By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross-posted with Consortium News
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. Journalism that does not conform must be taken down.
This month, several of us – Scott Ritter, myself, ASB Military News, among others – were canceled from Twitter. The – unstated – reason: we were debunking the officially approved narrative of the Russia/NATO/Ukraine war.
As with all things Big Tech, that was predictable. I lasted only seven months on Twitter. And that was long enough. Contacts in California had told me I was on their radar because the account grew too fast, and had enormous reach, especially after the start of Operation Z.
I celebrated the cancelation by experiencing an aesthetic illumination in front of the Aegean Sea, at the home of Herodotus, the Father of History. Additionally, it was heart-warming to be recognized by the great George Galloway in his moving tribute to targets of the new McCarthyism.
In parallel, comic relief of the “Mars Attacks” variety was provided by expectations of free speech on Twitter being saved by the benign intervention of Elon Musk.
Techno-feudalism is one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties – published in early 2021 and reviewed here in a very thoughtful and meticulous manner.
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. In my own case regarding Twitter and Facebook – two of the guardians of the internet, alongside Google — I knew a day of reckoning was inevitable, because like other countless users I had previously been dispatched to those notorious “jails”.
On one Facebook occasion, I sent a sharp message highlighting that I was a columnist/analyst for an established Hong Kong-based media company. Some human, not an algorithm, must have read it, because the account was restored in less than 24 hours.
But then the account was simply disabled – with no warning. I requested the proverbial “review”. The response was a demand for proof of ID. Less than 24 hours later, came the verdict: “Your account has been disabled” because it had not followed those notoriously hazy “community standards.” The decision was “reviewed” and “it can’t be reversed”.
I celebrated with a Buddhist mini-requiem on Instagram.
My hit-by-a-Hellfire missile Facebook page clearly identified for the general public who I was, at the time: “Geopolitical analyst at Asia Times”. The fact of the matter is Facebook algorithms canceled a top columnist from Asia Times – with a proven record and a global profile. The algos would never have had the – digital – guts to do the same with a top columnist from The New York Times or the Financial Times.
Asia Times lawyers in Hong Kong sent a letter to Facebook management. Predictably, there was no response.
Of course becoming a target of cancel culture – twice – does not even remotely compare to the fate of Julian Assange, imprisoned for over three years in Belmarsh under the most appalling circumstances, and about to be dispatched for “judgment” in the American gulag for the crime of committing journalism. Yet the same “logic” applies: journalism that does not conform to the hegemonic narrative must be taken down.
Conform, or Else
At the time, I discussed the matter with several Western analysts. As one of them succinctly put it, “You were ridiculing the U.S. president while pointing out the positives of Russia, China and Iran. That’s a deadly combination”.
Others were simply stunned: “I wonder why you were restricted as you work for a reputable publication.” Or made the obvious connections: “Facebook is a censorship machine. I did not know that they do not give reasons for what they do but then they are part of the Deep State.”
A banking source that usually places my columns on the desks of selected Masters of the Universe put it New York-style: “You severely p****d the Atlantic Council”. No question: the specimen who oversaw the canceling of my account was a former Atlantic Council hack.
Ron Unz in California had the account of his extremely popular website Unz Review purged by Facebook on April 2020. Subsequently, readers who tried to post their articles met with an “error” message describing the content as “abusive”.
When Unz mentioned my case to renowned economist James Galbraith, “he really was quite shocked, and thought it might signal a very negative censorship trend on the Internet.”
The “censorship trend” is a fact – for quite a while now. Take this U.S. State Department 2020 report identifying “pillars of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”
State Dept. Directive
The late Pompeo-era report demonizes “fringe or conspiracy-minded” websites who happen to be extremely critical of U.S. foreign policy. They include Moscow-based Strategic Culture Foundation – where I’m a columnist – and Canada-based Global Research, which republishes most of my columns (but so does Consortium News, ZeroHedge and many other U.S. websites). I’m cited in the report by name, along with quite a few top columnists.
The report’s “research” states that Strategic Culture – which is blocked by Facebook and Twitter – is directed by the SVR, Russian foreign intel. This is ridiculous. I met the previous editors in Moscow – young, energetic, with enquiring minds. They had to quit their jobs because after the report they started to be severely threatened online.
So the directive comes straight from the State Department – and that has not changed under Biden-Harris: any analysis of U.S. foreign policy that deviates from the norm is a “conspiracy theory” – a terminology that was invented and perfected by the C.I.A.
Couple it with the partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council – which is a de facto NATO think tank – and now we have a real powerful ecosystem.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.
No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”
Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”
So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.
The resulting algorithmic stupidity, also shared by Twitter – incapable of recognizing nuance, metaphor, irony, critical thinking – is perfectly integrated into what former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern brilliantly coined as the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).
In the U.S., at least the odd expert on monopoly power identified this neo-Orwellian push as accelerating “the collapse of journalism and democracy.”
Facebook “fact-checking professional journalists” does not even qualify as pathetic. Otherwise Facebook – and not analysts like McGovern – would have debunked Russiagate. It would not routinely cancel Palestinian journalists and analysts. It would not disable the account of University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi – who was actually born in the U.S.
I received quite a few messages stating that being canceled by Facebook – and now by Twitter – is a badge of honor. Well, everything is impermanent (Buddhism) and everything flows (Daoism). So being deleted – twice – by an algorithm qualifies at best as a cosmic joke.
Pepe Escobar’s latest book is Raging Twenties. He remains un-cancelled on VK, Telegram and Instagram.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Saker Blog.
Does anybody else has issues connecting to strategic-culture.org?
I was used to get a lot of interesting view from there, but it’s been asking for a password these last days…
Same issue with strategic-culture.org in Germany.
Same in México.
O mesmo comigo no Brasil.
Exactly the same here. Also https://www.globalresearch.ca/
SCO did give a Linux error for a few hours – I thought the web service was simply down.
It is reachable. Looks like only the Admin can do something.
Same here – just a password/login request. I started using a VPN to get to sputniknews.com, but even with the VPN I can’t get any further with strategic-culture.
Use admin/admin as log in details for Strategic Culture. It appears that the site is down since their contents have not updated or changed in the last few days.
JB,
Enter regru as username and password.
Yes, this is the trick. Tor itself also has the sign-in panel, but it actually tells you about using regru to sign in.
That worked a treat. Thank you.
Looks like the Borg got it.
I asked the same question at the end of the same article by Pepe at Consortium News. Someone told me that SCF is moving to a new server and I think they said it would be accessible via Telegram, if I understood that correctly. Good luck….like Consortium News, SCF features some of the finest reporting that can be found anywhere.
You can access Strategic Culture Foundation with the browser Tor.
Their Telegram channel (t.me/strategic_culture) states ‘Due to migration to another server ⚙️, our website may be temporarily unavailable. Please, don’t worry, we continue as usual!’ 20 April 2022.
Same in US
We visit strategic-culture throughout the weeks. Thus far, we have not been asked about a password.
I tune into SCF each Monday for Alistair Crooke’s weekly essay, without problems, using Brave browser.
Checking today however I get the message “site not available”.
Who knows what’s up..I am feeling a little paranoid what with two Russian “oligarchs” and their families offed today…
Impossible to open in the UK.
O mesmo acontece aqui em Portugal.
cannot open website in Canada since April 20, 2022.
ZH is reporting 2 major fires at Russian defense sites. FSB was rounding um ISIS cells recently, too.
What is going o?
“ZH is reporting 2 major fires at Russian defense sites”
Just another of these accidents – like Moskva.
Seriously, ask the Iranians about their accidents.
Gonzo is alive
https://mobile.twitter.com/KevorkAlmassian/status/1517448955235291137?cxt=HHwWgsCy2Z7yh48qAAAA
good news
The “Father of History” is Thucidides, not Herodotus. The latter is rather mediocre, and included some inaccuracies in his work, while his whole approach was strongly criticized by Plutarcus.
Herodotus (/hɪˈrɒdətəs/ hirr-OD-ə-təs; Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos; c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey). He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to do systematic investigation of historical events. He is referred to as “The Father of History”, a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero
Bodrum is a great city to visit, by the way. Home to the tomb of king Mauso, one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world (from which we get the word “mausoleum”).
Nearby to the ruins of the city of Ephesus (a great place to visit) , and another of the 7 ancient wonders of the world, the nearby temple of Artemis (this one is skippable).
Wonderful weather, great ancient Roman ruins, and good food. And home to Herodotus.
And “everything flows” (pants rhei) is Heraclitus, not Daoism (whose treatment of politics is woefully overlooked in the West in preference for Sunzi).
* “panta rhei”. Damn autocorrect!
For those who haven’t heard yet, thankfully Gonzalo Lira has resurfaced today after being detained by the SBU on April 15th. Article on RT this morning.
“… being cancelled by… [the Hegemon’s offspring] is a badge of honour”
And so it is, wear it with pride. It is a greater honour that a Nobel prize! History will not record the non-entity Hegemon’s minions who parrot sycophantic platitudes and prostitute themselves.
Once upon a time journalism/media used to be called the “fourth estate”, the one striving to “keep the bastards honest” but now it is the Hegemon’s blowhorn bloviating the Hegemon’s farts. Like everything else in this fast- becoming Orwellian world, the concentration of power over minds and bodies in the hands of a cabalist power-hungry monopoly will reduce humanity to miserable slavery.
Our only hope is that Russia will deliver us from the fate of the scourge by striking the Hegemon’s fangs (NATO) and confine him to his lair and, eventually, reduce it to irrelevance. The first shots have now been delivered and there will be more to follow. That’s what the war is all about, not the borderlands and the sock-puppet clown.
‘Once upon a time journalism/media used to be called the “fourth estate”, the one striving to “keep the bastards honest” but now it is the Hegemon’s blowhorn bloviating the Hegemon’s farts.’ Brilliant!
I would call them, those self described Elites of corporations, political parties and media outlets, ass maggot-parrots, a impossible Hybrid of stupidity and mindless blabbering. Trying to say the same with less words than the people above their hierarchy ladder seems to be their ‘intelligent’ way to get a higher wage. In German there is a saying ‘nach oben buckeln, nach unten treten’, I think in English its either ‘above they bow, they kick below’ or ‘kiss up, kick down’, it pretty much sums up everything they (at least 90% of those ‘Elites’) are capable of.
And thats where I disagree with your brilliant analysis, we don’t need Russia. Those moronic lunatics are losing on every front, of course Russia is winning, but those buffoons are so stupid to not understand that they themselves are putting much more pain on their economies and societies, that Russia doesn’t have to do that much on that side, apart from waiting. I don’t know if Russia and China predicted all of those stupid sanctions the ‘West’ is committing itself to do, but I highly speculate they did, because thats what the West now has become, a very much predictable horde of morons.
And thats where I speculate furthermore, more of the same, with the problem, that those buffoons are not understanding what those big tech companies can and what they can’t do. I am a IT guy, you can’t block everyone on earth from going online. You can block someone on a big IT Plattform, but thats not the end of those people, other Plattforms will come, you can create another Account on Twitter or Facebook, lets say ‘Pepe Escobar is a Dissident’. Other people can criticize you for blocking Pepe Escobar, other Nations (China, Russia, Brazil) can threaten to block Twitter itself, I think Russia has done that. So the more Twitter obeys those in the US with Power, the more it will loose market share and even whole markets. And in the end, Truth prevails.
Interessante.Desde ontem não consigo abrir o site da Strategic Cultura Foundation.Fica me pedindo uma senha e log-in.
Antes não aconteceu.
It is imperative to find other way out. They identify the current phase of WWIII as a polar propaganda war, where anything not aligning with our lies is an enemy asset. But this was brewing LONG before 2022. Trump was labeled as a Russian agent in 2015. Deleting disent will result in a lesser degree of democratic aura for the empire’s media, so they will go for a combination of societal shit, sports, porn and child cartoons. There are still some information spots inside the cognitive realm of the empire the cannot totally smash, at the moment… Rumble, Odysee, Bitchute, and above all Gab. They are aggressively trying to ditch those breaks in the wall by an info campaign against so called the far right. So there will be some fake flag murders before Nov22. The point is I think is too late for them to ditch anything they havent ditched before. From what I read on the Internet, there are more and more people willing to fight against the DC mafia for real, and this will come up sooner or later.
They always start the same way. Promising freedom and truth and then they are either blackmailed, paid or have their lives threatened ,so their platforms then become part of the Establishment itself. That is why I always ride the wave. When I sense they are now coopted I dump the platform. They don’t deserve my trust or loyalty and they made enough money off me all those years anyway.
Freedom of speech in the west. RIP 2022.
A Badge of Honour indeed.
Simple, just identify as a woman.
This is the ultimate hack, brilliant!
Had Pepe done that they wouldn’t dare cancelling him, lol
“I am Pepa and I am Woke!”
Herodotus (c. 484 – 425/413 BCE) was a Greek writer who invented the field of study known today as `history’. He was called `The Father of History’ by the Roman writer and orator Cicero for his famous work The Histories but has also been called “The Father of Lies” by critics who claim these `histories’ are little more than tall tales.
While it is true that Herodotus sometimes relays inaccurate information or exaggerates for effect, his accounts have consistently been found to be more or less reliable. Early criticism of his work has been refuted by later archaeological evidence which proves that his most-often criticized claims were, in fact, accurate or, at least, based on accepted information of the time. In the present day, Herodotus continues to be recognized as The Father of History and a reliable source of information on the ancient world by the majority of historians.
We all know that Big Tech is evil. The biggest problem however are people who still use these platforms! #DeleteFacebook #DeleteTwitter #DeleteYouTube
There are alternatives! Federated and decentralized ones!
MissKey, Pleroma, Mastodon, HubZilla. Pixelfed and the big and the secure Messenger Matrix/Element.
Welcome to the company of the Great, Pepe!
The best people don’t demean themselves with Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and similar bullshit.
I have the great honour of never having had an account with any of these crap mafias.
WTF is Twitter?
The empire is desperate- beset by an ‘economy’ completely dependent on money printing, which has increased inflation and led to exploding deficits. To this we can add a repeat of the economic/military debacle in Afghanistan in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and potentially Eastern Europe. Joe Biden and ruling elite he represents view the Russia-China-Iran (India?) axis as an intolerable obstacle to US global power. Any journalist who challenges the partly line is censored, imprisoned or murdered.
I truly get where Pepe is coming from.
During the 2007-2011 period, I posted commentary to articles in my local newspaper under a pseudonym. The posts were admittedly controversial and covered issues like 9-11, bio-weapons labs, military propaganda, USA imperialism, tax subsidies for the investor class and wealthy and the like – yes – in a running commentary right in the heart of the conservative state of Kansas.
The paper would publish details of contributors and it turned out I was the 14th highest contributor of comments.
That said, one day the newspaper banned me from making further posts. They did not give a reason, just made it impossible for me to post. A month later, almost 3,000 comments to articles (many of them with links to other articles of importance) were all deleted – wiped.
Their argument for doing so? It’s a “privately held platform” and we as owners of the platform can determine what content is available to our readers. Of course, Facebook, Twitter, and Google are also “privately held platforms.” And all of these are subject to censorship. In fact, all privately held platforms are subject to this censorship.
So my advice – get used to it. Realize that what you post is a labor of love and it can disappear (just like you can be disappeared – Gonzalo Lira disappeared) in the blink of an eye. It is the new reality – call it the Winston Smith reality. In the book “1984”, Orwell gave Winston Smith the job of records editor at the Ministry of Truth. The job entailed rewriting history, revising old newspaper articles so they were in line with the Party’s current vision of the truth.
All privately held platforms have their Winston Smiths. Get used to it.
we know so much more since 9-11 than before and yet . . .
In a private e-mail to a friend, I included a short comment about the ‘war in Ukraine’. The e-mail was bounced back as undeliverable. I tried editing the presumed offending passage without success. I tried a variety of alternative providers without success. I deleted the passage and the e-mail was delivered successfully.
What was so terrible about the offending passage?
Here it is. Readers can judge for themselves.
“Of course the BIG news now is ‘the war in Ukraine’. It has removed CoVid-19 from the public consciousness, thanks to the mainstream media (MSM). All we hear about now are “the wicked Russians” and the poor, lovable, and ill-treated Ukrainians. Russia MUST be punished! They are wickedness personified! Putin is a re-incarnation of Hitler. Someone should kill him.
Sadly for the MSM and the ‘powers that be’ here in the West, some of us well remember 1998-9, Serbia (Yugoslavia, which no longer exists) and its leader, Slobodan Milosevic, a re-incarnation of Hitler. And the (false) atrocities that justified NATO bombing Serbia ‘back to the stone-age’.
This was followed by Iraq, its leader, Saddam Hussein, a re-incarnation of Hitler. He was brutally murdered by his own people after American capture. Iraq was destroyed, bombed ‘back to the stone-age’ by the justice-loving Western powers. Madeleine Albright, USA Secretary of State, readily confirmed that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children (because of sanctions: 1991-2000) was a price worth paying. They suffer still (genetic defects of depleted uranium), as do the children of Vietnam (after effects of the defoliant Agent Orange).
Then came Libya and its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, a re-incarnation of Hitler who, allegedly, fed his troops viagra so they could rape more women. He met with a horrible death that brought much amusement to the USA Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton), who apparently enjoyed it. Libya has been in violent chaos ever since.
In the meantime we had another Hitler re-incarnation in the form of Iran’s then leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. He lost power to a pro-Western moderate and thus survived. But Iran continues to suffer American sanctions.
However, Bashar al-Assad, appeared on the scene as a new re-incarnation of Hitler, who, allegedly, gassed his own people. He also survived, thanks to Russian help, but saw his country destroyed, bombed ‘back to the stone-age’ by fearless Americans, aided by NATO. Syria now suffers severe poverty while the USA (mis)appropriates Syria’s oil. But, internationally, nothing is said about this. The world ignores and remains silent.
Last December, Russia asked NATO and the USA, collectively and separately, to re-consider the security system of Europe, given that Russia now felt threatened by NATO nuclear weapons around its borders, 5 minutes flying time from its major cities. NATO leaders laughed, and ignored, Russia’s pleas to be heard. They ignored what was happening in Ukraine’s Donbass area, the home of many ethnic Russians, that suffered daily attacks and 14,000 deaths since the coup-d’etat of 2014. A military campaign has ensued. The West backs Ukraine and coerces all other countries to join in their boycott of Russia. Russia must be isolated, and ostracised. We are deafened by cries about the wickedness of Russia, and Russians, and its heinous attack on innocent Ukraine. The West cannot stand idly by, while Ukraine suffers. We must act.
The world now faces an existential battle between two nuclear giants: the USA and Russia.
If the USA wins, Russia will be broken into many smaller parts and its wealth (mis)appropriated by the West. If Russia wins, USA hegemony comes to an end and the dollar loses its potency (bits of printed paper exchanged for real wealth of all other countries). Little wonder that the USA is exceptional and will fight to the death to retain its privilege.
We live collectively on the cusp of oblivion. Who can say how it will end?
Easter is the time of hope. It has been so for many thousands of years in the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, long before Christianity came into being. It is the time of new life, of new growth, after the winter sleep. Seeds germinate. Plants break into new growth. Animals give birth to young. Hibernation finishes. Spring is young and fair. Hope is everywhere. Spring cleaning. New clothes. Rejoicing. New life. New beginning.”
Freedom and democracy? Rather, order and control, fascist style.
If Deep State can make and sustain Biden as a president of the Empire, they can also build from the ground up Google, Facebook YouTube Twitter, etc and pretend those pretty faces the like of Zuckenber are actually incharged when in realities they are just the face of the power that be.
Pepe Escobar can also be found here:
https://vk.com/id578617852
great thanks!
I miss Pepe on twitter I don’t want to sign up with Telegram as they ask for your phone number. (Even just for reading.) VK is an interesting alternative…
This from Strageic Culture’s VK page:
Strategic Culture Foundation
Strategic Culture Foundation pinned post
20 Apr at 3:31 pm
Dear followers,
Due to migration to another server, our website may be temporarily unavailable. Please, don’t worry, we continue as usual!
Sincerely,
SCF Team
Hello folks. The white Western judeo-christian mass media- the religious as well as the so-called secular- cannot be trusted. It is contaminated.
When I stopped being a consumer of the Western media in 1993 I was afraid to talk about it openly. Now all you good folks are familiar with what I am talking about😄
Pepe, here’s a funny story…
About five years ago I sent in via my Facebook account a vituperative comment on an article in Asia Times written by a former US bomber pilot, who was waxing nostalgic about a narrow escape he had returning from a sortie over Korea.
A few days later my Facebook account was deleted, and whenever I would try to access Asia Times I would get a security warning on my browser. This continued until recently, when I replaced my aging laptop. Not that I have anything against AT, since I discovered both yourself and MK Bhadrakumar on the site. (He too I believe is having trouble with the cancel culturalistas)
Maybe one can take comfort in the Bob Dylan lyric…”I would not feel so all alone, evrybody must get stoned”
I just had to laugh when BD was inducted to the Nobel Prize hall of fame, for I remember him being refused an entry visa to the UK during the Vietnam bs.
And by that token, maybe, just maybe, honest journalism will one day come to be valued.
Pepe says he lasted 7 months on the twit platform, they booted me within the week. Got some catching up to do bro. Beat that.
I didn’t swear, or signal vulgar things or anything un-toward to others etc.
The only thing I did was reveal JFK ‘s shooter in a meme. Sorry about that. It was the guy (the Governer) in the direct front seat of JFK. The film shows it quite evidently, under the shoulder shot.
Anyway, thanks Pepe for your quality journalism.
I’m waiting to see how much ‘free speech’ Musk allows on Twitter.
For example, when Musk was involved with overthrowing the government of Bolivia in his ‘Lithium Coup’, would he have allowed critics of that move a free speech voice on Musk-Twit? Would he allow pro-democracy movements within Bolivia to organize to resist Musk’s Lithium Coup on Musk-Twit? Would he allow people organizing against his companies, a labor union organizing a Tesla factory for example, a full right of free speech on Musk-Twit? If you have noise complaints about an oligarch launching rockets, will you have free speech on Musk-Twit?
My guess is that free speech on Musk-Twit will end when Musk feels threatened. If Musk knows he can stomp his workers into the the dust and that their silly union efforts don’t matter, then he’ll allow them ‘free-speech’. But if the union becomes troublesome, and starts to impact his profits, then that will be the end of their free-speech and they’ll be found to have violated some policy that says basically ‘thou shalt not cost the oligarch who owns us money.’
In other words, free speech on Musk-Twit will be the same as free speech in the rest of America …. as long as you are too powerless to challenge the oligarchs, you can speak. If you become a threat and challenge them in order to get a better life for ordinary people, you will then be de-platformed. De-platformed like the entire population to the left of that center-rightist Bernie Sanders. (a pro-empire, pro-Israel, pro-military, pro-war, capitalist whose big issue is that the country should catch up to what the rest of the ‘international community’ did with health care decades ago. Saying ‘lets do what others did last century’ is not a radical position.)
Mark Zuckerberg, in an interview with CNN, mid-2017, spoke about the new algorithms to facilitate exclusion of contrary speech. You had to read between the lines.
Account disabled, Pepe? Those algos, before they were toned down, disabled my laptop. Permanently.
What was the line i crossed? Posting a meme; #repealAUMF
So this tells me that Matt Taibbi and Greenwald are not to be trusted, they are “independent” pied pipers of the same system that has cancelled so many others. I suspect both Taibbi and Greenwald are US intelligence assets, recruited post-Snowden–their significant security agency remunerations laundered through Substack. One assumes they were recruited by Peter Thiel during Trump’s presidency, hence the obviously pretexted break with The Intercept and “coming out” as something approaching libertarian pro-Trumpism on Greenwald’s part, coupled with his tendentious attacks on US “leftists”, when an intellectually honest approach would have described these so-called leftists as bourgeois neoliberals. In other words, the neoliberal wing of plutocratic US imperialism.
You are, continue to be and will always be among the best, Pepe Escobar. Your being cancelled together with so many exceptional human beings only confirms it; being cancelled by those who now dare do so is indeed an honour. Hence this glorious moment for every one of you to enjoy. Time for Buddhist wuwei and a delightful taoist smile!
In these circumstances, I was deeply moved by your reference to Julian Assange.
Regards always,
LR
“Conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else.” If that is their goal, then it is truly a vain one. The “hegemon narrative”, and for that matter all “narrative,” past, present and future, has been or will be permanently cracked by the web and will be subject to this subversive dynamic at all times in varying degrees. Thus all the kings men won’t ever be able to put the “Hegemon narrative” back together again… because the only way to do this is to turn off the internet. What are the chances of that?
I too got cancelled on twatter for saying Bucha was a false flag. Super proud to be in a club with Escobar, Ritter, Berletic & so many others. Waiting for my decoder ring to arrive in the post!
I know perfectly well who Herodotus is. I’m greek, I can read him -and others- in originals, and have done so. Along with Plutarchus’ criticism, that should also be read. And understood.
Thucidides is the real father of history, widely acknowledged up to our times, and it is him who established the very standards for writing historical works, that were followed for many centuries afterwards (e.g. Flavius Josephus wrote his remarkable works on the Roman-Judean wars in the same manner).
Cicero was merely an orator (orators is how lawyers were called back then).
I am an ordinary Citizen in Brazil. And I was canceled by Twitter ( a Brazilian jornalist cancelled me eventhough I was not even his follower) and censored by Facebook uncountable times. I am a ” right wing” but as many ” right wings” in Brazil, with a clear view that “The Empire” is in clear decline. And THIS is a remarkable ” big- techs crime”. You are a famous jornalist but I am a ” nobody”. The censorship is unspeakable.
Google has blocked Strategic Culture!! Luckily I have a MAC and can still read Finnian Cunningham’s post using Safari