“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Those blue and gold flags used to be all over social media, on front porches and on car bumpers. Where did they go? It demonstrates the shallowness of our reasons and the strength of our tribalism.
Next time we are thinking about going to war, we should keep in mind the U.S. track record for "success" through war:
The near hysterical calls to support Ukraine as a bulwark of liberty and democracy by the mandarins in Washington are a response to the palpable rot and decline of the U.S. empire. America’s global authority has been decimated by well-publicized war crimes, torture, economic decline, social disintegration — including the assault on the capital on January 6, the botched response to the pandemic, declining life expectancies and the plague of mass shootings — and a series of military debacles from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars and military interventions carried out by the United States around the globe since the end of World War II have never resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. Instead, these interventions have led to over 20 million killed and spawned a global revulsion for U.S. imperialism.
Also from Chris Hedges: The biggest problem with war it that it generates an illusion that war provides its own meaning:
The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war’s appeal.Many of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness and divisiveness.
It is part of war’s perversity that we lionize those who make great warriors and excuse their excesses in the name of self-defense
As war gives meaning to sterile lives, it also promotes killers and racists.
The Washington Post is still working as a stenographer for the CIA on this Nord Stream Pipeline fable. The bullshit runs extremely deep on here. How can the WaPo fail to prominently state in this story that Joe Biden stated on camera: "There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2." A few seconds later he said: "I promise you we'll be able to do it." Somehow Biden's promise was not mentioned in this WaPo Story. This is a major display of corruption above and beyond the two incidents mentioned by Aaron Mate. The WaPo has ZERO credibility. Truly. And they still can't bear to mention the reporting of Seymour Hersh?
Geoffrey Miller and Diane Fleischman have discovered the transformative miracle that parenting is. Before I became a parent, I didn't understand that having daughters was going to change me so dramatically and so positively. Parenting was equal amounts of hard work and joy. Among the many other benefits, it was my chance to be a kid again. We all grew up together. And now that my daughters are young women, I continue to appreciate being a father more and more each day.
I'm catching up with an important court decision from September that I've been meaning to post. Here's the key quote from Missouri versus Biden, decided by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals September 8, 2023:
[T]he Supreme Court has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life. Therefore, the district court was correct in its assessment—“unrelenting pressure” from certain government officials likely “had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” We see no error or abuse of discretion in that finding.Page 61 of the Opinion
This case, will be heard by the United States Supreme Court, where it has been renamed Murthy v. Missouri (Cause No. 23A243 (23-411).
Glenn Greenwald discussed the decision of the Fifth Circuit. Here's an excerpt from his video transcript at Locals:
Tonight: One of the most significant First Amendment victories in years. In July, we reported (you can read or watch it here! https://rumble.com/v2ybni6-system-update-show-110.html) on an extraordinary ruling from a federal district court in Louisiana which ruled that the Biden administration and several key components of it, including the White House, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Center for Disease Control, had engaged in a massive and grave violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech by threatening and coercing Big Tech platforms to censor the speech of American citizens those government agencies and officials disliked. The district court enjoined – barred – all officials in those agencies from communicating threats or coercion of any further kind to tech platforms with the intent to have speech censored. The case is brought by several American citizens who had their speech prohibited or their accounts banned by Big Tech at the behest of their own government. Among them was Stanford School of Medicine, Doctor J. Jay Bhattacharya, who dissented from several of the most important COVID pronouncements of the health policy establishment and for that reason alone was barred by his own government from being heard on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere.
The Biden DOJ, which has made clear that, like Democrats generally, they regard their ability to have the Internet censored as a top priority, immediately announced they would appeal this ruling. And they did. But on Friday, a three-judge appellate court composed of two Bush nominees and one Trump nominee upheld not all, but most of the ruling, including its most foundational parts. The appellate panel emphasized what a grave and unusually invasive free speech violation this was: “The Supreme Court has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign” of censorship code “of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials.” The result said the court was, “suppressing millions of protected free speech postings.” The ruling was based on the long-standing principle that the First Amendment free speech guarantee not only bars the state from directly censoring but also forcing or otherwise coercing private actors to censor for them.
The appellate court found that four agencies in particular were guilty of using threats to all but force social media platforms to censor at their command – the White House the FBI, the CDC and the surgeon general – and, as a result, ban them from engaging in such communications or threats going forward. We will discuss the broad and very significant implications of this decision. We'll also speak to one of the lead lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in this case: Jenin Younes.