41 Comments

I'm not surprised. I quit using Paypal years ago when I wasn't allowed to stop a voluntary subscription.

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This makes me livid. I've just closed my PayPal account.

As a child I grew up on the idea that Nazi's were a bad lot & they lost WWII. Turns out they're still right old stinkers, but they set up shop in the USA like a mutating virus.

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Nah, Hitler & pals simply emulated US Jim Crow, Propaganda, große Lüge, ethnic cleansing, cattleman's associations, autocratic militias & tag-team kleptocratic duopoly and economic hit-man diplomatic death squads, followed by shock & awe? We haven't "become the Nazis," we WERE what all Fascist/ Falangist's strive to copy: hegemonic Idiocracy.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-secret-plot-to-unleash-corporate?s=r

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/28/zelensky-celebrity-populist-pinochet-neoliberal/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/04/29/ijff-a29.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4eNy4FCs8&feature=emb_title

https://mronline.org/2022/04/28/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-continue-to-seize-on-russias-war-in-ukraine-to-push-long-term-interests/

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Well … how many of em went to NASA?

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PayPal sucks, and for very good reasons the website with that name had a good long run. The horror stories on there would really give you pause. I quit using PayPal about a decade ago, and it sounds like they have gotten progressively worse in the interim.

Unfortunately I'm no happier with Substack (not the many brilliant writers on this platform, mind you, but Substack's policies.) They automatically renew your subscription without telling you. I only found out when they tried to enter my payment info but entered it wrongly so the renewal did not go through. Not exactly inspiring confidence in their ability to safeguard my financial details. The frosting on the cake is that I was unable to see my credit card information. My only option would be to enter a new credit card to replace the one they were keeping secret from me. Fat chance of that! Needless to say that was the end of my paid subscriptions to SS. My only two remaining subscriptions are this one where I can toss some Bitcoin donations Kaitlin's way, and another lady who refuses any remuneration. It's a shame that this last paragon of free speech is not far removed from PayPal's unacceptable fiscal protocols.

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Substack billing is incredibly unscrupulous and opaque. There's a dozen writers I'd like to support but having been "billed" a $50 year's subscription to Matt Taibbi on 3 occasions in as many weeks, I had to block the card. Could find no way to stop it. Got no reply to support contact.

I'm not sure it's even legal to have a single sans conformation button that immediately charges any card they happen to have in the system.

Caitlin is excellent. Substack has attracted a great list of writers. I can't be too angry with them, for the refuge they're providing. But the whole money side - at least subscriber facing - feels like it's running a scam.

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and so many think Musk is going to return free speech to Twitter.

Today he already announced he's after Twitter's payment system, guess he wants to PayPal it too.

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PayPal can suck my fat one, never used it, never will. same goes for Disney and all the other monster corporations out there, none of them get a cent off me

feel free to point out people who deserve help and support tho :)

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I am in the process of making a serious enquiry as to my rights as a retired individual living on an island off the coast of Asia.

I know that if I was a Russian, I would not be allowed to play international tennis or sing in an opera on the stage or entertain people playing a violin anywhere in the Western world. I have also been informed through recent articles that if I dare have a contrary opinion to the US government or mention its blatant hypocritical stance based on its past criminal, inhumane history, I will be censored and not be allowed to use any social media platform.

(Thankfully I do not engage in that particular mindless sport).

Moving on, it seems that PayPal have now joined the motley of subservient US stooges as they comply to the dictates of Biden and his Congressional stormtroopers as they again try to find yet another way to stifle any free speech, free thought, free ideas or independent thinking on any subject seen to be critical of the “exceptional” Master Race called the USA..

Therefore, I am becoming seriously concerned as this whole control climate develops further whether everyone will eventually have to sign an agreement with the Biden bunch of warmongers to be able to use the atmospheric air to breathe, as I am not a conforming US citizen. Perhaps if I sacrifice my ability to engage in having an independent opinion as well as remaining a resident of a US stooge called Australia, (far more US-centric than any of the NATO countries under total US dominance), I will be able to conform to US dictates and still be able to continue to breathe, such action allowing me access to once free atmospheric air, in the past available to all.

But one question remains. Is the atmospheric air we breathe also expected to be part of the US controlled world domain as well as everything else?

Until I receive a legal opinion as to my status and based on the anticipated few years I have left, I am stocking up on oxygen cylinders…..just in case.

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By the way....I failed to mention the massive PayPal shareholding held by .........you guessed it, Vanguard, almost 90 million shares and to a lesser amount, BlackRock as well, joint shareholders in so many media organisations, Pharma organisations and on and certainly able to make Biden and his easily-led Congress dance to their tune, every day of every week.

Now why is anyone surprised at that piece of news?

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This makes no sense. Elon Musk was a PayPal founder, and we all know he is against censorship.

/sarcasm

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I just ended my PayPal account, and I feel better.

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Stopped using PayPal a while ago, feeling their business model was not in my best interests. That doesnt make this any less painful :(

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Patreon and PayPal started banning citizen journalist and public figures nearly 4 years ago. That's when I decided to boycott them, but by God it was hard to convince any of the people I wanted to donate to use open source alternatives, or even take a check for which I assume they'd pay no commission. Well, now even my own bank account can be cancelled if I donate to the wrong party, just look at what Canada did at Biden's prompting.

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Another reason why we cannot live in a cashless society.

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+100

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remember how the entire financial system shut wikileaks out many years ago? it's been downhill all along, and will get much worse before the blood-sucking global cabal gets shut down by humanity, which leads us back to Russia's operation in Ukraine and why Russia is shut out of the global imperialist system. live simple, consume minimum (participate in the fucking system as little as possible), make / grow / barter / share / repair / recycle, buy local with cash while you can, make the system too costly for the bloodsuckers to maintain in every way you can. creativity is the key, as everyone's needs and abilities change and vary. we're not helpless. thank you Caitlin for quoting Adley's incisive comment in full.

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We’ve been on a slow motion decent into the darkness of corruption, thinking nothing could or would go wrong. Then Trump, WEF and a Pandemic revealed the slow decent had become a nose dive hurling us straight down into a Totalitarian force darker than Vader. There is no Left or Right there is only those who obey and those who want to preserve an ideal of equality of opportunity and a fair game for all.

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You forgot Biden

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This shit is nothing new. The fact that TPTB are arrogantly amused and their brown nosing sycophants applaud Operation Chokepoint on acid is the new transparency. People fear truth over fascism. We are through the looking glass.

2+2=5

The Disinfo Ministry is real.

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Taiwan is still hard to read. But we're keeping those shipping lanes. Regardless, this really started with the pandemic. Yes, sure, Alex Jones & Trump (political speech & a president: real bad, but still focused). w the last two elections it got worse. & the Russia nonsense (however, it was the Hunter Biden laptop story, the not even being able to be shared, label or not, not even the link. Not even in DMs - that was the first real alarming step up of recent times). But even that - was still focused.

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"Quasi private company" or not, we all should have fought harder against the pandemic clamp down (and still should). It all escalated *at scale* with the pandemic. The pandemic, & no one even trying to nip it in the bud, is what sped things up. That was when it was put to scale, not before. Put to where it is now. & then Ukraine is using that system.

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But the pandemic is the base. You saw even people *donating* to support the trucker convoy (against mandatory sale and use of novel drug products for non medical corporate gain) had their bank accounts frozen, yeah? For donating to a charity.

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We've seen Mastercard/Visa, & Amazon, Stripe, PayPal etal pull this stuff before. But freezing personal bank accounts? For donations (to non terrorist groups)? That was new.

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All of this at scale flows from the pandemic(s). Which we should all still actively be fighting. To do better at staying in front of it this time. It is all one fight. But the pandemic switch is the crux. Taiwan may (potentially) never happen. Or not in our lifetime. And the Ukraine conflict will (eventually) end. But the pandemics can be called on at the drop of a hat. That is the focus point. Those are the tools that will be used for the wars.

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& more than Ukraine, the pandemic reaches into every life. Impacts everyone right now. & will again winter. & has closer to solid answers (though the communication part is still a little tricky).

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You can not reach people on Russia. You won't get the Ukraine pins off. The pandemic is the space to stand for speech, and let it impact the others by proxy. We can't give them an inch, nor let them keep the inches they have taken. It is all or nothing. But between wars is where the battle may still be won. Wartime censorship will always be accepted. -JC

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First centralize society: destroying families, communities, and local commerce, and then move all banking online where you can monitor and control it. You have the situation we have now: where so-called western democracies decry China's social credit system while they do the same exact thing (cut off people's access to their bank accounts, etc.) when they don't think what they are told to think and do what they are told to do. We should all be seriously rebuilding our local communities and start reimagining ways we can do exchanges with each other, using local currencies, time banking, barter, whatever else anyone can dream up. We need to build parallel systems and completely bypass the current corrupt to the core systems.

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I haven’t got the pleasure to use PayPal.. 🤣 but I added to my boycotting business list 👍 and I been recommending substack to friends. Thank you.

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