Marc A. Thiessen| Palm Beach Post

Perhaps the only person who triggers progressives as much as Elon Musk these days is Ron DeSantis. Every week, it seems, Florida's Republican governor takes some new action that enrages the left and delights the right. His poll numbers are rising, which is bad news for Democrats because DeSantis is showing the way forward for Trumpism without Donald Trump.

Like Trump, DeSantis is a counterpuncher minus the political baggage. He punched back against the left-wing education establishment, signing a law banning critical race theory in schools. He punched back against Disney, moving to take away its special tax status after the Burbank, Calif.-based company demagogued his bill to protect the parental rights of Floridians. He punched back against Big Tech, signing a law that prohibits social media companies from censoring or de-platforming political candidates. He punched back against race-baiting Democrats who slandered GOP election integrity laws as "Jim Crow 2.0," signing a sweeping voting overhaul bill that strengthens voter identification requirements, prohibits the mass mailing of ballots and bans ballot harvesting.

Most important, DeSantis punched back against the perpetual lockdown establishment and turned Florida into a bastion of freedom during the pandemic. He put seniors at the front of the line for vaccines, banned vaccine passports, restricted vaccine and mask mandates, suspended local emergency orders, and granted full pardons for all nonviolent offenses and remitted all fines related to COVID restrictions by local governments. And in July 2020, his state education department ordered Florida schools to reopen in the fall for full-time in-person learning limiting the catastrophic learning losses that have plagued children in other parts of the country.

His strategy is working. Americans have been voting for DeSantis with their feet, fleeing high-tax, COVID-restrictive blue states and flocking to freedom in Florida. After languishing in the mid-40s last year, DeSantis's approval rating in the state has risen to 59% in a new Saint Leo University poll, with just 37% disapproving almost President Joe Biden's approval rating turned upside down.

DeSantis is on track to win reelection this fall by a wider margin than the 3.4 points Trump won two years ago. DeSantis leads his most likely opponent, congressman and former governor Charlie Crist, by almost nine points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. He's ahead of his next-most-likely opponent, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, by 13 points.

If DeSantis secures a decisive victory in November, he could prove a formidable challenger to Biden and an attractive alternative to Trump. While Biden continues to reach new lows in approval, polls also show most Americans still don't wish Trump were back in the Oval Office. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey finds that majorities do not want either Trump (55%) or Biden (63%) to run in 2024, with almost 6 in 10 saying they would be open to supporting a third-party candidate if faced with a rematch between the two. If they do both run again, Trump holds a mere two-point edge over Biden -- a statistical tie.

The fact that Trump is deadlocked with Biden whose approval has plummeted further and faster than any modern president should be a red flag for Republicans. Right now, 69% of Republicans say they want Trump to run again, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll. But after seeing the disastrous policies Biden has implemented the worst inflation in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in American history they also know that the 2024 election is one Republicans absolutely have to win. If Republican primary voters are convinced that Trump cannot prevail, they might back someone else.

DeSantis is putting himself in a strong position to be that someone else. He understands that Republicans don't want a nominee like Mitt Romney, who let Democrats walk all over him without fighting back. They want a counterpuncher. DeSantis is building a record in office that will send a powerful message to Republican primary voters: I'll give you everything you liked about Trump except I will win.

Marc A. Thiessen writes for The Washington Post.

Read the rest here:

Commentary: Is Ron DeSantis the Trump of the future? - Palm Beach Post

The Democratic Party which had 50 years to writeRoe v. Wadeinto law with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in full control of the White House and Congress at the inception of their presidencies is banking its electoral strategy around the expected Supreme Court decision to lift the judicial prohibition on the ability of states to enact laws restricting or banning abortions.

I doubt it will work.

The Democratic Party's hypocrisy and duplicity is the fertilizer for Christian fascism. Its exclusive focus on the culture wars and identity politics at the expense of economic, political and social justice fueled a right-wing backlash and stoked the bigotry, racism and sexism it sought to curtail. Its opting for image over substance, including its repeated failure to secure the right to abortion, left the Democrats distrusted and reviled.

The Biden administration invited Amazon Labor Union president Christian Smalls and union workers from Starbucks and other organizations to the White House at the same time it re-awarded a $10 billion contract to the union-busting Amazon and the National Security Agency (NSA) for cloud computing. The NSA contract is one of 26 federal cloud computing contracts Amazon has with the U.S. Army and Air Force, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, and the Census Bureau. Withholding the federal contracts until Amazon permitted free and open union organizing would be a powerful stand on behalf of workers, still waiting for the $15 minimum wage Joe Biden promised as a candidate. But behind the walls of the Democratic Party's Potemkin village stands the billionaire class. Democrats have failed to address the structural injustices that turned America into an oligarchic state, where the obscenely rich squabble like children in a sandbox over multibillion-dollar toys. The longer this game of political theater continues, the worse things will get.

RELATED:Democracy vs. fascism: What do those words mean and do they describe this moment?

The Christian fascists have coalesced in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump. They are bankrolled by the most retrograde forces of capitalism. The capitalists permit the stupidities of the Christian fascists and their self-destructive social and cultural wars. In exchange, the billionaire class gets corporate monopolies, union-busting, privatized state and municipal services, including public education, revoked government regulations, especially environmental regulation, and are free to engage in a virtual tax boycott.

The war industry loves the Christian fascists who turn every conflict from Iraq to Ukraine into a holy crusade to crush the latest iteration of Satan. The Christian fascists believe military power, and the "manly" virtues that come with it, are blessed by God, Jesus and the Virgin Mary. No military budget is too big. No war waged by America is evil.

The Democrats' hypocrisy and stupidity are the fertilizer for Christian fascism, which is bankrolled by the most retrograde forces of capitalism in exchange for the destruction of the welfare state.

These Christian fascists make up perhaps 30% of the electorate, roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans who believe abortion is murder. They are organized, committed to a vision, however perverse, and awash in money. John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, mediocre jurists and Federalist Society ideologues who carry the banner of Christian fascism, control the Supreme Court.

Establishment Republicans and Democrats, like George Armstrong Custer on Last Stand Hill, have circled the wagons around the Democratic Party in a desperate bid to prevent Trump, or a Trump mini-me, from returning to the White House. They and their allies in Silicon Valley are using algorithms and overt de-platforming to censor critics from the left and the right, foolishly turning figures like Trump, Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene into martyrs. This is not a battle over democracy, but the spoils of power waged by billionaires against billionaires. No one intends to dismantle the corporate state.

The ruling class in both parties told lies about NAFTA, trade deals, "reforming" welfare, abolishing financial regulations, austerity, the Iraq war and neoliberalism that did far more damage to the American public than any lie told by Trump. The reptilian slime oozes out of every pore of these politicians, from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to Biden, who backed the 1976 Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortions and in 1982 voted to support a constitutional amendment that would allow states to overturnRoe v. Wade. Their hypocrisy is not lost on the public, even with their armies of consultants, pollsters, courtiers in the press, public relations teams and advertising agencies.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene is clueless and unhinged. She claims Hillary Clinton was involved in a child mutilation and a pedophilia ring and several high-profile school shootings were staged. But weaponized, like Trump, she is a political cruise missile aimed straight at the heart of the discredited centers of traditional power.

Hate is the fuel of American politics. No one votes for who they want. They vote against those they hate. Black and brown marginal communities have suffered worse assaults than the white working class, but they have been defanged politically with militarized police that function as internal armies of occupation. The erosion of due process, the world's largest prison system and the stripping away of all rights, often including voting rights because of felony convictions, as well as a loss of access to most social services and jobs, have reduced many Black and brown people to subsistence level on the lowest rung of America's caste system. They are also the primary targets of Republican-sponsored voter suppression and redistricting.

The glue holding this Christianized fascism together is not prayer, although we will get a lot of that, but war. War is the raison d'tre of all systems of totalitarianism. War justifies a constant search for internal enemies. It is used to revoke basic civil liberties and impose censorship. War demonizes those in the Middle East, Russia or China who are blamed for the economic and social debacles that inevitably get worse. War diverts the rage engendered by a dysfunctional state towards immigrants, people of color, feminists, liberals, artists, anyone who does not identify as a heterosexual, the press, antifa, Jews, Muslims, Russians or Asians. Take your pick. It is a bigot's smorgasbord. Every item on the menu is fair game.

I spent two years with the Christian right reporting and researching my book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America." These Christian fascists have never hidden their agenda or their desire to create a "Christian" nation, any more than Adolf Hitler hid his demented vision for Germany in "Mein Kampf." They prey, like all fascists, on the despair of their followers. They paint gruesome portraits of the end times. when the longed-for obliteration of nonbelievers presages the glorious return of Jesus Christ. The battle at Armageddon, they believe, will be launched from the Antichrist's worldwide headquarters in Babylon once the Jews again have control of Israel. The closer we get to Armageddon, the giddier they become.

These people believe this stuff, as they believe in QAnon or the election fraud that supposedly put Biden in office. They are convinced that a demonic, secular-humanist ideology propagated by the media, the United Nations, elite universities, the ACLU, the NAACP, NOW, Planned Parenthood and the Trilateral Commission, along with the U.S. State Department and major foundations, is seeking to destroy them.

The Christian fascists do not fear nuclear war. They welcome it. The marriage of the forever-war industry with the Christian fascists who yearn for apocalypse is terrifying.

Violence is embraced as a cleansing agent, a key component of any fascist movement. The Christian fascists do not fear nuclear war. They welcome it. The insane provocations of Russia by the Biden administration, including the decision to provide $33 billion in assistance to Ukraine, target 10 Russian generals for assassination and pass on to Ukraine the intelligence to sink the Moskva, the guided missile cruiser that was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, supercharges the ideology of the Christian right. The marriage of the war industry, determined to make war forever, with the Christian fascists yearning for the apocalypse is terrifying. Biden is sleepwalking us into a war with Russia and perhaps with China. The Christian fascists will accelerate the bloodlust.

The political deformities we have spawned are not unique. They are the product of a society and government that no longer functions on behalf of the citizenry, one that has been seized by a tiny cabal, in our case corporate, to serve its exclusive interests. The airy promises politicians make, including the announcement by candidate Barack Obama that the first thing he would do in office was sign theFreedom of Choice Act, which during his eight years as president he never got around to doing, are worthless. The scheduled vote next week in the Senate on a bill asserting that abortions are legal in the United States, which is expected to be blocked by the Republicans' use of the filibuster, a Senate procedural rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the 100-member chamber, is another empty gesture.

We saw the consequences of this dysfunction in Weimar Germany and Yugoslavia, a conflict I covered for the New York Times. Political stagnation and economic misery breeds rage, despair and cynicism. It gives rise to demagogues, charlatans and con artists. Hatred drives political discourse. Violence is the primary form of communication. Vengeance is the highest good. War is the chief occupation of the state. It is the vulnerable and weak who pay.

Read more from Chris Hedges on war, peace and the global crisis of democracy:

See more here:

Jesus, endless war and the irresistible rise of American fascism - Salon

With Elon Musk buying Twitter, theres speculation that former President Trump and many of his allies could have their bans lifted.

During the Trump era, Twitter barred many on the far right, including extremist groups, from using the platform. A number of Trump supporters were kicked off for spreading falsehoods, inciting or advocating violence, harmful activity or other violations of Twitter rules.

De-platforming can limit the spread of harmful speech, including misinformation and disinformation, studies have shown. Amy Bruckman, a Georgia Tech professor of interactive computing and a lead author on one study, said that the prevalence of ideas spread by three far-right or conspiracy-theorist figures went down dramatically after their Twitter accounts were disabled. The toxicity of their followers went down after they were kicked off, she said.

If such figures were to be reinstated, Bruckman said, the ideas come back and the toxicity of their followers comes back too.

Musk has hinted in several tweets that he hopes to overhaul Twitters content moderation policy. I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy, he wrote in a regulatory filing, adding that the company would not fulfill that potential in its current form.

The tech billionaire has not publicly committed to reinstating any banned user and has made no comments regarding Trump, who has said he has no plans to return to Twitter even if his access is restored.

Here is why Trump and others from his orbit were banned:

Continue reading here:

Who did Twitter ban during the Trump era, and why? - Los Angeles Times

A group of security heavyweights in the US has issued what it labels an Open Letter from Former Defense, Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Cyber Officials Calling for National Security Review of Congressional Tech Legislation. These wise custodians of the national interest employ their unimpeachable moral authority to claim that US tech monopolies with names like Google, Amazon and Twitter should be regarded as indispensable pillars of national security. Thanks to their ability to mobilize massive power not only over public communication channels but also over the average citizens thought and behavior, these oh so vulnerable monopolies must be protected from interference by legislators or other busybodies seeking to limit the reach of their defensive power.

That power now includes the indispensable capacity to censor and even suppress inconvenient viewpoints in the sacred name of national security. But instead of resorting to direct censorship, which most people in a democracy continue to condemn as a violation of free speech, the technology monopolies use a range of discretionary tools that include deplatforming, demonetizing and much more subtle, indeed arcane algorithmic disappearing techniques. The truth those monopolies defend happens to correlate with whatever the security establishment wants people to think of as the truth.

Implementing this policy requires the kind of Manichean thinking that all authoritarian regimes but certainly not democracies traditionally encourage. They insist that theirs is the way of light and that everything else is darkness. No other voice needs to be heard, since allowing it to speak might obscure the light. Good must prevail and evil be suppressed.

Concerning the current conflict in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, two nations with an impossibly tangled history, our security experts do not hesitate to congratulate the tech monopolies for their brilliant work. U.S. technology platforms, they affirm, have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russias actions to brutalize Ukraine. Through their efforts, the world knows what is truly happening in cities from Mariupol to Kiev, undistorted by manipulation from Moscow.

Todays Weekly Devils Dictionary definition:

The quoted sentences above contain two interesting distortions. The first is of course the Manichean assumption that the narratives the platforms choose not to suppress can be compared to the purity of light passing through a vacuum. Photons, after all, tell no lies. But all media, including social media, invent narratives that select the objects we are allowed to see. Even more significantly, they have the power to suppress the objects we are not allowed to see. Light lands where they choose it to land.

The second is the claim that because of the selections made by the media, the world knows what is truly happening. Only people or institutions with authoritarian instincts claim to know what is truly happening. And they do so knowing that they have the power to misrepresent the truth. In the era of deep fakes and monopolistic media, even in times of peace, nobody can legitimately claim to know what is truly happening. In times of war, propaganda takes over public discourse. Denying that is a patent lie. In times of war, honest citizens seriously curious about the truth should learn to distrust any of the narratives they are invited to consume.

The authors of the letter to Congress make it clear that the current war, which does not officially involve the US, is nevertheless a combat of virtue against vice. This is a pivotal moment in modern history they assert. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyberattacks, to bring about a change in the global order. Any astute observer might notice that the same sentence would be just as true if we substituted latter for former. And whether there really is a battle between authoritarianism and democracy is itself a contestable proposition.

Democracies, and more particularly the United States, have learned to use the idea of war to become increasingly authoritarian in their own methods of government. It is easy to see that, over the past 70 year, the US has been far more enterprising and innovative in creating new tools of authoritarian control than many governments that pay less lip service to democracy.

From its first days in office, the Biden administration has insisted on framing its foreign policy along the lines of a new Cold War. This time the foes are not called capitalism and communism. The battle has been rechristened as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. But nothing prevents authoritarian regimes and democracies to live in peace, without interfering in each others affairs. The idea that this is a battle is not an innocent metaphor. It serves to justify ever expanding military budgets and a commitment to global military domination.

This group of former Defense, Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Cyber Officials who drafted the letter to Congress are by definition not just members of what some now appropriately call the military-industrial-congressional complex; they are its principle ideologues. These individuals tend to collaborate either with the notorious Washington think tanks, literally paid by corporate masters to invent policy and ideology that reflects their interests, serve as lobbyists for the defense industry or they work for the mainstream media and are presented as respected voices brought in to instruct Americans on what they should truly believe. Alas, the light they shine on public affairs resembles not a series of innocent photons but an offensive laser beam intended to blind the public to a reality they desperately want to see hidden from view.

In times of war, democracies traditionally fail at respecting their own democratic values. Could that phenomenon explain why some democracies have a predilection for always being involved in war? Most nations, democratic or not, cannot afford the luxury of permanent war. Only a nation whose money has been accepted as the dominant global reserve currency can allow itself to engage in perennial war.

The history of the United States concerning its relations with the rest of the world throughout the 20th century turns almost exclusively around the theme of financing war. It includes the management of war-related debt and the privileged status of its currency. Hesitating at first to enter World War I, the United States nevertheless began supplying weapons to the Allies. It belatedly joined the fray to ensure the defeat of Germany.

With the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was condemned to paying reparations to the Allies. But the European allies were held accountable for a massive debt to the United States corresponding to its contribution to their victory. The mismanagement of that debt which could have been forgiven as a means of relieving tensions related to a global depression that began on Wall Street had the effect of aggravating nationalistic rivalries in Europe. This in turn contributed directly to the outbreak of World War II.

The same story of debt repayments was repeated after World War II, once again brought to a conclusion thanks to the industrial capacity of the United States. The European allies of World War I were still paying off their debt from three decades earlier when they found themselves saddled with new debt. This forced them to abandon their global empires, which they could no longer support and implicitly transfer the wealth those former colonies represented to the nation that, with its stock of gold, had become the worlds creditor. The US dollars became unequivocally the global reserve currency.

For more than two decades, following the Bretton Woods agreement, the US was theoretically obliged to ensure the convertibility of dollars to gold. But the appetite for building a neocolonial military presence across the face of the globe, spawning an endless series of wars and regime change operations, turned the US from the worlds creditor to its principal debtor. To rescue the US economy, President Richard Nixon unilaterally rescinded the convertibility of dollars to gold in 1971. From that point on, the already established status of the dollar as the dominant reserve currency meant that every creditor nation had no choice but to hold US Treasury bonds, effectively transferring the wealth their economies were generating back to the United States.

In more recent times, with the rise of China and what is perceived as the threat of a multipolar world in which wealth may be more equitably created and distributed, the US security apparatus has decided to justify its dominance by calling its global mission a battle between democracy and authoritarianism.

They have chosen American tech platforms private businesses run by narcissistic billionaires specialized in the art of modeling their customers behavior and thought as the privileged vectors of the propaganda required to conduct a mission that reflects their Manichean view of the world. Those struggling monopolies must now be protected at all costs from the potentially irresponsible decisions of elected members of Congress. Whatever they say or publish will be deemed the truth. Billionaires understand the importance of such a relationship. Unless, of course, Elon Musk, the biggest of the billionaires, having just taken over Twitter, chooses to upset the security experts plan.

That, however, seems unlikely. His style is quirky but upsetting security plans simply is not his style.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devils Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Fair Observer Devils Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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The Unholy Alliance Between the US Security Apparatus and Big Tech - Fair Observer

Popular American talk show (Jimmy Kimmel Live) host, Jimmy Kimmel, shared his opinions on the controversies surrounding longtime UFC commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan. The former Fear Factor host has been a subject of scrutiny by the media ever since his podcast erupted into the mainstream. He has been facing flak for his views and opinions around a plethora of topics.

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One of the recent instances was when musician Neil Young asked Spotify, a music platform that holds exclusive rights to The Joe Rogan Experience, to de-platform Joe Rogan for the content he shared via his podcast.

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However, Jimmy Kimmel had a different opinion. In an exclusive interview with Kara Swisher of The New York Times for her Sway podcast, Kimmel shared his views on the topic.

He said, I dont necessarily think that anybody should be shut up. I wish people would pay attention to the facts and I wish people were just consistent.

I think that probably most of what he says is entertaining and fun to listen to But I also know that its not as black and white as sometimes the media makes it out to be.

Rogan himself holds similar views with regard to free speech and believes that no one should be allowed to dictate what should be said or not.

Joe Rogan has always been a person who puts his opinions on the front without worrying about the backlash he will get. His conversation with former boxing heavyweight champion Mike Tyson also saw him doing the same thing.

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On the Hotboxin podcast with Mike Tyson, the UFC color commentator stated his wish for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to buy Twitter.

I hope he buys Twitter because hes committed to the idea of free speech. We cant have people dictating what people can talk, said Rogan. They did some things where they wouldnt allow people to get links to certain news stories they thought would be unfavorable towards particular candidates. Like that sh*ts dangerous.

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WATCH THIS STORY- Conor McGregors Super-Human Body Transformation After The Horrific Injury At UFC 264

What are your thoughts on Jimmy Kimmels opinion on the recent Joe Rogan controversies? Let us know in the comments below.

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Jimmy Kimmel Weighs-in on Not De-Platforming Joe Rogan: Its Not as Black and White as Sometimes the Media Makes It Out to Be - EssentiallySports

on Twitter tantrums

Twitter favours explosive over-reaction, which could be one reason for the deranged response to the announcement of Elon Musks takeover, says Madeline Grant in The Telegraph. Social media users responded as if this were digital armageddon, the end of the world as we know it. But there have been occasions when Twitter has stifled free speech in the past de-platforming Trump, yet allowing Taliban leaders to tweet, for example. And during the pandemic, we repeatedly saw social media moderators often using their powers to silence particular viewpoints, Grant writes. Shouldnt we welcome someone who wants to spend their own money unwinding these sorts of attitudes, assuming Twitter doesnt become toxic and unusable? Whatever the uncertainty is about Twitters future, it is scarcely enough to justify the hyperbole. What we can guarantee, though, is that whatever direction he takes the platform in, well see more tears and tantrums from its most prolific users.

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'More tears and tantrums on Twitter are guaranteed' - The Week UK

Today, they are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country, lamented Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in a televised meeting with major cultural figures earlier this month. He was referring to several events involving Russian cultural figures who have voiced their support for the war being cancelled, especially in the West, since Russia invaded Ukraine.

One of those cancelled is Valery Gergiev, general director of the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theater and a friend of Putins, who was present at Fridays meeting. While most of the cancelled figures are alive, a small minority of the events cancelled included pieces by deceased icons such as Tchaikovsky performances of the composers pieces were cancelled in Italy, Japan and Croatia. However, that didnt stop Putin from drawing the spotlight to it in his speech. Theyre now engaging in the cancel culture, even removing Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from posters. Russian writers and books are now cancelled, he said.

Since its introduction into mainstream popular culture through college campuses and social media around half a decade ago, cancel culture has become a raging issue in the culture war in the West, sharply dividing conservatives and left-liberals. It has become an umbrella term that has different meanings according to who you ask but its essence remains a collective boycott and de-platforming of individuals, corporations or institutions for actions collectively deemed inappropriate or offensive.

Cancel culture itself has been called out for cancelling free speech, bullying, and a mob mentality. Depending on the offence and the extent of punishment meted out, cancel culture has been called everything from a distraction to a hyperbolic phase of the larger culture war, to Americas free speech problem.

Looking at the issue through the prism of conservative opinion provides insights into Putins remarks and the message behind them. Right-wing groups have increasingly portrayed cancel culture as emblematic of a far-left ideological hysteria rooted in outrage culture, fuelled by groupthink and authoritarian mob justice. Donald Trump, no stranger to calls for cancellation, made it a central talking point in his presidential re-election campaign in 2020, calling his impeachment trial constitutional cancel culture and cancel culture totalitarian.

He is by no means alone. More than half the delegates at the Republican National Convention 2020 mentioned cancel culture as a menace, and conservative state governments have sought to pass legislation seeking to curb it in the US. These groups see cancel culture as an indication of mob justice by moral zealots on the far-left, colloquially called social justice warriors, who weaponise social media to punish and hurt anyone, whether comic, writer, professor or scientist, for daring to breach a moral orthodoxy under the guise of political correctness.

As the political-cultural faultlines in the West have widened, the attitude to cancel culture has become a line that now sharply divides liberals and conservatives. It is in this sense that Putin invoked the term, comparing the Wests treatment of Russian culture to Nazi Germanys burning of books. These portrayals depict the person, institution, or in this case, the country being cancelled as the victim.

Putin hinted at this in his singling out of J K Rowling, who was cancelled for her views on transgenderism a topic still very much on the fringes of the public conversation outside the West. Recently, they cancelled the childrens writer Joanne Rowling because she the author of books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide fell out of favour with fans of so-called gender freedoms, he said. The Moscow Times, while reporting on Putins speech, quoted former president Dmitry Medvedev describing the Wests frenzied hatred as being pushed by the US to stoke Russophobia as part of what the Kremlin calls a special military operation.

With comments on cancel culture, Putin is giving a dog-whistle to conservatives and hard-right groups in Russia and around the globe, including the West. It should be seen as an effort to put a distortionary spin on the cultural and social sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of his actions since the invasion of Ukraine, and level the same charges against the West legitimised by their own conservative leadership and intellectuals.

Further evidence of Putin borrowing from the American conservatives playbook is the overblown portrayal of the cancelling of Russia visible in his referring to Russian writers and books being cancelled as if they were boycotted en masse. These are the same exaggerated terms in which mainstream US right-wing news media such as Fox News usually portray cancel cultures image and reach.

Noam Chomsky talks about how the true meaning of socialism never really reached the common masses because the two largest propaganda machines, the US and the USSR, had both peddled distorted definitions of the term. From Donald Trumps rhetoric in the US presidential election to Putins reference to the term, political divisions around cancel culture have also reached their apogee. We must be wary of its use to spread misinformation and shift the blame for the due consequences of waging war on a sovereign country.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2022 under the title The culture front. Priyaranjan is a researcher and writer

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No, Russian artists have not been cancelled - The Indian Express

Social media platforms have effectively supplanted traditional information networks in India. The dialectical relationship between online content, traditional media and political networks means that the messages propagated online effectively touch even those who are not yet online.

This ubiquity could have been a golden moment for India democratising access to information, fostering community, increasing citizen participation and reducing the distance between ordinary people and decision-makers. However, social media platforms have adopted design choices that have led to a proliferation and mainstreaming of misinformation while allowing themselves to be weaponised by powerful vested interests for political and commercial benefit. The consequent free flow of disinformation, hate and targeted intimidation has led to real-world harm and degradation of democracy in India: Mainstreamed anti-minority hate, polarised communities and sowed confusion have made it difficult to establish a shared foundation of truth.

Organised misinformation (disinformation) has a political and/or commercial agenda. However, even though there is growing recognition of the political motivations and impact of disinformation, the discourse in India has remained apolitical and episodic focused on individual pieces of content and events, and generalised outrage against big tech instead of locating it in the larger political context or structural design issues. The evolution of the global discourse on misinformation too has allowed itself to get mired in the details of content standards, enforcement, fact checking, takedowns, deplatforming, etc a framework which lends itself to bitter partisan contest over individual pieces of content while allowing platforms to disingenuously conflate the discourse on moderating misinformation with safeguards for freedom of expression. However, these issues are adjunct to the real issue of disinformation and our upcoming report establishes that the current system of content moderation is more a public relations exercise for platforms than being geared to stop the spread of disinformation.

A meaningful framework to combat disinformation at scale must be built on the understanding that it is a political problem: The issue is as much about bad actors as individual pieces of content. Content distribution and moderation are interventions in the political process. There is thus a need for a comprehensive transparency law to enforce relevant disclosures by social media platforms. Moreover, content moderation and allied functions such as standard setting, fact-checking and de-platforming must be embedded in the sovereign bipartisan political process if they are to have democratic legitimacy. If this is not to degrade into legal sanction for government censorship, any regulatory body must be grounded in democratic principles its own and of platforms.

Given the political polarisation in our country (and most others), the constitution of such a regulator and its operational legitimacy is difficult. However, the failure of a polarised political ecosystem to come to a consensus is not a free pass for the platforms. Platforms are responsible for the speed and spread of distribution of disinformation and the design choices, which have made disinformation ubiquitous and indistinguishable from vetted information. It is thus the responsibility of the platforms to tamp down on the distribution of disinformation and their weaponisation. We argue that platforms are sentient about the users and content they are hosting and bear responsibility for their distribution choices. Moreover, just as any action against content is seen as an intervention in the political process, the artificial increase in distribution of content (amplification) too has political and commercial value.

We recommend three approaches to distribution that can be adopted by platforms: Constrain distribution to organic reach (chronological feed); take editorial responsibility for amplified content; or amplify only credible sources (irrespective of ideological affiliation). The current approach to misinformation that relies on fact-checking a small subset of content in a vast ocean of unreviewed content is inadequate for the task and needs to be supplemented by a review of content creators itself.

Finally, as the country with the largest youth population in the world, it is important that we actively think of how we want our youth to engage in our democratic processes and the role of social media platforms in it. There are three notable effects of social media on our politics, which require deliberation.

First, social media has led to a dislocation of politics with people weighing in on abstractions online while being disengaged from their immediate surroundings. Second, social media has led to a degradation of our political discourse where serious engagement has been supplanted by hot takes and memes. Third, it has obscured the providence of consequential interventions in our

political discourse because of opacity in technology.

Meaningful politics, especially in democracies, is rooted in local organisation, discussion and negotiation. However, the structure of social media has facilitated a perception of engagement without organisation, action without consequence. This wasnt and isnt inevitable there are more thoughtful ways to structure platforms, which would help connect and root people in their own communities instead of isolating them locally while connecting them virtually.

Instead of moving towards more grounded communities, there is an acceleration towards greater virtuality through metaverse. Social media cannot be wished away. But its structure and manner of use are choices we must make as a polity after deliberation instead of accepting as them fait accompli or simply being overtaken by developments along the way.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 11, 2022 under the title Politics of disinformation. Gupta is founder of the Future of India Foundation

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Social media has a serious disinformation problem. But it can be fixed - The Indian Express

Minds.com co-founder Bill Ottman and activist Daryl Davis went on the "Joe Rogan Experience" to unveil their #ChangeMinds deradicalization initiative.

The team at blockchain-based social network Minds and Davis published a research paper outlining how "deplatforming actually intensifies extremism," and argue how a new approach to online moderation is necessary.

One part of the discussion had Davis outlining his experiences on having debates with others on the Minds platform. While Rogan brings up how Davis convinced members of the KKK to change their viewpoints on raceas explored in his previous appearancehere the longtime activist refines his main point.

In explaining how a hypothetically intense discussion plays out, Davis highlights the importance of having the other person's "walls come down." That is to say, if Davis and a racist who hates black people can listen to each other's viewpoints, at all whatsoever, it can have a significant impact on the racist in the long run.

Internet entrepreneur and Minds CEO Bill Ottman builds off the "walls coming down" point by adding how neuroscientist Sam Harris previously studied people's actual brain waves with regards to how an individual subconsciously reacts to being presented with ideas or concepts they don't like.

The key to #ChangeMinds, according to Ottman and Davis, is building long-term relationships between people of opposing viewpoints as its own main objective.

In describing the research paper, Minds staffers stated that their "paper examines the adverse effects of social media censorship and proposes an alternative moderation model based on free speech and Internet freedom."

An excerpt from the paper's introduction says:

"The research found significant evidence that censorship and deplatforming can promote and amplify, rather than suppress, cognitive radicalization and even violent extremism. Shutting down accounts accused of violating hate-speech policies and misinformation often shifts those banned individuals to alternative platforms where their narrative of long-suffering victimhood is further refined."

Davis wrote in the foreword of the research paper about how the means of expressing opinions as a member of the general public has significantly evolved from the pre-Internet days. Davis urges that a further change in thinking is needed in the age of technological liberation for individualism.

The timing of the unveiling is relevant in the case of show host Rogan. The world's leading podcast program faced a cavalcade of censorship efforts by the far-left and corporate media who brigaded the Spotify platform and demanded they essentially "tame" Rogan's ability to discuss controversial topics freely, or outright ban him.

It was a debacle that amounted to Rogan being featured in an episode of "The Simpsons" that aired on Sunday and satirized cancel culture.

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Social media company Minds and Daryl Davis tell Joe Rogan ...

Bank profits rise again, as homeowners face costlier home loans

Cost-cutting, reductions in bad debt, and expanding mortgage lending have swelled banks profits.

Banks after-tax profits for the last three months of 2021 jumped by 6.7 per cent to $1.61 billion from $1.51b in the previous three months, analysis by KPMG shows.

But the upward rise in profits could be challenged this year by inflation, rising interest rates and falling house prices, said John Kensington, KPMGs head of banking and finance.

Once upon a time when the Left were more focused on class and economics, we would have had a plethora of responses to this madness.

The economic stress TDB has been pointing out for sometime will hurt everyone except the very rich

Leading economist says inflation will worsen, could see Kiwis pay bit more towards their mortgage

A leading economist has a grim outlook for inflation over the rest of the year saying its not going away soon and could result in Kiwis paying more for their mortgages.

sadly the entire movement is infected by woke identity politics with no intellectual muscle beyond micro aggression policing and cancelling people on Twitter.

The Right look for recruits, the Left look for traitors and right now, the dangerous far right are winning. The Dumb Lives Matter violence on Parliaments Lawns proved that.

Thanks to Middle Class Marxists, the Left have spent more energy on virtue signals than hegemonic economic reform.

Look at this

In 2010, the 388 richest individuals owned more wealth than half of the entire human population on Earth

By 2015, this number was reduced to only 62 individuals

In 2018, it was 42

In 2019, it was down to only 26 individuals who own more wealth than 3.8 billion people.

And in 2021, 20 people own more than 50% of the entire planet.

This isnt democracy, this is a feudal plutocracy on a burning Earth!

Labour have failed us over 5 years because they had no plan to scare the public service into serving the public. They see the lumpenproletariat on Parliaments lawns as an embarrassing reminder that they havent been transformational and so label all protestors as Nazis.

Because all the Left are intellectually capable of is deplatforming opinions they dont like and calling that progress, the powers that be continue to milk billions in profits to the detriment of the very people the Left claims to care about!

We need to tax the banks!

Financial Transaction Tax TAX BANKS!

Society needs money for social infrastructure and to rapidly adapt to the climate crisis. It is unacceptable that citizens pay more tax. A Financial Transaction Tax set at .001 cent would capture all those speculators who trade and the banks that enable their gambling. Hit the corporates with this tax and the beauty is that its unavoidable because every electronic financial transaction is recorded. This would see billions available each year and start to push back on corporate power.

Keeping Covid out isnt enough. Those 200 000 kids in poverty, those 25 000 on emergency housing wait lists, the 50 000 households living in poverty and the generations locked out of home ownership deserve better.

We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.

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Greedy NZ Banks make more while you suffer tax them, tax them now! - thedailyblog.co.nz