The Media is the Message > How Society Really Works; GSFNC - Geo. Soros Fake News Co.; Tulsi Slams Admin Over Assange

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Brilliant, unattributed analysis of why you should not trust

the mainstream intelligentsia, ever.

I'm not sure who wrote this, although I have my suspicions, but it is brilliant and one of the most accurate analyses of how society works in a fallen world.

Jeffrey writes:

The 1920s Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci was right about a lot of things. Hegemony is the idea that power structures persist because they control what people think about them. They don't persist because they are good, just, or beneficial. They persist because they control all the institutions which collectively create the narrative of society. Essentially the rich and powerful hire a High Priest Class, which consists of the best salesman and talkers that they can buy. The High Priests are given a cut, and the dissidents are harassed - to include prison, torture, or death if need be.

The upshot of this is that the intelligentsia of societies are rarely to be believed. People are led to believe that the intelligentsia have earned their positions on account of their wisdom and skills, and thus they are models spouting truth. In reality, they are bought off by the powerful. A Sports hero might rise because of his skills but his salary will be paid if he endorses a shoe or a beer or whatever. People know for their political thoughts, such as reporters and pundits, are paid almost entirely by the powerful to endorse the continuation of systems which have made them powerful. But whereas Nike won't try to destroy a player who won't endorse their shoes, the political game is much rougher. There is a great salary for going along and ostracization and far worse those that don't.

Therefore, in almost every society the elites are simply a caste of the best liars. Almost all societies have been tyrannies. And didn't every one of those tyrannies have an intelligentsia that supported it wholeheartedly?

You betcha.

All the smartest people in my society can't be wrong???  Think again.  

In every tyranny (i.e., almost all societies), the entire intelligentsia are whores who can't be believed. And they all have the degrees and titles and awards - bestowed not for truthfulness but for faithfully playing their role in upholding the powerful. Anyone who tells the truth about the nature of the tyranny has been ejected from the intelligentsia.

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George Soros backs liberal media company with a mission

to counter fake news & promote ‘GOOD INFORMATION’

26 Oct, 2021 23:43 

©  goodinfo.us/screenshot

By Nebojsa Malic, senior writer at RT

The newest combatant in the US ‘disinformation’ wars is a media company bankrolled by Democrat mega-donors Reid Hoffman and George Soros, and run by an operative whose astroturfed local news outfit was actual misinformation.

Good Information, Inc. launched on Tuesday as “a civic incubator committed to investing in immediate solutions that counter disinformation and increase the flow of good information online.” According to Axios, it is bankrolled by LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman, Soros, as well as Silicon valley investors Ken and Jen Duda and Incite Ventures.

Tara McGowan, a former Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s 2012 and 2016 campaigns – and ran a progressive nonprofit called ACRONYM that spent a whopping $100 million on a digital ad campaign to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 – has been put in charge of the venture. 

I'm sure she will be truthful and unbiased!!!!

ACRONYM was a major investor in Shadow, the outfit that mangled the results of the Iowa Caucuses early on in the Democratic primary process, hurting the candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Another of its operations, Courier Newsroom, will be sold to Good Information for an undisclosed sum; McGowan reportedly recused herself from the deal. 

Ironically, Courier Newsroom was repeatedly called out as misinformation, including by NewsGuard – another major player in the “disinfo” wars – in the pages of the Washington Post no less.

“Courier Newsroom is a clandestine political operation,” wrote NewsGuard’s Gabby Deutch, who described it as “a different, more tech-savvy form of political misinformation.”

Courier and Acronym are “exploiting the widespread loss of local journalism to create and disseminate something we really don’t need: hyperlocal partisan propaganda,” Deutch added in a February 2020 article.

None of that prevented McGowan from gushing about her new venture as something that will fix the “broken, divisive information ecosystem in which we find ourselves today” that is “an all-hands-on-deck challenge for American democracy.”

“I still believe that winning elections is necessary to preserving our democracy,” she added. “But the information crisis is bigger than politics – and requires solutions beyond it.”

To prove that her new outfit won’t be a hyper-partisan Democrat operation, McGowan cited The Bulwark, “a center-right news site founded in opposition to Trumpism,” as an example of a conservative news outlet Good Information could support. Left unsaid is that the Bulwark are “conservatives” in name only, whose obsessive hatred of Trump has them endorsing just about every Democrat running for any office in the US. 

The new company’s advisory board tells a similar story, consisting of mainly Democrat activists advocating for censorship. One notable name that leaps out is Nandini Jammi, previously of the pressure group Sleeping Giants who then launched her own operation called Check My Ads. Jammi’s modus operandi is to contact advertisers and services used by people she disagrees with, and call them racist.

All of this, however, pales in comparison to the chief founder of the new venture. Namely, Hoffman publicly apologized in December 2018 for funding New Knowledge, a Democrat tech outfit advising the Senate Intelligence Committee on “Russian meddling” in US elections.

That’s because New Knowledge admitted to running a false-flag “Russian bot” campaign to get a Democrat elected in the special election for the Senate in Alabama the year prior. 

Again, the only actual meddling in US elections by ‘Russian bots’ turned out to be a false flag by a Democrat-run tech company. New Knowledge has since rebranded while its operatives moved up to bigger and better things – such as the Stanford Internet Observatory, another major “disinfo” player.

Soros, of course, is well known for lavishly funding Democrat candidates and causes, from backing California Governor Gavin Newsom against the recent recall initiative to dropping massive quantities of cash into local elections for district attorneys in major US cities and counties over the past several years.

More recently, he has pivoted to condemning “false and misleading information” allegedly proliferating online.

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‘Another nail in the coffin of democracy’: Tulsi Gabbard slams

Biden administration’s ‘crusade’ against Julian Assange

28 Oct, 2021 19:13

© Reuters / Henry Nicholls

Former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has called out the “Biden-Garland administration” for its “vindictive retaliatory crusade against Julian Assange,” warning it was a slippery slope to the demise of American democracy.

“If they succeed in [extraditing Assange], this will be yet another nail in the coffin of democracy here in our country and around the world,” Gabbard warned in a video posted to social media on Thursday. 

The Democratic representative slammed what she referred to as the “increasingly authoritarian Biden-Garland administration,” dodging any mention of Vice President Kamala Harris in favor of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Gabbard’s dislike of the VP is well known and her debate-stage takedown of Harris’ controversial record as attorney general of California is pointed to by some as the moment the senator's own presidential campaign went up in flames.

In its continued persecution of Assange, Gabbard declared, the Biden administration was “doubling down on its crusade against our constitutionally protected rights,” specifically those protected by the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. 

The clip came just a day after prosecutors issued a series of “binding” assurances aimed at defusing concerns over the WikiLeaks publisher’s mental health were he to end up in a US prison. Assange’s attorneys have said they fear he might commit suicide if extradited to the US, where he faces a sentence of up to 175 years in jail on charges related to obtaining and publishing classified government and military documents. 

A group of civil-liberties campaigners co-signed a letter earlier this month urging Garland to drop the charges against Assange as the US’ efforts to extradite him continue. While UK judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January that the publisher could not be extradited due to concerns regarding his mental health, Washington on Wednesday put forth a number of conditions apparently aimed at assuaging such concerns. 

Assange would receive “any clinical and psychological treatment” recommended by prison doctors and would not be sent to the US “super-max” prison ADX Florence, nor would he be sentenced to a restrictive form of solitary confinement unless he committed a “further offense” – a nebulously defined qualification that has raised eyebrows among his supporters. Additionally, he could apply to serve his sentence in his native Australia rather than in the US. 

However, Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald QC, dismissed the conditions as “caveated, vague, or simply ineffective,” including the offer to serve his sentence in Australia, which has not consented to housing him.

Amnesty International also blasted the so-called assurances as “not worth the paper they’re written on,” saying they were not, in fact, legally binding. 

The WikiLeaks co-founder has been locked up at Belmarsh Prison since April 2019, after he was dragged out of London’s Ecuadorian Embassy by police. He had been granted asylum by former president Rafael Correa in 2012, only for Correa’s successor Lenín Moreno to permit British law enforcement agents to enter the diplomatic mission to arrest Assange on arguably defunct charges of bail-jumping.

Gabbard’s condemnation of the Biden administration over its continuation of its predecessor’s pursuit of Assange was criticized by some, who recalled the Hawaii congresswoman’s endorsement of the Democrat for president during the 2020 election.

Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church Warns of End Times

Orthodox Patriarch warns of approaching end times,

asks not to push for revolutionary change

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia © Sergey Pyatakov / Sputnik

In a public speech in the main Moscow cathedral, Patriarch Kirill said the signs from the Book of Revelation are now apparent. He also called on politicians and ordinary citizens to unite and stop the movement towards the abyss.

“All people who love the Motherland must be together because we are entering a critical period in the course of human civilization. This can already be seen with the naked eye. You have to be blind not to notice the approaching awe-inspiring moments in history that the apostle and evangelist John was talking about in the Book of Revelation,” the patriarch was quoted as saying by Interfax. 

Patriarch Kirill added, however, that the exact time of the end times depends on everyone’s actions. He called on people to understand their responsibility regarding Russia and the whole of mankind, and to stop “the movement towards the end of history’s abyss.”

He emphasized that many representatives of the modern Russian intelligentsia are repeating the mistakes made by their predecessors, who led the country into the ruinous revolutionary events of the early 20th century.

“Today is the wrong time to rock the boat of human passions because there is already too much negative influence on people’s spiritual lives,” Kirill said.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia turned 71 on Monday. After holding mass in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, the Holy Synod presented the head of the Russian Orthodox Church with a copy of ceremonial headwear worn by Patriarch Tikhon – the man who was elected head of the Church 100 years ago.

Unfortunately, this brief report is a little cryptic as to what Patriarch Kirill was referring to with regard to 'rocking the boat of human passions'. However, over the previous few weeks he was more explicit in his concerns. He seems to be worried about a revolution that might take Russia back into communism, - a very dark period for Russia and the Russian church, or perhaps he is referring specifically to Ukraine.

Here is a very interesting report from MEMRI dated 13 Nov - 

At The Opening Of Russia's Wall Of Grief, Patriarch Kirill Criticizes The Bolshevik Revolution On Its 100th Anniversary And Warns Against Fomenting New Revolutions

Vladimir Putin has tried to straddle the issue of the Bolshevik Revolution in an effort to forge a consensus between supporters and opponents of the revolution. He has described the fall of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and brought back the anthem used during Soviet times. On the other hand with the exception of the Communist Party that tried to launch commemoratives of the centennial anniversary of the revolution throughout the country and have the anniversary declared an official holiday, the event was officially played down. Lately Putin has become more outspoken against the revolution. In downtown Moscow, on October 30, the Russian President attended the opening of the Wall of Grief (known in English also as the Wall of Sorrow) memorial to victims of political repression during the Soviet-era government.[1] The ceremony was held as part of the official Day Of Remembrance For Victims Of Political Repression. During the event, Putin stated: "It is very important that we all and future generations – this is of great significance – know about, and remember this tragic period in our history when entire social groups and entire peoples were cruelly persecuted… This terrifying past cannot be deleted from national memory or, all the more so, be justified by any references to the so-called best interests of the people."[2]

Patriarch Kirill and the Russian President Vladimir Putin at the opening of the Wall of Grief memorial. (Source: Kremlin.ru)

A major participant in the solemn ceremony was Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who took the opportunity to express his views on the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The Patriarch stated that the events that ensued during the Bolshevik Revolution could explain the 20th century repressions that came later. However, the Patriarch's speech, was less an analysis of the Bolshevik Revolution and more an apparent warning against future color revolutions against the Kremlin. Indeed, he warned the new generations against repeating historic errors.

On November 1, in a lengthy address before the 21st World Russian People’s Council in Moscow, the Patriarch reiterated that Russian society should learn from its "mistakes" and remain united, avoiding the trap of fomenting new political revolutions as in 1917. The Patriarch further openly warned against color revolutions, which have become a "technological concept", defining the "forceful change of power" and justifying the "violation of the Constitution" and "norms of international law." Here he was very much on the same page as Putin and his surrogates.

Recently, on November 7, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion channeled Patriach Kirill's views when interviewed on the Rossiya-24 TV channel. "Russia could have achieved much more, if it had developed in an evolutionary, not revolutionary way," said the hierarch.[3]

Patriarch Kirill and the Russian President Vladimir Putin at the opening of the Wall of Grief memorial. (Source: Kremlin.ru)

Below are excerpts of the Patriarch's recent speeches on the Bolshevik revolution:

Patriarch Kirill: 'The Dream Grew Over Into A Nightmare'; 'The Current Generation Does Not Have The Right To Repeat The Mistakes Of History'

During the ceremony, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill I said:

"The year of centenary of the Russian revolution offers an important occasion for understanding [repressions of the 20th century]. As we look into this tragedy, we’re asking ourselves how it could happen that children of the same country, neighbors, fellow-workers persecuted and killed one another, how the momentous idea of building a world of freedom and fairness led up to bloodletting and lawlessness? At that time, people dreamed of a world without exploitation, poverty or war, about a world of peace where science would resolve the problems and cure all the illnesses but the dream grew over into a nightmare for many, many people."

He then added: "Where did the error lurk? Was it because people were seeking to build a humane and fair society upon denial of spiritual fundamentals of human life and subjugating morality to ideology, which led to justification of acts of cruelty on the way to building the radiant future. Departure from the standards of morality always breeds crisis."[4]

The prelate warned Russia's new generations against succumbing to the same historic mistakes, i.e. starting new color revolution: "The current generation does not have the right to repeat the mistakes of history. Hatred should not lead us in our quest to build a peaceful, just, and prosperous life."[5] He then added: "The tragic pages of our history should not serve as pretexts for fanning animosity or for a buildup of tensions. And condemnation of terror should not turn from an act of morality into a political ritual."[6]

Patriarch Kirill: 'Color Revolutions Have Become A Technological Concept… Justifying The Violation Of The Constitution'

A few days later, on November 1, Patriarch Kirill returned to the topic when he delivered a speech at the 21st World Russian People’s Council in Moscow. In his speech, the Patriarch stressed that with the passage of years Russian society distanced itself from the Bolshevik revolution. Contemporary Russian society should cherish its national unity and steer clear of the "political radicalism" that could lead to color revolutions.[7]

The Patriarch said: "During the last 100 years our society reached a certain maturity and distanced itself historically enough from 1917 - this enables us to speak in a more balanced and meaningful manner without avoiding some judgment and without politicizing the issue superfluously."

"It is hard to deny that the revolution was a tragedy: a civil war, when one brother killed another, the death and expulsion of millions of people, huge spiritual and material losses. The most horrifying thing is that, during the revolutionary struggle, the seeds of hatred and evil were sown in human souls. Currently, we can only painfully observe how the same hatred is resurrecting itself in other regions of the contemporary world – both in faraway countries as well as amongst the most kindred peoples, amongst our brothers" [apparently referring to Ukraine].

"But this hatred has a different ideological garb today and is connecting with drawing new and intensifying the old dividing lines on the planet, with the growth of global inequality and justifying it, by cultivating artificial differences in the societies. These processes are already unconnected to the ideas of the original revolution - they have different ideological roots.

"Despite the rapid growth in the number of conflicts, wars and revolutions in the world, Russia retains enough strength to be an island of stability in this dangerous stream and to continue along its historical path."

"Today, our society is consolidated and there is no tragic civil gap, which [back then] divided the people in two. On the contrary, today we learn again to cheer the national unity and reconciliation.

"This unity and reconciliation ensure us that the country and the society won't stumble and won't rupture into the historical divide as happened back in 1917. Russian history does not go round in circles. We learn from our mistakes. We received immunity to all forms of political radicalism – for us as never before, consensus, is important shared values are important. What unites us - is important rather than what divides us. By cultivating and building the internal peace Russia may serve as an example and moral support for anyone who wants to survive the current crisis.

"The international community is very close today to the historical features, defining the beginning of a new epoch – an age of a great change in peoples' lives, especially the change of the worldview. The new age is coming inevitably, because the limits of globalization have been reached, thus the crisis in its unifying criteria has already emerged. This does not mean that the values of democracy, humanism, and human rights will totally disappear from our lives, but they will cease depending on some abstract, global standards. Every cultural – historical subject will have to seek internal support in its own traditions, a support, necessary for development and progress and will have to seek its own model of modernization, roots of its social institutes system.

"The same thing that applies to the life of a private individual applies to the life of a nation – the belief in social institutions and legal mechanism is dead without moral praxis, without an ability to do the right thing. In this case, this belief leads only to chasing the chimers, the elusive mirages of happiness and freedom. And it leads to uncountable human victims.

"We witness eloquent examples of faith without deeds and deeds without faith - both in the history of Europe and in our Russian history. These are world wars, and revolutions unleashed by the world's powerful. It begins with the French Revolution, which solidified new values in the minds of European peoples, and ends with a series of revolutions of the 20th century. This topic is all the more important because revolutions are currently being mass produced. The so-called 'color revolutions' have become a technological concept, defining the change of power by force and justifying the violation of the Constitution and norms of international law.

"However, despite the fact that the revolution has become just a common technique, its ideologues still rely on quasi-religious rhetoric, they try to justify the revolution as a spiritually lofty, and morally justified act. At the same time, modern revolutionaries, like their predecessors, always sacrifice a part of their own people - through the very logic of the revolutionary process - for the sake of achieving abstract benefits.

"The selective approach of such revolutionaries and their handlers to international norms shows that behind the beautiful facade of legal justifications there are in fact double standards, the desire not to subordinate to the power of laws but, on the contrary, to subordinate others to the right of the strongest, to interfere in internal matters of the sovereign states.

"Revolutions are generally conducted 'from above' – by the elites, which are driving and intoxicating people with their destructive energy. It may be the people's "own elite", uprooted from the traditions, and it may be a foreign elite, driven by colonial interests. The common people are organically disinclined to conductions revolutions – on the contrary the common people are the guardian of traditions without this hindering their desire to attain social justice…

"So, here the question arises regarding the quality of the elite that must be faithful to their own people and be replenished by talented people 'from below', without being constrained by the interests of external global players.

Today Russia looks for the 'shape of the future'. I think the shape of the future is a shape of people and elites which are mutually complimentary. The elites are not above the people. The elites are individuals who take the responsibility for the fates of the country, who equate their own interests with the interests of the state. The elites and the people should be a single undivided whole.

"Thus, it's impossible to 'appoint elites artificially. We need a base from which the current elite is drawn. In order to nurture the elite we need to nurture the people, to nurture society, to invest resources in it. If we don't nurture our own people – others will [he refers apparently to foreign/external forces]…

"Revolutions pretend to create a 'new man' – they strive to break the traditional, Christian core inside a man, to 'reforge him. The struggle of the revolutionaries with traditions and culture stem from this very logic. But this is a dead end, it leads to denial and fragmentation…

"If in the 21st century we want to be a flourishing country, respected by other states and which has a future, if we want to avoid revolutionary catastrophes and civil confrontation – we should not forget our historical experience, we should not renounce our historical fate."

Patriarch Kirill: It All Began 'When People Lost Their Internal Sovereignty'

On November 4, after Saturday's liturgy in the Kremlin, the Patriarch went on speaking about the revolution. He stated that the cause of the Bolshevik revolution had its roots in events that took place 200 years earlier, when people began denying the sovereignty of states and governments.[8]

The Patriarch said: "If we sweep aside the entire political environment connected with the events of a century ago, if we detach ourselves from this ideological view, then by this impartial view we will see a great deal, and we will understand that the beginning of our national illnesses, which led to the catastrophe a century ago, began not a year, not five years, not ten years, but at least 200 years, and perhaps even more, beforehand, when they began to destroy the spiritual foundations of the life of our enlightened society, of the so-called elite."

According to the Patriarch, it all began "when people lost their internal sovereignty, giving their minds and souls to that which came from outside, receiving these signals from outside uncritically, exposing their faith, worldview, and view on life to these ideas."

Patriarch Kirill: 'If There's Liberty, Then There Can Be No Equality'

During his Pastor's Word television program, the Patriarch also commented on the slogan of the French revolution "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" (Liberté, égalité, fraternité). The slogan, as mentioned by the Russian news agency Interfax, became "rooted in the psyche" of the Russian intelligentsia.[9]

The Patriarch said: "If there's liberty, then there can be no equality. Because liberty is just a meadow upon which flowers and grass grow, with each blade rising to the best of its ability. There is no equality: one is stronger, the other is weaker, and there is no sign of the third at all. But equality, it is a mown lawn, everyone is equal but there is no freedom…

"If our unfortunate intellectuals had thought of it earlier, if this kind of comparison had occurred to them, if this kind of comparison could have been disseminated in mass consciousness, then maybe one would have paid closer attention to this seductive motto - equality, fraternity, liberty - because then the revolution would have been carried out primarily for the sake of liberty."

[1] The monument depicts faceless victims of the Soviet-era. The monument was realized by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan, who designed the monument.

[2] Kremlin.ru, October 30, 2017.

[3] Interfax-religion.com, November 7, 2017.

[4] Tass.com, October 31, 2017.

[5] See Putin and Patriarch Kirill Open "Wall of Sorrow" In Memory of Victims of Bolshevik Repression

[6] Tass.com, October 31, 2017.

[7] Patriarchia.ru, November 1, 2017.

[8] Orthochristian.com, November 7, 2017; Interfax.ru, November 4, 2017.

[9] Interfax.ru, October 30, 2017; Interfax-religion.com, October 31, 2017.