Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Glenn Greenwald posts EPIC thread about how the authoritarian Left is squashing dissent
Twitchy ^ | Posted at 8:51 am on September 7, 2022 by Mike

Posted on 09/07/2022 8:53:02 AM PDT by Red Badger

Glenn Greenwald has been dealing with some family health issues lately and it has kept him from weighing in on political issues, but last night he found the time to post a thread on Twitter which is worth your time.

Greenwald methodically points out how the left is systematically stifling dissent through coordination with various people and elements of the state and the media.

This is disturbing but a must-read:

***********************************************************

The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet – by a consortium of DC Dems, billionaire-funded "disinformation experts," the US Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations – is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood.

A series of "crises" have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views, and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming. Trump's election, Russiagate, 1/6, COVID and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression.

During the failed attempt in January to force Spotify to remove Joe Rogan, the country's most popular podcaster – remember that? – I wrote that the current religion of Western liberals in politics and media is censorship: their prime weapon of activism.

But that Rogan failure only strengthened their repressive campaigns. Dems routinely abuse their majoritarian power in DC to explicitly coerce Big Tech silencing of their opponents and dissent. This is *Govt censorship* disguised as corporate autonomy

There's now an entire new industry, aligned with Dems, to pressure Big Tech to censor. Think tanks and self-proclaimed "disinformation experts" funded by Omidyar, Soros and the US/UK Security State use benign-sounding names to glorify ideological censorship as neutral expertise.

The worst, most vile arm of this regime are the censorship-mad liberal employees of big media corporations (@oneunderscore__, @BrandyZadrozny, @TaylorLorenz, NYT tech unit). Masquerading as "journalists," they align with the scummiest Dem groups (@mmfa) to silence and deplatform.

It is astonishing to watch Dems and their allies in media corporations posture as opponents of "fascism" - while their main goal is to *unite state and corporate power* to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control.

A major myth that must be quickly dismantled: political censorship is not the by-product of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies.

This is happening because DC Dems and the US Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse. They're explicit:

But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is "journalist" take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. *These* are the authoritarians.

This is the frog-in-boiling-water problem: the increase in censorship is gradual but continuous, preventing recognition of how severe it's become. The EU now legally *mandates censorship of Russian news. They've made it *illegal* for companies to air it.

So many new tactics of censorship repression have emerged in the West: Trudeau freezing bank accounts of tucker-protesters; Paypal partnering with ADL to ban dissidents from the financial system; Big Tech platforms openly colluding in unison to de-person people from the internet.

All of this stems from the classic mentality of all would-be tyrants: our enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble. That's what made the Sam Harris confession so vital: that's how liberal elites think.

This is why I regard the Hunter Biden scandal as uniquely alarming. The media didn't just "bury" the archive.

CIA concocted a lie about it (it's "Russian disinformation"); media outlets spread that lie; Big Tech censured it -- because lying and repression to them is justified!

The authoritarian mentality that led CIA, corporate media and Big Tech to lie about the Biden archive before the election is the same driving this new censorship craze. It's the hallmark of all tyranny: "our enemies are so evil and dangerous, anything is justified to stop them."

How come **not one media outlet** that spread this CIA lie – the Hunter Biden archive was "Russian disinformation" – retracted or apologized? This is why: they believe they are so benevolent, their cause so just, that lying and censorship are benevolent.

The one encouraging aspect: as so often happens with despotic factions, they are triggering and fueling the backlash to their excesses. Sites devoted to free speech – led by Rumble, along with Substack, Callin, and others – are exploding in growth.

But as these free speech platforms grow and become a threat, the efforts to crush them also grow – exactly as @AOC, other Dems and their corporate media allies successfully demanded Google, Apple and Amazon destroy Parler when it became the single most-popular app in the country.

It is hard to overstate how much pressure is now brought to bear by liberal censors on these free speech platforms, especially Rumble. Their vendors are threatened. Their hosting companies targeted. They have accounts cancelled and firms refusing to deal with them. It's a regime.

It's not melodrama or hyperbole to say: what we have is a war in the West, a war over whether the internet will be free, over whether dissent will be allowed, over whether we will live in the closed propaganda system our elites claim The Bad Countries™ impose. It's no different.

In even the most despotic nations, the banal, conformist citizen thinks they're free. As Rosa Luxemburg said: "he who does not move, does not feel his chains."

Of course the Chris Hayes's and Don Lemon's think this is all absurd: Good Liberals threaten nobody and thus flourish.

The measure of societal freedom is not how servants of power are treated: they're always left alone or rewarded. The key metric is how dissidents are treated. Now, they are imprisoned (Assange), exiled (Snowden) and, above all, silenced by corporate/state power (dissidents).

For more than a month, I've removed myself from the news cycle and The Discourse because my only priority right now is my family, my kids and my husband's health. But distance brings clarity.

This censorship mania consuming Western liberals is deeply dangerous -- and growing.

As I've often said, the media outlets screaming most loudly about "disinformation" are the ones that spread it most frequently, casually and destructively (NBC/CNN/WPost, etc).

It's equally true of those now claiming to fight "fascism": real repression comes *from them.*

I'm going to remain detached until the health crisis in our family is resolved. But internet freedom and free speech are not ancillary causes. They are central. This was the core cause of the Snowden reporting.

Without a free internet and free speech, dissent is an illusion.

Above all, stay focused on who your real enemies are.

They're not your neighbors who have been deceived into supporting the wrong party or wrong ideology. They are victims of the repression, which is all about maintaining a closed system of propaganda that can't be challenged.

The worst of all - the most repugnant and despicable - are those calling themselves "journalists" while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry.

Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the "journalist" label. Read them with full skepticism, or just ignore them.

Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.

**********************************************************************************

So spot on, and a little scary.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Conspiracy; Government; History
KEYWORDS: bigtech; censorship; dissent; elonmusk; freespeech; internet; musk; socialmedia; technotyranny; truthsocial; twitter
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last

1 posted on 09/07/2022 8:53:02 AM PDT by Red Badger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: null and void

Ping!......................


2 posted on 09/07/2022 8:53:32 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

bttt


3 posted on 09/07/2022 9:11:33 AM PDT by Pajamajan ( PRAY FOR OUR NATION. Never be a peaceful slave in new Socialist America.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Quashing, not squashing.


4 posted on 09/07/2022 9:12:26 AM PDT by Mr. Lucky
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Lucky

It’s vegan..................


5 posted on 09/07/2022 9:13:46 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

“...right now is my family, my kids and my husband’s health...”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Glenn Greenwald is a man and has a “husband”? Is he gay?


6 posted on 09/07/2022 9:15:40 AM PDT by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wintertime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald


7 posted on 09/07/2022 9:20:17 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.


and dont support outlets and platforms that dont

in the name of Glenn

cut the cable tv

each channel gets paid whether you watch or not

kneecap the propagandists


8 posted on 09/07/2022 9:22:14 AM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wintertime

Nobody cares.

Is what he says true?


9 posted on 09/07/2022 9:22:39 AM PDT by null and void (Never suspect dishonest men of making honest mistakes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Ping


10 posted on 09/07/2022 9:22:53 AM PDT by SomeCallMeTim ( The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them!it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Bttt.

5.56mm


11 posted on 09/07/2022 9:25:17 AM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho got to go.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

i wonder if those 1 in 6 voters who said the hunter laptop story would have changed their vote

have changed their sources of information

i am guessing slim to none


12 posted on 09/07/2022 9:26:46 AM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger; COUNTrecount; Nowhere Man; FightThePower!; C. Edmund Wright; jacob allen; ...
The government wants to disarm us after 245 yrs 'cuz they plan to do are doing things we would shoot them for!

tumblr-lykntn-Ccde1qbvl57o1-500

At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son

The biggest killer of mankind

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand." ~ Putt's Law


...and “Fact” checkers deny it!

13 posted on 09/07/2022 9:27:25 AM PDT by null and void (Never suspect dishonest men of making honest mistakes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: wintertime
Glenn Greenwald is a man and has a “husband”? Is he gay?

Yes. But he's fairly conservative and appears on Tucker quite often. I don't care for his sexual preference but that's not my business. Same with Rick Grenell, National Security Adviser under Trump. He's very Pro-Trump, registered Republican and conservative.
14 posted on 09/07/2022 9:29:08 AM PDT by Signalman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: null and void; wintertime
Nobody cares.

Is what he says true?

I care. What happens when the truth clashes with his personal fantasy such as having a husband? It matters.

15 posted on 09/07/2022 9:33:22 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Signalman

“National Security Advisor”= Acting Director of National Intelligence.


16 posted on 09/07/2022 9:33:50 AM PDT by Signalman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Extremely concise, scary and expected. Which makes it scarier. I’ve seen this coming for a long time but haven’t the ability to voice it.

Thanks for posting this, Red Badger.

‘Face

;o]


17 posted on 09/07/2022 9:48:52 AM PDT by Monkey Face ( ~~ You're nobody until you've been ignored by your cat. ~~ )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: null and void

Thanks, Nully! It’s a keeper, for sure. And scary to watch it happening.

‘Face


18 posted on 09/07/2022 9:50:02 AM PDT by Monkey Face
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

bkmk


19 posted on 09/07/2022 9:52:42 AM PDT by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DJ MacWoW
What happens when the truth clashes with his personal fantasy

Same thing that happened when the truth clashed with Dan Rather's personal fantasy.

Truth wins out, and pretty much no one listens to Rather anymore.

20 posted on 09/07/2022 10:00:41 AM PDT by null and void (Never suspect dishonest men of making honest mistakes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson