RON UNZ—I’d always taken great pride that my Hispanic Crime article spent a decade ranked #2 among nearly 200,000,000 Google results for that important topic, and was dismayed that Google “disappeared” it. But in fairness, I’d have to admit that individuals who make themselves disagreeable to ruling political elites have sometimes suffered far more worse retaliation.
JIMMY DORE—LEE CAMP— The two activists discuss how Facebook and other social media giants are trying to strangle free voices telling it like it is by blocking their communications with their followers and also aggressively demonitising their sites. Their main offfence is of course that Camp and Dore are antiwar, and anti-capitalism. Lee Camp accurately describes the situation as a drip drip approach to the strangling of free speech. It reminds us of the legendary frog in the pot, who is boiled to death so slowly he never realises he must jump out immediately to avoid certain death. As stated in our pages many times and seen on similar anti-establishment orgs, the corporate system, like ghouls scared of the daylight, is frightened by truth. The water keeps getting hotter and hotter in the pot, but the animals are not taling remedial action.
KEVIN REED—There is no doubt that international public access to this kind of independent reporting is of great concern to the military-intelligence state behind the persecution of Assange and Manning. It is the exposure of these important facts that is behind the ongoing online censorship of socialist and oppositional websites that has been identified by the World Socialist Web Site going back to the spring and summer of 2017.
GODFREE ROBERTS—The censorship scene in China could hardly be more different. For two thousand years the Chief Censor has been a public intellectual and the incumbent, Wang Huning, is typical. He’s the most famous intellectual in a nation of intellectual-worshippers. His Master’s thesis, From Bodin to Maritain: On Sovereignty Theories Developed by the Western Bourgeoisie, won wide acclaim and millions watched him twice lead Fudan University to victory in the international Intercollegiate Debating Championships.
RAMIN MAZAHERI—It seems amusing and hypocritical that a book about socialism is only being sold on Amazon, which is perhaps the most cutthroat capitalist corporation today. All I can say is: we tried. Amazon has bought up so many parts of the modern publishing industry, like CreateSpace, that there simply are no real options for us. We are looking, though.Bottom line: the most common phrase heard among leftist authors is, “just get the ideas out there”, because leftist ideas are so harshly repressed in the West, both formally and informally. And it’s not like we’re in this for the money.