BC WORLD
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Around the world, very much including the Western world, real power is measured by the ability to silence criticism.

The highest reaches of power are measured by the ability to force people to speak in politically-approved ways.

 The ability to silence criticism is a signifier of power. It's how truly powerful groups and regimes recognize each other. If free people can challenge your ideals or mock you without fear, you aren't TRULY powerful, no matter how much authority you might nominally possess.
And if you can force people to speak, force them to use your preferred language, penalize them socially or legally for failing to signal their support for your agenda, then you've entered the winner's circle. Your government or movement has taken a seat at the highest table.
This is one of the reasons people with authoritarian or totalitarian inclinations are constantly screaming that opponents are trying to silence them, even when it's manifestly untrue. It's a means of signaling their contempt for the opposition, of diminishing its stature.
These people would cheerfully allow themselves to be silenced by a regime or movement they truly respected. They pretend to be victims of oppression as a means of signaling the illegitimacy of leaders they despise.
The growing authoritarian consensus across the "free" world is that a core of powerful leaders, parties, and ideological movements must be shielded against criticism in order for government and society to function properly.
The rest of speech can be more-or-less "free," as long as certain quarters of speech are tightly controlled. It's part of the "Great Reset", like reserving part of a computer's memory for the protected operating system. The OS of "free" nations must be an authoritarian core.
The core must not only wield vast compulsive power, but it must be protected INTELLECTUALLY, shielded against challenge or criticism. The designers of this authoritarian system are very well aware of the power of subversive thought. It's how THEY gained power a generation ago.
Various groups and ideologies are now jockeying to become part of the authoritarian core. They signal their candidacy by controlling speech through social pressure, with online swarms and cancel culture. It's how they claim a seat at the table of Great Resetters.
You can tell an ideological group has achieved REAL power, has become part of the authoritarian core, when its agenda becomes part of public school curricula. That's the height of power: moving beyond merely silencing critics and forcing people to say things.
Speech and thought control are vitally important because we retain the vestiges of democracy, even though a great deal of true power has been safely transferred to unelected bureaucracies that can even fight back effectively against renegade elected presidents.
The people can still turn against powerful groups and diminish them if they are allowed to criticize the leadership and agenda of those groups - or, Stalin forbid, make fun of them. Respect must become a learned behavior. It can be extracted by force, much like tax money.
If you force people to respect something - punish them for criticizing it, force them to mouth its pieties - they will eventually come to see it as sacred, as respectable, even if they quietly grumble disagreement to themselves. Critics begin to feel isolated and marginalized.
How do radicals and extremists gain real power, becoming part of the authoritarian core? By making everyone who disagrees feel like THEY are the fringe. You can trace the outlines of real power by asking: "Could I show disrespect for this and still be considered mainstream?" /end

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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Argentina legalizing abortion offers an opportunity to reflect on the great unwritten media narrative of the past few generations: the lives of women and children got worse in so many ways after Roe v. Wade.

Media would never, ever write that narrative, of course - would never string stories together and search for a pattern that could be refined into a political point - but it's the net impact of their reporting on women's issues. Everything started getting worse in the 70s.

There is a valid "narrative" to be discerned from that ocean of bad news about women and children over the past few decades. It's not a coincidence. It's a direct result of the Big Lie pushed by the abortion lobby: that only one person is involved in the decision to give birth.

That's so obviously untrue that entire civilizations are driven mad when they are forced to accept it. It's like forcing everyone to agree that the sky is green or gravity is a myth. Cognitive dissonance inflicts far more social damage than politicians or academics want to admit.

Women and (born) children suffer after abortion becomes broadly legalized because men are erased from the picture. A lot of men - including rich and powerful men - LIKE being erased from that particular picture. Others are intimidated out of insisting they belong in it.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Panic has always been a valuable political resource, but 2020 was the year our ruling class perfected the art of harvesting it, renewing it, and refining it to weapons-grade purity.

The bitter irony is that one reason panic became so easy for politicians and grifters to sow and reap is the great collapse in confidence caused by their own incompetence and greed over the past few decades. The political class found a way to profit from its own ineptitude.

If public confidence in government and major institutions had not been so thoroughly shaken by years of rampant corruption and incredibly expensive failures, perhaps the public would not have been panicked so easily - and profitably! - when the coronavirus struck.

Even as public confidence collapsed and paranoia grew, social media came along to make our society more twitchy and neurotic. We argue constantly about the spread of "disinformation," but not enough about how social media rewards irrationality and performative emotionalism.

Panic and social media both nourish the human herd instinct, and herds respond to loud noises, not reasonable arguments. Our society was panicking over far less important and dangerous things before Covid-19 arrived. We were panicking over some bizarre social issue every week.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Minimum wage hikes are an easy pander - thank politicians for "giving you a raise," and don't think about all the jobs they destroyed! - but they're also an important weapon in the Left's war on the middle class.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
The U.S. central government grew relentlessly larger, richer, and more powerful during the decades that every problem faced by Americans got worse. Why does anyone think making the government even bigger would *solve* any of those problems instead of making them even worse?

This is not just a matter of government ineptitude and corruption, although both of those are major factors. Our problems get worse as the government gets bigger because the Leviathan State and its clients have a vested interest in making them worse.

One of the biggest lies of statism is that government and its employees are utterly selfless and immune to the incentives that drive people in the private sector. This is absurd. Every government agency seeks to increase its "business" and "profits," just like corporations.

The key difference is that government increases its "market share" by giving BAD service and FAILING to provide value for money. Its "revenues" grow through coercion, not customer satisfaction. Agencies go out of business if they succeed too well at their tasks.

Time is money and money is time. The more of its time and money a nation pours into the fundamentally corrupt and inefficient engines of the State, the less it has for the private enterprises and VOLUNTARY cooperative endeavors that could actually resolve society's problems.
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Our pretensions to civilization have become very thin. Political violence was legitimized last year and is spreading wildly now. "Might makes right" is clearly the only "principle" behind freedom of speech. That's why Chinese Communists will never be censored by Big Tech.

When every "principle" becomes nothing but a ruthless exercise of power, it's not surprising that a growing number of people conclude they must demonstrate some sort of power in order to be taken seriously. Violence is the crudest exercise of power.

A well-run civilization makes it clear *universally* that violence is absolutely unacceptable. Giving free passes for irresponsible rhetoric and destruction to groups favored by the dominant political ideology of the State undermines that message.

We must also people peaceable means of expressing themselves and controlling their own lives, to relieve the pressures that can lead to violent outbursts and other forms of lawlessness. The less healthy discourse and freedom of action you have, the more pressure builds up.

It's dangerous when large numbers of people begin drawing the conclusion that might makes right, that laws and principles bend easily for those who have the political strength to bend them. Might makes right is the code of anarchy and barbarism, the antithesis of civilization.
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Pulp Librarian
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@PulpLibrarian
Today in pulp I look back at the world of Soviet women's fashion!

It's not all berets, but it mostly is...


Now you may think that fashion and the Soviet Union go together like Groucho Marx and Friedrich Engels. However that is to misunderstand the nature of the Commad Economy: if she commands it, you'd better buy it for her!


So there is a rich history of fashion and fun (along with the tractor factories and endless ballet performances) in the old USSR. Let's take a sashay along it...


At the start of the Soviet years women's fashion, let's face it, tended towards the functional. Red was popular, as were headscarves, hobnail boots and the ability to field strip a 3-line rifle.

But all that was about to change...


...because Russia had a new fashionista in charge: Stalin! He hated the peasant look of War Communism because it made socialism seem synonymous with poverty. He ordered Soviet Woman to spruce herself up.
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I'll bite, Mr. Gray. We can even play by your rather finicky rules.

Let's begin with some of the things you have said about Xinjiang, notably absent from your more recent media appearances, but still present in your blog about your 2014 biking trip.


The following is taken from an ongoing list I keep of people who have been to Xinjiang and written/spoken about their experiences. It is separate from the testimony of detainees and their relatives I also keep. Jerry is on this

Jerry, your article for CGTN, as well as your various Medium pieces, belabor themselves to emphasize the smoothness of your time in Xinjiang. Why did you leave out so many details from your log of your 2014 trip? They seem relevant.

For example, would CGTN not let you speak about Shanshan, the town that evidently disturbed you so much?


Why, pray tell, after noting how kind and hospitable Xinjiang police were to you in 2019 for CGTN—and how you were never told where you could or could not go—would you omit these details?
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Heshmat Alavi
Heshmat Alavi
@HeshmatAlavi
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#Iran’s regime is increasing its measures aimed at interfering in U.S. elections.

@DNI_Ratcliffe shed light on this important matter.

Americans should be aware that Iran is pursuing this initiative specifically through its US-based lobby arm @NIACouncil.
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Chicken Catcher \U0001f414
Chicken Catcher 🐔...
@IamEtubo
We were pulled over by Nigerian police the last time I was in Naija and this man saw a weapon certification in my wallet and was shocked. The weapon certification had a list of weapons I was qualified to shoot. He yelled "you fit shoot this thing?" I said "yes nau".. he-

Yelled "so if I give you this my gun, you fit shoot am well". I said "boya you should give me and let us see? 🤷🏾‍♂️" He said "who qualify you?". I said "This thing clearly says "Missouri State. Na yankee nah! I mean USA". He yelled "Sergeant Ojo! Sergeant blah blah come o!"

He looked at the uber driver "you come down! And come here! Sergeant! Search the car and search it well. Na huge case dey here! This man fit get guns inside the car! Search it well!" 🤣🤣🤣 I was just laughing! I was like "Mr Police, why you dey harrasss me?"

They all started to cock their guns anyhow "praaaa move! Kini kan! Stay there! Don't move! If you moveeee?!" I was just laughing" They started telling the bystanders to not move! People were putting hands on their heads like we had done something wrong.

The uber driver started crying "I said guy calm down, no dey give this people chance." They searched o! And found nothing as expected. The boss asked where I lived, and I explained I just came back from the US. I presented my passport and boarding passes to him to back it up.
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Defense News Nigeria
Defense News Nigeria
@DefenseNigeria
Can anyone fathom out how weapons like this make their way into the hands of terrorists in Nigeria?


These weapons are in boxes marked with serial numbers. Where there are serial numbers there are invoices or receipts. Which means it was imported. This is worrisome and raise questions about where the terror groups are sourcing their heavy weapons.

Weapons proliferation was once linked to the fall of Gadaffi. Libya was at one point the main source of arms to terror groups on the continent. For those unaware of the dynamics ill give a brief explanation:

When NATO bombed the crap out of the Gadaffi regime in 2011, Libya lost control of a large part of the stockpile it had amassed in over 40 years. The CIA made several calls for ground troops to be deployed to secure Gadaffi's amoury from falling into the hand of rebel groups.

The French kicked against sending ground troops, saying it will give the impression Libya was under a NATO occupation, Its just not worth the political capital to do so. The CIA made this call TWICE and TWICE it was shut down. The logic was securing those sites
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Varahi Amman, Madurai, Tamilnadu

Vaarahi is one of the Saivite Shakti deities with the group of goddesses known as SAPTAMATAS.
They are: Brahmi, Maheshwari, Kaumari, Vaishnavi, Vaarahi, Mahendri and Chamundi. 1/n


They are the Shakti (female) equivalents of their male counterparts. Vaarahi is the Shakti of Bhairavar who is one of the Amsam of Bhairavar.Created from the boar avatara of Vishnu, Vaarahi is often associated with Goddess Kamala (one of the Mahavidyas). 2/n


She is also called Dandini (Lady Commander of the forces of the Mother-Goddess, symbolizing the might of SriVidya). As Vaarahi ("hog-faced" or "the great consumer") she destroys evil forces that obstructs the devotees' progress, paralyses the enemies 3/n


and led the devotees ultimately to SriVidyas. She is also called Panchami). With Kurukalla, she is accorded the parental status to Sri-Chakra (Lalita Tripura-Sundari). While Kurukalla represents the full moon, Vaarahi represents the new-moon. 4/4

Jai Maa Varahi 🙏


Tag for 📷 credit
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Do not have private conversations using the messaging service on any social media platform like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. 3/n

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