{"id":191,"date":"2024-10-06T01:33:49","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T01:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/?p=191"},"modified":"2024-10-06T02:02:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-06T02:02:29","slug":"what-kind-of-nation-are-we-becoming-by-mark-arnold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/06\/what-kind-of-nation-are-we-becoming-by-mark-arnold\/","title":{"rendered":"What Kind of Nation Are We Becoming?\u2014by Mark Arnold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cConstant and continual alertness is the price of freedom. Constant willingness to fight back is the price of freedom. <\/em><\/p>\n

There is no other price, actually.\u201d [1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

L. Ron Hubbard<\/em><\/p>\n

Based on what we have witnessed over the last few years our nation has arrived at a perilous pass. During the pandemic it became obvious that any voice in our country opposed to the shutdowns, challenging the vaccines or their mandates, or even entertaining the very obvious possibility that the Covid-19 virus was the result of \u201cgain-of-function\u201d research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, faced the likely backlash of being attacked and discredited in the media and\/or partially or completely censored in their social media accounts. The recent testimony before Congress by award winning investigative journalists Matt Taibbi<\/em>[2]<\/a> and Michael Shellenberger<\/em>[3]<\/a> confirms this. Both men were key investigators of the \u201cTwitter Files\u201d [4]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> and both revealed in their testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government<\/em>[5]<\/a> that US government agencies were involved in instigating or coercing the social media censorship of individuals and information they deemed as dangerous or misleading. The following is quoted directly from Taibbi\u2019s opening statement to the Select Subcommittee:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi testifying before Congress<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere\u2026 What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cWe learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation \u2018requests\u2019 from every corner of government: the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State[6]<\/strong><\/a>, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi-private entities doing the same, including Stanford\u2019s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index,[7]<\/strong><\/a> and others, many taxpayer-funded. A focus of this growing network is making lists of people whose opinions, beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed to be misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation. The latter term is just a euphemism for \u2018true but inconvenient.\u2019 Plain and simple, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism.[8]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOrdinary Americans are not just being reported to Twitter for \u2018deamplification\u2019 or de-platforming, but to firms like PayPal, digital advertisers like Xandr, and crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe. These companies can and do refuse service to law-abiding people and businesses whose only crime is falling afoul of a faceless, unaccountable, algorithmic judge.\u00a0 As someone who grew up a traditional ACLU liberal, this sinister mechanism for punishment without due process is horrifying.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnother troubling aspect is the role of the press, which should be the people\u2019s last line of defense in such cases. But instead of investigating these groups, journalists partnered with them. If Twitter declined to remove an account right away, government agencies and NGOs would call reporters for the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets, who in turn would call Twitter demanding to know why action had not been taken. Wittingly or not, news media became an arm of a state-sponsored thought-policing system.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The situation just described by Matt Taibbi in his statement to the Subcommittee should be of concern to every American, and both prompts AND answers the question: what kind of country are we becoming?<\/p>\n

That answer seems to be that we are dwindling into a form of totalitarianism, in which the government\u2014the executive branch and FBI\/ justice department, the military, intelligence agencies like CIA and NSA, as well as the NIH, FDA and CDC\u2014the media and tech corporations, military contractors and pharmaceutical companies, all operate as an unholy alliance, intent on replacing our constitutional republic with some type of fascist oligarchy. Ironically, they are doing this even as they say that the actions they take are being done to \u201cpreserve our democracy\u201d, which is an obvious lie. If we allow things to continue like this, the reality is that we will face a near future devoid of the rights and freedoms that have been our birthright in this country for the last 250 years. During the recent pandemic we\u2019ve already seen how quickly this can happen; how quickly many of us will surrender those rights on the promise of a small bit of fancied security, which was also a lie.<\/p>\n

At the outset of this article I led with a famous quote from L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics and Scientology:<\/p>\n

\u201cConstant and continual alertness is the price of freedom. Constant willingness to fight back is the price of freedom.There is no other price, actually.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

From here on out it will take a lot of us paying that price if we are to have a chance in hell of halting our nation\u2019s downward slide.<\/p>\n

Copyright\u00a92024<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mark Arnold<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Quoted from the lecture \u201cThe Genus of Dianetics and Scientology\u201d, <\/strong>delivered on 31 December, 1960 by L. Ron Hubbard, Anatomy of the Human Mind Congress.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Matthew Colin Taibbi<\/em><\/strong> (born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. A former contributing editor for\u00a0Rolling Stone, he is the author of several books, former co-host of the\u00a0Useful Idiots\u00a0podcast, and publisher of the\u00a0Racket News\u00a0(formerly\u00a0TK News) on\u00a0<\/em>Substack.<\/em><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Michael D. Shellenberger<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(born June 16, 1971) is a professor, author, and journalist who writes on a wide range of topics including free speech, homelessness, and the environment.\u00a0He is a co-founder of the\u00a0<\/em>Breakthrough Institute\u00a0and the California Peace Coalition.\u00a0Shellenberger founded the pro-nuclear non-profit\u00a0Environmental Progress\u00a0in 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> After SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk<\/strong> became owner and CEO of Twitter <\/strong>in October of 2022, he worked with independent journalists to share internal documents about the company\u2019s content moderation policies and procedures under its prior ownership. These stories have become known as the Twitter Files<\/strong>.<\/em> The files<\/em> show the social<\/em> media company had been intertwined with a government\u2013private censorship apparatus. Twitter suppressed or removed content on various subjects, including irregularities in the 2020 elections, mail-in voting issues, and various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was under government pressure to purge such content and its purveyors from the platform, though most of the time it was cooperating with the censorship requests willingly, the documents indicate.<\/em><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> The\u00a0United States House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0<\/em>select\u00a0subcommittee\u00a0of the\u00a0House Judiciary Committee\u00a0created by the\u00a0House\u00a0on January 10, 2023. Established to investigate alleged abuses of federal authority, including collusion between federal agencies and private sector entities to suppress conservative viewpoints, the committee has broad authority to subpoena law enforcement and national security agencies, including concerning ongoing criminal investigations.<\/em><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> The\u00a0Global Engagement Center<\/strong>\u00a0(GEC<\/strong>) is an agency within the\u00a0<\/em>Bureau of Global Affairs\u00a0at the\u00a0United States Dept. of State. Established in 2016, its mission is to lead U.S. government efforts to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations” around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Global Disinformation Index<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(GDI<\/strong>) is a\u00a0not-for-profit organization based in the\u00a0United Kingdom\u00a0that aims to purportedly mitigate the spread of\u00a0disinformation\u00a0on the internet.\u00a0The group utilizes a system of ratings of news sources and websites to determine risk of disinformation.\u00a0The group’s efforts also include investigations into internet advertising,\u00a0and the alleged use of disinformation in relation to\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0featured on various websites. The group has faced scrutiny over apparent political bias, and has been categorized as a\u00a0political left\u00a0think tank.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> McCarthyism<\/em><\/strong>, also known as the\u00a0Second Red Scare<\/strong>, was the\u00a0political repression\u00a0and persecution of\u00a0left-wing\u00a0individuals and a\u00a0campaign spreading fear\u00a0of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of\u00a0Soviet espionage in the United States\u00a0during the late 1940s through the 1950s.\u00a0After the mid-1950s, U.S. Senator\u00a0Joseph McCarthy<\/strong>, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cConstant and continual alertness is the price of freedom. Constant willingness to fight back is the price of freedom. There is no other price, actually.\u201d [1] L. Ron Hubbard Based on what we have witnessed over the last few years our nation has arrived at a perilous pass. During the pandemic it became obvious that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,14,12],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-page-blog","tag-censorship","tag-first-amendment","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/counteringculturaldestruction.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}