THE BULLSHIT SPIGOT

Table of Contents

SPIGOTS

All | A B C M N P R T U
There are currently 28 bullshit spigot entries in this directory
Anti-Narrative: Trusted News Initiative
Atlantic Council: Jeremy Corbyn Takedown
Atomizations and Persecutions
  • archive.ph: Satoshi Final Forum Posts (11-Dec-2010)
  • Unicorn Riot: Kevin Gallagher Cyberactivist Dead at 36 (13-Jun-2021)
  • YouTube: Michael Gove "We've Had Enough Of Experts!" Interview (3-Jun-2016)
  • commondreams.org: Sanders Dominates The Breadth Of Ordinary Political Donors (2-Aug-2018)
  • Forbes: Senate Kills GOP Legislation To Prohibit Certain Human-Animal Chimeras (27-May-2021)
  • Key Witness In Assange Case Admits To Lies In Indictment (26-Jun-2021)
  • Media Lens: A Remarkable Silence: Media Blackout After Key Witness Against Assange Admits Lying (1-Jul-2021)
  • Nature: The Economic Value of Targeting Aging (5-Jul-2021)
  • The Guardian: Nvidia Cambridge Supercomputer Crunching UK Health And Habits Big Data (7-Jul-2021)
  • Andrew Sullivan: The Radicalization Of The American Elite Against Liberalism (7-Jul-2021)
  • David Frum at The Atlantic: Blue Vaccinated Losing Patience With Red Anti-vax (23-Jul-2021)
    • Business Bullshit: Magic Leap
    Capitol "Insurrection" 6-Jan-2021
    Capture: Big Energy
    Capture: Big Science Big Pharma
    Capture: Corporate Media
    Capture: Prison Industrial Complex
    Capture: Social Media Platforms
    Capture: Stockmarkets

    Articles from seekingalpha.com by Gary Gordon, retired stock-broker and prolific serial investment bullshit artist:

    Capture: Transport and Trade
    Capture: Universities and Schools
  • The Nonprofit College That Spends More on Marketing Than Financial Aid (12-Jan-2022)
  • "Baker College promises students a better life. But few ever graduate, and even those who do often leave with crushing debt and useless degrees. No one — not the board, nor the accreditors, nor the federal government — has intervened."

     

    • Censorship: Hunter Biden Laptop
  • Hunter Biden Story Declared Russian Disinformation (9-Oct-2020)
  • Russian Disinformation Not Behind Biden Emails - DNI Ratcliffe Says (19-Oct-2020)
  • Feds Examining If Alleged Hunter Biden Emails Are Foreign Linked
  • Statement by NCSC Director William Evanina - Election Threat Update for the American Public
  • Rudy Giuliani Says There Only 50-50 Chance Worked With Russian Spy To Dig Dirt on Bidens
  • Russian Hackers - Burisma - Ukraine - Hunter Biden (13-Jan-2020)
  • Ex-Intel Officials Silent Over Letter Claiming Russian Involvement In Hunter Biden Laptop Saga
  • Senate Investigators New Records Confirm Troubling Biden Faily Links To China and Russia
  • Analysis of Hunter Biden Laptop - ex-FBI Agent No Evidence of Fake Data
  • Washington Examiner - Hunter Biden Index
  • Hunter Biden Emails Documents Alleged Signature - FBI Paperwork
  • Image: Computer Repair Invoice - Hunter Biden Laptop (2-Oct-2020)
    • Civil Strife: European Union
    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.
    Cybertech: Surveillance Capitalism
    libertycenterone.com: Van Eck Phreaking description and smart downplaying by Liberty Center One, a top-tier-flibble data-flurble.

    Manufacturing Consent: Free Speech
  • YouTube BBC: Admiral Lord West Casts Doubt on Syria Attack Intelligence (16-Apr-2018)
  • YouTube CNN: Jill Stein explains why she won't fully comply with Russia investigation (1-May-2018)
  • The Spectator: Hiding Biden from tough questions hurts him more than it helps him (16-Sept-2020)
  • "Free speech is important not because it's nice to be able to say what you want, but because the free flow of ideas and information creates a check on the powerful. It gives people the ability to hold the powerful to account. Which is exactly why the powerful work to eliminate it." - Caitlin Johnstone
    • Neoliberalism: Money over Human Beings
    Performance Politics: Democratic Party
    Performance Politics: UK Conservative Govt
  • Dr Steve James: I’d sacrifice my job over vaccine mandates (10-Jan-2022)
  • "Steve James is a critical care consultant at King’s College Hospital in London. When Health Secretary Sajid Javid visited last Friday, he asked the NHS staff about what they thought of the forthcoming mandates that will make Covid vaccination a condition of deployment for NHS staff."
  • Aristocrats double their wealth in a decade as titles average £16m (1-Jan-2022)
  • "Britain’s aristocrats have enjoyed a dramatic surge in their wealth in the last 30 years – and have seen their riches double."

    •  

    Propaganda Hypocrisy
  • BlackRock presents as climate friendly woke but in reality it's the biggest driver of fossil fuels and repressive regimes (5-Dec-2018)
  • YouTube: Strategic Implications of Civil War at Gettysburg | Romer: Ancient Egyptian Lives | Bad Lip Reading: Trump In Asia
  • Gold Is Ultimate Asset As Fed Joins Race to the Bottom (31-Jul-2019)
  • It's Time to Audit the NY Fed (Aug-2019)
  • EU Has Its Eye On Tax Evading Tech Companies (1-Aug-2019)
  • Jim Grant: The Problem With Modern Monetary Theory (2-Aug-2019)
  • Perfect Storm Brewing For Stock Correction (2-Aug-2019)
  • Drug Epidemic Supplies America's Corporate Gulag (2-Aug-2019)
  • Heavy Truck Orders Collapse 81% Since 2010 (3-Aug-2019)
  • WaPo Publishes Deceitful Smear Piece on Tulsi Gabbard (3-Aug-2019)
  • Bill Maher and the Elitist Counter-Progressive Campaign (4-Aug-2019)
  • UN Rebuke of US Sanctions on Venezuela Met With Stunning Silence (10-Mar-2021)
  • Propaganda By Omission: Libya, Syria, Venezuela And The UK (29-Mar-2021)
    • Propaganda: Manufacturing Consent and Ignorance
    Propaganda: News Media Methods
    Russiagate
    Russophobia
    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%.

  • Third Parties May Disappear From Ballot Under Freedom to Vote Act Provision (2-Oct-2021)

    • "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."

  • Matching Funds: Establishing eligibility to receive presidential primary matching fund payments
  • Receiving a public funding grant for the general election
  • Public Financing of Campaigns
  • HR 1 Exacts Partisan Political Advantage in Exchange for Desperately Needed Voting Rights (21-Mar-2021)
  • Sixth District (Georgia): Church v Brian Kemp (29-Mar-2021)
  • HR1/S1 Hypocrisy: Under The Guise of ‘For the People’, Democrats Support Voters Rights, But Suppress Voter Choice (11-May-2021)
  • Ballot status and presidential primary matching funds (28-Jul-2021)
  • More on H.R.1/S.1: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (12-Mar-2021)
  • Duopoly angle: Annotated Guide to the For The People Act 2021 (20-Jan-2021)

    • "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.

    US Presidential Elections 2016-2020 | Russiagate
     
    All | C D F G N O P R S T
    There are currently 12 censorships in this directory
    Controlling Access to Knowledge
    Data Rights: Ownership Privacy Protections
    Facebook Censorship: Rule Changes and Data Grift
    Fake News: Censorship and Russiagate
  • Bucha UKRAINE "You have the commander of the national police ordering his people to shoot people in Bucha on the day in question. You have the evidence. The dead bodies on the street with white armbands carrying Russian food packets."
  • Propornot: "your friendly neighborhood propaganda identification service since 2016" | @propornot Twitter
  • New Yorker: NYT: The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda (1-Dec-2016)
  • Vox: Apple’s Infowars ban altered an industry overnight — and dealt a blow against fake news (6-Aug-2018)
  • Mother Jones: How Facebook Screwed Us All (Feb-2019)
    • Go Fund Me Censorship and Deplatforming
    NewsBud Alt-Media Site
  • NewsBud: "Where Integrity Matters"
    • 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
    Oxford University Censorship
    Progressive Internecine: Truthdig
    Revolver.News and Newsguard Bolx
    Social Media: Changing World
    Substack: Useful Idiots - YouTube Censorship of Heterodox Content
    Tech v Independent Journalism
     
    All | A B D G H I J K M P R S
    There are currently 14 stenographers in this directory
    A
    Avril Haines

    Avril Haines: US intelligence chief intervenes to block state secrets in Saudi Crown Prince's feud with former Saudi official @ MSN Article.

    B
    Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)
    African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Bayard Rustin was a major figure in the March on Washington Movement, in 1941 to press for an end to racial discrimination in employment. He began as a genuine and effective activist but many say the last 10-15 years of his life was spent serving the plutocracy - as many famous dissenters before and after Rustin have been coopted to do. See: Adolph Reed Jr article From Black Power to Black Establishment (28-Apr-2020) | Antiracism: A Neoliberal Alternative To A Left (22-May-2018) | Louis Proyect: Thoughts on Bayard Rustin Nostalgia (17-Jul-2020) | Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin | Debate with Malcolm X (Nov-1960) | The Tragedy of Bayard Rustin (23-May-2018)
    Brent Budowsky

    Brent Jamin Budowsky (born 29-Feb-1952) is an American political opinion writer and columnist for The Hill. See Wikipedia entry.

    D
    David Solomon

    D.J. who moonlights as a titan of Wall Street, David Solomon is a crossover media-finance bullshit artist. Under him, Goldman Sachs - the investment bank - has tried to shed its uptight image as a haven for besuited M.&A. bankers and chest-thumping traders. That effort now includes its own typeface. Meet Goldman Sans. The firm describes the font, which is free to download, as “approachable without being whimsical” and “neutral, with a wink.” It was created for Goldman Sachs by the British design firm Dalton Maag, with a mandate to create a typeface with just the right amount of personality for the 151-year-old bank.

    It follows other efforts by Goldman to come across as cool, including relaxing its dress code, pitching itself as a tech company and collaborating with Apple on a credit card. The reaction from experts is, shall we say, mixed. They are on record saying that it suffered from “lack of courage,” was “missing life” and was the typographical equivalent of “a casual Friday.”

    G
    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!

    H
    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.

    Harry Reid Wikipedia

    I
    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.

    J
    Joe Biden (to Rich Donors 18-Jun-2019)

    Joe Biden assured rich donors at a fundraiser (Carlyle Hotel, NYC) if elected, he would not "demonise" the rich and promised that "no one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change."

    Biden said that poverty was "the one thing that can bring this country down" but to this donors: "I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money... The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it's all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change."

    Biden went on to say that the rich should not be blamed for income inequality, pleading to the donors: "I need you very badly... I hope if I win this nomination, I won't let you down. I promise you."

    Biden also complained that some Democrats criticised his eagerness to work with Republicans after they spent years blocking President Obama's agenda and moving further right. Biden pointed out that his ability to work with segregationists like former Mississippi Sen. James O. Eastland and Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge showed that he could "bring people together." (The Washington Post).

    Joe Biden: "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me 'boy,' he always called me 'son.'" He also called Talmadge "one of the meanest guys I ever knew." "Well, guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn't agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you're the enemy. Not the opposition -- the enemy. We don't talk to each other anymore. I know the new 'New Left' tells me that I'm -- this is old-fashioned... Well guess what? If we can't reach a consensus in our system, what happens? It encourages and demands the abuse of power by a president. That's what it does. You have to be able to reach consensus under our system -- our constitutional system of separation of powers."

    K
    Ken Dilanian - Neoliberal US "Security" Correspondent

    Neoliberal US Cathedral - Ken Dilanian - Intelligence and National Security Correspondent @ MUCKRACK PROFILE on the neoliberal shill index at muckrack.com website.

    M
    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.

    Mark Reed Wikipedia

    P
    Paul Ryan

    The former House speaker Paul Ryan is reportedly preparing to launch a special purpose acquisition company, The Wall Street Journal reports. The investment fund is aiming to raise $300 million in an I.P.O., with Mr. Ryan, who left Congress last year, as chairman. He’s not the only famous face joining the SPAC boom. Figures from financiers like Bill Ackman, Dan Loeb and Michael Klein to the famed baseball executive Billy Beane have launched versions of these “blank check” investment vehicles. They have been buoyed by strong equity markets and private companies’ desire to sidestep the traditionally laborious I.P.O. process by merging with these funds, assuming their stock listings.

    This SPAC is notable for its Republican ties. In addition to Mr. Ryan’s involvement, the fund’s sponsor is Solamere Capital, an investment firm run by a son of Senator Mitt Romney, who picked Mr. Ryan as his running mate in his 2012 presidential bid. But its financial adviser has strong Democratic leanings. Mr. Ryan’s SPAC is being underwritten by Evercore, whose founder and senior chairman is Roger Altman, who served in the Carter and Clinton administrations and is a major fund-raiser for Joe Biden.

    Evercore has been strengthening its SPAC expertise, hiring Neil Shah, a specialist in these funds, from Citi last year. The bank has also emphasized its capital-markets business of late: Executives told analysts last month that the firm was coming off its “strongest period ever in equity underwriting.”

    Pete Buttigieg
    R
    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.

    S
    Stanley A McChrystal

    Four star American Army general and entrenched neoliberal character actor, Stanley A McChrystal was a prime mover in the enrichment detail of the Military Industrial Complex during the Obama Presidency. As is the norm, his retirement from the military led to a series of appointments in business and heading up various fronts for deep state interests. Corporate boards, consulting, speaking fees: How U.S. generals thrived after Afghanistan is a useful article on Stanley McChrystal exemplifying how ex-generals sell their battlefield experience in other arenas, from corporations to Covid-19 response grifting.

     

    portfolio / #bullshitspigot

    “I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.”

    Charles Bukowski

    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.

    Matt Taibbi

    SHITWORDS

    • baseless
    • misinformation disinformation
    • moral opprobrium
    The impulse to resolve the ambivalence of good and evil and jump over one's shadow into absolute positivity is an unthinking Utopia. Liberation from ambivalence is to be free of uncertainty; to be absolutely free is to be absolutely sure of one's rightness; which is a surrender of free will, which is to be a slave by any other name?
         Jean Beaudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil)

    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...

    1. Fine words, however well-spoken, are worthless.
      • Tribalism is bullshit.
      • Symbols are a fascist shorthand.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Virtue signaling is an implicit submission to power.
    5. Identity politics and religious fundamentalism are covers for compelled conformity, and therefore ciphers for fascism.
    6. 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
    7. 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.
    8. Passive but supportive citizens are the ideal servants of political power.
    9. 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!
    10. 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.

    People afraid of outsiders are easily manipulated. The warrior caste, supposedly society's protectors, becomes a protection racket. In times of crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few, always on a promise of security. Objectively speaking, the more imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent unchallenged. The Inquisition did a roaring trade against the Devil. The Pentagon profits enormously from the ISIS bogeyman.
        Ronald Wright (1948-)

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