NY Times / CIA Big Lie: Russia Paying Afghans

 

“To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports.”

Big surprise…

Pentagon says ‘no corroborating evidence’ of Russian bounties on US troops as media claims increase

Ku Klux Klowns

HANGING KLANSMEN ART INSTALLATION STUNS RICHMOND COMMUNITY

The Fascism is Here

 

SHAUN KING: A Private Law Enforcement Group on Facebook is Literally Plotting to Kill Me

Twitter’s Gloriously Astute Department of Censorship | @Jack

 

Joe Giambrone

 

I’m now inclined to side with Jimmy Dore, who sided with Donald Trump over the question of Twitter’s arbitrary application of censorship, although Trump wasn’t actually censored at the time. Trump did bring up the legalities of Twitter stepping in to decide what was permitted or not. Trump’s dispute arose over a simple warning tag that Twitter placed over his Tweet—not its removal—and most certainly not his entire removal from the platform. Twitter’s so-called legal “Safe Harbor” is predicated on the company not interfering in its users’ communications and therefore having zero liability for what is posted there. But they DO interfere to a growing extent, and this interference is both arbitrary and accelerating.

I have been removed from the platform not for spreading fake news, and most certainly not for violent threats to anyone, but rather for calling those who do spread disinformation a forbidden word. The word itself is now a deadly mine, and so don’t type it. The language police, those nameless, faceless, unaccountable rodents in the festering, subterranean bowels of Twitter Inc. have erased this word from the English language. Take heed. If you type this word—it doesn’t matter the context—you may be booted from Twitter instantly without any recourse and all the connections you’ve forged there severed forever.

A little backstory: language is vast and sprawling. Slang terms have been around for centuries and are a perfectly valid usage. If anonymous censors were held to account, they’d have to justify why they were attacking some accounts and not others for saying the same things. That is the area where Twitter has no standing: the hypocrisy, the selective enforcement, the double-standard, the deliberate misreading of a word.

So, here is the offending Tweet:

 

“Your retarded fanbase refuses to wear masks, and is therefore spreading it recklessly. Number of total cases is up, and it isn’t going away, silly propagandist.”

 

Analyzing this verboten message, the only conceivable problem (for a P.C. Fanatic) must be the single word “retarded.” Twitter was under no obligation to explain exactly why the communication was of such a sinister nature that my entire account, history, and followers list had to be instantly destroyed and thrown down the Memory Hole.

So, let’s accept that calling a mentally handicapped person “retarded” would probably be rude, offensive, and unnecessary. That still doesn’t rise to the level of “hateful,” not unless someone was calling for euthanasia against the handicapped—as I’m sure some others on the platform undoubtedly do.

The Tweet, however, was directed at the right-wing propagandist Laura Ingraham, who is not mentally handicapped. So the little question of relevance comes into play, but only if the scurrying roaches in the disease-ridden sewers of Twitter Inc. had any inkling whatsoever of the concept of relevance in the first place. They have demonstrated no such acumen.

If one doesn’t direct the word “retarded” at someone with an actual mental handicap, then it cannot possibly fall under the amorphous catch-all censorship category of “hateful conduct.”

Case in point, on the very same day that I told Laura Ingraham that her retarded crew were acting recklessly, and thus endangering innocent people by spreading a pandemic, she Tweeted out this:

 

Laura Ingraham @IngrahamAngle

Jun 23

Self-loathing idiots.

 

“Idiots!”

I am completely offended! Idiot was a term for a mentally handicapped person! This is outrageous. The double-standard has brought this farce into stark relief. Ban Laura Igraham immediately for hateful conduct against the mentally handicapped.

I did attempt to respond to Twitter that:

 

“Retarded” has been a colloquial synonym for STUPID for over a century. Are you canceling everyone’s account who calls another person “stupid” by any of a hundred synonyms? Because you’d have no more members.

A quick Google search of “stupid” on Twitter.com finds:

“About 5,560,000 results”

 

That response was never read, as the great corporation has no interest in responding to those it has censored. It simply erases you, and threatens that it will erase you further should you attempt to evade its blacklist. This is how I would expect corporate governance to operate.

NBC repeatedly broadcast a Saturday Night Live sketch where a pair of young Bostonian lovers would rib each other:

 

“You’re retah-ded!”

“No, you are!”

 

Will NBC, SNL, or any of the actors, writers, directors or producers involved be sanctioned by Twitter Inc.? Their accounts destroyed?

By selectively enforcing rules on certain accounts and not enforcing them on others, Twitter has shown itself to be retarded.

 

---

Joe Giambrone is an author and filmmaker.

Terminator Dark Fate – Review

J. Giambrone

Reuniting Arnold and Sarah Connor, this film wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Not high praise, but come on: we’re on T5 now, and the previous couple were less than inspiring.

The story takes a giant leap back to the beginning to rekindle the magic that launched the series. A girl is targeted for termination by time-travelling killer robots, because she holds the key to the future.

Enter Mackenzie Davis, who shows up in everything these days! So, what’s a spoiler and what isn’t at this point? Hmmm. They went to some lengths to keep the players a mystery for as long as possible.

A couple of problems poked out at me. Not enough build-up for the Sarah/John Connor scene. The director opted for a fancy digital transition instead, rather than characterization. Later, the airplane sequence is so over the top it’s almost comical. When…

View original post 68 more words

United States of Distraction (Documentary)

PROJECT CENSORED: Student shot and produced, United States of Distraction: Fighting The Fake News Invasion chronicles critical media literacy and faculty experts, students, and media makers whom provide contextual analysis for understanding the current rise of the so-called “fake news” phenomenon. In addition to deconstructing fake news, the film reminds us that this is not a new development, but rather, a form of propaganda. The interviews provided in the film offer solutions for mitigating the pernicious influence of false content on America’s democratic institutions. Edited narrated by Abby Martin.

 

Oliver Stone’s New Memoir

 

We love Oliver.

Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is gearing up to release my memoir, “Chasing the Light,” on July 21. The look of the book is up on Amazon at amzn.to/3etnXuD and Barnes & Noble at bit.ly/2BwTbT1. Don’t know about the bookstores, hope some will open; only promotion will be a few interviews in print, on radio, and some television.

Besides being about my turbulent family life, the Vietnam War, New York in the 1970s, and my battles as a screenwriter on “Midnight Express,” “Conan,” “The Hand,” “Scarface,” and “Year of the Dragon,” it’s about moviemaking at its most savage — that is, the lower-budget ranges of “Salvador” & “Platoon” in 1985-1986, and how I got those films made against all odds. Hard obstacles gave me strength for what was to follow later. But it makes for a hell of a read, if you’re interested.

 

 

Next Frontier: Healing the Brain

Accented Cinema / Writing Racism

Pretty good filmmaking analysis channel.

MSN: $7 Trillion Grand Theft, Immediately Censored

 

So, that just happened.

Oakland Port Shut Down in Protest

 

Port of Oakland shut down by dockworkers in observation of Juneteenth

Thousands of anti-racist dockworkers have shut down a port in Oakland as workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union went on strike at 29 ports along the West Coast of the United States to protest against racist police violence and exploitation. ⁠ pic.twitter.com/pljIAyGy8S

— redfish (@redfishstream) June 19, 2020

@MaxBlumenthal’s Epic Troll

 

 

PS

More Trump fascism today: