embrace of the word "treason" and their determination to make it apply to anyone who disagrees with them.
- "Fear of difference." Eco thinks this is only applicable to racism, but as we see with our university campuses, anything that does not fall in line with Woke ideology is labeled dangerous and is banned.
- "Appeal to social frustration." <--This is the historical appeal of all Leftist movements, and the central talking point of the Democratic party.
- "The obsession with a plot." As Eco describes further, "The followers must feel besieged." <--This is Oppression ideology in a nutshell.
- "The enemy is both strong and weak." <--This has been the constant refrain of the Left since at least 2000. Republicans are both highly dangerous and easily defeated.
- "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy." As Eco describes further, "life is lived for struggle." <--Again, this is central to Leftist thinking. There is always another battle to be fought. And no compromise is allowed.
- "Contempt for the weak." Or as Eco labels it, “Elitism." <--Today's elitism is focused more on contempt for the non-Woke and non-college-educated, contempt for the rural, contempt for blue-collar workers--people who lack political and economic power.
- "Everybody is educated to become a hero." <--Teachers are training Social Justice Warriors right now.
- Virtue Signaling. ("Machismo and weaponry.") I think Eco is way off on this one, assuming that the personality of 20th century dictators is an inherent component of fascism. On the contrary, I would describe this point as a means of showing off one's power and influence, in whatever way is most popular at the time.
- "Selective populism." Eco explains further: "There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People." <--Legacy media is serving this purpose quite thoroughly.
- "Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak." <--Again, on the nose.
It is my understanding that race had to be substituted for class warfare because class did not work well.here.
Class is not as fully engrained in American society as in European society. Although the Left seems to be working hard to impose class structures.
🙏
It’s also what the Chinese system is. They pretend it’s communism but it’s really fascism.
I really don’t understand how fascism and communism ever came to be defined as different things. Obviously it’s all fascism. How could you ever possibly do communism without fascism……….
Okay never mind I just realized how they became defined as different things. Same way ‘sexual preference’ was changed in Merriam-Webster *during* a SCOTUS hearing in order to smear Amy Coney Barrett.
I guess we should just call them “totalitarian communist fascists”. Cover all your bases. It’s one thing.
Ohhh no no no!! We can just call them Democrats.
Totalitarian or authoritarian covers it for me. They’re easy terms to define. Covid mandates are authoritarian for example. Even covidiots don’t disagree. Try it sometime! I usually get some response along the lines of “well authority is important in some instances.” It’s fun to watch them squirm as they try to justify themselves.
The difference is in communism the State owns everything and the Leader assigns it to whoever he wants, while everyone works for the greater good.
In fascism, everything is in private hands, but the Leader seizes anything he wants and hands the title to whoever he wants, while everyone works for the greater good.
Yeah I still don’t see the difference. If there’s a leader who can decide then you don’t really own anything. It feels the exact same to me.
My point exactly. Its the definition of a distinction without a difference. Communism, fascism, socialism, feudalism, tribalism, doesn't matter. You can wrap an infinite amount pseudo-intellectualism around it, and its still just the "rule of the few over the many."
🤣🤣
They don't even call it communism now, the phrase they use is "socialism with Chinese characteristics"
Exactly. Gub'ment plus corporate: fascism. Thanks for bringing that to the fore.
As for the anti-human aspect, it's not that the radical liberals, global-warming nutters, environmentalists and eco-terrorists love the environment; it's that they hate humanity.
And, Gordon, you can bet that, just as in Italy and Germany where people just wanted a government that worked for them, the rot will set in quickly and you won't hear a peep when people start to get midnight knocks on their doors and begin to disappear.
Word!
If our government worked, then I would propose that we should have legislation against PayPal being able to de-bank people. If a Christian baker can be sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, then PayPal shouldn't be able to take away your ability to do business.
However, our government does not work. Thank God for Elon Musk.
Our government does not work because people keep voting for Democrats who support this lunacy. Cause meet effect.
Agreed - stop voting Democrat and enabling this progressive movement. Also stop donating to colleges and universities. And finally, don’t patronize woke businesses- Coke, Netflix, Disney, etc - we need a comparable rating system like ESG but for woke businesses.
Yes. We need sort of a Social Credit System for Woke Businesses so we can de-platform them...
(Sarcasm)
They have the right to vote as they see fit. The problem as I see it is the campaign finance of outsiders. On both sides. But in my jurisdiction the left did an outstanding job turning out a graciously uninformed youth vote to Vote Blue No Matter Who. They managed to elect a 19 year old landscaper (he mowed lawns) to a $92,000 a year job as the District Clerk overseeing a staff of 30 or 40, millions of dollars in funds in the registry of the court, all court documents including court filings, bonds and bail monies, issuing citations and writs, and overseeing the jury panels including issuing summons, registering those in attendance, and maintenance of the list of eligible jurors. It is going to be a hoot. I predict he will walk off the job pronto or wind up being arrested for mismanagement. On the national level Fetterman was elected this cycle and Biden the last one.
I think this is the mystery of our elections Lynne!
Gonna be another 2 years worth eligible to vote in 2024. It does not bode well.
Partly that and partly the "Deep State" of un-elected bureaucrats who can pass laws, break laws, and are never held accountable.
Is anyone going to be held accountable for the revelations from the Twitter Files? How about the SBF/FTX scam? Let alone Epsetin's "suicide"...
Nope not one single person/human/man or woman
No they won't
Democrats buy the votes they need.
True. Just read an article on Bankman-Fried and his mama's political ties. He stole from.people to donate $40 million to candidates his mom's PAC suggested.
The idolizing of Elon Musk is rather disconcerting. The amount of government money that Musk's ventures have received is immense. The quotes are from 4.9 billion to 7 billion dollars in federal government money. Newsom claims that 3.2 billion dollars from CA taxpayers in direct and indirect subsidies were funneled to Musk's companies. Musk is invested heavily in China which suggest that he will support and comply with a dictatorship to maintain his investment just like Tim Cook from Apple.
Not taking away from Musk's current move to expose Twitter, but skepticism towards his motives and his actions is appropriate. God doesn't need to be thanked for him, at least not yet!
True, no one man should ever be idolized, but Musk has still done more to expose government corruption than the GOP establishment has.
I agree to an extent. I think idolizing anyone is what has got us into this cult of personality conundrum. And he is almost too good to be true. I don't care though that he has gamed the system for subsidies and tax incentives. In the modern climate he would be foolish not to do so. The China thing is concerning however. Sort of Nike/LeBron James on a large scale
Political Ideology needs to be recognized as a protected class. It would be difficult to define but I think it could be done as a creed.
Do you mean protected class? I agree.
Yes.
I never understood the purpose or value of PayPal. You need a credit card to not need to use a credit card. You keep your money at another third party account, and they had arcane rules to follow to allow you to get it. Who needs that? I buy things with my credit cards, and if I sold things, I would insist on payment that way. OK, fine. But frankly, I never knew that PayPal had gone woke. Just as Coke, Disney, MLB, and Netflix got the message, PayPal will cut the crap too if enough of us boycott it and they start losing money. Woke capitalists are still capitalists and they will respond to that kind of protest. Thanks for this “woke up” call.
I’m not sure coke, Disney MLB and Netflix got the message. What have they changed?
Disney did switch out CEOs recently. Netflix laughed at the cry bully uproar over Chappelle a few months back. Big Capitalism is slowly realizing that Woke is not really a good marketing strategy in certain corners. But part of the problem is that so many of these companies are Too Big to Even Notice that a few thousand are boycotting them. And they're manned by freshly minted young ideologues who think that they have a moral obligation to change Wrongthink. The rot is deep and the band plays on.
FWIW, Disney's change of CEO's was back to the more woke Bob Iger...aka the guy who started all of the woke bullshit projects that have recently bombed (Think: She-Hulk, Strange World, etc.) Their change in management is a regression likely meant to cover their asses after a huge loss in profits. This particular point is one that MSM is getting completely backwards: the projects that failed were begun under Iger not Chapek, 'Tis a bait-and-switch.
Worth adding that while Iger is slightly more to blame for work Disney, he may also be using this chaos as a chance to reverse course. If you want some fun gossip check out ol’ Doomcock:
https://youtu.be/GLkW4bGu914
Ah. I was wondering about that. Thanks for the finer details.
Keep boycotting. We have to keep pressure on where possible.
Coke stopped political statements. Disney fired their CEO after earnings dropped and Florida rebuked them. MLB hasn’t peeped again after they pulled the All-Star game from Atlanta because fans and viewership declined, and Netflix publicly stated that all their DEI programming was not winning new subs.
How cute you take them at their word.
And PS? Disney got back Iger. Disney + still asks your gender and includes non binary. How not woke!
I second the Iger comment: he's the wokester, not Chapek. All of the losses from this year were for projects that were started under Iger.
Exactly Rob keep the pressure up and on everyday, we can win this war!!
Netflix has Dave Chappell. Even though they were pressured to drop him.
And if he didn’t make money for them, they’d be acting differently. Don’t kid yourself. These are also the people that are bringing you the markle Whinge and Ginge festival.
Yep. It's all about money. I don't expect anything else from large corporations.
Woke "entertainment" had its moment, and it was mildly successful b/c people wanted to feel virtuous. But let's be honest, all that woke content is boring, didactic, finger-wagging and there is only so much people can take. The vast majority of people want to laugh or cry ... you know, be entertained.
That's why the Top Gun sequel did so well this summer—it's by far the most successful movie in years. And why Don't Worry Darling bombed.
Get woke, go broke.
We winning this battle - I loved Top Gun went and put my bottom in a movie seat bought popcorn had the best night ever. The next movie in the theater was Bullet Train with Brad Pitt it was pure magic no wokism nothing to feel guilty about, nobody worrying about anybody else privilege just an amazing night out. Get out of your houses get back to your community start living like Americans please!
True but do you believe the figures I don’t, everybody I have asked have said they not watching the whinge and cringe festival.
Or if people are watching it they’re doing it to gawk or laugh at them. Markle is as crazy as a real housewife. People love that kind of thing for some reason.
That’s funny 🤣🤣🤣
PayPal made a lot of sense in the early days. You could buy things using a credit card from small business owners (or individuals) who could not otherwise take payment by a credit card. Among other things, this massively increased the customer base of small businesses and artists. You could use your credit card to send money to a friend, or to pay one back for a loan. These things all seem "old hat" today, in a world with Square, Venmo, etc., but they were revolutionary at the time. Those were the early days with the original founders, not the woke, fascist nightmare that PayPal has evolved into.
Why don’t WE just shut it down. PayPal like all corporations need massive amounts of people to run. Their attitude and behavior is unAmerican we need to put an end to it now.
Please all listen to Bob boycott all the corporations it will certainly make a difference we must hurt them!
And even if it doesn't work it makes me feel better.
Also my friends don’t seem to understand your post. When I say I’m boycotting Coke they say but how does it help? I say it doesn’t but I feel absolutely terrific doing it. It still goes over their heads though.
I’m with you girl!!! It’s already starting with Disney they had to bring back Bob Iger and their shares have lost 35-40% value this year. They must be hurting!
Wait, Coke, Disney, the MLB and Netflix got the message?
Yes, they quietly reduced their DEI leftist messaging. Coke stopped political comments related to voting, Disney fired their CEO due to poor performance, MLB lost fans and TV money (not all due to Covid), Netflix blew off the Chappelle debate. Woke doesn't sell drinks, tickets or subscriptions - it offends half of their customers, and the customers withdrew support for their products.
I hope you are right. I think they are playing possum though.
We are right Lynn, we have to keep at it though, we not going to see major success overnight, we have our work cut out for us but soldier on its going to be good!
So much of the media is focused on Twitter, while the real problem is much more pervasive than any single platform. I am so happy to see the true extent of this problem finally coming to light. Two years ago I was censored by the college where I taught, and no one noticed. The little guys are hurt the most because they have no big voice to protect them.
We owe Musk a debt of gratitude for bringing the Twitter debauchery to light. I am still not satisfied as to his true intentions for doing so but I appreciate it nevertheless. The kiddie porn stuff is stunning.
The fact that the thousands of laid-off workers couldn't manage to get rid of the child porn distributors, but Musk's people have apparently already wiped out most of it, suggests that no one at Twitter actually WANTED to get rid of it. That's a truly disturbing revelation.
Agree.
Thanks RUPA! I knew PayPal was shady, but this is next level and I’m closing both my personal and business accounts. As always, keep up the good work and know this, we LOVE you so much up here in Canada and cannot thank-you enough for your fearless reporting of our truckers🙏
I wonder if the day is coming when you can only buy or sell via a government appointed/sanctioned vehicle which may be, let’s say, Pay Pal. Then what ?
It may be why they are so insistent on only EV travel. The control of the populations movement.
Indeed. An old school automobile creates an enormous amount of personal freedom. Go where you wish when you want. Of course they can’t have that.
this could easily happen if we get digital currency from the Fed.
It’s probably inevitable. 😖🔫
Barter system
I don't often talk about religion here, but this can't help bringing Rev. 13:17 strongly to my mind: "that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark."
“Finally, there’s Dan Schulman—poster child for stakeholder capitalism, who has been CEO since 2014.”
———————————————————
You are inciting violence against Dan Schulman. This is stochastic terrorism. Hold on let me check and see if he’s Jewish. I can accuse you of more things then…….
Am I doing this right?? I’m not a Democrat so I’m not that efficient when it comes to being a manipulative dishonest sack of shit.
Democrats are the worst people on earth. Treat them accordingly.
Yes. Good start. You also need to work in “causing harm” somewhere plus something about “underrepresented communities” (even though he’s a white guy, no one even pretends to want to make sense anymore, just say the words).
Ahhh yes. Gotta say ‘communities’ and ‘robust dialogue’ or you’re doing it wrong.
😂😂😂
Do the work
Crap. That made me spit my coffee.
Stochastic Terrorism
How can they make what used to be a statistical term and make it bad?
Newspeak.
I read that book in high school....
things have changed
My husband is dealing with this right now. PayPal will not tell him and his business partners what lead to their suspension, which is down right evil. They have a significant amount of their money locked up for 180 days! They are fortunate enough to manage this receivables issue, but this policy will kill many small businesses. They asked PayPal to refund the original payments to their clients so they could collect another way, and PayPal won’t. It’s almost like a Ponzi scheme! No company should be able to behave this way.
Sue. Looks like restraint of trade
I actually heard from my MP this morning on this very subject.
He was incredibly concerned to learn of PayPal’s decision to shut down certain accounts citing its “Acceptable Use Policy”. It is deeply worrying that a company can so quickly, and without warning, withdraw financial services from users likely reliant on continued funding.
He understands that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has met with both PayPal and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on this issue. He welcomes that PayPal have stated that they are dedicated to providing safe and affordable financial services to people of all backgrounds with a diversity of views, and are a strong supporter of freedom of expression and open dialogue and, as such, do not seek to be an arbiter of free speech.
The Government has confirmed that the legislative framework in this area remains effective. One such area of regulation is the Payment Services Regulations (2017), which sets out the rules for online payments. There are further protections in the Consumer Rights Act (2015) and Equality Act (2010).
He welcomes that the Government has pledged that the issue of free speech and freedom of expression will be included as part of a review of the regulations in January 2023.
Furthermore, he understands that further legislative protections can be brought about swiftly due to changes which the Financial Services and Markets Bill is bringing in by repealing retained EU law.
FWIW
Hello, I’m from the UK, now a US citizen. Why does your MP sound like they are simply appeasing the pitchfork holders I wonder. It’s possible PayPal took things too far too fast so parliament had to look like they’re doing something about it. Thoughts?
I think they didn't know. My MP is probably best described as a Tory wet and a fully paid up member of the green side of the Tory party. Member of the Government (pensions) and I don't think really has a clue of the implications. PayPal took things too far which has alerted them to some of the difficulties. They now are going to do something. It remains to be seen if it will be effective or not.
Well it happened same thing that happened to other big tech. They got taken over by woke ideologues, that how used them as efficient tools to promote their ideology and punish ostracize everyone else. This has been made possible by Section 230, that was useful in early days of internet, but now has been weaponized to make big tech judge, jury and executioner with 0 accountability.
Sadly, this situation of made possible by failure of Republicans (under Bush/McConnel) that in the past prevented breaking up of large tech companies, since they were always more pro business.
Now the chicken has come home to roost, those same tech companies have become so larege and powerful that they control internet discourse and by one decision can make person effectively disappear. This has been especially used against conservatives on the internet. The moment big tech censored Trump, should have been red flag for every single republican in congress, to start demanding for breaking up big tech and preventing misuse of Section 230.
Sadly, currently only Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and several others are talking about what needs to be done.
At same time democrats have understood the power of big tech and are actively harnessing its power to support their own regime in power. We had 2 years of rampant misinformation in form of Russiagate, while at same time Hunter Biden Laptop was suppressed actively.
Big Tech needs to be broken up, and section 230 reworked, with out it, Big teck will just get more and more out of contoll.
Yes, the only way to break this hold is through legislation passed but the government. And sadly, those in government are happy to sit in their hands. It was great to learn that some folks in the U.K. appealed to their government for assistance. Smart move.
We either build new institutions or purge the poison (people) within them.
Just deleted my PayPal account. Voting with your wallet is one of the best ways a person can make a small influence.
The first absolute monarch aka modern totalitarian leader was Louis XIV. Do you think he constructed a modern road system throughout France out of the goodness of his heart, because he felt bad for the poor peasants trudging in the mud? Of course not. The populace might have been thankful at first for nice roads… until the Sun King used them to quickly send his representatives and bureaucrats quickly around the country to boss everyone around more effectively! This is history 101, anything that centralizes power is always first sold as making your life better - and then is used to more efficiently control you! It’s happened a million times before, will happen a million times to come, and will continue to shock and surprise the naive fools who thought the prom queen was being nicer to them because she loved their sense of humor…
Yes, but my sense is that the founders of PayPal: Musk, Theil, Sachs, did not have this mind when they started the company. This happened long after they sold it.
I think Musk may have seen the error of his ways. He is lambasting the new AIChat as very dangerous.
It's very woke.
Be just a little more skeptical of Musk, please. It is great that he is exposing the over-the-top bureaucracy of Twitter, but there are a lot of things not so great about Musk like how much his companies are subsidized by the US government, like how he is in China (just like Tim Cook), etc.
Musk is a capitalist.
This is what capitalists do.
The Twitter file dump is an incredibly brilliant PR move by Musk. He did good for the people (i.e. free speech) and his company at the same time. but Elon Musk as the internet version of Mother Teresa of free speech is a little off putting. The adoration of Musk as a free speech savior has the potential disastrous result as welcoming a Trojan Horse.
I agree about both the brilliant strategy (lots of free publicity) and the Trojan Horse aspect. I am wary of the too good to be true aspect. But I am suspicious by nature. Thank heaven!
I do not know how he is with China. I know it is a huge market and the CCP does not suffer insult. As far as the subsidies I will not fault him for that. Our government passes out subsidies like candy. That is, IMO, the fault of the government and those that vote them in. I had read early on that Twitter would be ideal for space communication as it uses short messaging, is already built and would be cheaper than starting from.the ground up. If this is true I think he may be deliberately destroying it as a commercial.platform. But man 'o man am I enjoying the show. And it has absolutely confirmed my suspicions about how corrupt social media platforms and the federal government is. This makes Watergate look like a picnic. Say what you will about Republicans they are willing to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds. I have yet to see that from.any Democrats with few exceptions (Barney Frank).
Ever since it was revealed that the Feds got permission to wire-tap candidate Trump on the basis of a spurious dossier, I've been wondering how this does not rise to the level of Watergate.
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Cancel PayPal is the solution.
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This is so eerily similar to how the Nazis progressively isolated the Jews. The Reich passed laws to make it impossible for Jews to make a living or to own property. They made it impossible for other German businesses to do business with them, so banks could not have Jewish clients (and tbh most banks were Nazi supporters and didn't want to deal with Jews either). All these institutions and liberals keep keep screaming "fascism" and "Nazis" when in fact they are the ones acting like Nazis. Yet they think they're "on the right side of history". Yeah, they'll be on the right side of history if Hitler and the Nazis had won.