{"id":223101,"date":"2022-11-07T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=223101"},"modified":"2022-11-02T04:39:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T04:39:45","slug":"destroying-western-values-to-defend-western-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/11\/destroying-western-values-to-defend-western-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Destroying Western Values to Defend Western Values"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-223102\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa-1024x536.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa-768x402.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/homeland-nsa-logos-usa.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>1 Nov 2022 &#8211; <\/em>So it turns out the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the \u201ccognitive infrastructure\u201d of the population. This is according to a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/31\/social-media-disinformation-dhs\/\" >new investigative report by <em>The Intercept<\/em><\/a>, based on documents obtained through leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, on the \u201cretooling\u201d of the Department of Homeland Security from an agency focused on counterterrorism to one increasingly focused on fighting \u201cmisinformation, disinformation, and malinformation\u201d online.<\/p>\n<p>While the DHS\u2019s hotly controversial \u201c<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/oh-god-its-going-to-get-so-much-worse?s=w\" >Disinformation Governance Board<\/a>\u201d was shut down in response to public outcry, the Intercept report reveals what authors Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein describe as \u201can expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms\u201d in order to \u201ccurb speech it considers dangerous\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>According to a draft copy of DHS\u2019s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS\u2019s capstone report outlining the department\u2019s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target \u201cinaccurate information\u201d on a wide range of topics, including \u201cthe origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Docs show Facebook and Twitter closely collaborating w\/ Dept of Homeland Security, FBI to police \u201cdisinfo.\u201d Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Zb3zmI1dQF\" >https:\/\/t.co\/Zb3zmI1dQF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Lee Fang (@lhfang) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lhfang\/status\/1587095890983936000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >October 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The report reveals pervasive efforts on the part of the DHS and its\u00a0Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the FBI, to push massive online platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to censor content in order to suppress \u201cthreats\u201d as broad as fomenting distrust in the US government and US financial institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThere is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">special Facebook portal<\/span>\u00a0that requires a government or law enforcement email to use,\u201d The Intercept reports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmails between DHS officials, Twitter, and the Center for Internet Security\u00a0outline the process\u00a0for such takedown requests during the period leading up to November 2020,\u201d says The Intercept. \u201cMeeting notes show that the tech platforms would be\u00a0called upon\u00a0to \u2018process reports and provide timely responses, to include the removal of reported misinformation from the platform where possible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While these government agencies contend that they are not technically <em>forcing<\/em> these tech platforms to remove content, The Intercept argues that its investigation shows \u201cCISA\u2019s goal is to make platforms more responsive to their suggestions,\u201d while critics argue that \u201csuggestions\u201d from immensely powerful institutions will never be taken as mere suggestions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWhen the government suggests things, it\u2019s not too hard to pull off the velvet glove, and you get the mail fist,\u201d Michigan State University\u2019s Adam Candeub tells The Intercept. \u201cAnd I would consider such actions, especially when it\u2019s bureaucratized, as essentially state action and government collusion with the platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is absolutely wild. The government is secretly transforming &quot;national security&quot; agencies into a new Narrative Police.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a foreign government sent these messages,\u201d said the former ACLU president, \u201cthere is no doubt we would call it censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the story: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9bMjDKSmcd\" >https:\/\/t.co\/9bMjDKSmcd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Edward Snowden (@Snowden) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Snowden\/status\/1587204372907393025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >October 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The current CISA chief is seen justifying this aggressive government thought policing by creepily referring to the means people use to gather information and form thoughts about the world as \u201cour cognitive infrastructure\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Jen Easterly, Biden\u2019s appointed director of CISA, swiftly made it clear that she would continue to shift resources in the agency to combat the spread of dangerous forms of information on social media. \u201cOne could argue we\u2019re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,\u201d said Easterly, speaking at a conference in November 2021.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another CISA official <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lhfang\/status\/1587257992449208320\" >is seen<\/a> suggesting the agency launder its manipulations through third party nonprofits \u201cto avoid the appearance of government propaganda\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>To accomplish these broad goals, the report said, CISA should invest in external research to evaluate the \u201cefficacy of interventions,\u201d specifically with research looking at how alleged disinformation can be countered and how quickly messages spread. Geoff Hale, the director of the Election Security Initiative at CISA,\u00a0recommended\u00a0the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a \u201cclearing house for trust information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But as a former ACLU president tells The Intercept, if this were happening in any government the US doesn\u2019t like there\u2019d be no qualms about calling it what it is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIf a foreign authoritarian government sent these messages,\u201d noted Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, \u201cthere is no doubt we would call it censorship.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, this report is just another example of the way western powers are behaving more and more like the autocracies they claim to despise, all in the name of preserving the values the west purports to uphold. As The Intercept reminds us, this business of the US government assigning itself the responsibility of regulating America\u2019s \u201ccognitive infrastructure\u201d originated with the\u00a0\u201callegation that Russian agents had seeded disinformation on Facebook that tipped the 2016 election toward Donald Trump.\u201d To this day that agenda continues to expand into things like plots to censor speech about the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">[Thread]<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of former agents of a notorious Israeli spying organization are now working in key positions at the world\u2019s biggest tech\/comms corporations, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft. <\/p>\n<p>My new investigation for <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MintPressNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >@MintPressNews<\/a>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/blv2ieGOmS\" >https:\/\/t.co\/blv2ieGOmS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlanRMacLeod\/status\/1587175981831290885?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >October 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Other examples of this trend coming out at the same time include Alan MacLeod\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/revealed-former-israeli-spies-working-top-jobs-google-facebook-amazon\/282413\/\" >new report with Mintpress News<\/a> that hundreds of\u00a0former agents from the notorious Israeli spying organization Unit 8200 are now working in positions of influence at major tech companies like\u00a0Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon (just the latest in MacLeod\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/new-media-are-as-intertwined-with\" >ongoing documentation<\/a> of the way intelligence insiders have been increasingly populating the ranks of Silicon Valley platforms), and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronjmate\/status\/1587082090071433222\" >the revelation<\/a>\u00a0that The Grayzone\u2019s Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mat\u00e9 were barred from participating in a Web Summit conference due to pressure from the Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re destroying western values to defend western values. To win its much-touted struggle of \u201c<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world\" >democracies vs autocracies<\/a>\u201c, western civilization is becoming more and more autocratic. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2022\/04\/15\/more-escalations-in-online-censorship\/\" >Censoring more<\/a>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thegrayzone.com\/2022\/10\/28\/spooks-mercs-hawks-nafo-troll\/\" >Trolling more<\/a>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/three-illuminating-quotes-about-the\" >Propagandizing more<\/a>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2019\/06\/05\/more-police-raids-as-war-on-journalism-escalates-worldwide\/\" >Jailing journalists<\/a>. Becoming <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rcfp.org\/overclassification-bigger-problem-leak-hunting\/\" >less and less transparent<\/a>. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/greenwald.substack.com\/p\/the-consortium-imposing-the-growing\" >Manipulating information<\/a> and people\u2019s understanding of truth.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re told we need to defeat Russia in Ukraine in order to preserve western values of freedom and democracy, and in order to facilitate that aim we\u2019re getting less and less free speech. Less and less free thought. Less and less free press. Less and less democracy.<\/p>\n<p>I keep thinking of the (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politifact.com\/factchecks\/2019\/apr\/02\/viral-image\/no-winston-churchill-didnt-say-what-are-we-fightin\/\" >fictional<\/a>) story where during World War II Winston Churchill is advised to cut funding for the arts to boost military funding, and he responds, \u201cThen what are we fighting for?\u201d If we need to sacrifice everything we claim to value in order to fight for those values, what are we fighting for?<\/p>\n<p>Dissent is becoming less and less tolerated. Public discourse is being more and more aggressively disrupted by the powerful. We\u2019re being shaped into the exact sort of homogeneous, power-serving, tyrannized, propagandized population that our leaders criticize other nations for having.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Any journalists or press freedom advocates out there care about a US gov\u2019t ally, Ukraine, pressuring a media conference to cancel two journalists? <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sPwaQAIiTV\" >https:\/\/t.co\/sPwaQAIiTV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Aaron Mat\u00e9 (@aaronjmate) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronjmate\/status\/1587140697311911936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >October 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>If the powerful are becoming more tyrannical in order to fight tyranny, what\u2019s probably actually happening is that they are just tyrants making up excuses to do the thing they\u2019ve always wanted to do.<\/p>\n<p>As westerners in \u201cliberal democracies\u201d we are told that our society holds free speech, free thought and accountability for the powerful as sacrosanct.<\/p>\n<p>Our leaders are showing us that this is a lie.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with \u201cwestern values\u201d is that the west doesn\u2019t value them.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, those who best exemplify \u201cwestern values\u201d as advertised are the ones who are being most aggressively silenced and marginalized by western powers. The real journalists. The dissidents. The skeptics. The free thinkers. The peace activists. Those who refuse to bow down to their rulers.<\/p>\n<p>Our ongoing descent into tyranny in the name of opposing tyrants calls forth a very simple question: if defeating autocracy requires becoming an autocracy, what\u2019s the point of defeating autocracy?<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Caitlin-Johnstone.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-180156\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Caitlin-Johnstone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>\u00a0 <em>Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\" >at <\/a><\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\" >Medium<\/a>. <em>Contact: <a href=\"admin@caitlinjohnstone.com\">admin@caitlinjohnstone.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2022\/11\/01\/destroying-western-values-to-defend-western-values\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 caitlinjohnstone.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 Nov 2022 &#8211; So it turns out the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the \u201ccognitive infrastructure\u201d of the population according to a new investigative report by The Intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":223102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,1785,234,1706,1006,70],"class_list":["post-223101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-censorship","tag-media","tag-mind-control","tag-social-media","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}