44 Comments

I love the term "diversity of thought." You'd think those who preach about diversity would consider that. But their brains are just broken.

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The cancellers think they are the sole keepers of their Orwellian version of "diversity".

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What good is diversity if they all say the same things? It's so stupid.

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So glad to see you continuing to support free speech, Cindy. Today's "Woke" social justice warriors want to prosecute those that disagree with them. Our First Amendment now exists in name only. Thanks.

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of course. What would make me stop supporting it?

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I don't know, I think there's fewer and fewer of us every day that do.

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Thank you Cindy. Cancel culture not only threatens democracy, but fosters hatred and illiteracy. The so-called left needs to be a lot more outspoken against, identity politics,WOKE, an ideology that benefits the sociopathic elites only. I am delighted to be an 81 year old retiree. At this point I have nothing to lose.

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Right on!

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Cancel cult(ure) is led by the woke cultural revolution, carrying on like 1984's Ingsoc or any totalitarian snitch society (let alone Maoist youth turning in bourgeois parents) as advance guard of the new (ab)normal. It's been astroturfed by philanthropic colonizers of the nonprofit industrial complex as a crucial component of controlled opposition, serving such Orwellian purpose as the cancellation of free speech in the name of power to the people, complemented by such doublethink as enslaving people to 'public health' and rule of the biosecurity state for their own good (Science Is Real), or enforcing trans(humanist) agenda with all the misogyny it can muster against TERFs.

Woke-ism is just one piece of divide-and-rule disempowerment of populations captive to capital rule, which itself has increasingly become captive to corporate state fascism and militarism as its means of governance beyond pretenses of liberal democracy. Rights of citizens, always most relative if even real, are now to be replaced by technofeudal subservience to AI and the algogarchy, behind which the ruling class rules over a prison planet of synthetic slaves.

Crises create opportunities - for elites, such that the science of social engineering serving them has become constant creation of disaster capitalism to make a killing, with more than just the market, as in disposing of 'useless eaters' through shock doctrine 'cost of living' inflation. The problem-reaction-solution strategy of creeping fascism, by which post-WW2 Pox Americana made militarism permanent, has recast human society in the image or idolatry of war, human relations a 24/7 Hobbesian combat among antagonists conditioned by psywar to cast common people as enemies while marching to the lies of mind control. ("We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director, 1981-87)

We live under occupation in any organized crime system of class rule. The global security state now waging counterinsurgency warfare against national populations climaxes the process of dispossession, and mass murder, that's always defined civilization, as defined by the victors. Resistance at this historical, and evolutionary, turning point will have to be radical enough to get at the roots of who we are, and want to be, beyond the paradigm of class war, and all the culture/civil/imperial wars it wages to advance final solutions.

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"astroturfed by philanthropic colonizers of the nonprofit industrial complex"

Well said!

It's the most insidious of the Industrial Complexes, epitome of "wolf in sheep's clothing."

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We all should have a passion for free speech. I was arrested during the Free Speech Movement at Cal in 1964. One of the upshots of that was the changing of the CA law that restricted what was called "sectarian literature" on Community College campuses which are legally secondary schools. Because of what happened at Cal, even the political establishment was in favor of diversity of speech. Along with George Miller III and the DA of Contra Costa County, John Knox and Jerome Waldie, local assembly person and George Miller Jr. the law was struck out as it applied to Community Colleges. Jerome Waldie asked me if I would allow Hitler to speak. My reply was yes. I would respond to anything he said like Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Parody is a better response than anger or vituperation. The law passed the Assembly and Senate unanimously, but a year later Ronnie was elected governor by railing against those ungrateful and unruly hooligans at Cal. Win some and lose some, but I still support free speech and do not even know how to define "hate speech."

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They don't trust us to make up our own minds about anything---even with the poor education and indoctrination in schools. They have their functionaries to shut us down. Thanks for the brief history of the "free speech" movement. Did they take down that monument in People's Park yet so Berkeley could build more student housing?

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I have been living in Ecuador since 2014. Don't get back much so am out of touch. Ronnie Babe, calling out the National Guard in 1968 that resulted in the killing of at least one, cemented Ronnie's place in the pantheon of tyrants and with the October Suprise led to his selection as POTUS, a sad chapter in US History.

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I am a born and raised Californian---Raygun destroyed public education here, as well.

Yes, US history is one sad chapter after the other.

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Yes. The sad part is that the 99% are mostly unaware of the scam. They have been "educated" in the neoliberal ideas that markets can solve any problem. Nope! How much evidence to the contrary is necessary? Ronnie's brain was already rigid and shrunk from Alzheimers, but like many could credibly perform what he had been doing his whole life, realistically deliver a script. CA had the best education and mental health system on the planet. He immediately dismantled the mental health system. Before Ronnie there were few street people. Immediately there were people wandering the streets begging for food. Hence People's Park

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The powers-that-be missed(ignored) a step. There were supposed to be Community Safety Nets in place before "deinstitutionalization."

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Not sure when this started, maybe when ironically "Antifa" cancelled those they deemed "fascist"? smh

Now parents/citizens are attacked with cancellation because they are against trans surgery for minors. And there is a Hollywood-types movement to identify them with "hate speech", even against Gays who oppose adult grooming of children.

Special Note: I greatly admire both you and Roseanne Barr (even though she blocked me many years ago on Twitter regarding a vaccine discussion... now she has reversed her views on the topic!). She has found her voice more publicly nowadays (amazingly Youtube has not cancelled her podcast). And eternal optimist that I am, I wish for a rekindling of something you both can live with between you two as well. (((Hugs)) :o)

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She and I have profound differences. You don't know what it's like to be associated with her--I need to protect my own sanity. Even so, like I said, the cancel culture around her, and around everything is ridiculous. She's not even given a chance to defend herself. Which is why I find her treatment of me back then so interesting. BTW, I am still on twitter, but in a clandestine account, so I see what's going on over there. I don't think Musk has improved it much.

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I am back on Twitter after two years of being banned & I speak so freely now!

There are many many many less haters against Autism Parents, in fact overwhelming majority agree with us now. I am actually able to talk in an echo chamber instead of being swarmed by attackers!

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Roseanne is a trip, as they say. As I recall, she was great during the Dubya years. And even with the Trump thing, which now seems more understandable than reprehensible to me, I don't find her nauseating like say, post-Dubya Keith Olbermann. Good to hear about her change on injections.

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🤔Hmm...so what happened to "Love thy neighbor?" In fact what happened to the 10 commandments? I get how you can forget some of the 715 Jewish laws, but what about the Great Commandment? That's pretty easy to remember.

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What happened to just being a decent human being?

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Hear hear

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I so agree. I think asking questions rather than offering opinions has a better result for me

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The Socratic method. I have 6 grandchildren, and that's what I do with them, for sure. It works better.

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As part of the topic from a legal perspective, I found the following report by Glen Greenwald quite good (not sure if there's a paywall):

https://greenwald.locals.com/post/4215379/the-insidious-unreported-legal-assault-on-landmark-free-speech-rulings-from-blm-leaders-to-donald

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I could not agree more.

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Listening to folks we disagree with a smile and silence while they rant leaves them confused and opens the door for another days discussion. If I’ve learned anything it’s we seldom have the ability to sway people away from their beliefs. Social media is a disease in society. So glad to walk away from it all.

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Agree, me too

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The current government craze here in Australia is banning anything to do with Nazism - all because a couple of dozen young wannabes performed the Hitler salute on the steps of the Victorian Parliament (and on another occasion went group hiking in the country, where - *shock, horror* - they were seen doing the same). I'm sure I can't be the only one down here to make this observation, but if your democracy is that fragile it feels threatened by events like these, you've got much bigger things to worry about....

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I often wonder if they are Agent Provocateurs? Because the real jack-booted government tyrants suddenly have any "excuse" for any of their dictatorial diktats.

I was at a 2016 Trump rally in Orlando with Dad (we were both Democrats at the time... switched to Independent after Biden won). He was joking hilariously for us to raise our hands Boy Scout style and pledge to vote no matter what, even if we were on hospital gurneys during hurricanes. We were all LMAO. The "media" took camera shots of patches of the audience and said we raised our hands in "Nazi salutes". They were actually portraying me and my Dad (a WWII Veteran) as "Nazis" for Trump, lol. This was when I realized that something very strange was afoot... little did I know.

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Exactly, Kathy ... "problem", reaction, (pre-planned) solution. Whether in Melbourne, Australia or Melbourne, Florida, it's the same game plan and playbook by the same people. That must have been a creepy experience!

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It was such a weird revelation! I knew that US "Media" had changed since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, but that hit too close to home. It snapped me into awareness. https://truthout.org/articles/democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act/

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I find it incredibly ironic that while both red and blue parties are really one in service to the rich and powerful and corporations, their minions are constantly cancelling each other. To me, it is a mean to prevent those who appear opposed to each other to find common ground around class by those who fear class solidarity.

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She committed the ultimate sin unless that video that surfaced yesterday was a deep fake???.

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Roseanne is also the Queen of Sarcastic Shock. She could run circles around Howard Stern, lol

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"Cancel culture" appears to be part of a top-down social engineering project, and represents the Tyranny of the Intolerant, who are actually quite a small minority that play by Authoritarian State rules. It is absolutely a "witch hunt" mentality marching under the banner of Conformity, which is quite the opposite of Diversity, ironically...

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https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/2024-election/rfk-jr-town-hall-newsnation/

RFK Jr - terrific today at a town hall in Chicago...

He's now telling the actual facts, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.....

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So Kennedy’s son has gone to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the UkroNazis apparently with his blessing while he embraces the Zionist apartheid Israeli state. He is, after all, a Democrat!

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yes, I have written about these things quite a bit.

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I also understand he is taking an extreme rightwing position on immigration, but I am not paying that much attention to his campaign. I have more important things to do, like paying my bills.

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In the Town Hall meeting he disavowed much of that and was very specific about his understanding of the proxy war. He said nothing about Israel...what he came across as was honestly trying to find a way to unite this country.

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