By Addison dePitt
Zuckerberg's auto-da-fé before the Congressional inquisition is designed to send a message to his tech industry colleagues, as well as provide official cover for the future enforcement of draconian rules against deviants from the official script. "Misuse of social media!" cry the new Inquisitors. But who decides what constitutes "misuse"? Isn't that what the First Amendment is all about?
The latest scandal swamping Facebook's top corporate echelons, and capitalist wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg himself (who is clearly out of his depth and, stuck in the mobs that usually surround his appearances of late, often looks like a deer in the headlights), is not about what his company did or didn't do regarding the safeguarding of privacy of hundreds of millions of Facebook users, that's a joke. Personal privacy is punctured and violated every day in millions of ways by the US government (as shown by Wikileaks, among others) and the corporate world, the latter due to its irrepressible drive to harvest prospects to expand sales. It's been like that ever since marketing emerged from the capitalist slime eons ago, and later when it was discovered the Internet provided a lightning fast way of reaching and prospecting customers cheaply and effectively and, given the topography of the new invasive (and often seductive to some) new technologies, in an virtually unstoppable way. In America, intrusiveness has always been a vested right of the corporate nobility, as anyone sitting in front of a tv set can quickly appreciate.
No, friends, as you already probably intuit, that is certainly not what this storm is all about. All this noise, all this frenzy as if the sky was falling, and the calling of Zuckerberg to the Congressional shed, so to speak, is just a smokescreen, a bum steer, plain and simple political BS, deployed by a united establishment led by the Democrats to force the hitherto largely apolitical social media industry to toe the imperial line and enforce ever more draconian measures to patrol and suppress all forms of actual free speech and political dissent. It should be noted here that some entities, like the Google octopus, are already there, way ahead of the pack, virtually embedded with the Pentagon and the intel crowd, merrily collaborating in all sorts of criminal skullduggery, something that even employes have now begun to protest.
The Democrats, a party well known for its repugnant hypocrisy and irrepressible cowardice and opportunism, has led the charge since Trump came to power, creating, in tacit alliance with the CIA and other sinister players, a veritable witch-hunt against dissenting bloggers, and laying, through their equally hypocritical and baseless Russiagate, the groundwork for a criminalisation of political dissidence behind the pretext of neutralising bloggers who supposedly "create national divisions," serve Russia's ends, or disseminate "fake news," a term much in vogue today with truly Orwellian reverberations, all of which would be laughable if it were not so dangerous to the future of this republic. Indeed, such priggish posturing ignores, as we might expect, the irrefutable fact that the main engines of fake news creation and distribution are and have long been the very "respectable" mass media, owned lock, stock and barrel by a handful of plutocrats whose social, economic, and political interests are at variance with 99.99% of humanity.
Incidentally, a number of clueless consumer groups have joined the crusade against Facebook's "ghastly" crimes of being a capitalist entity and doing what capitalists do all day long, and organised protests of their own, over the giant firm's failure to protect their data, thereby giving credibility to the deep state's claim that this is chiefly about compromised personal privacy. In their innocence about what the system is up to for lack of a better word they remind me of the kids in the March for Our Lives campaign, demanding gun control and an end to violence in America, an old liberaloid demand, while ignoring the far larger issues underlying such violence, not to mention the fact that cops and the US military gun down many more people here and abroad with nary a protest by the white middle class crowd.
One more thing needs to be said before presenting a couple of examples of how the media act as enforcers for this insalubrious anti-democratic development. If you think that the Democrats with their new-fangled McCarthyite tactics are threatening free speech now (well, they'll never admit it, of course) only because of their malignant and hopefully temporary obsession with Trump (however superficially plausible considering how odious and unprincipled Trump usually is) you'd be dead wrong. The suppression of free speech in the US and the rest of the "capitalist democracies" (a glorious oxymoron) is a systemic bipartisan plot that long precedes Trump, the result of the establishment's realisation —brought to a boil with the upset election of Trump—that they are losing control of the main narrative—the truth is getting through, so to speak— and the holes must be plugged. The gargantuan echo chamber dedicated to lies 24/7 that is the mainstream media and supporting institutions must be kept safe from further erosion and eventual dismantlement by that pesky little thing some people still quaintly call, "just the facts."
EXHIBITS
Note that in the below CBS (like the rest of its ilk) is happy to push for regulation of the social media tech companies, all for the good of the people, you understand, a veritable Pandora's box with many possible political traps for US and Western dissidents.
An antiwar and media activist, Addison dePitt despises the Big Lie, abhors neocon-instigated imperial wars, thinks capitalism is a terrible disease, and that Orwell chose the wrong target to skewer in 1984. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Things to ponder
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
^3000US citizens have no real political representation.
We don't live in a democracy. And our freedom is disappearing fast.
I don't want to be ruled by hypocrites, whores, and war criminals.
What about you? Time to push back against the corporate oligarchy.
And its multitude of minions and lackeys.
4 comments
What a surprise (to me)!
Mr. A. dePitt’s picture looks (to my taste, at least) as good as those of some American movie stars from the 1940-60s! (I’m thinking of Gregory Peck.) The person on whose nerves I’ve stepped perhaps multiple times (sorry, we were not very well educated!) seems one I would have liked to meet in life, “superficially” (perhaps) judging by just one picture … (I do suspect that people’s inner thoughts and/or lifestyles do eventually leave marks on their faces. Or perhaps their inner health, better said, leaves those marks.)
To top it all, “[Mr. dePitt] thinks capitalism is a terrible disease”. Well, this is TGP, but I am still very surprised.
Sir, what chance does the working class have when faced with the onslaught of the much better educated “haute bourgeoisie” ? Particularly in democracy, when schooling of the masses is (in my estimation) catastrophic.
Here is one example from just a few days ago:
https://republica.ro/domnul-papacostea-in-arcadia-inimii-mele
It turns out, this young man (the article’s author, Ştefan Colceriu) is from a highly educated family – all anticommunists! (I can only hope that the good signs of Mr. dePitt’s seemingly enjoying languages – “auto-da-fé” and “wunderkind” – would actually lead to his reading this article … though a philology doctor and volunteer journalist may be a hard read, in a new language, however close it may be.)
It appears to me, such opposing views/claims (Mr. dePitt’s and Mr. Colceriu’s) never “meet”! TGP (and most other publications of the same type) seems to dismiss claims opposite to the one quoted from Mr. dePitt as “self-serving”/etc. TGP/etc. also seem to dismiss (as irrelevant) the catastrophic failure of the working class of keeping up technologically (life standards etc.) with their “competing” democracies. However, for the prisoner “haute bourgeoisie” in these states ruled by the working class (representatives), this failure was unbearable.
Conversely, Mr. Colceriu’s repugnant views never reach the point of discussing ANY inconveniences of “democracy”, be it prior to WWII or post 1989. In fact, he seems to mostly talk in elevated language, hardly saying anything of substance. But how is that possible, from someone who skillfully maneuvers classical languages, his own one (French and English too, apparently), and … theology!?
The online publication itself is a collection of articles by contributors, together with the articles of some five journalists who have defected from their previous newspaper, “Gândul” (“The Thought”). Now here is the point: among its contributors, there are a few foreigners too – who apparently speak the language, though they don’t seem to publish much. What would it take for someone like Mr. dePitt to volunteer to debate them a bit ? Gently, to only point out some inconvenient truths to them, with brief arguments, if required. As I said, there seems to be no dialogue among competing claims. What is the working class to understand, then ?
Had I not read this relatively recently, I would not have thought (maybe) of the obvious role of “echo chamber/loudspeaker” the free press of democracy plays in bringing down governments which are not far enough to the right: they regularly announce mass (anti-government) demonstrations nationally, under the pretext that … “this demonstration is announced for the date […]”
In fact, one of the “professional founder-journalists” – who had been the Chief Editor at “Gândul” – mentioned some “training” in the US (plus, he once published a piece reportedly written in a gas station in Iowa). Another was accused (while he was the star journalist at “Gândul”) by a (rather hysterical lady) reader of being the nephew of NC’s last Securitate chief, implying his journalism isn’t honest (he was a computer engineer, by training, and a writer of science fiction, before 1990).
Oh, and there is more: these governments “not enough to the right” (as I called them) are supposedly from the Left, being voted in by the desperate working class. But, the social-democrat party representing the Left doesn’t have … bright enough people to even put together a cabinet! There is constant mocking in the “:free” press of the grammar mistakes by ministers (Ed. Ministers, in particular), of the very embarrassing inability of the PMs of decently speaking English (or whatever), of the PMs having not read a book in ages etc.
Reason: of course, hardly any intellectual gets into the “Left”, represented by social-democrats. Personally, I seriously doubt (most of) the working class knows that the social-democrats are a party of the bourgeoisie. (I’m not saying, though, they don’t sense it, but I suppose the impression is vague.)
P.S.
I hope Mr. dePitt doesn’t take to heart anything I say. Aside from my being just an amateur, it is generally hard to be polite and refined in a language one barely understands.
Methinks Addison de Pitt is a synonym for Addison deWitt, the acerbic theatre critic depicted by George Sanders (as the photo indicates, not Gregory Peck) in the movie ‘All about Eve’ where
Margo Channing the fading actress played by Bette Davis says the unforgettable line: ” Fasten your seatbelts, we are in for a bumpy ride!”.
:)
Comrade M.S. did not free us soon enough for me to get a solid democratic education – mine has huge gaps. For example, the closest I’ve ever heard to George Sanders is a certain lady George Sand (and I know more about Chopin – though next to nothing – than about Sand). Even so, if he preferred that avatar, it still means his spirit resonates with compatriots of that time.
You see, if you happen to know Mr. dePitt/deWitt, please let him know that I forgot to specify an important detail: you (all) can just comment there, you don’t have to write articles for them!
It is long overdue even here on TGP publishing articles on “schizophrenia”! Anticommunist activists have long complained of it: how they had to live behind an iron curtain, pretending the world they were locked in was the right, rich, just (etc.) world, when the West beamed over the radio waves the image of a different world – theirs.
That’s because now, schizophrenia runs backwards:
“Comunicatul lăsa să se înțeleagă că primejdia venea din exteriorul
țărișoarei sub forma unor acțiuni îndreptate împotriva „Statutului și a
Poporului Român”, desigur cu litere mari. Măria-Sa Poporul era chemat,
în vorbe drastice, să fie deștept, să nu se lase manipulat, dus de nas
de tenebroasa conspirație mondială, de oculta globalizantă. Mai ales
intelectualilor li se cerea să fie patrioți, responsabili și înțelepți.
Estimp, sute de mii de intelectuali recalcitranți și iresponsabili,
proeuropeni și filoamericani, procapitaliști școliți în Occident, activi
și inteligenți urlau la minus zece grade împotriva penalilor din
fruntea țărișoarei, pe care distinsa societate academică înțelegea să-i
cauționeze prin apelul ei penibil de iz național-ceaușist”
https://republica.ro/domnul-papacostea-in-arcadia-inimii-mele
This young(ish) doctor in philology wrote about a week ago the lines you see above! This while the world is supposedly burning/boiling over a) Assad’s savagery b) endless flow of (criminal!) lies by Democracy (take your pick!).
So, can you understand this paragraph ? Can you explain (not dismiss!) it ? I refuse to believe insanity on his part. It can’t be ignorance either! What is it, then ?
They have searched the skies for fifty years (they were saying) waiting for your planes to arrive. Can you now “fly” over there and drop your load of truths over them (as comments to their articles) ? As mere commenters. How about if every one of you here adopted one of those “liberated” countries and dropped their load of truths on them ?
THEY KNOW ENOUGH ENGLISH TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND SIMPLE TRUTHS.
Thanks.
P.S.
They now monkey the social-democrat P.M. for having read “Euro 2020” as “Euro 20-20”, rather than “Euro two thousand twenty” in their own language. They don’t generally protest Romglish, unless it comes from the “wrong” people. And when that happens, they run more than one article on the “subject”.
Looney tunes of different hues and directions have commented in the media and Internet websites about the horribleness of Messrs. Trump cum suis and how the US is not a democracy and is going rapidly into the dumps. It is all very exciting and frankly déjà vu as all this has been trumpeted (not yet about Trump) in the after-world war two phase of political discourse in the US and it was fun in the nineteen sixties but has assumed a rather tired and time-worn face since. No revolution of any sort came out of the late-twentieth century protests and none can be expected in this early century. Life goes on and with it the empire will devolve more and more into a totalitarian fortress of thought and action. One can admire the many efforts at exposing the hard-faced lies of the elite governing bodies from the congress on to the executive and the powerful media, but then so what else is new? There are indeed two worlds, that of the semi-complacent public steered by the official propaganda one way or another and hung between disgust with the supposed symbol of elite control, Trump and those who by necessity of survival thought they would have a champion in the White-colored House in Washington, D.C. Neither large sections of the public will have even the least influence on affairs as they are directed by the hidden vested interests now and into the future. Unless it all comes unglued which at present seems highly unlikely, but the political chaos is in fact the motor which allows the status quo to go on unchallenged.