Hosted by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Confused malcontents swilling Chardonnay while awaiting the Zombie Apocalypse.
13792 messages in 543 discussions
Latest 9:57 AM by el gringo (ramseylurker)
Latest 9:52 AM by el gringo (ramseylurker)
Latest 5:59 AM by katiek2
Latest 3:50 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 3:48 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 3:41 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-24 by el gringo (ramseylurker)
Latest Jan-24 by katiek2
Latest Jan-24 by CzoeMC
Latest Jan-24 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-24 by CzoeMC
Latest Jan-23 by katiek2
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by el gringo (ramseylurker)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
1665 messages in 62 discussions
Latest 9:45 AM by el gringo (ramseylurker)
5286 messages in 121 discussions
Latest 4:48 AM by bml00
Latest 3:55 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
2178 messages in 104 discussions
Latest 4:45 AM by bml00
Latest 4:07 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 3:00 AM by PTG (anotherPTG)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4764 messages in 107 discussions
Latest 4:05 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 3:49 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-24 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-23 by katiek2
Latest Jan-23 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-22 by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4385 messages in 183 discussions
Latest 4:04 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 4:03 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest 4:03 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
8928 messages in 60 discussions
Latest 2:51 AM by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Latest Jan-24 by Di (amina046)
Latest Jan-24 by Di (amina046)
6253 messages in 150 discussions
Latest Jan-22 by bml00
Latest Jan-22 by bml00
Latest Jan-22 by bml00
Latest Jan-22 by bml00
MoreNov-11
Not a new article, but the nine lists of items censored and removed that Google maintains which the author describes are still growing:
The new censorship - Robert Epstein Contributor, U.S. News & World Report, 22 June 2016
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated
How did Google become the internet’s censor and master manipulator, blocking access to millions of websites?
Google, Inc., isn't just the world's biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world's biggest censor.
The company maintains at least nine different blacklists that impact our lives, generally without input or authority from any outside advisory group, industry association or government agency. Google is not the only company suppressing content on the internet. Reddit has frequently been accused of banning postings on specific topics, and a recent report suggests that Facebook has been deleting conservative news stories from its newsfeed, a practice that might have a significant effect on public opinion – even on voting. Google, though, is currently the biggest bully on the block.
When Google's employees or algorithms decide to block our access to information about a news item, political candidate or business, opinions and votes can shift, reputations can be ruined and businesses can crash and burn. Because online censorship is entirely unregulated at the moment, victims have little or no recourse when they have been harmed. Eventually, authorities will almost certainly have to step in, just as they did when credit bureaus were regulated in 1970. The alternative would be to allow a large corporation to wield an especially destructive kind of power that should be exercised with great restraint and should belong only to the public: the power to shame or exclude.
Interesting lists. This was four and a half years ago. It's much worse now. I wonder if there are now new lists?
Well, at any rate, at this stage the company is quite open about it. Take it or leave it.
Nov-11
Democrats have their own lists:
Long list of media, Democrats threaten retribution against Trump supporters, Republicans - - Sarah Taylor, The Blaze, 9 November 2020
https://www.theblaze.com/news/1-year-after-calling-to-burn-down-republicans-with-no-survivors-wapos-jennifer-rubin-says-republicans-pushing-voter-fraud-should-be-forced-from-polite-society-we-have-a-list
Both wildly inappropriate and unsurprising
Journalist Drew Holden shared a lengthy — and alarming — list of media outlets, fellow journalists, and members of the Democratic Party who are threatening retribution against Republicans supporting President Donald Trump and his allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and more.
Calling all Americans to take back our constitutional freedoms
Holden concluded the lengthy list — which you can read in its entirety here — writing, "At the end of the day, I can't imagine these folks will be shipping conservatives off to the gulags in a divided government, much as they would like to. But it fundamentally cuts against the spirit of America to suggest someone should be punished for their political views."
"We are not some post-genocide society," he added. "The suggestion that we need a Rwandan-styled Truth and Reconciliation Commission is preposterous. And free societies don't develop political hit lists. This champagne fascism from the Left needs to stop. Now would be a good time."
Canada already has a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. No one has been actually executed yet, though there are plenty who have been cancelled, forced to recant and/or resign, and fired.
Nov-17
As I have said before, everybody has their own line in the sand.
At the end of the day, Google is a private company and can ban whoever and whatever they want.
Nov-21
> "As I have said before, everybody has their own line in the sand."
They sure do!
Videos show protesters upset about the election results, urging that Republican officials are not re-elected for "not explicitly helping Trump to 'stop the steal.'"
Read more from MSN
Nov-21
This can happen when you play with fire!
They're playing with forces that they don't understand!
The devil is back!
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarkOConnor http://www.markoconnor.com Mark O'Connor Grammy nominated Heroes recording featuring 14 of his violin and fiddle play...
Nov-27
Really deserves its own thread, but I'll put it here because political correctness and cancel culture are in many ways just our modern expression of cant, now reaching a pitch never seen in at least a hundred years:
Nov-28
There is a thread here called Political Correctness: Tolerance or Death.
You might find it interesting.
Jan-18
The American political and legal systems are working just fine, despite a few hiccups. Meanwhile, American corporations are depriving citizens of basic rights and freedoms and destroying our democracy.
Read more from Tablet MagazineBut strange things start to happen. The only newspaper in the county refuses to take ads for your business. The only bank in the county announces that it is closing your account and calling in your mortgage. Your car breaks down and the only garage and service shop in the county refuses to repair it. The only general store in the county refuses your patronage and the few restaurants in the county turn you away at the door. After you lose your business to the newspaper advertising boycott, you try to get a job, but discover that you have been blacklisted by all of the employers in the county. Nobody will hire you.
Are you free, in this scenario, just because there is no official interference with your voting rights and your civil rights? Private power is power, no less than government power. You can be immobilized, impoverished, humiliated, tormented, and perhaps driven to suicide by hostile businesses and banks in an otherwise functioning liberal democracy, just as surely as by the police or military in a dictatorship.
The United States in 2021 is a continental nation-state with nearly 330 million people. And yet its social system today, in disturbing respects, resembles that of my imaginary county in 1950. Instead of one general store, there is Amazon with its dominant online position. Instead of one local newspaper, there is Google, which serves as the 21st century version of the old Yellow Pages. Instead of one county bank, there are a handful of giant banks and credit card companies. As in the old Texas county, if one essential firm spurns you there may be no alternatives in that industry who want your business, as a practical matter. If one or all of these national monopolies and oligopolies turns against you, for whatever reason, your business or your reputation or your life can be destroyed.
Following the Capitol riot on January 6, the world was doubly shocked by the attack on the seat of American power and by the power of America’s irresponsible corporations, which are accountable to nobody except their shareholders. The president of the United States—who has been impeached for the second time by the House but has yet to be removed by the Senate or officially accused of any specific crimes in a court of law, much less convicted—was banned by numerous media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Spotify (he can’t even share his music lists!)
The purges and proscriptions have not been limited to Trump or to the criminals involved in the Capitol riot, or in planning others. The dragnet has been widened to include Republicans and conservatives in general, as well as figures on the dissident non-corporate left. Parler, a social media app favored by the right as an alternative to Twitter, was destroyed by Apple and Amazon. The baseball legend Curt Schilling claims that AIG Insurance cut off his family health plan because of his pro-Trump tweets.
Many tech tycoons and companies insist that their mass purge even of conservatives and Republicans was necessary to prevent fascists from organizing insurrections against the federal government. But tracking potentially violent criminals and terrorists and foiling their plots is what the folks at the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, and CIA, along with state and local police, are paid to do. Who needs the FBI when Spotify can save America from a fascist putsch?
The truth is that the corporate proscriptions, purges, and de-platformings were a brutal exercise of raw power by a few very rich people who shares jurisdiction over the citizens and residents of the United States under the corporate constitution.
Today Americans live under two constitutions: The political constitution and the corporate constitution. The political constitution is functioning reasonably well. The corporate constitution, by comparison, is a lawless realm of out-of-control tyranny. ...