THE BULLSHIT SPIGOT
Table of Contents
SPIGOTS
All |
29 bullshit spigot entries
1 / 29 Anti-Narrative: Trusted News Initiative
bullshit spigot
2 / 29 Atlantic Council: Jeremy Corbyn Takedown
bullshit spigot
3 / 29 Atomizations and Persecutions
bullshit spigot
4 / 29 Business Bullshit: Magic Leap
bullshit spigot
5 / 29 Capitol "Insurrection" 6-Jan-2021
bullshit spigot
6 / 29 Capture: Big Energy
bullshit spigot
7 / 29 Capture: Big Science Big Pharma
bullshit spigot
8 / 29 Capture: Corporate Media
bullshit spigot
9 / 29 Capture: Prison Industrial Complex
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10 / 29 Capture: Social Media Platforms
bullshit spigot
11 / 29 Capture: Stockmarkets
Articles from seekingalpha.com by Gary Gordon, retired stock-broker and prolific serial investment bullshit artist:
bullshit spigot
12 / 29 Capture: Transport and Trade
13 / 29 Capture: Universities and Schools
bullshit spigot
14 / 29 Censorship: Hunter Biden Laptop
bullshit spigot
15 / 29 Civil Strife: European Union
16 / 29 Corporate Greed in Medical Interventions: Sackler Oxycontin
Where were the FDA, YouTube, Facebook and all of our overlords as the the opiate crisis has swept the country? Silent. But a simple drug that the Sacklers and other greedy pharmaceutical companies can't make a fortune on?! Attacked, vilified and censored.
bullshit spigot
17 / 29 Cybertech: Surveillance Capitalism
libertycenterone.com: Van Eck Phreaking description and smart downplaying by Liberty Center One, a top-tier-flibble data-flurble.
bullshit spigot
18 / 29 Hypocrisy: Joe Biden
Joe Biden (to Rich Donors 18-Jun-2019)
bullshit spigot
19 / 29 Manufacturing Consent: Free Speech
bullshit spigot
20 / 29 Neoliberalism: Money over Human Beings
bullshit spigot
21 / 29 Performance Politics: Democratic Party
bullshit spigot
22 / 29 Performance Politics: UK Conservative Govt
bullshit spigot
23 / 29 Propaganda Hypocrisy
bullshit spigot
24 / 29 Propaganda: Manufacturing Consent and Ignorance
bullshit spigot
25 / 29 Propaganda: News Media Methods
bullshit spigot
26 / 29 Russiagate
bullshit spigot
27 / 29 Russophobia
bullshit spigot
28 / 29 Two Party Lock-in
Freedom To Vote Act: "To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box and reduce the influence of big money in politics, and for other purposes"
The "Freedom to Vote Act" is presented as a voting rights initiative to rollback evil state-level Republican voter discrimination laws, but in reality it's the other side of the two-pronged assault on third parties and diversity of candidate choice. The unspoken objective is to further duopoly lockdown using GOP gerrymandering and voter restrictions to escalate dozens of restrictions/stipulations on ballot access (candidate funding). The Act centralises campaign financing (including public funds) with big party committees, inevitably excluding challenges from within (e.g. Bernie Sanders).
Under H.R. 1, wealthy donors can effectively circumvent the candidate contribution limit by giving to the party committees directly and have them funnel up to $300 million forwarded candidates, effectively raising the amount big donors can contribute to a candidate to more than $115,000 in a year. H.R. 1 program would replace the 1:1 match in public funding with a 6:1 match, but simultaneously increase the minimum amount of donations (to get matched) by 500% to a minimum of $25,000 in each of 20 states. It would also increase the minimum number of contributions to reach it by 625%.
"Removing the general election public funding grant, H.R. 1 also eliminates the other existing opportunity for minor parties to benefit under the current public financing law, where any party that receives between 5% and 25% would get a pro-rated portion of the public funding in the next election that the major party candidates do. Greens and Libertarians have long argued that a vote for their candidates helps them to get to 5%. Raising the primary election matching funds threshold helps ensure only a limited number of anointed candidates qualify for it, to eliminate those pesky others who stay in primary race too long."
"The Act removes voters’ ability to fund 100% clean money and grassroots campaigns via matching funds, while increasing the role of big money in elections, and limiting voter choice to vote for other than major party candidates — the latter which itself is a de facto form of voter suppression, by removing a positive incentive for many voters to vote. Masters of lesser-of-evilism, Democrats have set up the Devil’s bargain in H.R. 1 — accept a further entrenched duopoly in exchange for your right to vote.
bullshit spigot
29 / 29 US Presidential Elections 2016-2020 | Russiagate
bullshit spigot
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12 censorships
1 / 12 Controlling Access to Knowledge
censorships
2 / 12 Data Rights: Ownership Privacy Protections
3 / 12 Facebook Censorship: Rule Changes and Data Grift
censorships
4 / 12 Fake News: Censorship and Russiagate
censorships
5 / 12 Go Fund Me Censorship and Deplatforming
censorships
6 / 12 NewsBud Alt-Media Site
- NewsBud billed itself as an independent news, analyses and multimedia portal. It exposed establishment hypocrisy and neoliberal criminality among other challenges to vested interest orthodoxy
- Sibel Edmonds is founder, editor and publisher of Newsbud, founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)
- NewsBud was closed down 30-Jul-2021
censorships
7 / 12 Oxford University Censorship
censorships
8 / 12 Progressive Internecine: Truthdig
9 / 12 Revolver.News and Newsguard Bolx
censorships
10 / 12 Social Media: Changing World
11 / 12 Substack: Useful Idiots - YouTube Censorship of Heterodox Content
censorships
12 / 12 Tech v Independent Journalism
censorships
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10 stenographers
A
1 / 10 Avril Haines
stenographers
B
2 / 10 Brent Budowsky
Brent Jamin Budowsky (born 29-Feb-1952) is an American political opinion writer and columnist for The Hill. See Wikipedia entry.
stenographers
D
3 / 10 David Sirota
American journalist, columnist at The Guardian, editor for Jacobin, film and print media writer. David Sirota (born 2-Nov-1975) is also a political commentator and runs The Lever anti-plutocracy "follow the money" corruption exposer media website, sponsored behind the scenes, ostensibly without a duopolist message but like The Intercept, a covert funnel for Democratic Party electoralism. He used to be a high rank campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, while working at the Center for American Progress under Neera Tanden. Wife is a Democratic corporatist in Colorado. Co-writer of movie Don't Look Up, a peon for the environmentalist and a magnet for self-congratulatory celebrity. Sirota is one of the most skilled of long-game establishment operators.
Sirota Cybersmear | 'Dirty Trick' Website | Center for American Progressstenographers
G
4 / 10 Gary Gordon
Retired stock analyst covering the housing, mortgage and consumer finance industries. US investment strategist and portfolio manager. Work career at PaineWebber and UBS, an adjunct professor at Mercy College in New York. Written articles about - for example - AMC where Gordon advocates sell the stock, exposing reasons why it's going to drop, telling the audience to get out while the going is good. Turns out he's got a lot of AMC stock and he's short on it!
stenographers
H
5 / 10 Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid (2-Dec-1939) is a retired American lawyer and politician, Harry M Reid served as a United States Senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. Neoliberal legitimacy archetype.
stenographers
I
6 / 10 Illia Ponomarenko (Kyiv Independent)
Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) on Twitter | Latest Tweets from Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko). Defense reporter with The Kyiv Independent. War, weapons, beer & heavy metal. A village guy from Donbas in a crusade for something better. Kyiv, Ukraine. US/UK/NATO deep state funded.
The Kyiv Independent newspaper - propaganda cutout
Journalist: Illia Ponomarenko is the defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.
stenographers
K
7 / 10 Ken Dilanian
Neoliberal US Cathedral - Ken Dilanian - Intelligence and National Security Correspondent @ MUCKRACK PROFILE on the neoliberal shill index at muckrack.com website.
stenographers
8 / 10 Krystal Ball | Kyle Kulinski
American political commentator and former political candidate. Krystal Ball (born 24-Nov-1981) started as a television host at MSNBC and regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Former co-host of The Hill's Rising along with Saagar Enjeti, the pair went independent in 2021 after corporate censorship increased at The Hill with Breaking Points one of the top rated independent platform news shows. Rejoined the silent partner corporate establishment with Breaking Points, capitalizing on the public hunger for genuinely independent progressive outlets, morphing into a covert Democratic Party operation in 2022 in a group with The Intercept and David Sirota's The Lever.
American political commentator and media host. Kyle Kulinski (born 31-Jan-1988) is the host and producer of The Kyle Kulinski Show on his YouTube channel Secular Talk and is a co-host with Krystal Ball on the progressive podcast Krystal Kyle & Friends on Substack.
stenographers
M
9 / 10 Mark R Levin
Mark Reed Levin (born 21-Sept-1957) is an American right-wing lawyer, author, and radio personality. He is the host of syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show, as well as Life, Liberty & Levin on Fox News. Levin worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese.
stenographers
R
10 / 10 Robert Shetterly
American consumer artist Robert Shetterly (b. 1946), best known for his 9/11-inspired (i.e. cashing in) portrait series "Americans Who Tell the Truth: Models of Courageous Citizenship". See AWTTT (Robert Shetterly) website gallery of portraits.
stenographers
portfolio / #bullshitspigot
“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.”
DICHOTOMY
- The world is full of propaganda and bullshit and self-interest, divided by sections of distinct hierarchies of wealth and power. It is an unending stream.
- People exploit people for short-term advantage or long-term lineage perpetuation, usually within one of the distinct structures, but rarely anything in between solely self or devotionally lineage.
- The orthodoxy is mostly moving society by unregulated inertia. The counter-culture, when it’s targeting the orthodoxy, is mostly a commentariat of rejects, cast-outs and uncompromising, honest disagreeables. The latter is a genus of narcissists though that doesn’t mean they’re dishonest or wrong.
- But fundamentals, like good and evil, right and wrong? I don’t know. Harder to pathologize any specific interaction as entirely one-sided good guys versus bad guys, difficult let alone cite credible alternative “do it this way, humans” – despite how offensive the propaganda and bullshit behind one side or another might be.
- I can certainly see some winners (in the broadest sense) and a lot of losers (in an everyday opportunity sense). Is that my own ugly pragmatism of birthplace and upbringing?
- So there’s a prevailing inertia (very powerful), a prevalent orthodoxy (very entrenched), and a complex interplay of geo-ethnic-competitive human motivations playing out – across the world – as innumerable cause-and-effect actions and reactions.
- Modern tech gives us access to a far bigger slice of this information stream. More than any human being can take in, parse, categorize and reasonably comprehend – let alone react to.
Voluble stupidity is a great disguise in a society where silence is suspect.
SHITWORDS
baseless
misinformation disinformation
moral opprobrium
INFOWARS
- The biggest problem today – in the West at least – is the egomaniac conceit that, individually, we have the capacity (and the obligation) to parse out the entire bullshit spigot of a billion human beings talking/communicating at the same time 24/7.
- The world of information – not to mention the innumerable 24/7 noise-flows of fact, fiction, propaganda, misdirection, etc – is beyond anyone’s capacity.
- Doesn’t matter if you’re a genius historian-data scientist-psychologist-coder or you’re a drunkard in a viking hat: too much information, too many variables, too corrupted by propaganda and counter-factual agenda.
- Does this mean don’t try? No.
- Does this mean education doesn’t matter? No.
- Does it mean it’s impossible to keep up with current affairs? No.
- Does this mean there’s no difference between the idiot and the expert? Not at all.
- What the fuck? It means black or white, red or blue, one side or the other side, right or wrong, Conservative or Liberal, Right Wing or Left Wing, us or them: dichotomy is the purest state of bullshit.
- Fascism is faith in the dogma of dichotomy.
- Fascism is totalitarian because – under direction of the ruling elite – the dichotomy is given an earthly definition (i.e. this group is good, that group is bad, this behaviour is good, those actions are evil) by the ruling elite, whose blessing elevates earthly to sacrosanct, in the dogma.
- Fascism is the weaponization of the dogma, in the minds of the faithful. It answers core questions, like:
- Who’s on your team? Who’re the good guys?
- Who’s next for termination? Who’re the bad guys?
- God versus Satan, Capitalism versus Communism, Holy Warrior versus Infidel Apostate, Nazi Faithful versus Jewish Traitor, American Freedom versus China Oppression, Republican Racist versus Democratic Socialist. All these aforementioned dichotomies are examples of simple fascist dogma.
- What isn’t fascist then? What isn’t a dichotomy? Individual human relationships aren’t fascist. Individual human personality isn’t fascist. Real-world public opinion isn’t a dichotomy.
- Trying to parse the bullshit spigot without allowing the path of least resistance (or self-serving propaganda-conditioning) to seek confirmation bias and binary thinking: this isn’t fascist.
- It’s important not to conflate the objective importance of facts and the primacy of truth with the universality of the human conditions and an empathy for the circumstances of others, into an excuse for moral cowardice.
- What you do based on fascist dogma (dichotomy) is evil; not least because it feels so easy to do, so untroubling to the conscience, so black versus white.
- What you do based on facts, truth, universality of human condition, empathy for others, is not evil precisely because it is more difficult by definition.
- “Guilty or Innocent, members of the jury?” Consider your verdicts.
- In your own mind, if your judgment is 12 to 0 in favour or 0 to 12 against, think it possible you may be mistaken.
- Moral certainty will feel right, but that’s ego misdirecting moral cowardice.
- Conscience is the true voice of justice, and when it’s silent in your mind – because you feel only righteous – it’s likely you’re doing injustice, possibly even evil.
- If your free, well-informed conscience is allowed to make its case for the defence then – whether your personal judgment is for mercy or concludes, regardless, a guilty verdict – the need for moral courage to prosecute whatever you’ve decided to do, in the real-world, is a sign:
- Your actions are humane
- To the best of your ability
- Right or wrong
- Not given in to fascism dichotomy
- Not “just obeying orders” in doing what you do
- That’s about the best we can ask of ourselves and others.
- Fascist rule tries to define, in earthly us-against-them terms, the dichotomy. Fascism is a dogma of division. Fascist demagogues monopolize the power to bless these earthly definitions. The blessings elevate mere earthly us-and-them into holy scripture.
- The distinction is a potent enough force to drive Jihad and Holocaust and Partisan Extremism and Racist Imperialism and a zillion more examples of Good versus Evil weaponized into purity tests (for loyal/disloyal, friend/enemy, ingroup/outgroup) to drive unthinking followers in violent prosecution of some sociopath cunt’s personal self-interest.
- Twat on a brick, fuckstick
COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT BUT...
- Fine words, however well-spoken, are worthless.
- Tribalism is bullshit.
- Symbols are a fascist shorthand.
- Opinion is not proof. Opinion about fact is Bullshit Spigot.
- Opinion points the way to evidence.
- Expert opinion points the way to better evidence less time to assess.
- Evidence is the only currency of proof. All else is Bullshit Spigot: gossip, rhetoric, media, propaganda, snake oil selling, lies, misinformation repeated, etc.
- Compelling the conformity of strangers – when the behaviour does no direct harm to you – is fascism.
- Doesn’t matter if the compelled conformity is forcing religious dogma (anti-abortion) or ideology (woke identity politics); it’s two cheeks of the same fascist butt.
- Virtue signaling is a lie.
- Virtue signaling is virtue without risk.
- Virtue signallers are usually corrupt.
- Virtue signaling is an implicit submission to power.
- Identity politics and religious fundamentalism are covers for compelled conformity, and therefore ciphers for fascism.
- Fascism is a dog-eat-dog world where dogs divided by breed compete ruthlessly for dominance. In the fascist worldview:
- Mercy is weakness
- Forgiveness is a weakness
- Different breeds are Untermensch
- Untermensch individuals don’t matter
- Ingroup individuals are kin by dint of being the same breed
- Cross-breeding is an anathema
- Never drink from the bullshit spigot without mutliple filters. No filters? Don’t drink. It’s sewage. Even if it’s not bullshit, it’s poison unless filtered.
- News media business is about profit and power. Profit comes from clickbait. Power comes from influence deals with the powerful.
- Corporate news media is not a trustworthy source.
- Fantasy is simpler than reality. Certainty is the path of least resistance in a world of complexity and unknowns.
- Media curates stories to feed the fantasy with what looks like familiar reality. This the expertise of modern journalism.
- Passive but supportive citizens are the ideal servants of political power.
- Authority achieves passivity by conditioning how people think; because nothing is more comfortable than path of least resistance certainty.
- Political passivity is weaponized by fascism – teams and us/them uniformity – into support (votes).
- Uniformity becomes purity in the devil’s blend of path of least resistance (for the electorater) and path to power (for the ruling elite). F-that!
- Binary explanations feel so good. But like any absolute certainty, binary ends up requiring a dehumanizing conflation.
- Good and evil applied to reality quickly becomes a dogma of egocentric bullshit.
- Binaries – like good and evil – are reductions cloaked as idealism, excusing more evil than encouraging good in the world.
DUOPOLY SCAM
The problem with falling into line with the duopoly paradigm (e.g. Democratic v Republican) is it’s designed to force people into a self-regulating (and group-signaling) repetition of factional loyalty affirmations, and since the real world isn’t represented by either ‘faction’ of mostly grasping, corrupt political orthodoxies, the people end up having to misrepresent a distorted version of the world to fit the needs of the loyalty affirmation. This distortion ends up calcifying into a divergence, fed by fake news and false prejudice.
Want some examples? #defundthepolice doesn’t mean no police, Alex Jones doesn’t support school shooters, Rogan doesn’t hate trans people, Black Lives Matter isn’t trying to destroy the family, Trump isn’t the next Hitler, Boris isn’t the champion of the patriotic Briton, Cummings isn’t trying to set up a fascist database, Biden isn’t going to tax the corporate oligarchs, Russia didn’t impact the 2016 US election, wearing masks on public transport isn’t an affront to your freedom, locking down whole cities is an affront to your freedom, Putin isn’t an evil modern Stalin, Putin isn’t the everyman savior of the Russian people, Xi Jinping isn’t a socioeconomic mastermind, Xi Jinping isn’t a communist dictator. Etc.
In America, for instance, Democrats think everyone else is a homophobic gun-toting Nazi looking for ways to deny climate change, force rape victims to have babies and lock immigrants in cages. Republicans think everyone else is a pedophile enabler who wants to take away guns, censor free speech, kill babies, raise taxes and destroy their way of life.
Identity politics is encouraged, as a way to atomize, by forcing collisions: purity statements, condemnation of perceived ‘other team’ untermensch, then the disgruntled target of the condemnation reacting by getting sucked into joining the opposite team. And the cycle perpetuates.
The whole game of team factions is banal and stupefying. It tears the potential for popular unity apart; not because of any real ideological differences between citizens but because it degrades everyday debate into a contest of petulant proletarian monkeys throwing their own excrement at the sound of foghorns.
