Thank you for your courage Michael! This is McCarthyism all over again--and I hope and pray America rises to the challenge once more. The film "Oppenheimer" has made it clear to millions of Americans this year how much injustice and destruction the first round of McCarthyism produced.
What the film doesn't make clear is the role of CIA and Allen Dulles in the destruction of Oppenheimer. It also doesn't, and can't within the scope of the film, show how the destructive atmosphere of the 1950s created by the early Deep State produced in the 1960s the Vietnam War and the assassinations of the two Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.
Your testimony, and the courage of your colleagues and people like Elon Musk is essential to give us all some hope that America can avoid going down once more a very dark road of pain, injustice and death.
Speaking of movies, the film Inception introduced the irresistibility of an idea implanted into a person's subconscious. Among such ideas for America is the concept of "toxic speech." Once one accepts the belief that speech can do real harm, censorship is merely common sense. As we know, other similar concepts are now enshrined in our language. Once accepted, debate is futile because the conclusion is preloaded into the word or phrase.
Michael, consider setting your conclusions in the context of the 2024 election. It is urgent that your recommendations or some similiar alternative be implemented as soon as possible. The urgency needs to be elevated.
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government will hold a hearing on Thursday, November 30, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The hearing, taking place one year after the first Twitter Files report, will examine the federal government's involvement in social media censorship, as well as the recent attacks on independent journalism and free expression.
WITNESSES:
Matt Taibbi, Twitter Files journalist and author
Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files journalist, author, and environmentalist
Rupa Subramanya, Canada-based journalist for The Free Press
Olivia Troye, former Homeland Security Advisor and Counterterrorism Advisor, Office of Vice President Pence
Subcommittees
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Thanks Michael. I often wonder why more Democrats don’t object to this direct government censorship or at a minimum the inducement to censor. As soon as a Republican administration takes the White House and Congress, they surely won’t submit to what they deem is truth, right? Are they not concerned because they know the unelected and media are so in control that it doesn’t matter who is elected anymore?
re: "often wonder why more Democrats don’t object to this direct government censorship..."
to start:
massive TDS, most of which was generated by lies and propaganda
the corruption and dysfunction goes much deeper, of course on many levels, including exploiting the techno-economic disruption of the information ecosystem, aka "sense making".
The tech companies will never give up their power to censor and control. They love the power. The deal should be revoking section230 and to keep it simple - if you censor , you are liable . No censorship - no liability. Much like the telephone company which has no responsibility ( simply a conduit), the liability falls to the writer and the reader.
"The tech companies will never give up their power to censor and control. They love the power. " Since they operate as agents of the permanent political establishment, everybody inside the beltway wants them to keep that power.
One thing I am seeing the mostly conservative reporters leaving out of this narrative is Sander's run for the presidency. Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump, both in 2016 and in 2020. The interference on behalf of DNC which backfired, spectacularly, in '16 was repeated on acid in 2020. I am nearly 100% positive that this infosec / cognitive bullshit wasn't solely deployed against the right and or Trump, but also against the (actual) left - and the rest of us who have backed Bernie. After all, the David Brock sock puppets were certainly set against us in 2016. I sincerely doubt that Sanders supporters were left out of the 2020 campaign against 'misinfo' in 2020.
I'm sure your exactly right. Taiibi stresses in the current CTIL disclosures that it was used against the left as well as the right. Anyone outside the Uniparty consensus was a target.
The case of Ukraine and the FBI's COLLUSION to censor Aaron Mate is a clear example of a heterodox journalist (outside the consensus) on the left being attacked.
This is the most profound issue of our time, of our nation's history. For fuck's sake, we created this goddam country in order to have free speech. But these monsters (compromised bad actors in our government, especially CISA) have attained power, and they know that the truth will likely strip them of their power. They saw what happened in 2016, when We The People actually voted for the non-deep state candidate, which was the catalyst for this censorship machine. It's so cliche to say, but can everyone please buy old copies of 1984 and pass them around? Leave them in every "little free library", every coffee shop, every waiting room, every classroom...
Also: Eisenhower's warning (1960) about the growing power of the "military-industrial-complex" is directly relevant to this latest version of the censorship-industrial-complex.
Another thank you for the clear, concise and succinct testimony about practices that make the Pentagon Papers look amateurish. As you state on RisingTV, it's chaos at Meta, Google and other social media platforms with respect to content moderation or what we generally refer to as censorship. This is especially true with respect to Covid-19 "vaccine" adverse events. There are literally thousands of research papers worldwide covering the wide range of injuries. React19.org is a good place to start if interested.
Technically, enabling users to filter out content that they find problematic is an easy solution and one wonders why this is not vigorously pursued. Perhaps it is but has not yet come to market.
Kudos to you & team for some of the most important reporting that all real journalists should be pursuing.
Plaskett, right at the start, was still being a Paid Troll speaking Talking Points. Trump, Trump, Trump.... Wow. At least she learned not to call Shellenberger and Taibbi, "So called" again.
Sat and watched the whole thing. God, that was hard. I had to watch a bit, go do chores to settle down, then come back. Glug!
- The Democrats were all Paid Trolls, terrified by Trump, and speaking the most bizarre Talking Points.
Forgot to mention, that Troye is clearly a Paid Troll. The examples of the Democrats asking prepared questions with her like that is blatant.
As always read:
Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
Bernie got in bed with evil, depraved, obviously corrupt people, the D-party establishment (including the southern black party elites), then screwed him in the bazz whole, and aborted progressives in favor of neoliberalism and maintaining their corrupt power.
A clear example of how "leftist" utopians are out of touch with reality, to say the least.
Your statement about the surprising amount of professionalism involved in this censorship effort is in contrast to the striking unprofessionalism highlighted in the recent Racket article. Kind of amazing that such incompetent people were so effective.
that fits the standard model of how incompetent sociopaths that are motivated by evil rise up in organizations by manipulating emotive-subjective narratives over objective-rational narratives and merit.
they lie their way into power, then fuck up, usually in enormous ways.
Minor point: You state that the VP was the “successor to the EIP”
It is my understanding that the VP actually started in Jan ‘20, about 6 months before the EIP kicked off, and that the VP ended about 7 months after the EIP was completed.
What I said above was based on the final reports for the two projects.
I think the Dems went crazy when Trump beat Hillary. God only knows what the White House was during between the election and the inauguration to shackle and damage Trump & his team. CISA came out of that period; plans for the mueller investigation, the first impeachment and the Flynn take-down probably started then too. The dossier was started in early 2016 - but the problem started when partisan bureaucrats realized how much power they had. The issue is how can we fix this.
When Trump beat Hillary it elevated the disagreement to that of a religious war. When one views Trump voters as the minions of Satan bent on pure evil, what is a patriotic bureaucrat to do?
In fairness, when one's mind is so gripped with fear and loathing, "go lower" requires so much more. It's comparable to the ethical question, "Would you steal bread if your children were starving." Missing out on a Hillary Clinton Presidency for some is worse than starving children.
To start: [impeach and] charge Biden with treason, along with anyone else that was involved and at level. (assuming the whistle blower's information can be verified via FOIAs, etc.).
Excellent work at the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government today Mr. Shellenberger. You are a patriot. All Americans owe you a debt for exposing this villainy.
Superbly argued testimony Michael. Let's hope they listen. And if they don't they need to be voted out of office and replaced by someone who IS listening.
Thank you for your courage Michael! This is McCarthyism all over again--and I hope and pray America rises to the challenge once more. The film "Oppenheimer" has made it clear to millions of Americans this year how much injustice and destruction the first round of McCarthyism produced.
What the film doesn't make clear is the role of CIA and Allen Dulles in the destruction of Oppenheimer. It also doesn't, and can't within the scope of the film, show how the destructive atmosphere of the 1950s created by the early Deep State produced in the 1960s the Vietnam War and the assassinations of the two Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.
Your testimony, and the courage of your colleagues and people like Elon Musk is essential to give us all some hope that America can avoid going down once more a very dark road of pain, injustice and death.
Speaking of movies, the film Inception introduced the irresistibility of an idea implanted into a person's subconscious. Among such ideas for America is the concept of "toxic speech." Once one accepts the belief that speech can do real harm, censorship is merely common sense. As we know, other similar concepts are now enshrined in our language. Once accepted, debate is futile because the conclusion is preloaded into the word or phrase.
Good point! It’s also, not coincidentally, a fundamental principle of CIA psy-ops
Michael, consider setting your conclusions in the context of the 2024 election. It is urgent that your recommendations or some similiar alternative be implemented as soon as possible. The urgency needs to be elevated.
Catch Michael's closing statement. Quite the challenge to the room
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government will hold a hearing on Thursday, November 30, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The hearing, taking place one year after the first Twitter Files report, will examine the federal government's involvement in social media censorship, as well as the recent attacks on independent journalism and free expression.
WITNESSES:
Matt Taibbi, Twitter Files journalist and author
Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files journalist, author, and environmentalist
Rupa Subramanya, Canada-based journalist for The Free Press
Olivia Troye, former Homeland Security Advisor and Counterterrorism Advisor, Office of Vice President Pence
Subcommittees
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
https://judiciary.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-weaponization-federal-government-4
Thanks Michael. I often wonder why more Democrats don’t object to this direct government censorship or at a minimum the inducement to censor. As soon as a Republican administration takes the White House and Congress, they surely won’t submit to what they deem is truth, right? Are they not concerned because they know the unelected and media are so in control that it doesn’t matter who is elected anymore?
re: "often wonder why more Democrats don’t object to this direct government censorship..."
to start:
massive TDS, most of which was generated by lies and propaganda
the corruption and dysfunction goes much deeper, of course on many levels, including exploiting the techno-economic disruption of the information ecosystem, aka "sense making".
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
The tech companies will never give up their power to censor and control. They love the power. The deal should be revoking section230 and to keep it simple - if you censor , you are liable . No censorship - no liability. Much like the telephone company which has no responsibility ( simply a conduit), the liability falls to the writer and the reader.
"The tech companies will never give up their power to censor and control. They love the power. " Since they operate as agents of the permanent political establishment, everybody inside the beltway wants them to keep that power.
Precisely
One thing I am seeing the mostly conservative reporters leaving out of this narrative is Sander's run for the presidency. Bernie would have wiped the floor with Trump, both in 2016 and in 2020. The interference on behalf of DNC which backfired, spectacularly, in '16 was repeated on acid in 2020. I am nearly 100% positive that this infosec / cognitive bullshit wasn't solely deployed against the right and or Trump, but also against the (actual) left - and the rest of us who have backed Bernie. After all, the David Brock sock puppets were certainly set against us in 2016. I sincerely doubt that Sanders supporters were left out of the 2020 campaign against 'misinfo' in 2020.
I'm sure your exactly right. Taiibi stresses in the current CTIL disclosures that it was used against the left as well as the right. Anyone outside the Uniparty consensus was a target.
The case of Ukraine and the FBI's COLLUSION to censor Aaron Mate is a clear example of a heterodox journalist (outside the consensus) on the left being attacked.
🪒🛎️🔨
This is the most profound issue of our time, of our nation's history. For fuck's sake, we created this goddam country in order to have free speech. But these monsters (compromised bad actors in our government, especially CISA) have attained power, and they know that the truth will likely strip them of their power. They saw what happened in 2016, when We The People actually voted for the non-deep state candidate, which was the catalyst for this censorship machine. It's so cliche to say, but can everyone please buy old copies of 1984 and pass them around? Leave them in every "little free library", every coffee shop, every waiting room, every classroom...
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
Also: Eisenhower's warning (1960) about the growing power of the "military-industrial-complex" is directly relevant to this latest version of the censorship-industrial-complex.
How about a prohibition on taxpayer funds being diverted to any NGO, period.
Excellent idea.
💯
The depth of this abuse of power is quite incredible and way more than I imagined (which isn't small).
Please keep up the hard work on these investigative pieces and stay strong.
This kind of corruption has been around for a looooong time, since the 1970s, or earlier.
The gross incompetence of the SenilePuppet Biden and his cronies and political network is now evident.
MAKE ORWELL FICTION AGAIN
Another thank you for the clear, concise and succinct testimony about practices that make the Pentagon Papers look amateurish. As you state on RisingTV, it's chaos at Meta, Google and other social media platforms with respect to content moderation or what we generally refer to as censorship. This is especially true with respect to Covid-19 "vaccine" adverse events. There are literally thousands of research papers worldwide covering the wide range of injuries. React19.org is a good place to start if interested.
https://react19.org/science
Technically, enabling users to filter out content that they find problematic is an easy solution and one wonders why this is not vigorously pursued. Perhaps it is but has not yet come to market.
Kudos to you & team for some of the most important reporting that all real journalists should be pursuing.
The Committee is ready to adjourn. You, Taibbi and the Canadian were magnificent! More comment to follow ...
Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjFWInU8pqU
Plaskett, right at the start, was still being a Paid Troll speaking Talking Points. Trump, Trump, Trump.... Wow. At least she learned not to call Shellenberger and Taibbi, "So called" again.
Sat and watched the whole thing. God, that was hard. I had to watch a bit, go do chores to settle down, then come back. Glug!
- The Democrats were all Paid Trolls, terrified by Trump, and speaking the most bizarre Talking Points.
Forgot to mention, that Troye is clearly a Paid Troll. The examples of the Democrats asking prepared questions with her like that is blatant.
As always read:
Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0852NXWR5/
BTW, Why isn't Wasserman Schultz in prison for her collusion with Clinton to prevent Bernie Sanders from being the Democratic candidate.
It's clear that they conspired to keep him out because he wasn't a tool of the Deep State the way Clinton clearly is.
The 2016 election was about "change". Bernie was the most change candidate you could have. Bernie vs Trump, would have had Bernie win.
But I digress.
Bernie got in bed with evil, depraved, obviously corrupt people, the D-party establishment (including the southern black party elites), then screwed him in the bazz whole, and aborted progressives in favor of neoliberalism and maintaining their corrupt power.
A clear example of how "leftist" utopians are out of touch with reality, to say the least.
Your statement about the surprising amount of professionalism involved in this censorship effort is in contrast to the striking unprofessionalism highlighted in the recent Racket article. Kind of amazing that such incompetent people were so effective.
that fits the standard model of how incompetent sociopaths that are motivated by evil rise up in organizations by manipulating emotive-subjective narratives over objective-rational narratives and merit.
they lie their way into power, then fuck up, usually in enormous ways.
Minor point: You state that the VP was the “successor to the EIP”
It is my understanding that the VP actually started in Jan ‘20, about 6 months before the EIP kicked off, and that the VP ended about 7 months after the EIP was completed.
You write: "It is my understanding that the VP actually started in Jan ‘20"
See my question to MS above. Did all this start in the waning days of Obama? That is, the two weeks prior to the inauguration of Trump?
What I said above was based on the final reports for the two projects.
I think the Dems went crazy when Trump beat Hillary. God only knows what the White House was during between the election and the inauguration to shackle and damage Trump & his team. CISA came out of that period; plans for the mueller investigation, the first impeachment and the Flynn take-down probably started then too. The dossier was started in early 2016 - but the problem started when partisan bureaucrats realized how much power they had. The issue is how can we fix this.
When Trump beat Hillary it elevated the disagreement to that of a religious war. When one views Trump voters as the minions of Satan bent on pure evil, what is a patriotic bureaucrat to do?
In fairness, when one's mind is so gripped with fear and loathing, "go lower" requires so much more. It's comparable to the ethical question, "Would you steal bread if your children were starving." Missing out on a Hillary Clinton Presidency for some is worse than starving children.
To start: [impeach and] charge Biden with treason, along with anyone else that was involved and at level. (assuming the whistle blower's information can be verified via FOIAs, etc.).
Excellent work at the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government today Mr. Shellenberger. You are a patriot. All Americans owe you a debt for exposing this villainy.
Thank you!
🏆🏆🏆🏆
Superbly argued testimony Michael. Let's hope they listen. And if they don't they need to be voted out of office and replaced by someone who IS listening.