Jordan Peterson and Glenn Greenwald Discuss Censorship and Meaning

a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3h7pmhyIwg">

I've listened to this podcast several times. It's long, but it is extremely thoughtful, engaging, disturbing, but also hopeful and celebratory of the human spirit. It involves Jordan Peterson and Glenn Greenwald. These are two of my most cherished thinkers. I am inspired and provoked by many of the topics that they explore here. Topics include censorship, propaganda, the history of these things in the United States. Also, the relationship between religion and politics, and what goes wrong when religion is absorbed into politics. And there's even some meaning of life moments. I took the time to transcribe a large chunk of this discussion, and I am sharing it with the hope that those of you who listen to it or read it will also find it worthwhile.

I asked Grok to crank out a basic table of contents to this interview:

Min 21:30

1. Censorship of RFK Jr. by Google and the tactic of starting with hated figures like Alex Jones

2. Expansion of censorship to mainstream voices, including Devin Nunes and Rand Paul

3. Reasons for increasing censorship: Generational shifts in values among Millennials and Gen Z, and the impact of Trump's election

4. Depiction of Trump as an existential evil justifying extreme measures, including the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and Sam Harris's views

5. Connection to post-9/11 clampdown on civil liberties, transformation of airports into authoritarian spaces

Min 27:35

6. Reflections on 9/11 trauma, the war on terror, and how airport security conditioned obedience to authority

7. Threats to liberty from fear rather than greed; free speech as equivalent to free thought and essential for adaptation

8. George Orwell on tyranny through mind control; the internet's shift from liberation to control, Snowden revelations

9. Biblical phrase "render unto Caesar"; collapse of religious domain into politics leading to unsophisticated good vs. evil wars

10. Personal background on religion; hubris in censorship; human need for spirituality, politics as a substitute for religion

11. Discussions with Douglas Murray on humanism needing a religious framework; Carl Jung on rationality bounded by the dream

12. Grappling with ethics and morality without religion; necessity of spirituality to avoid nihilism

13. Response to materialist atheists; human relationship with the larger whole; introduction to the story of Abraham

These excerpts start at Minute 21:30 of the above video. Glenn Greenwald 20% of Democratic Party voters say they intend to vote for RFK, Jr. for president. And the most powerful corporations, or one of the richest and most powerful corporations ever to exist, Google sweeps in and says, This is something that you are not permitted to be heard. Glenn Greenwald And what happened was, what always is the tactic of sensors is they always pick a test case in the beginning that they believe is someone who is sufficiently hated or disliked so that everybody will acquiesce to the precedent, simply because their emotions for that person are so high. So the first person to really be deplatformed in this collusive effort by Silicon Valley was Alex Jones. And Peter Thiel was on the board of Facebook at the time. Mark Andreessen in Silicon Valley, and a few other people stood up at the time and said, no matter how much you hate Alex Jones, this precedent is going to work its way slowly, or maybe not even so slowly, to expand into the kinds of voices that you probably think shouldn't be censored. And by the point that you cheer the precedent in the first instance, because you allow your emotional dislike for this person to outweigh your rational capacities, it will be too late the precedent is already implemented, and then you're left to just bicker about its application, rather than the principle itself. Glenn Greenwald And that's precisely what has happened. They began quickly censoring mainstream conservative voices. Devin Nunes went to rumble in part to escape from Google censorship, and then a huge stream of people did as well. One of the most shocking things that happened along those lines, Rand Paul questioned a couple of epidemiologists, scientists who were testifying before the US Senate about the possible efficacy of ivermectin and other alternative medication for covid. It was a Senate hearing, a hearing in the United States Senate. Rand Paul put it on his YouTube channel as a excerpt of this hearing, and Google decided that was something that ought not to be heard as well.

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Minority Can Rule: 3.5% of People is Sometimes Enough to Evoke Widespread Change

Can a tiny sliver of people change society.  Yes. 3.5% is often enough.  That's one person out of 30. It's happened often, even if the 3.5% are non-violent, as long as they are a cohesive and disciplined vocal minority:

Why cling to the myth that real change needs majorities—when data spanning a century proves a committed, nonviolent 3.5% has never failed? Erica Chenoweth’s research: Hundreds of movements analyzed. Once sustained participation hits 3.5%—strategic, disciplined, peaceful—success is guaranteed. No exceptions. The Civil Rights Movement nailed it: The 1963 March drew ~250,000 (<0.2% of Americans), but the real power was the unseen network—carpools, sit-ins, daily courage—that turned moral force into unstoppable momentum. Margaret Mead was right: Only small, thoughtful groups ever change the world. Now it’s proven. Key insight: This works beyond activism—in business, innovation, personal growth. Stop chasing consensus. Build your aligned 3.5%. Which movement (or moment in your life) shows this rule in action? What could you shift by focusing on that core minority?

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John Brennan Flips and Flops on the Hot Seat

This is what happens when someone (I wish I knew who, because he DOES deserve a medal) puts a powerful corrupt deep state partisan on the spot in front of a live audience (with the cameras recording this for potential future criminal prosecution). Notice that John Brennan's go-to response is not to answer the spot-on question, but rather to quickly try to figure out how to smear the questioner.

On FB, I added this: "Those of you who inhabit only the corporate news ecosystem won't have any fucking idea why this video is critically important."

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Short History of Leftist Violence

To all you leftists protesters and the No Kings attendees, this is what the left doesn’t want you to hear. Watch this, this has been true throughout history and you are being used. Their cause isn’t your cause, think for yourself and you will see you are on the wrong side of this matter, it’s not too late for you.

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Barack Obama Selectively Grapples with Authoritarianism

I voted for Obama twice. I knew he wasn't perfect when I voted, but now his gloss has almost completely dulled for me. Why? Yes, for the reasons mentioned by Jimmy Dore. But especially because Obama has now been exposed as one of the main architects of Russiagate. And not in an incidental way. Obama's involvement with that vast conspiracy and the years' long coverup was intentional and premeditated (see here and here and here). And worst of all, Obama's ruse disenfranchised half of U.S. voters.

Jimmy Dore:

Obama prosecuted more journalists using the Espionage Act than all presidents before him combined.

He arrested, jailed & tortured Chelsea Manning for revealing war crimes committed in our name.

He repealed the Smith-Mundt act which now allows the CIA/FBI to directly propagandize American citizens & infiltrate unions/ NGO’s/school boards/ & organizations of all kinds.

He deported 3 million Hispanics & built the cages Democrats protested against under Trump.

Obama took us from 2 wars to 7 wars while ramping up the drone bombings killing innocent people left & right.

He effectively repealed Habeas Corpus & gave the government the authority to jail people indefinitely without a trial.

Obama is a Myth pushed by the establishment & their bought media to make you think there was someone fighting for you while he was serving Banks, Big Pharma, the MIC & his corporate masters.

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