--22feb24 – Old Town
Any implied comparison of communications freedom in the U.S. with that in Russia, China, Hungary and other “illiberal democracies”, which some of our contributors seem to prefer, is laughable.
The array of media outlets in the U.S. is astounding and the variety of commentary disseminated by the CFR is proof of that. The Committee and its output would never be tolerated in Moscow or Beijing.
By the way, Edward Luce has an illuminating piece in today’s FT illustrating how our home-grown, would-be illiberal dictator is doing. His repressive attitude toward U.S. media constantly demonstrates just how free our system is.
Paul
From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> On Behalf Of Chas Freeman via Salon
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2024 9:49 AM
To: Edward Luce <edward.luce@ft.com>
Cc: Chas Freeman <salon@listserve.com>; Warren Coats <wcoats@gmail.com>; Chas Freeman <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>; Wolfgang Wittenburg <wwittenburg@shaw.ca>
Subject: Re: [Salon] Fwd: Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
No. The collusion of communications oligopolies with government to enforce government and political correctness-preferred narratives by deplatforming nonconformist or politically offensive dissent and stifling policy debate is a serious problem that transcends ideology.
On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 8:38 PM Edward Luce <edward.luce@ft.com> wrote:
Is this stuff being posted ironically?
On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 at 20:31, Michele Kearney via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
Tucker Carlson just EXPOSED something incredibly terrifying inside the U.S. | Redacted News
On Wed, Feb 21, 2024 at 1:15 PM Michele Kearney <micheletkearney@gmail.com> wrote:
New Documents Show Government-Funded AI Intended for Online Censorship: They Can Then Use the Same Tool to Suppress, Silence, and Shut Down Whatever Speech They Don’t Like
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 9:47 PM Michele Kearney <micheletkearney@gmail.com> wrote:
Mike Benz (Part 1): The West’s Burgeoning Censorship Industry and the Government Funds Pouring In–From DHS to DARPA to National Science Foundation
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 4:36 PM Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
This is basically what Benz is describing.
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 4:04 PM Wolfgang Wittenburg via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
Maybe ‘no grand conspiracy’, but what about simply ‘institutional creep’ as in mission creep? Was Eisenhower’s concept of the ‘Military Industrial Complex’ a conspiracy theory too?
Wolfgang Wittenburg
From: Clyde Prestowitz <presto@econstrat.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2024 1:01 PM
To: Warren Coats <wcoats@gmail.com>; Chas Freeman <salon@listserve.com>; Chas Freeman <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Subject: Re: [Salon] Fwd: Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
For what it’s worth, I’m with Jonathan on this.
From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> On Behalf Of Warren Coats via Salon
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2024 3:27 PM
To: Chas Freeman <salon@listserve.com>; Chas Freeman <salon@committeefortherepublic.org>
Subject: [Salon] Fwd: Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
More on Carlson Benz interview Jonathan Rauch offered the comments below.
Warren Coats
1211 S Eads St. #2101
Arlington VA 22202
Mobile 703 608-2975
http://wcoats.blog/ http://works.bepress.com/warren_coats/ https://twitter.com/wcoats2
Begin forwarded message:
From: Jonathan Rauch <JRAUCH@brookings.edu>
Subject: RE: [Salon] Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
Date: February 18, 2024 at 2:58:25 PM EST
To: Warren Coats <wcoats@gmail.com>
Thanks. I probably won’t have time to play this through for a while, but from a skim of the transcript, I’d say it lacks credibility. There’s no government plot to censor the internet, and the government couldn’t do that if it tried. Benz, Shellenberger, et al. have been dishonest in their attacks on Renee DiResta (e.g. that she’s connected to the CIA), the Stanford Internet Observatory (that it’s a cut-out for the USG), etc. The New Yorker had an article a few months ago about this campaign to create a conspiracy narrative about internet censorship. Might be worth a look. Also, this.
Government communication with social media companies is legit but should be done in a transparent, procedurally regular way, instead of via jawboning. So that needs to be fixed. Content moderation (“gatekeeping”) is unavoidable for media companies and unavoidably controversial, and that’s just a hard problem. But there’s no grand conspiracy.
FWIW.
From: Warren Coats <wcoats@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2024 10:30 AM
To: Jonathan Rauch <JRAUCH@brookings.edu>
Subject: Fwd: [Salon] Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
Jonathan,
What do you think of this?
Begin forwarded message:From: Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com>
Date: February 17, 2024 at 9:08:15 PM EST
To: graham <bozorgg@aol.com>
Cc: salon@listserve.com
Subject: Re: [Salon] Tucker Carlson on X: "Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy
Reply-To: Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>
This is a major story and I think it will have large legs. It explains so much about what is now wrong with our democracy. I note that Carlson's interview with Putin appears to have achieved 1 billion views. This interview will be of far greater interest to Americans than to foreign audiences, many of which now regard us as evil and will, if they bother to view this at all, see it as corroborating their worst evaluations of our manipulation of both our own politics and the politics of other countries.
Chas
On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 8:57 PM graham <bozorgg@aol.com> wrote:
Hi Chas, don't know if you had a chance to listen to this whole thing, but I found it simply extraordinary. Dynamite. From things I know from here and there over the years both in the agency and later in Washington it rings very true I found very little of the conspiracy mentality in the interviewee, it has huge explanatory power for some of my perplexity at the sweeping scope of US domination of the western narrative on Ukraine and other issues.
Do you yourself take this guys story seriously? Will it have legs, or simply be stifled?
Graham
On Saturday, February 17, 2024, 4:16 PM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
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