Yes, and some of the people who are in favor of the big tech companies
censoring stuff are the Left Wing's big hopes for the future like AOC. They
want white nationalist material censored and supposedly Russian inspired
material censored, and what they don't realize, is that if censorship is OK,
the Left is on the chopping block. But really, our society is very damaged and
people are very confused. The internet will be censored and all of my favorite
podcasts will be gone, just like my favorite websites. BARD and Bookshare will,
of course, also be censored. When I first started using talking books and
reading braille in 1962, and throughout the 60's and probably the early 70's,
the books available to us were, in fact censored. It wasn't only that just a
fraction of existing books were accessible to us and that it took a few years
to get each new book, it was also that books with explicit sexual content were
unavailable, as were books out of the political mainstream. There was a book
about Malcolm X. It was a biography or an autobiography. Of course, NLS didn't
have it. But my aunt's sister lived in Indiana and was a volunteer braillist at
a Jewish temple. Back then, a lot of braille books were produced by female
volunteers who were part of whatever the women's clubs at Jewish templs were
called. We sent her the print book and asked her to braille it for us. She had
brailled one or two other books for us previously. She brailled it and sent it
to us with a letter saying that although she was happy to braille books for us,
she did not ever want us to ask her to braille such a disreputable book again.
The adjective she used, may have been stronger than disreputable.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2019 1:32 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Enemy Within
I heard something of interest on Thom Hartmann's program this morning.
A caller said he could not access Hartmann's Facebook page. Hartmann told him
that not only had Facebook blocked his business account, they had blocked his
personal account that he uses to keep in touch with family and close friends.
A mistake on the part of Facebook? Or a sign that there is a crack down, a
cleansing or a purge of "undesirables"? If Facebook can arbitrarily cancel a
mild mannered Leftish Leaning democrat like Thom Hartmann, what does that mean
for our "freedom of information"?
Of course I am one of those who has believed for a long time that our News was
being "Managed". But now it looks as if the gloves are off, and the government
is getting down to serious business.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/6/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
One has to be intelligent and intellectually curious in order to even
suspect that what one sees on TV, hears on the radio, and reads in the
newspapers and magazines, might not be the truth. And although we may
have been taught democratic values in school, we were not taught
accurate history, at least not most of the time. The only historical
truth I remember being taught in public elementary school is that wars
are fought over natural resources. Those folks who say you should
listen to both sides are repeating really bad advice. The good advice
is, listen to as many facts as you can in relation to an issue so that
maybe you'll end up with an idea approximating the truth. But both
sides of an argument? That's like this media idea of balance so they
have a person in favor of intervening militarily in Syria and someone
who is in favor of financial sanctions instead, and you've been sold
the lie that you've heard a balanced presentation.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2019 11:29 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Enemy Within
I've been told, on other Lists, that I should listen to all sides
rather than only listening to the Far Left.
In fact, even if I tried to restrict my listening to the Far Left, it
would be impossible. First, much of the news which challenges the
Ruling Class, is blocked. Second, when news negatively effecting the
positions held by the Ruling Class do find their way into the Media,
it is distorted to a point of total confusion.
As a young man, I believed that propaganda consisted of outright lies.
Now I understand that the most effective propaganda distorts, weaves
false information into factual reports, and turns constructive
criticism into attacks on our nation.
The Ruling Class has gone far beyond simply controlling the hard news,
it has influenced our thinking at all levels of Life in America. Our
entire value system has become so distorted that it no longer compares
to those values which were taught to us in grade school.
The attacks on Max Blumenthal is only the latest trashing of outspoken
Citizens. But what is especially frightening is the lack of outrage
by Americans. Of course to a major extent, it is due to the well
managed control of the news, and the failure of public exposure. But
it is equally the lack of the American Working Class to demand a Media
that represents the American Working Class. We have been so
conditioned to accept what is being told us as actual news that we
believe much of it, and we make no effort to question it.
We are left with the impression that "the government" is a bunch of
bumbling, posturing, greedy, self serving buffoons rather than what it
is, the highly effective defender of the Ruling Class. This
government is the government of an Oligarchy consisting of descendants
of White male European Landholders. It is their money and influence
that puts their chosen puppets in place. Compromising is simply a fools
mission.
And so, some of our greatest minds will be trashed and forgotten
because they dared to question the stumbling giant called America.
And like Humpty Dumpty, picking up the pieces after our great fall,
may be too late.
Carl Jarvis
Carl Jarvis
On 11/6/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, he'll probably be erased from the internet, from history. I've
been posting all these articles about the arrest of Max Blumenthal.
Did you hear that tidbit of news on any of the commercial media or
NPR or PBS? Or was there anything in the media about the fact that
part of the protests in Hong Kong were against the financial
inequality caused by capitalism and the other part was protest
against China financed by the US? The Real News and Democracy Now
didn't get that right either.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2019 9:54 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Enemy Within
Well then, you'd better start teaching them. It's not like the mass
media are going to make sure that they learn.
---
David Hume
??? In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all
imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the
lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions
his belief to the evidence. ???
??? David Hume,
On 11/5/2019 9:31 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
I can only hope that my grand children will learn about Chris Hedges
as one of America's great minds.
Carl Jarvis
s
On 11/5/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We could have studied English for 20 years, 20 hours a day and we'd
never have been able to learn to write like that because neither of
us has his brain power. Yes, he's incredibly articulate, but he's
also able to understand stuff. He can put his religious studies and
his philosophical reading, and his war experiences, and his
political instincts together, like no one else.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2019 9:44 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Enemy Within
Another brilliant piece by Chris Hedges. I studied French in high
school.
I should have studied English.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/4/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Here it all is. Hedges has explained our situation clearly and
concisely which is why he's not allowed on any US media anymore,
not even Democracy now, just RT. A man who is a Presbyterean
minister and was a New York Times foreign bureau chief, is
teaching literature to prisoners in New Jersey and his material is
on one alternative website.
Miriam
The Enemy Within
The Enemy Within
Our democracy is not in peril-we do not live in a democracy. The
image of our democracy is in peril. The deep state-the generals,
bankers, corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government
bureaucrats and technocrats-is intent on salvaging the brand. It
is hard to trumpet yourself as the world's guardian of freedom and
liberty with Donald Trump blathering on incoherently about
himself, inciting racist violence, insulting our traditional
allies along with the courts, the press and Congress, tweeting
misspelled inanities and impulsively denouncing or sabotaging
bipartisan domestic and foreign policy. But Trump's most
unforgivable sin in the eyes of the deep state is his criticism of
the empire's endless wars, even though he lacks the intellectual
and organizational skills to oversee a disengagement.
The deep state committed the greatest strategic blunder in
American history when it invaded and occupied Afghanistan and
Iraq. Such fatal military fiascoes, a feature of all late empires,
are called acts of "micro-militarism." Dying empires historically
squander the last capital they have, economic, political and
military, on futile, intractable and unwinnable conflicts until they
collapse.
They seek in these acts of micro-militarism to recapture a former
dominance and lost stature. Disaster piles on disaster. The
architects of our imperial death spiral, however, are untouchable.
The clueless generals and politicians who propel the empire into
expanding chaos and fiscal collapse are successful at one
thing-perpetuating themselves. No one is held accountable. A
servile press treats these mandarins with near-religious
veneration. Generals and politicians, many of whom should have
been cashiered or put on trial, are upon retirement given
lucrative seats on the boards of the weapons manufacturers, for
whom these wars are immensely profitable. They are called upon by
a fawning press to provide analysis to the public of the mess they
created.
They are held up as exemplars of integrity, selfless service and
patriotism.
After nearly two decades, every purported objective used to
justify our wars in the Middle East has been upended. The invasion
of Afghanistan was supposed to wipe out al-Qaida. Instead,
al-Qaida migrated to fill the power vacuums the deep state created
in the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
The war in Afghanistan morphed into a war with the Taliban, which
now controls most of the country and is threatening the corrupt
regime we prop up in Kabul. The deep state orchestrated the
invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11.
It confidently predicted it could build a Western-style democracy
and weaken Iran's power in the region.
Instead, it destroyed Iraq as a unified country, setting warring
ethnic and religious factions against each other. Iran, which is
closely tied to the dominant Shiite government in Baghdad, emerged
even stronger. The deep state armed "moderate" rebels in Syria in
an effort to topple President Bashar Assad, but when it realized
it could not control the jihadists-to whom it had provide some
$500 million in weapons and assistance-the deep state began to
bomb them and arm Kurdish rebels to fight them. These Kurds would
later be betrayed by Trump. The "war on terror" spread like a
plague from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya to Yemen, which
after five years of war is suffering one of the world's worst
humanitarian disasters.
The financial cost for this misery and death is between $5
trillion and $8 trillion. The human cost runs into hundreds of
thousands of dead and wounded, shattered cities, towns and
infrastructure and millions of refugees.
Trump committed political heresy when he dared to point out the
folly of unchecked militarism. He will pay for it. The deep state
intends to replace him with someone-perhaps Mike Pence, as morally
and intellectually vacuous as Trump-who will do what he or she is
told.
This is the role of America's
executive: Personify and humanize the empire. Do so with pomp and
dignity.
Barack Obama-who speciously reinterpreted the 2001 Authorization
for Use of Military Force to give the executive the right to
assassinate anyone abroad, even a U.S. citizen, deemed to be a
terrorist-excelled at the game.
The removal of Trump from office would not threaten corporate power.
It would not restore civil liberties, including our right to
privacy and due process. It would not demilitarize the police or
champion the rights of the working class. It would not impede the
profits of the fossil fuel and banking industries. It would not
address the climate emergency. It would not disrupt the
warrantless surveillance of the public. It would not end
extraordinary renditions, the kidnapping of those around the globe
considered to be enemies of the state. It would not halt the
assassinations by militarized drones.
It would not halt the separation of children from their parents
and the warehousing of these children in filthy, overcrowded conditions.
It would not remedy the consolidation of wealth and power by the
oligarchs and the further impoverishment of the citizenry. The
expansion of our prison system and of black sites throughout the
world, sites where we torture, would continue, as would the
gunning down of poor, unarmed citizens in urban wastelands. Most
importantly, the catastrophic foreign wars that have resulted in a
series of failed states and wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars,
would remain sacrosanct, enthusiastically embraced by the leaders
of the two ruling parties, puppets of the deep state.
The impeachment of Trump, despite the enthusiasm of the liberal
elite, is mostly cosmetic. The entire political and governmental
system is corrupt.
Hunter Biden was reportedly paid $50,000 a month to sit on the
board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, although he
has no training or experience in the gas industry. He had
previously worked for the credit card corporation MBNA, which was
one of Joe Biden's largest campaign contributors when he was a
senator from Delaware.
Hunter Biden was hired by Burisma Holdings for the same reason he
was hired by MBNA. His father, long a tool of corporate power and
the military-industrial complex, in short the deep state, was a
senator and later the vice president. Joe Biden, the Clintons and
the Democratic Party leaders personify the legalized bribery that
defines their rivals in the Republican Party. Corporate candidates
in the two ruling parties are preselected, funded and anointed. If
they do not abide by the demands of the deep state, which protects
corporate interests and the management of empire, they are removed.
There is even a word for it-primarying. Corporate lobbyists write
the laws. The courts enforce them.
There is no way in the American political system to vote against
the interests of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AT&T, Amazon,
Microsoft, Walmart, Alphabet, Facebook, Apple, Exxon Mobil,
Lockheed Martin, UnitedHealth Group or Northrop Grumman.
We, the American public, are spectators. An audience. Who will be
seated when the game of musical chairs stops? Will Trump be able
to hold on to power? Will Pence be the new president? Or will the
deep state elevate a political hack like Biden or a neoliberal
apologist such as Pete Butiggieg, Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris
to the White House? Will it draft Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry,
Sherrod Brown or, God forbid, Hillary Clinton? And what if the deep state
fails?
What if the rot in the Republican Party, or what Glen Ford calls
Trump's "white man's party," is so profound it won't sign on for
the political extinction of the most incompetent president in
American history? The power struggle, which includes blocking
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren from obtaining the Democratic
Party nomination, will make for months of great television and
generate billions in advertising revenue.
The war between the deep state and Trump began the moment he was
elected.
Former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper-both now paid news cable
commentators-along with former FBI head James Comey soon would
accuse Trump of being a tool of Moscow. Intelligence agencies
leaked salacious stories about "pee tapes"
and
blackmail, plus reports of "repeated contacts" with Russian
intelligence.
Brennan, Clapper and Comey were quickly joined by other former
intelligence officials, including Michael Hayden, Michael Morell
and Andrew McCabe.
Their
attacks were then amplified by former senior military leaders
including William McRaven, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, John
Kelly, James Stavridis and Barry McCaffrey.
The Russia conspiracy, after the release of the Mueller report,
proved to be a dud. The deep state actors, however, were
re-energized by Trump's decision to pressure the government of
Ukraine to investigate Biden. Trump, this time, seems to have
given his deep state enemies enough rope to hang him.
The impeachment of Trump marks a new and frightening chapter in
American politics. The deep state has shown its face. It has made
a public declaration that it will not tolerate dissent, although
Trump's dissent is rhetorical, mercurial and ineffectual. The
effort to impeach Trump sends an ominous message to the American
left. The deep state not only intends to prevent, as it did in
2016, Bernie Sanders or any other progressive Democrat from
achieving power, but has signaled that it will destroy any
politician who attempts to question the maintenance and expansion
of empire. Its animus toward the left is far more pronounced than
its animus toward Trump. And its resources to destroy those on the
left are nearly inexhaustible.
The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin saw it all in his 2008
book "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of
Inverted Totalitarianism." He wrote:
"
The political role of corporate power, the corruption of the
political and representative processes by the lobbying industry,
the expansion of executive power at the expense of constitutional
limitations, and the degradation of political dialogue promoted by
the media are the basics of the system, not excrescences upon it.
The system would remain in place even if the Democratic Party
attained a majority; and should that circumstance arise, the
system will set tight limits to unwelcome changes, as is
foreshadowed in the timidity of current Democratic proposals for
reform. In the last analysis the much-lauded stability and
conservatism of the American system owe nothing to lofty ideals,
and everything to the irrefutable fact that it is shot through
with corruption and awash in contributions primarily from wealthy
and corporate donors. When a minimum of a million dollars is
required of House candidates and elected judges, and when
patriotism is for the draft-free to extol and for the ordinary
citizen to serve, in such times it is a simple act of bad faith to
claim that politics-as-we-now-know-it can miraculously cure the evils
which are essential to its existence.
There are no internal or external checks on the deep state. The
democratic institutions, including the press, that once gave
citizens a voice and a say in the exercise of power have been
neutered. The deep state will further the corporate consolidation
of wealth and power, expand the social inequality that has thrust
half of Americans into poverty or near poverty, strip us of our
remaining civil liberties and feed the rapacious appetites of the
military and the war industry. The resources of the state will be
squandered as the federal deficit balloons. The frustration and
feelings of stagnation among a disempowered and neglected
citizenry, which contributed to the election of Trump, will mount.
There will come a moment of reckoning, as there has during the
last few days in Lebanon and Chile. Social unrest is inevitable.
Any population can be pushed only so far. The deep state,
incapable of reform and determined to retain its grip on power,
will morph under the threat of popular unrest into a corporatized
fascism. It has at its disposal the legal and physical tools to
instantly turn the United States into a police state. This is the
real danger behind the deep state's drive to impeach Trump. It is
a stark message to obey or be silenced. Trump, in the end, is not the
problem. We are.
And if the deep state fails to rid itself of Trump it will,
however reluctantly, use him to carry out its dirty work. Trump,
if he manages to survive in power, will get his military parades.
We will get, with or without Trump, tyranny.
Chris Hedges
Columnist
Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in
the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners
by Rutgers.
