Got home late, and feeling a bit under the weather. Got 90% through a new post, but then the tired hit. The good news? I’m way ahead on next Friday’s post!
“Théoden King stands alone.” – Lord of the Rings
Google® is so biased they only ranked our Solar System one star.
Originally this was going to be an economic post (as is usual for Wednesday) about Crisis Capitalism and how this particular Crisis, like many others in the past will be used to concentrate wealth even more, perhaps with bikini graphs. Maybe the bikinis get smaller as the economy shrinks? At least that would bring some good out of the current crisis. Plus I’ll always be known as “the guy who made economics interesting at last.”
That post will have to wait until next Wednesday.
What hit me today was an onslaught of news. Not one story, but nearly every story I read was about deplatforming or attempting to silence alternative viewpoints to the conventional narrative as seen on TV. In rapid-fire, I saw stories about deplatforming of news and opinion outlets, deplatforming of individuals and doxing (making private personal information public of non-public figures) of pre-teens(!) for thoughtcrime.
Heck, there was even a Serbian soccer player (playing soccer for an American pro soccer team) that was fired (after he was made to apologize) for comments his wife made on social media. And his wife made those comments in Serbian. I guess that he should have done his manly best and kept her home without access to electronic media devices? Is the message that athletes should take away from this is that they should keep their women on a shorter leash?
Is this the Left telling men that they need to be more patriarchal and tell their women to be seen and not heard?
But his wife wanted to go anyway.
But the seemingly disjointed activities all had one purpose: to make you feel alone.
The biggest story is that Zero Hedge® was cut off from Google® advertising revenue. Since ZH™ is a for-profit company, this will hurt them. Why was it cut off? The story I saw indicated that it was because people commenting on the site were being less than politically correct. And, yes, Google® has the legal right to do this, unless they did it because Zero Hedge© is transgender.
No, I don’t have examples, but these are commenters, not ZH© staff. I jumped in to see the comment section on a typical post that I thought might be incendiary. Would all the comments be safe to repeat at work? No. Have I seen worse comments on Twitter®? Yeah, a lot worse. I’ve seen worse commentary on Yahoo® news stories.
Zero Hedge™ has already been banned “permanently” once by Twitter©, and then reactivated. The reason given was that Zero Hedge® had “doxed” a Chinese researcher . . . by publishing information that was already on the Wuhan Institute for Creating COVID Virology’s website. As of now? They’re unbanned. Twitter© called it “an error.”
But it’s clear that they have made someone angry.
How much will it Google’s deplatforming cost Zero Hedge©?
I have no idea.
Google® did give a four star rating to Chernobyl. They would have given it five, but the locals ran out of fingers.
I do know that The Federalist™, another website was threatened with Google® demonetization due to comments on articles like this one (LINK). The Federalist© just shut off comments entirely.
And that just might be the point.
Comments here are (generally) fairly unmoderated. I think that outside of auto-moderated comments, I’ve nuked only one or two comments out of thousands during the life of this blog. I am blessed with some of the smartest, most well read, and politest commenters on the planet. You’re also probably the most physically attractive commenters on any website in existence, and I bet you all have impeccable armpit hygiene to boot. But the comment section gives people a chance to talk to each other, bounce ideas off each other, and get to know each other. It also is a little light on a dark Internet letting you know that you’re not alone.
Even the people who don’t comment benefit from the comments section. For each person who comments, at least 100 other readers don’t comment. But they read what you say. And it’s important to them, and lets them know that they’re not alone, either.
Then there’s Laura Towler.
Laura is a British YouTuber® who is on the Right. On June 6, she sent the following Tweet® and got the reply that follows it:
“Chuffed” is slang that means “happy as a poodle with a pudding pop.”
This all went international. The idea that a company would be so “brave” as to come out in favor of a group that is only supported to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by the largest tech companies and most of the largest news companies is really risky.
To boot, Yorkshire Tea© then picked on a (nearly) unknown individual citizen. Brave, indeed – I’m sure that Laura is quite the power to be reckoned with given her 50,000 or so YouTube™ subscribers. And Yorkshire Tea® is so small, being the biggest selling tea in Great Britain (which made 5.5 billion tea bags last year).
It’s like Coca-Cola® decided to pick on some kid going to prom.
But it led me to ask this question: Did any of the companies that sponsor BLM even bother to go to the BLM website?
Outside of the cringing references to “comrades” and “collectivism” on the BLM website, they note that BLM wishes to:
- “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family” and “collectively” care for one another.
- They also want to [free themselves] “from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”
This is not the language of a civil rights program, it’s the language of a communist front masquerading as a civil rights program. And it’s not even Halloween yet, and I think that all of the cosplay conventions are on Coronahold.
What’s the best way to kill communists? Communism.
We’ve seen that at C.H.A.Z. and virtually every other protest activity that BLM is tied tightly to Antifa. Imagine that C.H.A.Z. wasn’t six blocks being held by armed Leftists, and instead was being held by a militia from the Right. I’d imagine we’d see National Guard Apache helicopters and the Seattle mayor calling for a neutron bomb strike to make the Hug Box of Seattle safe again.
I’m sure someone will bring up the Wildlife Refuge seizure by members of the Right in 2016. But 26 of the occupiers of the Wildlife Refuge were charged with felonies. Care to take bets on if the C.H.A.Z. occupiers will face any criminal charges? Any of them?
Ms. Towler was able to handle the media storm that followed, and not apologize. Heck, her Twitter® feed now cheekily shows “Disavowed by Yorkshire Tea©” as the lead line. That takes style.
But Laura knew she wasn’t alone, and has weathered international condemnation.
It doesn’t stop there.
Russians call their website censoring the Inter-nyet.
The classic (and very boring) movie Gone With The Wind, the television shows of COPS®, Live PD™, and an episode of (the very funny) Fawlty Towers that first aired on October 24, 1975 have since been either hidden or cancelled. Just like statues, these works of art define who we are as a people. And removing them makes us not more, but less.
Every person who has a statue made out of him has something in common with those works of art – they have faults, especially when viewed through the lens of the 2020s. And removing them or hiding them or tearing them down with mob violence is meant to make you feel alone.
If you’re against police corruption and militarization? You’re not alone.
If you’re against excessive use of force by police? You’re not alone.
If you’re against rioting and mob violence? You’re not alone.
If you mock companies that virtue signal popular causes while avoiding tough issues like the near slave labor they use to produce goods that they offshored from American production? You’re not alone.
If you’re against globalism and collectivism? You’re not alone.
I’m not saying that the position of the Right is always the right position. There are times the Right has been wrong. But the positions of the Right aren’t based in hate – they’re based in a love of freedom, or family, or tradition, or nation, or a healthy desire to be religious.
If those things are important to you?
You’re not alone.
And if you suffer from paranoia, you’re not alone. There’s someone behind you.
If you want this nonsense to stop so you can see economic graphs featuring bikinis?
You’re not alone.
Experiment:
What is the top link you get when you type in “what do you get when you cross a search engine with leftist politics?” into a search engine?
Answer:
Google: https://www.authoritas.com/blog/are-google-search-results-biased/ (TLDR: Google ain’t biased!)
Bing: http://www.canirank.com/blog/analysis-of-political-bias-in-internet-search-engine-results/ (TLDR: Google is biased!)
(Russian) Yandex: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-reason-for-the-decline-of-leftist-politics (TLDR: It’s all relative, even Ronald Reagan is a leftist compared to Trump!).
(Chinese) Baidu: https://www-hjenglish-com.translate.goog/c/new/1226646/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en (TLDR: 2017 Answers Released For English Level 4 Examination)
Looks to me like all three are telling the truth…except for Google.
Ahhh, Google . . . I wish that they still were using “don’t be evil” as a motto.
To be honest, John – I’m surprised that they are not. It would further drive the wedge of Pravda vs Reality into the minds of those they wish to help control and humiliate.
Maybe somebody is too busy pretending to work to receive their pretend pay…
My entire outlook changed radically when I discovered Zero Hedge years ago and I consider it my absolute number one website, er, sorry John, among my top two websites that I visit. However, I researched this ZH ad deplatforming of which you speak and all I can find is that Google did it over a year in July 2020 ago and reinstated ZH after ZH caved and removed selected user comments.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/google-reinstates-zero-hedge-ad-monetization.html
This column appears to be a rerun and its censorship message is more vial than ever. Fear not, Wilder readers, ZH is doing better today than ever. I hope.
The latest Big Tech censorship scandal:
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/09/tiktok-reportedly-censors-pro-rittenhouse-video-as-hate-speech/
Ta-da!
Yup, this is a re-run (that was the top line).
Isolating people is a oft used tactic of authoritarians. Without support, we tend to break down pretty quickly. The Viet Cong used this technique during the military action. In New Zealand, people aren’t supposed to talk to their neighbors. Or consider the J6 political prisoners in DC.
I lived in the suburbs during the first half of 2020. Even though I knew exactly what was going on, I began to feel isolated as non of our neighbors would come outside and all my normal activities were shut down. Moving to an extremely rural 15 acres in July of 2020, the isolation began to lift. We got to know our neighbors–who never wore masks–and met people in the small town nearby. When we found a mask-free church that was almost completely non-jabbed earlier this year, our resolve to stand up to tyranny was further strengthened.
Dumping Facebook, Insta and Twitter while spending more time on Gab and platforms like this further strengthen our spirits. The thing is, there are only so many tyrants, maybe a million, maybe ten thousand. But there are 330 million of us. We vastly outnumber them when we’re together. But, if they can isolate us, break us down and convince each of us we are the last holdout to the magnificent and most glorious revolution, each of us will individually bend the knee.
So they censor, de-platform, disparage, isolate and separate.They collectively attack us individually. Most clever of all, they get us to attack each other, while they are attacking us.
The good news is, it’s not working. The more they try to drive us out of “polite society,” the more we find each other on alternate platforms. Gab is growing by leaps and bounds after the latest Twitter purge. I haven’t spent this much time reading individual blogs (and the comments) since I started blogging in 2007. Freedom-minded people are fleeing the cities and moving to the country to be among like-minded and non-jabbed folks.
All of that to say, you are correct, John. We’re not alone. Don’t let them make you think you are. There are way more of us than there are of them. It’s time we start acting like it.
Yup. I just wanted to be a non-controversial philosophy blogger.
Thanks for the reminder.
You’re welcome!
The ginormous defense contractor I slave for is so timid and image-conscious that it employs a veritable battalion of diversity ‘experts’. Every public statement is so carefully measured for an appropriate level of sensitivity that they have managed thus far to escape any hint of impropriety (while creating highly effective weapons of war that can snuff an enemy combatant from halfway across the globe in his sleep).
The dance is often quite amusing. “We stand with the Black Community [note fawning Double-Capitalization] against racism”.
Only problem is, aside from some extremely high-profile, grossly overpaid affirmative action trophies preening in the front office, there literally ARE no representatives of that vaunted Black Community anywhere to be found among us tech geeks. (But we sure do stand cheek by jowl with the Yellow Community, by gum, where all the IQ is stashed.)
I used to like my job. AND my employer. There used to be an American flag prominently displayed at the entrance to the plant, and that entrance was guarded by severe, unsmiling, buzz-cutted former military types with perfectly square jaws. Last I saw before covid chased us all into hiding, the stars and stripes were conspicuously absent and there was some froot loop filing his long and lovely nails ‘manning’ the store, a shock of pink hair completing the picture of unconditional surrender.
The ginormous defense contractor I slave for is so timid and image-conscious that it employs a veritable battalion of diversity ‘experts’. Every public statement is so carefully measured for an appropriate level of sensitivity that they have managed thus far to escape any hint of impropriety (while creating highly effective weapons of war that can snuff an enemy combatant from halfway across the globe in his sleep).
The dance is often quite amusing. “We stand with the Black Community [note fawning Double-Capitalization] against racism”.
Only problem is, aside from some extremely high-profile, grossly overpaid affirmative action trophies preening in the front office, there literally ARE no representatives of that vaunted Black Community anywhere to be found among us tech geeks. (But we sure do stand cheek by jowl with the Yellow Community, by gum, where all the IQ is stashed.)
I used to like my job. AND my employer. There used to be an American flag prominently displayed at the entrance to the plant, and that entrance was guarded by severe, unsmiling, buzz-cutted former military types with perfectly square jaws. Last I saw before covid chased us all into hiding, the stars and stripes were conspicuously absent and there was some froot loop filing his long and lovely nails ‘manning’ the store, a shock of pink hair completing the picture of unconditional surrender.
Corporations are bending like they always do to political pressure . . . .
When we can, we need to rest and restore. Be with family/friends. Improve our fitness, and both eat right, and add to our already full provisions (you ARE prepping, aren’t you?). Learn some Zombie Apocalypse Skills (ZAS).
Monitor the local/regional situation. Have your bug-out bags ready and accessible at all times.
Don’t let your car’s gas tank get below 1/2 way, and keep some ready CA$H nearby. In a pinch, stash a couple of bottles of booze in your getaway vehicle – that’s an acceptable trade item, should ca$h not work. Plastic containers preferably, not glass, and small – a pint would work (can’t get ‘change’ back in a trade).
Keep your ear to the ground, and prepare to jump in time. Some of the blogs are too twitchy right now, others are absurdly complacent.
If you know some in LE or the military, let them know you’d appreciate their giving you a heads-up (and you would be happy to make sure their family is taken care of, should they not be able to, themselves). My guess is LE and military will be the first to know when it’s time. Make sure that you have a phone tree established prior to any need, and practice using it. Text, not phone, to a group. Text messages will travel when the phones are jammed.
More reasons to prep on Monday’s post . . .
If nothing else the internet has allowed political dissidents to realize just how many of us there are. No longer do we have to wonder “Am I the only one who sees this stuff and thinks this way?”. We are not alone and in fact we are pretty numerous. This realization also terrified the other side, tens of millions of us who also happen to have hundreds of millions of firearms, scares the beejeesus out of them
Yup. The Industrial-News complex used to pretend it was in the center. Now, not so much.
Saw a great quote earlier stating that the world economy is tits up and the last goldmine is the subjugation of the world’s population via the COV-LARP.
Sadly there are too many boat anchors in the era of Peak Stupidity and we will all be going down with the ship.
Because we live here that’s why and where is there to escape to anyway.
Xi Obiden is as popular as toe jam around here and the big 4×4 with the Buck Joe Fiden flags rolls around daily with pride while horn honks and head nods abound.
Saw some veterans gathered and chatting around the parking lot by the truck and found out the driver is the one who agitates the commie cretins at the local comrade’s book/music store.
One day he walked in maskless and the Karenbot behind the counter stopped him at the door with the mask uber alles horseshit, he busted out about a $1000 wad of cash and said I’ll take my business elsewhere.
That was the last time I wore the face panty and felt bad about wearing it just to buy some dollar bin stuff that could be easily found for download.
We aren’t alone but some have more to lose than others and not everyone has learned how to conquer fear been gifted with recklessness.
If only George Carlin was around now for morale boost excellence but there is the Wilder zone of magnificent meme magic to keep us going.
No masks around here, except at medical establishments. It’s nice.
I’m sure someone will bring up the [Malheur] Wildlife Refuge seizure by members of the Right in 2016. But 26 of the occupiers of the Wildlife Refuge were charged with felonies.
Why would anyone bring that Poster Child Of Idiocy up?
Except to note that the other 37 occupiers who weren’t charged were all paid federal confidential informants?
I haven’t seen anything glow so brightly with Fed Glow n*****s since last week’s fake & ghey FBI-organized “Patriot Front” rally.
It was a polo shirt and chinos convention of FBI students from Quantico, and about as subtle as dropping a house on the Wicked Witch, which is to say that even people from Kansas could see it for what it was.
It’s almost like you could make a policy position that anything so obviously pointless and stupid is fed-sponsored, purely based on the 87 examples so far.
Yeah, that one got me scratching my head . . . “they occupied what?”
John, I think one of the most important – and unanticipated – fallouts from all of this is the fact that a great many people have learned that they are not alone. Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB) would have us not believe it is so, but by pushing people away and off platforms, they have only encouraged others to find new ways to communicate and helped the rest to realize that the platforms vaunted version of “free speech and exchange of ideas” is nothing more than a carefully tended word prison.
They have helped us to realize that we do have differences – but that there are those who think like us. They have broken – I think in some cases inexorably – the complacency that bound us together.
One other thing – it’s unmasked people who said they were “on our side” who were in no way on our side.
Peak Oil is propaganda. Plate tectonics teaches that trillions of fish poop, dead fish and who knows what else descends into the deep sea trenches and gets sucked down into the earth by convection cells. You get natural gas first and oil later. Think about soil that originates from volcanic action. Very fertile.
Abiotic oil is interesting, too, but regardless, we need a constant stream . . . .