We are facing an unprecedented, coordinated campaign… of deplatforming, shadow banning, filtering and other foul means of putting dissenting voices into a digital gulag. While the mailed globe belongs to the tech giants and the executives, the hand inside is the government’s.
– Jim Jatras
Early Saturday morning while frequenting a favorite website, I came across a headline that read “Tech Tyranny: The Cries Are Becoming Screams From the Rooftops.”
Curious, I clicked on the link which took me to an article on big tech censorship. At the bottom of the article was an embedded video of Tucker Carlson’s program from Friday night. Carlson, as it happened, had dedicated his entire 8/31 show to big tech censorship.
Since Carlson is one of the few mainstream journalists who rises to the level of interesting, my curiosity was piqued. But when I went to play the video, instead of Tucker Carlson’s show, the only thing that appeared on my screen were the words “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
“How’s that for irony,” I said aloud to no one in particular. “YouTube just made Carlson’s point for him.”
In fairness, when I went back and checked today, Carlson’s video was back up. So, at least for now, the Silicon Valley Ministry of Truth has deigned to allow us minions to view the program.
Now in response to the increasingly aggressive censorship of conservative, libertarian and other dissenting voices, some people have argued that as private companies, the tech giants – and here I’m referring to companies such as Google (Google owns YouTube), Facebook, Twitter and Apple, all of which have had a hand in attempting to silence conservatives – have a right to police their own platforms and boot whomever they want.
As a staunch defender of property rights, I agree. If YouTube wants to ban Alex Jones, as a private company they have every right to do so.
But what if it’s not quite as simple as that? As John Robbins noted, events do not explain themselves, but must themselves be explained. The rise of the internet has allowed those who dissent from the official narrative. What do I mean by narrative? By this term I mean the context in which various world events are explained. The power to explain events is the power to place them within a larger context, that is, within a larger narrative.
Mika Brzenziski of MSNBC famously let the cat out of the bag when she openly complained about Donald Trump’s challenging the mainstream media’s ability to control explanations. She was concerned that Trump had undermined the media’s messaging ability and that he was telling “people exactly what to think.” She continued, “That is our job [telling people exactly what to think].”
What if all the attacks on those who dissent from the official narrative as put forth by the government and the government’s willing accomplices in the press are not just a case of private firms using private means to police their platforms? What if this represents an attempt by the Deep State and by its establishment supporters to regain control of the narrative from independent online journalists by silencing them?
What if Jim Jatras is right and that the Tech Left’s, “unprecedented, coordinated campaign…of deplatforming, shadow banning, filtering and other foul means of putting dissenting voices into digital gulags,” is being done at the behest of powerful, vested interests in the government and the tech companies are merely the Deep State’s means of carrying out its attempt to regain narrative control?
If this is correct, then the deplatforming, shadow banning etc. we’ve seen over the past couple years, and especially the past few months, isn’t just a case of private companies behaving badly, but represents the merger of state and corporate powers – the merger of state and corporate powers is the classic definition of fascism – to control what people think.
It is the studied opinion of this author that this is precisely what is going on. Or as the quote from Jim Jatras at the top of this post reads, “While the mailed glove belongs to the tech giants and the executives, the hand inside is the government’s.”
(more…)
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Lux Lucet 
Happy New Year 2023: A Look Back and a Look Ahead
Posted in General Commentary, tagged CIA, Deep State, Financial Crisis, Pope Francis, Rome and Immigration, Russia-Ukraine War, The Year In Review, Twitter Files on January 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
It’s that time of year again. The time when we say goodbye to the old year and welcome in the new one with all its possibilities.
In the first place, I would like to thank the Lord for his grace and strength in 2022. The year was a challenging one for me personally, as I went through a period of unemployment. But God was gracious to me, helping me to find a job with a good company. And though things were a bit tight at some points, I always had the things I needed. I’m reminded of what Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things – food, clothing, etc. – shall be added unto you.”
I’m thankful also for another year of serving the Lord through blogging and podcasting. 2022 was my 14th year of writing Lux Lucet and it’s been a labor of love the whole time. Ideas are powerful things, and ideas always come in the form of words. There was a time when I was in the habit of saying “words cannot express” when talking about something that deeply affected me. But many years ago, John Robbins disabused me of that notion. In Genesis, we see that the worlds were framed by the word of God. He spoke the universe into existence. Christ himself is called God the Word. There is nothing deeper than words. There is nothing that cannot be expressed by them. To have the opportunity to work in the medium of words. To write, to express ideas, to teach. That is a high privilege. It is also a great responsibility. It is my prayer each time I write that the words I use may honor God and edify his people.
War in Ukraine
In reviewing the year’s writing, I wrote 53 articles. And the prize for my most popular article written in 2022 goes to “The Reformed Church’s Lost Doctrine of Antichrist” published on April 3, 2022. The context of that piece was Pope Francis’ consecration of Russia and Ukraine “to the Immaculate Heart of Mary” on March 25, 2022. One of the biggest stories of the year was when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. And about a month later, there was Pope Francis dedicating Russia to “the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” I didn’t catch the significance of this story the first time I hear it, but in the week leading up to the papal consecration, there was so much chatter in the media about it that I decided to investigate the matter further. What I found was that the Pope’s decision was connected to the prophecies of Fatima from over a hundred years ago, in which the demon impersonation Mary promised that if the pope dedicated Russia to her immaculate heart, the nation would be freed from its errors and convert to Catholicism. Catholic commentators were ecstatic at the consecration and at least some of them were optimistic that quick results would soon follow. But here we are over nine months later, and the Pope’s consecration seems to have had precisely no effect. The likely excuse for this among Catholic commentators is that the Pope didn’t do the consecration right. At the time of the consecration, one prominent Catholic commentator, I think it was Taylor Marshall, mentioned his concern that Francis added “Ukraine” to his consecration rather than limiting it to “Russia,” as the demonic Fatima apparition instructed.
I thought at the time of writing that article, and still think today, that one of the major overlooked aspects of the war in Ukraine is the role of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS). Pope Frances has verbally come out in support of Ukraine on several occasions over the past year, and very clearly his consecrating Russia is a power play for the RCCS against its ancient rival, the Russian Orthodox Church, and against Eastern Orthodoxy more broadly. It is the long-term goal of the RCCS to create a one-world religion and a one-world government. Rome is the beating heart of New World Order globalism, and this shows very clearly in Ukraine, but most commentators either don’t notice or pretend as though they don’t.
Then there’s the fact that the CIA has been egging on this war since at least 2014 when they overthrew the elected leader in Ukraine and installed a pro-Western regime. The overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 likely was precipitated by his announcement of a pro-Russia foreign policy for Ukraine in place of a pro-Western one. It’s worth noting, too, that the CIA has historically had close ties to the Roman Catholic Church going all the way back to its predecessor organization, the OSS during World War II. At that time, the OSS was headed by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who was decorated “with the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Sylvester, the oldest and most prestigious of papal knighthoods.”
Keep an eye out for further papal intrigue in Ukraine. As things stand, the RCCS has captured America’s federal government and seems fully intent on prosecuting a war in Ukraine in which no clear American interest is at stake. Is the CIA carrying out its proxy war against Russia in connection with advancing the Vatican’s goals of subjugating Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church? It seems likely to the author that this is the case.
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