Self-Censorship and Love

I am not on any political team. In my view, both major political parties are thoroughly corrupt. I am guided only by curiosity. It's amazing what happens to one's judgment when one renounces membership in all political tribes and their allied news media (which function as their respective PR departments). It allows you to see things that were previously invisible. Things that constitute evidence of dishonesty and hypocrisy and these things are ubiquitous, sparing no organization and no person.

It's unpleasant to have one's eyes opened like this, but that's part of the price of having access to an unfiltered stream of information. The other part is that you get to (have to) do the work to figure out what is believable. Here's a recent example: alleged corruption of Joe Biden. Many people glue themselves to left-leaning corporate media because they prefer to hear only good things about Biden. This media filtering generates a false consensus in their minds. It causes many people to conclude that Biden walks on water. It also causes many people to conclude that Trump's misconduct somehow exonerates Biden's potential corruption. There is no consensus, however.

Check out the House Oversight Committee's investigation. Lots and lots of evidence is detailed by the committee. One wouldn't know this information if one is intentionally closing one's eyes to everything other than left-leaning corporate media. I propose this thought experiment: In the Oversight Committee report, simply substitute "Trump Family" where ever you see "Biden Family" and ask yourself whether you would be deeply concerned about corruption. When I'm trying to figure out what is going on in the world, I don't give a shit about the Bidens or the Trumps. I'm concerned only about corruption, which inevitably hurts the American People.

One other thing about Biden's conduct bothers me immensely. It's a question we need to ask. Vivek Ramaswamy recently asked it:

The fact that we're sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine without Biden even once articulating why it advances U.S. national interests reeks of corruption. It's now fair game to ask whether the geopolitical disaster known as Hunter Biden has something to do with it. The bipartisan establishment, from @GovChristie to @NRO to @MSNBC, is attacking me for even asking the question. But just think independently for a moment.

[Emphasis added]. Have we been participating in the killing of 9,000 Ukrainian civilians and injuries to another 16,000 (and numerous other casualties of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers) for the reason that Joe Biden had a felt need to demonstrate his love and support for his son Hunter Biden? And see here and here. I ask this because I have not yet heard one reason why the U.S. should have gotten involved in a territorial dispute regarding the Donbas Region. Is the sanctity of the father-son bond the reason the U.S. refused a chance to resolve this war at the outset?

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Corporate Media Marching in Lockstep to the Drumbeat of War

Caitlyn Johnson reminds us of the headlines at the beginning of the Ukraine war:

No nuance here. None of the context, which could have been reported quite succinctly, as shown by comedian Dave Smith:

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Shocking Ukraine-related incompetence and corruption by the U.S. exposed by the GrayZone

Here's the summary from the website of the GrayZone:

In the absence of official scrutiny of Washington’s spending spree on Ukraine, The Grayzone conducted an independent audit of US funding for the country. We discovered a series of wasteful, highly unusual expenditures the Biden administration has yet to explain.

Here's an excerpt:

Though many Americans likely believe that US dollars allocated for Ukraine are spent directly on supplies for the war effort, the lead author of this report, Heather Kaiser, conducted a thorough review of Washington’s budget for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal year and discovered that is far from the case.

US taxpayers may be shocked to learn that as their families grappled with fears of Social Security’s looming insolvency, the Social Security Administration in Washington sent $4.48 million to the Kiev government in 2022 and 2023 alone. In another example of bizarre spending, USAID paid off $4.5 billion worth of Ukraine’s sovereign debt through payments made to the World Bank — all while Congress went to loggerheads over America’s ballooning national debt. (Western financial interests including BlackRock Inc. are among the largest holders of Ukrainian government bonds.)

Though it is nearly impossible to calculate the total sum of US tax dollars sent to Kiev, Kaiser was able to perform an independent audit of Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine through a careful search of open source data available on the US government’s official spending tracker.

Max Blumenthal recently discussed these issues before the United Nations.

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