About Those who Seek to Censor Us

For several years, it has been made clear (by the Twitter Files and through the works of Mike Benz, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and other courageous journalists) that America's censors are well-to-do people with degrees from fancy colleges who hide within enormous federally funded bureaucracies. Now consider these words of Matt Taibbi:

So let me pause to say something about America's current intellectual class from which the anti-disinformation complex works. By the way, there are no working class censors. The dirty secret of content moderation all over the world is that it's a tiny sliver of educated rich correcting everybody else. It's telling people what fork to use, but you can get a degree in it, basically.

The problem is America has the most useless aristocrats in history. Even the French dandies who were marched to the razor by the Jacobins were towering specimens of humanity compared to the Michael Hadens, John Brennan's, James Clapper's, Mike McFall's, and Rick Stengel's who make up America's self-appointed speech police. In pre-revolutionary France, even the most drunken, depraved, debauched libertine had to be prepared to back up an insolent act with a sword fight to the death.

Our aristocrats pee themselves at a mean tweet. These people have no honor, no belief, no poetry, no art, no humor, no patriotism, which is unique to them, no loyalty, no dreams, and no accomplishments. They are simultaneously illiterate and pretentious, which is very hard to pull off. They may have one idea, and it's not even an idea, but a sensation. Fear. Rightly so, because they snitch each other out at the drop of a hat. They're afraid of each other. But they're also terrified of everyone outside their social set, and they live in near constant dread of being caught with even one original opinion.

I just finished posting the following on FB, where I often piss off the sheep and where many well-meaning people are afraid to say what they think:

BTW, you'll rarely hear about these words of Matt Taibbi of the works of other amazing independent journalists from corporate media. They have by and large decided that their job is not to provide you with facts so you can make up your own mind on issues. Instead, they serve their corporate masters by telling you what to think. They feel that it's their job to fool you by hiding relevant facts from you and by making shit up on a grand scale in fairly lockstep coordination with other corporate outlets. I know this is hard to hear for many of you. I know that you might prefer to remain in blissful ignorance rather than do the hard work of growing a spine and telling these propagandists and censors to fuck off because they are Anti-American.

For more on how censors think, consider the words of Robert Corn-Revere, author of The Mind of the Censor:

The message of the censor is clear and unmistakable: I (or we) know the truth, and must control the ideas or influences to which you may become exposed to protect you from falling into error (or sin). Truth may be revealed by whispers from god, by political theory, by popular vote, or by social science, but once it has been determined, the time for debate is over. Anthony Comstock did not invent censorship, but his DNA may be found in the genetic code of every would-be censor who walks the earth. As Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy put it: “Self-assurance has always been the hallmark of a censor.” In this respect, he echoed Mencken’s assessment of vice crusaders that “[their] very cocksureness is their chief source of strength.”” . . .

There appears to be a psychological dimension to the censor’s dilemma as well. What can one say about the type of person who devotes his or her life to denouncing certain types of expression and advocating its prohibition while choosing a profession in which he immerses himself in it? Purity crusaders claim to hate the stuff they want to suppress and argue that it will ruin all who are exposed, but invariably they can’t get enough of it. They search it out, collect it, study it, categorize it, archive it, talk about it, and display it to others, all for the ostensible purpose of making such expression cease to exist. . .

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America’s Meta-Problem

Michael Shellenberger accurately sums up America's biggest challenge, the problem that underlies and exacerbates most of our other problems:

There is an epidemic of white police officers killing unarmed black men, we must block the puberty of children born in the wrong bodies to prevent them from killing themselves, the Russians control Trump through a sex blackmail operation, the Covid vaccine prevents infection, millions or billions will die from starvation and harsh weather from climate change, there's no way a Covid virus could have escaped from a lab, mass migration improves societies with no trade-offs, it's best for addicts if we give them hard drugs to use in special sites downtown, we need the government to fight misinformation online in order to save democracy, Biden is sharper than ever, Kamala is 100% prepared to be president, and anyone who disagrees is racist, sexist, and/or fascist.

While many Americans are increasingly and at least partially aware that all of the above are lies, we are still a long way from coming to grips with their enormity, their monstrous consequences, and the totalitarian ways in which the mainstream news media, many employers, and governments demanded that we believe them. Current and former heads of state, our most-trusted journalists, and full professors at Ivy League universities created and propagated those Big Lies, repeatedly, for years, even after they had been thoroughly debunked, sometimes within days or hours of them being made, by people who ruling elites then sought to bankrupt, shame, and ostracize.

There has not yet been a proper accounting of the very many abuses of power, including the Big Lies, by elected officials, the media, and other governing elites during the Woke Reign of Terror (2013 - 2024). That accounting will need not only to thoroughly debunk all of the major lies, it will also need to explore why elites created and perpetuated them, why so many people believed them, why they lasted for so long, and what can be learned from them, both separately and how they worked together as a whole, constituting the worldview of the people who run Western societies and nations. Historians, sociologists, psychologists and many others will, for centuries, study the Work Reign of Terror as a uniquely irrational and self-destructive period in America's history. Hopefully something good, including wisdom, courage, and improved self-governance, will come out of those studies and reflections.

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Corporate Media Outlets Ignore New Study Questioning Effectiveness of DEI

Study concluding that DEI is ineffective, and perhaps counterproductive, ignored by "news" media because it runs against the prevailing narrative. This excerpt is from Colin Wright's article: "Why Was This Groundbreaking Study on DEI Silenced? Two leading media organizations abruptly shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that went against their narrative":

In a stunning series of events, two leading media organizations—The New York Times and Bloomberg—abruptly shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) pedagogy. The study, conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in collaboration with Rutgers University, found that certain DEI practices could induce hostility, increase authoritarian tendencies, and foster agreement with extreme rhetoric. With billions of dollars invested annually in these initiatives, the public has a right to know if such programs—heralded as effective moral solutions to bigotry and hate—might instead be fueling the very problems they claim to solve. The decision to withhold coverage raises serious questions about transparency, editorial independence, and the growing influence of ideological biases in the media.

The NCRI study investigated the psychological effects of DEI pedagogy, specifically training programs that draw heavily from texts like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. The findings were unsettling, though perhaps not surprising to longstanding opponents of such programs. Through carefully controlled experiments, the researchers demonstrated that exposure to anti-oppressive (i.e., anti-racist) rhetoric—common in many DEI initiatives—consistently amplified perceptions of bias where none existed. Participants were more likely to see prejudice in neutral scenarios and to support punitive actions against imagined offenders. These effects were not marginal; hostility and punitive tendencies increased by double-digit percentages across multiple measures. Perhaps most troubling, the study revealed a chilling convergence with authoritarian attitudes, suggesting that such training is fostering not empathy, but coercion and control.

The implications of these findings cannot be downplayed. DEI programs have become a fixture in workplaces, schools, and universities across the United States, with a 2023 Pew Research Center report indicating that more than half of U.S. workers have attended some form of DEI training. Institutions collectively spend approximately $8 billion annually on these initiatives, yet the NCRI study underscores how little scrutiny they receive. While proponents of DEI argue that these programs are essential to achieving equity and dismantling systemic oppression, the NCRI’s data suggests that such efforts may actually be deepening divisions and cultivating hostility.

Wrighty's article includes details of the study, showing strongly that exposure to DEI causes people to be more divisive. In short, DIE does the opposite of what it pretends to do. Yet, major news outlets that have often reported on work by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) refuse to report on this particular study, despite the widespread implementation of DEI and the potential widespread harm caused gy these programs.

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