Back on 12/30/22 I wrote a piece titled Normalizing the New Normal about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and the subsequent revelations about the US government's collusion in censoring content on the platform, especially during the 2020 election. The article's basic premise was this:

Let's suppose that freedom of speech may not be Musk's ultimate goal in buying Twitter. Let's suppose that normalizing the new normal is actually the goal. What do I mean by that?

Musk is bringing front and center the alphabet agencies hand in censoring Twitter users. He is exposing that which many of us have suspected for a long time, that is, the government is colluding with big tech to catapult their narrative and to shut down oppositional view points. Exposing that is a good thing, right? My immediate reaction was, "Sure is". But, wait a minute.

Since I've been going on about normalizing the new normal, let me try to explain. The behind the scenes collusion of big tech and the state is being exposed with the intent to normalize that unholy marriage. To put it out there for all to see. It's shocking, right? But after a while the shock wears off and people begin to accept it. There's nothing that can be done about it, so we have to live with it, right? There's no hope citizen, accept your medicine and let Big Daddy Government handle this. Accept this fact and prepare yourself for CBDCs and digital slavery. Go back to sleep.

People are and will be outraged. "My Constitution" is crying out across the land. Folks will ululate, throw up their hands, shake their heads, call out for reform. But slowly, over time, the short attention span majority will move on to the next big thing and the tech/state collusion will be normalized and we the people have lost another right. Perhaps the most important right of all. And it's out there for all to see.

The new normal has been normalized.

A few years back I had a bad dream, no, it was a nightmare. The worst I've ever had. I was lying on my back in deep sleep and suddenly there was a very large ominous man-like figure standing next to the bed looming over me. This apparition suddenly jumped up and sat on my chest with its knees on my arms so I was totally pinned down, I couldn't move. I struggled to free myself but couldn't budge an inch. I then let loose with a primal scream, you know, the kind of a nightmarish scream that you can feel vibrating deep in your throat but it just doesn't produce any sound no matter how much your subconscious mind wills it.

That unresolved scream woke me up. I was lying there on my back, eyes still closed as I thought to myself, "Phew, that dream was too realistic, I'm glad the scream shocked me out of it". I was actually sweating and my heart was thumping. I said something out loud to prove to myself that I was awake, I don't remember what I said, but my voice was back. Or so I thought.

Is we learning yet?

Occasionally while surfing the internet I'll run across this hair on fire exclamation: "I'll see you in the re-education camp". Re-education? I thought that's what schools were for? Take that as you may, or not. I believe there is an effort afoot to thoughtscape your mind for you, as though you aren't intelligent enough to think for yourself.

To my mind, there's no need for a re-education camp, the camp has already been built, it's all around us. Like an ubiquitous schoolmarm, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Like an insidious rehabilitation program, not of the physical world, but of the mental realm. Fences built around the mind are as effective as a barrier of razor edged concertina wire, maybe more so, because once the fences are accepted then there's no need for escape.

Author and publisher Max Blumenthal was arrested October 25, 2019. Blumenthal is as highly regarded, progressive journalist who digs up unpopular truths, such as the ongoing Venezuelan (VZ) US-orchestrated coup. The DC police, which most likely was the MPD, not the Capitol police made a big show of arresting him. They threatened to break down his front door and surrounded his house. He was arrested in his pyjamas but the coppers relented a bit by allowing him to take a warm coat.

Today, May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. It is sadly ironic that on this day, the United States is exercising all of its political might to get its lapdog, the United Kingdom to extradite Julian Assange to the United States for the crime of journalism.

Being acutely aware of their dim chances to retake either houses of Congress, the Dems have begun their fight for even more censorship on FaceBook. Zuck's "algorithms" (i.e., censorship tools) apparently weren't strong enough to stop those 13 Russian operatives, working feverishly in St. Petersburg, disseminating ads for puppies and other sinister things AFTER the election. Nope. Not good enough.

Dems want Zuck on the House floor to explain...you know, explain, explain what?

Tuesday April 10, 1906
San Francisco, California - Police Attack Protest of Workingmen

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Tuesday December 14, 1915
From Archives of The Workingman's Paper: Gurley Flynn on the Spokane Jail

Fresh from her victorious one-woman fight for Free Speech with the city of Paterson, New Jersey (see photograph at right), Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn plans to continue her struggle to establish the rights of union organizers to speak to the silk workers in that city. With this struggle in mind, Hellraisers offers an article, written by Miss Flynn for the December 11, 1909, edition of The Workingman's Paper in which she described her experience in the county jail at Spokane during the I. W. W. Free Speech Fight in that city which took place during the winter of 1909 and 1910.

Miss Flynn came to Spokane as a young married woman, having married John A. Jones in Lake County, Minnesota on January 7, 1908. The newly weds arrived in Missoula, Montana, in time to play an active role in that victorious struggle for Free Speech. They then moved on to the fight for Free Speech in Spokane, Washington, where Gurley Flynn was arrested as an I. W. W. "agitator."

Miss Flynn's article gives us some idea of the special hardships endured by women when prisons and jails employ male guards rather than matrons. The male guards are often less than trustworthy to be in charge of the keys which give them unfettered access to women prisoners, day and night.

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Saturday December 11, 1915
Paterson, New Jersey: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found "Not Guilty" of Inciting to Riot

On Tuesday November 30th, Fellow Worker Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was found "not guilty" of inciting to riot in Paterson, New Jersey. Hellraisers will be covering this story over the next few days. We begin our coverage with this report from the Chicago Day Book of December 1st:

Paterson, N. J., Nov. 30. - "The constitution of the United States is on trial-I'm not!" So said Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, I. W. W. orator on the eve of her appearance in Paterson court for "inciting to personal violence"-a charge that grew out of her attempt to deliver a speech in a Paterson hall when the police did not want her to.

"It is free speech, that right guaranteed to every American by the constitution of our fathers, that Paterson seeks to abridge," she went on.