Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and the MAGATs – Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Twitter – are all now embedded and engaged in censorship, data mining, privacy invasion, the new global surveillance and police state, and/or state-corporate propaganda, and manipulation of elections and the public mind (ie: the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica proven manipulation of facebook users and the general public to sway the election in 2016 in favour of Trump, for a fee, paid by one of the billionaire plutocracy).
In other words, unless you want to live in Orwell’s dystopia of 1984, or Huxley’s Brave New World, you had better start the exodus from, and boycott of, Big Tech now.
At least make a start. I’ve written about it on my blog, J. Todd Ring on WordPress, in terms of why, how, and what the alternatives are. Keep a foot in the dinosaur media and platforms if you like, but at least open accounts in the new and better alternatives, which refuse censorship, surveillance and Big Brother.
Patreon is now reportedly censoring and purging. Medium appears questionable.
The global neofeudal corporate fasist oligarchy has taken over nearly everything, including the global economy and financial system, the major international organizations, such as the IMF, WTO, WEF, BIS, ECB, Fed, World Bank and the WHO, nearly all governments, all the major media, much of academia, science and the big environmental groups, and most of the internet.
As to free speech zones online or off, they are falling and being closed down fast. The Guardian was a decent paper, then they bravely published Snowdon’s important leaks, then was clearly leaned on and lost its soul – as just one of myriad recent examples. The same happened a generation earlier to the Washngton Post and NY Times after the Pentagon Papers.
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Of course, I long ago, decades ago, moved away from any reliance, and generally any reading or viewing at all, of the utterly unreliable corporate-state media. And yes, the two have merged, as the new ruling empire of global corporatism represents the merger of big business and the state; which, as Mussolini said, is the proper definition for fascism.
80% of the world’s major media is now owned by six corporations. State media such as the BBC and CBC have of course been systematically corrupted by the corporate take-over of governments around the world. Even “public” broadcasters such as PBS and TVO are deeply corrupted by their reliance on big money from corporattions and billionaire-controlled foundations. And the “alternative media” suffers systemically from group think, herd mentality, or simple co-option through foundation money or other means. Democracy is not dying, it is being strangled to death by the power-hungry business elite.
At least have a thoughtful look at better alternatives and generally far more reliable sources for information, research, news and analysis. Shun, or at least, do not rely on the big media giants, Big Tech, Wikipedia, governments, big business, corporate-controlled bodies such as the WHO, or even the “alternative media”. Question everything. Think for yourself.
At this moment, there are a handful of sources I trust as having high reliability, honesty, intelligence, and courage. They are not infallible, but they are light years above the sordid and corrupt major media, which are an echo chamber and propaganda system for the ruling business elite, as John Pilger and Noam Chomsky have said.
And they are incomparably more reliable than the general “alternative media”, which seem to excel on many issues, but get all the biggest issues wrong: such as the War On Terror, 9/11, Obamamania, Russiagate, the Ukraine coup, Syria, the OPCW, the new cold war(s), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, covid-1984….and the list goes on.
Take a serious and thoughtful look at these sources, then decide for yourself – on every subject! We have innate intelligence. We need to use it far more than our “new normal”, or even our old normal, would allow. Banish group think, read and listen to diverse views, and think for yourself.
Remember, united we stand, divided we fall. Divide and conquer is the most essential and time-tested strategy of all empires throughout the ages, including the latest: the global neofeudal crypto-fascist corporate oligarchy. Unite the people. We have more in common than most people realize. It is the 99% vs the 1%, not left vs right, or black vs white. Read widely, think deeply, then unite the people, and stand. And now. MLK shows the way.
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Look into these ten sources, then decide things for yourself. And remember, we don’t all have to agree on everything.
Trends Research (Trends Journal)
Global Research (Centre for Research on Globalization)
GreenMedInfo (one of the two remaining reliable sources I know of for science-based health information, along with Gary Null, on PRN)
Max Keiser, The Keiser Report
Michael Hudson
Vandana Shiva
The Council of Canadians
The David Suzuki Foundation
The Corbett Report
The American Herald Tribune
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I have moved my email to Protonmail, my web searches to Swiss Cows, my browser to Brave, and my main social networking and chat platforms to Minds and Telegram. I urge others to do the same.
Next is to switch hardware to Purism, for phones, servers and laptops. And as a writer, I need to find a platform that is *dedicated* to free speech.
Blogger (my original site) is owned by the evil mega-corp Google, and Google censors, as do all the Big Tech vampires. WordPress, which I currently use, I just discovered, is now censoring bloggers and writers, too. Where to find a blog platform that respects and defends freedom of speech? I am looking.
(The new CSM editing system for WordPress is so extremely intrusive, counter-intuitive, and obnoxiously obstructive, absolutely in the road at every turn, that I was planning a rapid exodus anyway. Any whiff of censorship only confirms my feeling that it is soon time to leave. Maybe the people at WordPress will respond with a better CSM editing system and a public vow to protect free speech. I will not hold my breath, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised. Hint, hint, Quislings and Vichys… Get it together, or be adandoned in the rapidly unfolding exodus from Big Tech and nauseatingly suffocating platforms.)
Fight for freedom, as well as justice, equality, ecological sanity, democracy, peace, and constitutional rule and human rights for all, or we are in for a very dark time ahead, followed by extinction and collapse. Truly, this is our situation now, and it is a global darkness that is swallowing us up.
Stand up and speak out now, or our future will be unimaginably bleak, I can assure you.
Stand!
J. Todd Ring,
October 1, 2020
Essential Reading:
Christopher Simpson and Mark Crispin Miller: Blowback: America’s Secret Recruiting of Nazis
Noam Chomsky: Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies
Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine
Naomi Wolf: The End of America
John Perkins: A Game As Old As Empire, and, The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman
John Pilger: The New Rulers Of The World
Peter Phillips: Giants: The Global Power Elite
Vandana Shiva: Oneness vs The 1% (Coming soon)
And
Read my first two books for a clear, concise overview and an in-depth and sweeping global and historical analysis of what we face, how we got here, where we are heading, and what must be done:
Enlightened Democracy: Visions For A New Millennium (2014)
The People vs The Elite: A Manifesto For Democratic Revolution, Or, Survival In The 21st Century & Beyond (2020)
Both are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble now.
Or better yet, support your local independent bookstore, and order through them. Phone them now.
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Compromise or Collapse
Posted in Uncategorized with tags analysis, democracy, fascism, freedom, police state, political economy, political philosophy, political theory, politics, social commentary, social philosophy, social psychology, social theory, sociology on November 22, 2020 by jtoddringThe elite always do the same thing. They have repeated the same failed patterns for millennia. They never learn. They could be wealthy and powerful, virtually in perpetuity, or at least, for a very long time – if they were willing to compromise. They are not. Instead, they fall into imperial hubris, and imperial over-stretch, every time. And it will mean their total loss of power, and the collapse of their most beloved global empire.
The New Deal was such a compromise, between the ruling business elite and the 99%, but that was forced upon the elite by the people; and now that the ruling business elite are global, transnational, and more powerful, they have decided, as of fifty years ago, to cancel any form of compromise. They reverted to their old form: no compromise – we want it all.
The elite have, as always, two choices: compromise with the 99%, or try for total power. They always fall to greed, egomania, hubris and imperial over-reach; and for that reason, every empire follows the same pattern, and in the end collapses.
The newest of empires, which is the global, bi-partisan corporate empire of billionaire business elites, has decided that compromise is out, fascism is in. It will be their downfall.
The elite could accept that in order to remain wealthy and powerful they must accept that there is an unstoppable awakening occurring across humanity – and that requires, above all, a more equitable sharing of both wealth and power. That, they refuse to do.
In order to remain wealthy and powerful, and not see their empire collapse, the elite would would have to accept that the awakening of humanity, which is now emerging rapidly, requires that freedom, democracy, constitutional rights and constitutional rule be honoured, while inequality is greatly reduced, poverty is eliminated, peace and disarmament is accepted as an urgent priority, and a Green New Deal which provides full employment while healing the planet and establishing a truly green and vibrant economy, is actively embraced.
In short, the elite would have to stop acting as the primary roadblocks to all the necessary and urgent changes, and instead, partner with the 99% to swiftly achieve them. A few of the business and political elite might favour such a plan, but the clear majority do not.
(Soros, Gates, The Rockefellers and Davos, clearly do not favour compromise – they are deeply committed to global technocracy, and to deeply authoritarian global elite rule.)
In fact, the majority of the Global Power Elite have shown that they are adamantly opposed to any compromise, and to any serious positive action in any of these areas, and are instead committed to their current, long-standing agenda, which is global technocratic fascism, and the culmination of the war on democracy and freedom.
The stakes could not be higher. The trouble ahead is dire. But the elite will lose in their grand plan, because they are repeating the same mistakes that have been enacted throughout history. Hubris, egomania and power-lust drives them, and that will be their downfall, as always.
This is no time for complacency, however. The people must stand – and now.
J. Todd Ring,
November 22, 2020
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