Slave auction at Richmond, Virginia, public domain via VCU Libraries Commons
This is an unsustainable situation.
polls: yougov and rasmussen
Just think, Trump has finally been held accountable for his actions, just like the rest of us suspended, former Twitter users. We should be dancing in the streets rather than getting “emotional” about a private, for profit corporation, using it's “legal power” to punish those that break their rules.
Originally published at Café Babylon on Oct. 6, 2014. It seems even more relevant today than it did then. It’s longish, so hang in there if you're able. In these post-‘Capitol’ social media de-platforming days, remember that (Chrome) Google algorithms suppress websites from the conservative and religious right to the ‘subversive left (wsws and popular resistance, for instance). And Google bought Youtube in Oct. of 2006 for a paltry $1.65 billion.
If you haven’t read it and seen the captioned photos, you’ll love ‘Google Is Not What It Seems’ by Julian Assange, an extract from his new book When Google Met Wikileaks, wikileaks.org
Also see Scott Ritter’s ‘By banning Trump and his supporters, Google and Twitter are turning the US into a facsimile of the regimes we once condemned’, RT.com, Jan. 9, 2021 Two excerpts:
“Digital democracy became privatized when its primary architect, Jared Cohen, left the State Department in September 2010 to take a new position with internet giant Google as the head of ‘Google Ideas’ now known as ‘Jigsaw’. Jigsaw is a global initiative ‘think tank’ intended to “spearhead initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world.” This was the same job Cohen was doing while at the State Department.
Some combination of intention, greed, and buffoonery is at the root of this nation's inability to deal with the current rash of pressing problems. From COVID to forever wars to ecosystem destruction to our sick care system to disputed elections and the transfer of power...almost every dimension of national interests look very much like failure. The headless empire dances not knowing it is dead. Unemployment is at record highs, small business closure topping the charts, 4000 US citizens a day dying of COVID, the Capitol invaded to thwart an election,...and the stock market reaches record highs. Pretty obvious to see where the priorities lay.
And in the End...
Our whole government applauded the actions in Hong Kong. Can you say Hypocrisy?
Must watch video shows the identical nature of US-government funded rioters who stormed the Hong Kong legislature and Trump’s mob that rioted in the US capitol. Via @taro_taylor pic.twitter.com/CnTPaMOzpb
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) January 9, 2021
Let's not try to even imagine, let alone list them all, but start with JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm. No real ancient history there, but merely the tip of the iceberg.
Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, and Bobby Hutton.
Sacco, Vanzetti and all who died in the MOVE house.
But these are all notorious cases and named individuals.
What about all of the labor leaders, labor organizers and striking laborers.
On January 8, in the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter permanently banned the accounts of Donald Trump and several Q-anon conspiracists while Apple and Google removed the Parler app from their stores, reportedly upon pressure from U.S. lawmakers.
While I must admit I'm uncomfortable with what could be seen as a starkly partisan act that smacks of Fascism, when I look at what has transpired in context I really must agree with their decisions.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I will have never a noble,
No lineage counted great:
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute a State.
The United States has by far the largest military in the world, but Vietnam proved that sometimes that's not enough. An empire needs other nations submit or at least cooperate.
That becomes difficult when you're extremely unpopular. That's where America is today.
