Today there seem to be two primary narratives driving the push for mass internet censorship. One is created for the political 'intelligentsia' - those who live on the warfare state and who want the public to continue to subsidize their parasitic lifestyles. It is the fairy tale of Russiagate. The other is created for NPCs - those who live for the welfare state and demand a socialist revolution to subsidize their own parasitic inclinations. It is the fairy tale of 'hate speech'. In the war on Donald Trump we've seen a very clumsy, and opportunistic, attempt to join both sides. By claiming that the warfare state's arch-nemesis, Russia, elevated Trump to power in order to destroy the 'welfare state' and its politically correct culture, we have witnessed the birth of a very deformed ideology.
The result has been best exemplified by groups such as Change the Terms which aims to bully tech giants into de-platforming 'state actors, bots, trolls, and white supremacists' in the hopes that these corporations will, "[Recognize] that social media in particular is a new front for information warfare," and in response, "take affirmative steps to identify, prohibit, and disrupt those who try to conduct coordinated hateful campaigns on the service."
Now, everyone paying attention to the censorship of alternative media is probably aware of Patreon's recent banning of social commentator Carl Benjamin, who goes by the name of 'Sargon of Akkad'. For those who don't know much about him, or who have only heard of him through second-hand sources like the MSM, I'd highly recommend checking out his YouTube channel. He is articulate, well-read and, with an acerbic wit, his common sense observations are like nails on the chalkboard to the PC crowd. They're also usually spot-on and hilarious.
"But it's just one alt-Right YouTuber," right? So who cares? Well, of course, that's what we're supposed to think. That's what we were supposed to think when Alex Jones was banned, Laura Loomer was banned, etc. And we were supposed to think 'they're just Russian bots' when the sites Anti-Media and The Free Thought Project were censored as well. But as David Rubin stated,
It doesn't matter what you think of [Sargon] or whether you agree or any of that stuff. The banning of him for doing something that was not on the Patreon platform, that wasn't even done on his channel because of a word he said where he was using the word against the 'alt-right' or the neo-Nazis or whatever you want to call them, is a massive move of that line of what's acceptable."Whether it's store clerks assaulting Trump supporters, social media censoring opinions, or payment processing companies cutting off the livelihood of 'wrong-thinkers', one definite message should have hit home by the end of 2018: If you have opinions that are deemed wrong by people in positions of authority, be prepared to pay a heavy price.
De-Platforming Sargon
Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad
First, why was he banned, and why did it cause such a furor? According to Patreon's official statement, Sargon was banned for using racial slurs during a debate back in February against (actual) Alt-Right/Neo-Nazi types on YouTube.
Now, in defense of his language, Sargon stated that he was quite clearly using it to convey to these neo-Nazis the stupidity of their racist beliefs, and that nowhere in the Patreon guidelines does it stipulate that something done off-platform justifies removal from the platform itself. Clearly this presents several problems.
The first problem? By using such language, given the politically correct tyranny we're up against, Sargon had to have understood that he was putting a huge target on his forehead. However, that doesn't change the fact that public discourse has shifted in such an extreme way that language - 'bad words' - are now considered weapons of aggression. Comedians can't do comedy, and people using foul language or being 'mean' are now lumped into the same category as militants who actually incite or kill people. But, since we don't have a justice system in which 'being mean' gets you a prison sentence (yet), and in which even so-called 'hate speech' is protected (in the US at least, under the First Amendment), extremist groups are forming extrajudicial campaigns to target their political opponents and hit them where it hurts - the pocketbooks.
Case in point: In September a New York-based social justice NGO called 'Data and Society' published a report titled Alternative Influencers: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right, in which they identified each of those evil 'Alternative Influencers' on YouTube. With politics masquerading as social science, the publication used guilt-by-association to connect individuals ranging from Sargon of Akkad, Dave Rubin, and Jordan Peterson, to real white nationalists like Richard Spencer through a highly suspect six-degrees-of-separation technique. Using this 'method', the report proved that a vast sleeper cell of 'reactionary right-wingers' lurked on the internet and needed to be de-platformed. Their ultimate crime? Opposition to Feminism and PC censorship, which ultimately amounted to 'hate speech'. As Mark Ledwich points out in his dissection of this sloppy report, "We have been misled about politically incorrect YouTube":
It is irrefutable that there is a large amount of right-wing, and even far-right content on YouTube. But Lewis' research seems to be premised on the blurring of distinctions. It finds links of association between people like Spencer and mainstream conservatives, and places them all under the same extremist label, despite the fact that their views may diverge in fundamental ways. The report perceives collaborative influence to encompass "debates and disagreements", in which case it could equally conclude that influential people network with their influential opponents in order to debate ideas. And this is a bad thing?But of course such sloppy research is a hallmark of both the Russiagate and SJW communities. Which brings us to the second problem - this has nothing to do with hate speech or Patreon's community guidelines, and has everything to do with crushing dissidents.
This never has been or will be about 'hate speech'. That's a big a lie as 'Iraq had WMDs' or 'Russia stole my elections'. And, as we'll see, any tech company's 'community guidelines' will be adjusted for the real goal of dominating the political landscape - a desire both the small-fry SJW and the deep state bureaucrats hold in common. As Jeb Sprague, a sociologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara reports, a former adviser for the Bush Administration told him shortly after the social media crackdown of 2018 began, "[W]e are just starting to push back. Just this last week Facebook began starting to take down sites. So this is just the beginning."
After he allegedly uttered those words, in October, the tech giants Facebook and Twitter began banning accounts en masse. Anti-Media and The Free Thought Project were two of hundreds that lost their access to social media. They allegedly 'violated rules against spam' because they were "networks of accounts or Pages working to mislead others about who they are, and what they are doing." Clearly the insinuation is that they were 'Russian bots' or some such nonsense.
On October 31st Vimeo removed all of ANC Report founder Ryan Dawson's material, effectively stealing the sales he'd made for both September and October. When asked why they responded that he'd 'broken a guideline' but, when pressured, they said that he'd criticized Israel in a 'mean-spirited way' and thus he was targeted for removal.
In December prominent PC critic Gavin McInnes' show on CRTV was canceled after the network was bought out by Glenn Beck's The Blaze. His YouTube account was deleted and the silly machismo group he helped found, the Proud Boys, found its members under investigation by the NYPD after getting into a fight with Antifa goons. As McInnes told The Huffington Post, "Someone very powerful decided long ago that I shouldn't have a voice. I'm finally out of platforms and unable to defend myself. ... We are no longer living in a free country."
How very true. The real reasons 'alternative influencers' are being targeted is because they advocate for a way of life that is anathema to those types that desire domination above all. Those types of individuals don't want a society full of free-thinking men or women - it's too unpredictable. They don't want traditional gender roles, strong families, and people with their feet planted firmly under them, and who refuse to be lied to day in, day out, by small cliques of amoral spineless criminals masquerading as 'elites'. No, they want 'cucks' and 'soy boys' who can be stripped of their livelihood for cursing or flirting. And they want women who are confused and resentful enough to do it for them.
It's Time for Your 'Review Process'
After Sargon's removal Patreon's customers abandoned the service in droves, with Peterson claiming a 10% loss in the first weeks and Dave Rubin reporting, early in the new year, close to a 70% drop in profits, not to mention the impact felt by many, many other creators. So, as damage control, Patreon's Orwellian 'Trust and Safety committee' head Jacqueline Hart and the company's founder Jack Conte took to the New York Times and teleconferenced with creators, trying to assuage users' fears that their heads could be next on the chopping block.
But, as with most ideologically-possessed people, their 'damage control' only did more damage. They gave us a glimpse into their entire 'review process' and proved it was an Orwellian nightmare, and probably part of a much bigger and nefarious agenda. Thankfully Patreon creator Matt Christiansen transcribed his conversation with Jacqueline Hart. A number of things stand out about their conversation:
1. You have no right to meet your accuser.
Jacqueline Hart told Matt that the Trust and Safety committee relies entirely on 'user reports' to trigger an investigation into banning someone. Matt responded with, "Okay. So just to be clear, what we're talking about then is user reports - we're empowering the mob to notify you, and then you are going to make a subjective decision, as you've described, about what is and is not allowed." Hart doesn't say it, but the answer is yes. So then, what happens after you've been 'ratted on' by the mob? That brings us to the second point.
2. If found guilty you may beg for forgiveness. Hart states:
You know, to be perfectly frank, if Sargon had come with a full-throated apology - and I'm not saying an apology to the group that he was, you know... trying to offend because I understand that's not a savory group - I... I - I understand who Sargon is and - and, you know, what he was trying to say - but, you know, to say something like 'hey guys, you know, things got away from me and that-that's not how I intended it - that's not how I normally speak' there are many -3. Go ahead and beg for forgiveness, but it won't be good enough. During their conversation Hart discusses having banned Milo Yiannaopolous the very day after he activated a Patreon account, simply because he had 'an association with' the Proud Boys - one which he publicly disavowed. When asked why Milo's mere association with them disqualified him from using the service, and if it could happen to someone else, Jacqueline Hart replied, "[I]t's a case-by-case basis. Every creator is allowed a chance to appeal....[but] if you look at [Milo's] disavowal, it was a situation where I think a lot of people said this wasn't really a disavowal." So not only are anonymous users allowed to throw you under the bus, but afterwards anonymous judges determine how sincere you really are when you beg for forgiveness.
4. Just kidding, all the above was just a game of cat-and-mouse. This is the important part. Like the initial victims of the Soviet Gulag system, who hoped they'd be set free after the Soviets realized they were innocent, the entire 'review process' outlined above is a twisted joke since, in the end, your fate was pre-determined. Hart let this slip when she commented on the 'unofficial reason' that Sargon was banned - pressure from payment processors. She says:
The problem is Patreon takes payments. And while we are obviously supportive of the first amendment, there are other things that we have to consider. Our mission is to fund the creative class. In order to accomplish that mission we have to build a community of creators that are comfortable sharing a platform, and if we allow certain types of speech that some people would call free speech, then only creators that use patreon that don't mind their branding associated with that kind of speech would be those who use patreon and we fail at our mission. But secondly as a membership platform, payment processing is one of the core value propositions that we have. Payment processing depends on our ability to use the global payment network, and they have rules for what they will process.Now, as Jordan Peterson points out, if this is true, that the world of finance is now routinely policing our speech, it seems the line has been moved much further than we thought. And there is little reason to suspect that it isn't true - after all, financial warfare, sanctions, etc. are practiced routinely against the West's political enemies. Payment processors routinely deny service to 'wrong-thinkers', like the best-selling author and critic of Islam, Robert Spencer, who had his account at Patreon allegedly shut down after MasterCard pressured them to do so. And PayPal pressured SubscribeStar, an alternative to Patreon, when Sargon attempted to set up an account there. And it was PayPal who shut down the social media alternative Gab after the Synagogue Shooter was found to have had an account with them (he also had a racist account on Twitter, but of course they were not similarly threatened). We witness financial sabotage/warfare practiced routinely, and without fanfare, and it's increasingly being focused on citizens with the 'wrong' points of view.
As Jordan Peterson points out, according to their logic, will we be able to buy violent video games if banks are legally obliged to make sure we don't act 'immorally' or view 'immoral behavior'? Are banks supposed to allow you to purchase 'dangerous things' at all, if it is their duty to police the morality of the population? And, given the blatant double standards we see in case after case, is there any way you will ever know which standard you can follow? The obvious answer is no.
JBP Takes On the Banks
This is ultimately why Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin have announced they can no longer, in good conscience, support Patreon, and will be abandoning the platform on January 15th in the hopes of setting up an alternative.
Now, when Sargon was banned, Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin were presented with a classic case of having to choose the frying pan or the fire. By coming out in Sargon's favor and abandoning Patreon they each risked losing a huge chunk of their livelihood. JBP reports he was using these hefty proceeds to build his online university - a university that would no doubt make quite a dent in the politically correct nightmare of modern culture. But, if they stuck with Patreon, they risked losing their reputation for ethical leadership, instead appearing like hypocrites unwilling to abandon their largesse in support of a friend. It's not necessary to speculate that such a forced choice was planned, but it seems entirely possible.
Though neither choice provided them with much in the way of celebration, the choice to abandon the platform seems to me to be the correct one. Patreon is a sinking ship, given its Orwellian 'review process' and its liability to bending over backwards whenever forced to de-platform a political enemy. It's hemorrhaging accounts. And by making their choice, the two of them are now forced to chart out new territory.
That leads us to the next, really quite interesting, aspect of the situation. We all know that Jordan Peterson has tackled postmodernism, the SJW cult(ure) of fear and Feminism, and lived to tell the tale - and in fact has profited from it. Now, after witnessing first-hand the domination exhibited by the financial system, he and Rubin are planning to put their energies into an alternative payment processing system - one that has been the goal of cryptocurrency specialists and which, though requiring a Herculean effort to work out various technological and engineering issues, aims at circumventing the draconian control system that seems intent on policing our thoughts and behaviors and, if necessary, cutting off our access to the lifeblood of the modern economy.
Peterson and Rubin claim to be in contact with numerous engineers - employed at the very corporations which are currently crushing dissent - who pledge their support in such an endeavor. I don't know the feasibility of such a project, but I wonder if the entire project is itself a distraction, keeping JBP from accomplishing other tasks. Peterson seems aware of it as a possibility, stressing that neither he nor Rubin are making outlandish promises, but are simply riding the tide and doing the best they can with the means at their disposal.
Let's be frank: there seems to be a far-reaching, ramified network of social media controllers, spooks, video-hosting platform owners, payment processors, left-wing activists, credit card companies and Neo-Cons all connected in a drive for domination and the enforced implementation of their collective or overlapping agenda(s). It's a drive that we all feel to some degree or another.
But still, these are interesting times, aren't they? A college professor tackles postmodernism and sets his sights on the financial system. Large segments of society seem to have lost their minds. Media, including online, is overwhelmingly just non-stop daily lies. The only oases of sanity are to be found in the alternative media. And yet, through it all, we still see people doing their best to make for a better world, as impossible as it may prove to be.
Reader Comments
Excellent article Corey.
So you honed in on the issue; control.
Watch your mind and notice 'control' issues. Watch out for those things that you lobe to hate in others - cry 'foul! - and throw the first stone.
Corruption can be seen as adulteration and division - such as toxic debts hidden in complex financial instruments, such as fake use of true meanings or 'masking in the forms of truth'. Turning a blind eye to parts of yourself you want to pretend are not there or at least keep hidden from others - but also yourself.
Corruption can be so involved in righteously opposing evils that your own are hidden in broad daylight.
But while the idea of sweeping out is sometimes apt, the way to deny evil without joining it in a negatively charged identification, is to not take the bait, give attention or engage with in its terms. So you are right in that or indeed upside down - but that I propose trying to turn the effects right ways up is to persist in the error.
Change the cause, by illuminating the lack of true foundation of what has been assigned or used as a cause.
By putting your 'cause' outside yourself, you become helpless and though this works a good cover story of plausible deniability - it is you who have the effects of depression or dis-insiration, in grievance, pain and fear of greater loss.
Waiting for others or for conditions is tarrying with 'the dead' while the Call to Joy is deferred or put aside and effectively ignored.
The interjecting mind of thinking that comes between you and your Self is a false premise - but until it is directly revealed or illuminated as such we protect it as our self by behaving as if it is true (our thinking).
An unwatched or unguarded mind can easily be diverted into error - viz: phishing attacks or simple mistaken identity. As children we are like a sponge in terms of taking on family karma (guilt for conflict issues), before we acquire discrimination to know what is ours and what belongs with parents or other relatives. There is a depth beneath the working out of old scripting. The forgiveness of Jesus did not first condemn and then stoop to forgive as an act of power over a sinner. Being truly seen and called to life is a shared recognition.
A mask can act like a template of filters that becomes the survival of the mask at your expense.
Many are called but few choose to listen. Once we see the error we need to see it as a call for correction and not a sin calling for punishment. We are not here to correct others but whatever we do, teaches and exemplifies and gives witness to the call we are responding to. Fear can seem alluring and love can seem terrifying. So 'seeming' is the important term.
Running on the mind of appearances/reactions is a seeming reality experience - but is it true - or truly fulfilling?
You are the one who has to live with the consequences of your choices - and you are the power to own a mistake and make a better choice, but without a true discernment, swapping one illusion for another can seem to be a change when it is of course the same government whoever gets in or wherever you go, there you are! So who you accept yourself to be the expression OF is your power to meet yourself wherever you go. It takes one to know one.
Sounds like a hebrew doo-wop ensemble.
Investing truth and freedom in the ephemeral is the power struggle of making illusion 'real' - which is who gets to say so and enforce it.
When I see a lack of credibility I no longer invest in it as credible. This opens to see something else - something that the illusion covered over.
The tyranny of the mind operates via the incentives or indeed disincentives of the mind trapped in the body.
This is the ego or matrix idea of a managed bubble reality in which the illusion of freedom is played out in private self gratifications, or vendetta of self vindication.
Turning the lights out or shutting down any light rising to awareness is the business of 'worldly power'. This is as active in the poor as the rich elites. Fear of losing operates against change for the establishment, while those who identify in lack fear that real change will threaten the little they still have.
Freedom to experience and interpret in terms of a lack of self is of course self defeating - but if we recognize we do this, then we are the freedom to do something else.
What do you truly OWN? This cannot be taken from you excepting by being phished to run off with the baited reaction to get back what you never really lost.
The deconstructing the illusion reminds me of the crickets who ordinarily avoid each other but as the food source dwindles are obliged to ever more interactions that then switch on the genes that give birth to a winged generation of locusts.
insofar as we engage in interacting - what meanings, values or worth are we in fact sharing and strengthening?
Generally? A sense of LACK - expressed in grievance, fear, hate and blame.
We are co-creators of the world because we GIVE it and receive it willingly.
No one forces us to think as we choose to - but our acquired conditionings that manipulators leverage to run us for their agenda just as we do them until we change our mind and give freedom instead of judging others as 'failing our fantasy role assignment'.
But as you indicate you don't want to give freedom but GET the power to put the guilt on whoever you can identify as worthy of hate and imprison them without any rights. What if this is THE way to generate your own hell?
I don't pretend that everyone's intentions are kind or honourable or sane - but I know that if I sacrifice my own humanity for hate, I will lose the capacity to give and receive truly - and that is the world I choose. I'm not 'waiting' on anyone to live my choice and have the reward of it - but this means 'walking out of the bubble mind' of the illusion of power - to stay mindful of the power of illusion and so be discerning as to the thought I accept true by acting as if it is.
However, I understand that conflict is exciting and easy to 'understand' and engage in and essentially guaranteeing a future like the past in ever shifting roles. But my sense if of imminent paralysis - loss of consciousness in terms of any real choice to a deeper degree of insanity that can only drown its own screams by denying the ability to know itself - or indeed anything truly. I don't believe this is indefinitely available but each has their own breaking point or bottoming out from an addiction that brings lack and pain under false premises and costs everything - or actually - awareness of everything as it truly is. Real relationships are extended and recognised. Perhaps the light from another shines in to break the spell - but can only do so through your own willingness to share it.
Cutting off the feeling being for a loveless mind is 'psycho pathy'. It takes one to know one - and once you know who you DON'T want to be or accept as the true of you - say 'thanks but no thanks' and move on - or else you look into the horror and are beguiled there.
It never was a 'forbidden apple' it just had a warning assigned it; "Danger; partaking of this thinking will induce a self-forgetting amidst a reversal of cause and effect". It is powerlessness (lack) that seeks power and has to make an impact to prove itself.
Impact physics of polarised entities' is - in my opinion - being replaced quietly with the recognition of resonant frequency recognition at the cusp of the 'victory' of the will to control and replace reality - aka 'death'.
the nature of the signal is its exact signature frequency - NOT its amplitude. Reality is always exactly as it is - and adulterations to the signal operate noise. Can any noise deny the willingness to receive truth? Can any situation NOT be a learning opportunity?
Whatever purpose is active determines the result - know then your purpose and live it for what it is worth. But being purposed against an evil is dependent upon it - and will always have to search for enemies NO MATTER WHAT. Because conflict is the means to limit awareness and the mind is used for this in the desire to know something other than truth.