Trump is the most significant president of our lifetime owing to the fact that he was an unauthorized president. This was the greatest electoral event in American history, it was indeed a Triumph over the deep state. Reaction to his election such a censorship demonstrates Caitlin is correct America is an oligarchy.
Trumps personal traits and lack of competence should not obscure his significance: the forces aligned against him are made plain for what they are, an oligarchy out of control.
Yeah, Trump fought the Deep State so much he droned an Iranian general who was fighting ISIS, passed a record military budget, prosecuted Jillian Assange, packed his cabinet with Deep State flunkies, oversaw the largest upward transfer of wealth in history, and traitorously and stupidly claimed that a foreign power (apartheid Israel) should rightfully have power over our congress.
One thing Trump IS good at is being a salesman, and like any good salesman, he understands what the dupes want to hear.
It doesn’t change the fact that the elite who run things were usurped. Basically you’re saying he acted like every other president once in office, true enough but comparatively inconsequential. The fact of his victory has re-cast all political lines between the two parties, he changed the world.
You could look at it that way. Or, one could see Trump's ascendency as confirmation that our politics is so broken that the only "reformer" possible is a wealthy and ultimately establishment fuckup like Trump. The rest is mostly spin mixed with a grotesque hero-worship.
I think it is trump’s affect that is the most important part, too focus on his effect is to get bogged down in his incompetence and the incongruity of his politics. His affect was that of a jovial Robin Hood, loose and unguarded his rallies were performance art and therapy for the dispossessed. He spoke out of school and tattletaled on the elite mocking there pretensions and hypocrisies. His affect is further needed, 2024 will be the second coming, part deux of the Trump monster, bloviating orange and horrific for all too see. The elite are sick bigots and dementedly dishonest, it is hate incarnate and they deserve what he brings.
I think this piece by Matt is very very important. It explains the meta-phenomenon at play and puts Trump correctly in the context of a symptom rather than the cause. It changed my perspective on things, I found it very liberating and helps explainthis authoritarian utopianism that has taken hold.
Basically Martin Gurri says elite authority and legitimacy has been usurped by technology and massive effort is being expended to curtail unauthorized ideology. And, Trump stumbled upon this phenomenon, it was a fluke.
The fact of his incompetence is irrelevant, the battle is engaged and in the balance lies the future of freedom. Trump is an obvious idiot but his supporters are on the side of freedom and the right to be wrong.
"...his supporters are on the side of freedom..." Questionable.
2016 was a change election year. Both Trump and Sanders recognized this. Trump brilliantly answered this restlessness among the right by plowing through their establishment candidates. 2016 was supposed to be Jeb's year, after all.
On the democratic side, it was Hillary Clinton's turn, a candidate nobody but the DNC establishment wanted, who represented four more years of Obama's flatulent neoliberalism. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders was playing to huge audiences, much to the horror of the DNC and establishment press (who loved Trump, thinking he was the most easily defeated candidate). Obama picked up the phone, and the democrats got their continuity candidate and lost, unsurprisingly.
But where does that leave us?
Trump is definitely a symptom, but he also contains the seeds of everything that's already wrong; he only brought a slightly different swamp with him. Long before Trump, I'd already sussed out that both parties suck, and voters were being treated to a dog and pony show every other November. I don't see republicans adopting Trumpism as fundamentally altering this, not when they embrace jailing whistle-blowers, enforcing fundamentalist religious dictates into law, supporting treason and apartheid, and somehow trying to convince us that this vile mish-mash represents freedom. I find their recipe just as fundamentally fraudulent as what the democrats are currently selling us.
So once again, 2024 will present us with a presidential election without any real options. Any real change would have changed this.
He was pretty much the same as Biden. Gave the deep state whatever they asked for. Put neocons in his cabinet. And they still didn't like him. Go figure.
"Fact checkers " do not check facts , they are "fact blockers" .
In its response to Stossel’s defamation claim, Facebook responds in a court document :Facebook cannot be sued for defamation (which is making a false and harmful assertion) because its ‘fact checks’ are mere statements of opinion rather than factual assertions.
Opinions are not subject to defamation claims, while false assertions of fact can be subject to defamation ... So, in a court of law, in a legal filing, Facebook admits that its ‘fact checks’ are not really ‘fact’ checks at all, but merely ‘opinion assertions.’
This reminds me of the OAN defamation suit against Rachel Maddow. After Maddow said OAN “literally is paid Russian propaganda” OAN sued. But the judge dismissed the suit because, as the judge wrote, Maddow is one of those “speakers whose statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact.”
So elites have legal immunity against defamation, and fact checking is only for the rabble.
Caitlin express near the end: "It says bad things about the future that even this kindergarten-level degree of insight has become rare in some circles.". I couldn't agree more.
If you ain't got the kahunas to listen to opposing views then you must be most fragile indeed. I suspect you will crack easy like an egg and thank goodness for this because there are some of us who have the kahunas and we appreciate all views. That is what I think and I don't care whether you agree or not.
Bravo, Caitlin! It occurs to me that individual access to the internet, in an age when information is part of warfare, is guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. Substack is facilitating your right to that weapon, with which you can and are fighting powerful artillery in a guerilla action.
Caitlin, while I appreciate the insight that censorship stems from immaturity, I am thrown off by the tirade against QAnoners, which includes the statement: “Hate them, hate them, hate them.”
While I can only imagine the level of disrespect you get on social media (and elsewhere), and while I, too, rage against the machine, in my more thoughtful (and mature) moments I worry that we may all be falling into the rage flytrap set by the Empire’s psychological operators, who are so brilliant at getting us all to attack each other rather than the imperial rulers. After all, isn’t it possible, even likely, that QAnoners are just victims of a psyop? Maybe reciprocating the rage of the victims is misplaced aggression?
We need truth-tellers to ignore the slings and arrows of outrageous psysops. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the so-called sheep and zombies among us who mindlessly parrot the official narrative, and who spew their unfiltered rage against even friends and family, are all merely systematons—the sad victims of pervasive and almost inescapable psyops. Their minds (or souls) have been snatched, and if we don’t stay awake, and spend our efforts fighting the snatchers instead of the snatched, we are next. I read your blog to stay awake, and I thank you for your many nudges.
I don't really disagree with your observations, but also understand Caitlin's frustration with those who have fully embraced blatant hogwash and refuse to be spoken to. Both camps are populated by such individuals. (However, I don't see Caitlin being deflected from "fighting the snatchers" as you put it.)
My opinion is that the QAnon folks are indeed victims of a psyop which transparently attempts to transform Trump into some sort of Deep State fighter of the people -- a laughable concept, despite his occasionally pointing out the low-hanging fruit of democratic lunacy.
Yes, all part of the general fascist movement to destroy free speech. Cf. Greenwald's latest on the takeover of MSM by ("ex-") government agents, and of course the Assange show trials. They are also taking over the congress by running a raft of former military and intelligence operatives for electoral office (see https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/20/ciad-a20.html). All shows the importance of developing independent media outlets like substack.
This is one of those glaringly simple issues that reveals if you believe in one of the bedrock values of the republic or prefer a cartoon version of the same.
Jimmy Dore has a show up where Rachel Maddow is saying that vaccinated people cannot pass Covid to others, and that we can vaccinate our way out of the pandemic -- medically inaccurate statements.
I wait anxiously for the censorship mafia to dispense their Holy Crusade consistently. Only when the Internet is uniform corporate mush will authoritarians rest -- for the briefest of moments.
"The goal is to take away the interest, the capacity, the comfort, both internally and also on a societal level, of men and women coming together. If men and women stop ... speaking to one another, stop dating, getting married, having children, then we no longer have families. If we don't have families, we don't have civic organizations, churches and communities. The state then steps in and supplants the role of the father and begins to take over."~ Dr. Mark McDonald
I believe the main goal of Internet censorship is to limit the voice of non-corporate media, and thus better control the political narrative. Dr. McDonald's take seems an inaccurate and particularly religious one.
Just wondering if you or not jumping the shark when you say "it just requires some basic self-preservation and enough psychological growth to understand that the world should not be forced to align with your personal will" Would this not also apply to your writings here?
The last thing those banning 'covid misinformation' is is immature. We know now from the Twitter files how random, arbitrary and totally ineffective it was as we all found other ways to communicate. High profile figures like MTG and Trump got 'banned' and it was a badge of honour. Proof that they were revealing the truth the establishment wanted hidden! It was so performative. Now Trump/Musk have been elected partly on an anti-cenorship ticket.... which they're using to ban pro-Palestinian speech!!
These people ain't immature Cat, they're very, very clever.
I don't block people for posting about "the scamdemic", but I do sometimes block them for being obnoxious assholes who I don't want in my life. Only by the most idiotic of mental contortions does someone blocking you on their personal blog look similar to government-tied oligarchic megacorporations controlling worldwide human communication.
Well done, great piece.
Trump is the most significant president of our lifetime owing to the fact that he was an unauthorized president. This was the greatest electoral event in American history, it was indeed a Triumph over the deep state. Reaction to his election such a censorship demonstrates Caitlin is correct America is an oligarchy.
Trumps personal traits and lack of competence should not obscure his significance: the forces aligned against him are made plain for what they are, an oligarchy out of control.
Yeah, Trump fought the Deep State so much he droned an Iranian general who was fighting ISIS, passed a record military budget, prosecuted Jillian Assange, packed his cabinet with Deep State flunkies, oversaw the largest upward transfer of wealth in history, and traitorously and stupidly claimed that a foreign power (apartheid Israel) should rightfully have power over our congress.
One thing Trump IS good at is being a salesman, and like any good salesman, he understands what the dupes want to hear.
It doesn’t change the fact that the elite who run things were usurped. Basically you’re saying he acted like every other president once in office, true enough but comparatively inconsequential. The fact of his victory has re-cast all political lines between the two parties, he changed the world.
You could look at it that way. Or, one could see Trump's ascendency as confirmation that our politics is so broken that the only "reformer" possible is a wealthy and ultimately establishment fuckup like Trump. The rest is mostly spin mixed with a grotesque hero-worship.
I like!
I think it is trump’s affect that is the most important part, too focus on his effect is to get bogged down in his incompetence and the incongruity of his politics. His affect was that of a jovial Robin Hood, loose and unguarded his rallies were performance art and therapy for the dispossessed. He spoke out of school and tattletaled on the elite mocking there pretensions and hypocrisies. His affect is further needed, 2024 will be the second coming, part deux of the Trump monster, bloviating orange and horrific for all too see. The elite are sick bigots and dementedly dishonest, it is hate incarnate and they deserve what he brings.
Or maybe I’m wrong and he starts a civil war.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-prophet-of-the-trump-era
I think this piece by Matt is very very important. It explains the meta-phenomenon at play and puts Trump correctly in the context of a symptom rather than the cause. It changed my perspective on things, I found it very liberating and helps explainthis authoritarian utopianism that has taken hold.
Basically Martin Gurri says elite authority and legitimacy has been usurped by technology and massive effort is being expended to curtail unauthorized ideology. And, Trump stumbled upon this phenomenon, it was a fluke.
The fact of his incompetence is irrelevant, the battle is engaged and in the balance lies the future of freedom. Trump is an obvious idiot but his supporters are on the side of freedom and the right to be wrong.
"...his supporters are on the side of freedom..." Questionable.
2016 was a change election year. Both Trump and Sanders recognized this. Trump brilliantly answered this restlessness among the right by plowing through their establishment candidates. 2016 was supposed to be Jeb's year, after all.
On the democratic side, it was Hillary Clinton's turn, a candidate nobody but the DNC establishment wanted, who represented four more years of Obama's flatulent neoliberalism. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders was playing to huge audiences, much to the horror of the DNC and establishment press (who loved Trump, thinking he was the most easily defeated candidate). Obama picked up the phone, and the democrats got their continuity candidate and lost, unsurprisingly.
But where does that leave us?
Trump is definitely a symptom, but he also contains the seeds of everything that's already wrong; he only brought a slightly different swamp with him. Long before Trump, I'd already sussed out that both parties suck, and voters were being treated to a dog and pony show every other November. I don't see republicans adopting Trumpism as fundamentally altering this, not when they embrace jailing whistle-blowers, enforcing fundamentalist religious dictates into law, supporting treason and apartheid, and somehow trying to convince us that this vile mish-mash represents freedom. I find their recipe just as fundamentally fraudulent as what the democrats are currently selling us.
So once again, 2024 will present us with a presidential election without any real options. Any real change would have changed this.
He also wanted to be friendly with Russia. When he said this the system caught on fire.
Trump was weak, stupid and easily manipulated. A pathetic cuck. And that is a charitable take.
That said, the powers that be had a history fit upon his election.
He was pretty much the same as Biden. Gave the deep state whatever they asked for. Put neocons in his cabinet. And they still didn't like him. Go figure.
I absolutely agree with you! She’s so on point!
"Fact checkers " do not check facts , they are "fact blockers" .
In its response to Stossel’s defamation claim, Facebook responds in a court document :Facebook cannot be sued for defamation (which is making a false and harmful assertion) because its ‘fact checks’ are mere statements of opinion rather than factual assertions.
Opinions are not subject to defamation claims, while false assertions of fact can be subject to defamation ... So, in a court of law, in a legal filing, Facebook admits that its ‘fact checks’ are not really ‘fact’ checks at all, but merely ‘opinion assertions.’
This reminds me of the OAN defamation suit against Rachel Maddow. After Maddow said OAN “literally is paid Russian propaganda” OAN sued. But the judge dismissed the suit because, as the judge wrote, Maddow is one of those “speakers whose statements cannot reasonably be interpreted as allegations of fact.”
So elites have legal immunity against defamation, and fact checking is only for the rabble.
Caitlin express near the end: "It says bad things about the future that even this kindergarten-level degree of insight has become rare in some circles.". I couldn't agree more.
If you ain't got the kahunas to listen to opposing views then you must be most fragile indeed. I suspect you will crack easy like an egg and thank goodness for this because there are some of us who have the kahunas and we appreciate all views. That is what I think and I don't care whether you agree or not.
Ken
Bravo, Caitlin! It occurs to me that individual access to the internet, in an age when information is part of warfare, is guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. Substack is facilitating your right to that weapon, with which you can and are fighting powerful artillery in a guerilla action.
Only one card and we all are -- goats . https://www.bitchute.com/video/vIU5PktOnhNP/
Caitlin, while I appreciate the insight that censorship stems from immaturity, I am thrown off by the tirade against QAnoners, which includes the statement: “Hate them, hate them, hate them.”
While I can only imagine the level of disrespect you get on social media (and elsewhere), and while I, too, rage against the machine, in my more thoughtful (and mature) moments I worry that we may all be falling into the rage flytrap set by the Empire’s psychological operators, who are so brilliant at getting us all to attack each other rather than the imperial rulers. After all, isn’t it possible, even likely, that QAnoners are just victims of a psyop? Maybe reciprocating the rage of the victims is misplaced aggression?
We need truth-tellers to ignore the slings and arrows of outrageous psysops. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the so-called sheep and zombies among us who mindlessly parrot the official narrative, and who spew their unfiltered rage against even friends and family, are all merely systematons—the sad victims of pervasive and almost inescapable psyops. Their minds (or souls) have been snatched, and if we don’t stay awake, and spend our efforts fighting the snatchers instead of the snatched, we are next. I read your blog to stay awake, and I thank you for your many nudges.
I don't really disagree with your observations, but also understand Caitlin's frustration with those who have fully embraced blatant hogwash and refuse to be spoken to. Both camps are populated by such individuals. (However, I don't see Caitlin being deflected from "fighting the snatchers" as you put it.)
My opinion is that the QAnon folks are indeed victims of a psyop which transparently attempts to transform Trump into some sort of Deep State fighter of the people -- a laughable concept, despite his occasionally pointing out the low-hanging fruit of democratic lunacy.
Yes, all part of the general fascist movement to destroy free speech. Cf. Greenwald's latest on the takeover of MSM by ("ex-") government agents, and of course the Assange show trials. They are also taking over the congress by running a raft of former military and intelligence operatives for electoral office (see https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/20/ciad-a20.html). All shows the importance of developing independent media outlets like substack.
This is one of those glaringly simple issues that reveals if you believe in one of the bedrock values of the republic or prefer a cartoon version of the same.
Jimmy Dore has a show up where Rachel Maddow is saying that vaccinated people cannot pass Covid to others, and that we can vaccinate our way out of the pandemic -- medically inaccurate statements.
I wait anxiously for the censorship mafia to dispense their Holy Crusade consistently. Only when the Internet is uniform corporate mush will authoritarians rest -- for the briefest of moments.
"The goal is to take away the interest, the capacity, the comfort, both internally and also on a societal level, of men and women coming together. If men and women stop ... speaking to one another, stop dating, getting married, having children, then we no longer have families. If we don't have families, we don't have civic organizations, churches and communities. The state then steps in and supplants the role of the father and begins to take over."~ Dr. Mark McDonald
I believe the main goal of Internet censorship is to limit the voice of non-corporate media, and thus better control the political narrative. Dr. McDonald's take seems an inaccurate and particularly religious one.
30 facts you NEED to know: https://off-guardian.org/2021/09/22/30-facts-you-need-to-know-your-covid-cribsheet/
https://www.corbettreport.com/scamdemic/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/DXL7SLgYPYJG/
Just wondering if you or not jumping the shark when you say "it just requires some basic self-preservation and enough psychological growth to understand that the world should not be forced to align with your personal will" Would this not also apply to your writings here?
The last thing those banning 'covid misinformation' is is immature. We know now from the Twitter files how random, arbitrary and totally ineffective it was as we all found other ways to communicate. High profile figures like MTG and Trump got 'banned' and it was a badge of honour. Proof that they were revealing the truth the establishment wanted hidden! It was so performative. Now Trump/Musk have been elected partly on an anti-cenorship ticket.... which they're using to ban pro-Palestinian speech!!
These people ain't immature Cat, they're very, very clever.
That’s so awesome and it’s so true! #MTG need to get some mental help and get out of our House of Representatives right now!
Does this mean I have to treat Rep. Greene's utterances with the same respect I give Dr. Malone?
I'd say it only requires you to recognize their right to make them.
I posted a comment about the SCAMDEMIC on your medium page...and you BANNED me...pot meet kettle
I don't block people for posting about "the scamdemic", but I do sometimes block them for being obnoxious assholes who I don't want in my life. Only by the most idiotic of mental contortions does someone blocking you on their personal blog look similar to government-tied oligarchic megacorporations controlling worldwide human communication.
but I wasnt being an obnoxious asshole...you CENSORED me for saying SCAMDEMIC...which it is...you are being a HYPOCRITE...Eva Bartlett AGREES
Doubt it was banned by Caitlin . https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/01/03/mercola-censored-library.aspx