Has Ukraine's Cyberwar Hit the US?

Part 1

Mykola Balaban, deputy head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security

The Centre was established under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine as one of the mechanisms for countering disinformation by joint efforts of the state and civil society. The Centre is focused on communication that is aiming to counter external threats, in particular information attacks of the Russian Federation.

We aim to build sustainable government communication to counter disinformation and grow the resilience of Ukrainian society

Our main principles are continuous cooperation with the civil society, freedom from political pressure, responsibility and openness.

We develop narratives to strengthen Ukraine’s image in the areas that are most targeted by the aggressor

We create messages for coordinated government communication

We unite the efforts of the state and civil society to provide coordinated counteraction to disinformation

We create an online resource that will:

– respond to information threats,
– serve as a united database of the aggressor’s information presence,
– build resilience,
– support Ukrainian narratives

Conduct information campaigns

We create a public platform to discuss problems and develop solutions to combat disinformation

We regularly report on Russia’s hybrid aggression

We strengthen cooperation with the countries that have similar information threats to Ukraine

We develop disinformation-countering mechanisms together with our partners

Part 2-

Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov

The Ministry of Digital Transformation, which has led the country’s outreach to Western companies to build a digital blockade

IT Army of Ukraine

The IT Army of Ukraine (Ukrainian: IT-армія України) is a volunteer cyberwarfare organisation created at the end of February 2022 to fight against digital intrusion of Ukrainian information and cyberspace after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.[1][3] The group also conducts offensive cyberwarfare operations, and Chief of Head of State Special Communications Service of Ukraine Victor Zhora said its enlisted hackers would only attack military targets.[4]

Formation

On 26 February 2022, the Minister of Digital Transformation and First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov announced the creation of the IT Army, which is mainly coordinating its efforts via Telegram and Twitter.[5][6]

According to Reuters, the Ukrainian government asked for volunteers from the country's hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops. Yegor Aushev, the co-founder of a Ukrainian cybersecurity firm Hacken,[7] wrote, "Ukrainian cybercommunity! It's time to get involved in the cyber defense of our country," asking hackers and cybersecurity experts to submit an application listing their specialties, such as malware development and professional references.[8]

Aims

The volunteers who joined the group are divided into offensive and defensive cyber units. While the offensive volunteer unit would help Ukraine's military conduct digital espionage operations against invading Russian forces, the defensive unit would be employed to defend infrastructure such as power plants and water systems.[1]

The Ukrainian government used Twitter and Telegram to share a list of Russian and Belarusian targets for the army to attack.[9] Russian ransomware operators responded by offering their assistance to counter the Ukrainian effort.[10]

Activities

Fedorov requested the assistance of cyber specialists and tweeted a Telegram with a list of 31 websites of Russian business and state organizations.[11][12][5]

On 28 February 2022, the IT Army hacked the website of the Moscow Stock Exchange. The IT Army posted that it had taken them only five minutes to render the website inaccessible.[13][14][15]

On the same day, the IT Army hacked the website of Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia. The IT Army had also launched attacks on other Russian and Belarusian sites, including the government websites of Russia and Belarus, the FSB and the Belarusian state news agency BelTA, among others.[12][16]

According to Reuters, the group targets Russian power grids and railways to prevent Russian infrastructure from reaching Ukraine.[2] This included technologies such as GLONASS.[2]

Eight hundred Russian websites, including Roscosmos, were attacked by the IT Army, from June 27 to July 10. They posted congratulatory messages to Ukrainian Constitution Day on those websites. Besides that, distributed denial of service attacks carried out by the IT army has crippled Russian ability to work on some CRM systems for extended periods.[17]

Ministry of Digital Transformation reported about cyberattacks on over 6000 of Russian web resource in the period from February 26 to July 30.[18]

In September 2022 the group had reportedly collaborated with Anonymous to commit cyberattack against Yandex Taxi's systems, causing a traffic jam in Moscow.[19]

The group claimed to have hacked the website of Wagner group and stolen its personal data. On the defaced website, photos of dead soldiers were shown.[20]

Think these guys aren't feeding data to a "cooperative" US Big Tech?  Is Ukraine targeting Big Tech's censoring of US citizens?

The Russians are Coming....

This was Either a Totally US or Joint US/ NATO/ Ukrainian Operation

Ukraine doesn't have the capability to execute this w/o US/ NATO Assistance.

Chris Tomlinson, "‘Destroyed Forever’? Nord Stream Gas Leaks Believed to be Deliberate Sabotage"

Both experts and governments have claimed that the gas leaks detected in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines this week were likely caused by deliberate sabotage, one with member of the European Parliament specifically thanking the United States following the strike.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated that the gas leaks, one of which occurred in Danish waters, were the actions of sabotage, although the Danish leader did not name any possible culprits who may have been behind the incident, stating, “there is no information indicating who could be behind it.”

Bjorn Lund, director of the Swedish National Seismic Network, meanwhile, has claimed that the leaks were preceded by explosions in the same areas, including one explosion that registered as a 2.3 magnitude earthquake off the island of Bornholm, CBC reports.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also claimed that the incident was an act of sabotage after speaking with Prime Minister Fredericksen and said an investigation needed to be conducted. “Any deliberate disruption of active European energy infrastructure is unacceptable and will lead to the strongest possible response,” she said.

EU Bigwig: Bloc ‘Not Afraid’ of Putin Cutting Gas Despite Multiple Warnings of Shortage Riots https://t.co/7JsjEbFU4f

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 4, 2022

Professor Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen from the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute blamed Russia for the leaks saying, ” It is still difficult to say how it is technically implemented. I can also see that Russia, in its own propaganda, twists the matter so that the Ukrainian special forces are behind the act.”

While others have also blamed Russia for the leak, Polish member of the European parliament Radek Sikorski posted a picture of the area of the seas where the leak occurred simply stating on Twitter “Thank you, USA.”

It is unclear whether or not Mr Sikorski, a member of the globalist, hardline-pro Brussels Civic Platform party of Donald Tusk, was actually seriously crediting the United States with sabotaging the pipelines. Nevertheless, social media users have been quick to point out U.S. President Joe Biden’s previous remarks about his willingness to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In early February, President Biden stated “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it,” and when asked what he meant specifically, as the project was in the control of Germany, he replied, “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

Meanwhile, assessment of the damage to the pipes themselves carries on and attention focusses on other vulnerable energy infrastructure. German newspaper Tagesspiegel reports a government source remarking that the damage to Nord Stream 1 and 2 is “major” and if it is not rectified soon, saltwater corrosion of the inside of the pipes will leave them totally unusable — in other words, “destroyed forever”.

European nations have stepped up their military presence around energy infrastructure, with Germany increasing naval patrols and Norway stepping up military presence at shore-based gas installations.

Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?"

Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that." https://t.co/uruQ4F4zM9 pic.twitter.com/4ksDaaU0YC

— ABC News (@ABC) February 7, 2022

Time to Face Some RealPolitik

I suspect Crowder didn't pay much attention to the way the Russian fights (from "Enemy at the Gates").  You put your "reluctant warfighter" into a "Penal Battalion" and place a loyal "Guard Battalion" (better equipped) behind it.  The reluctant warrior learns to become loyal/ reliable pretty quickly... at least, the survivor's do.

ps - Anyone else here familiar with the concept of embedded "political officers"?

This is what Putin meant that the SMO lacked a "defense in depth".  The Guard battalions drawn from 300,000 veteran reservists, will now be entering the battlefield.  If you are part of the Donbas militia, you now have some "back-up" that will ONLY back you up IF your unit is advancing towards the enemy Ukrainian nationals.  No more ground will be lost.

The tradition of civilian control over the military predates the October Revolution. William Odom, for example, has described the tsarist armies as “executants” rather than initiators of policy.11 Throughout its history, the Soviet military has fulfilled essentially the same function, under vigilant party supervision. The principal Bolshevik innovation was to formalize and extend tsarist practice through the introduction of political commissars it attached to military units, from the company to the divisional level, from the outset of the new regime. With certain modifications and adjustments, Soviet authorities have retained that system.

Black Twitter Calls Out Racists

Putin Checkmates NATO

Don't you love how Europe purposely destroyed it's own energy sector to place themselves at Putin's mercy?  

Welcome to the start of the New Russian Century.

America:  Committed to Fighting Bad (R) Imperialism and Supporting ESG (D) Imperialism!

Are You Singing the Shadow Ban Blues....?

Jenin Younes, "The U.S. Government’s Vast New Privatized Censorship Regime"

Censorship of wrongthink by Big Tech at the behest of the government is government censorship, which violates the First Amendment

One warm weekend in October of 2020, three impeccably credentialed epidemiologists—Jayanta Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff, of Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard Universities respectively—gathered with a few journalists, writers, and economists at an estate in the Berkshires where the American Institute for Economic Research had brought together critics of lockdowns and other COVID-related government restrictions. On Sunday morning shortly before the guests departed, the scientists encapsulated their views—that lockdowns do more harm than good, and that resources should be devoted to protecting the vulnerable rather than shutting society down—in a joint communique dubbed the “Great Barrington Declaration,” after the town in which it was written.

The declaration began circulating on social media and rapidly garnered signatures, including from other highly credentialed scientists. Most mainstream news outlets and the scientists they chose to quote denounced the declaration in no uncertain terms. When contacted by reporters, Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins of the NIH publicly and vociferously repudiated the “dangerous” declaration, smearing the scientists—all generally considered to be at the top of their fields—as “fringe epidemiologists.” Over the next several months, the three scientists faced a barrage of condemnation: They were called eugenicists and anti-vaxxers; it was falsely asserted that they were “Koch-funded” and that they had written the declaration for financial gain. Attacks on the Great Barrington signatories proliferated throughout social media and in the pages of The New York Times and Guardian.

Yet emails obtained pursuant to a FOIA request later revealed that these attacks were not the products of an independent objective news-gathering process of the type that publications like the Times and the Guardian still like to advertise. Rather, they were the fruits of an aggressive attempt to shape the news by the same government officials whose policies the epidemiologists had criticized. Emails between Fauci and Collins revealed that the two officials had worked together and with media outlets as various as Wired and The Nation to orchestrate a “takedown” of the declaration.

Nor did the targeting of the scientists stop with the bureaucrats they had implicitly criticized. Bhattacharya, Gupta, and Kulldorff soon learned that their declaration was being heavily censored on social media to prevent their scientific opinions from reaching the public. Kulldorff—then the most active of the three online—soon began to experience censorship of his own social media posts. For example, Twitter censored one of Kulldorff’s tweets asserting that: “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older, higher-risk people and their caretakers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Not children.” Posts on Kulldorff’s Twitter and LinkedIn criticizing mask and vaccine mandates were labeled misleading or removed entirely. In March of 2021, YouTube took down a video depicting a roundtable discussion that Bhattacharya, Gupta, Kulldorff, and Dr. Scott Atlas had with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in which the participants critiqued mask and vaccine mandates.

Because of this censorship, Bhattacharya and Kulldorff are now plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden, a case brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, as well as the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which is representing them and two other individuals, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Jill Hines. The plaintiffs allege that the Biden administration and a number of federal agencies coerced social media platforms into censoring them and others for criticizing the government’s COVID policies. In doing so, the Biden administration and relevant agencies had turned any ostensible private action by the social media companies into state action, in violation of the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has long recognized and Justice Thomas explained in a concurring opinion just last year, “[t]he government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly.”

Federal district courts have recently dismissed similar cases on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove state action. According to those judges, public admissions by then-White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki that the Biden administration was ordering social media companies to censor certain posts, as well as statements from Psaki, President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas threatening them with regulatory or other legal action if they declined to do so, still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action. Put another way, the judges declined to take the government at its word. But the Missouri judge reached a different conclusion, determining there was enough evidence in the record to infer that the government was involved in social media censorship, granting the plaintiffs’ request for discovery at the preliminary injunction stage.

The Missouri documents, along with some obtained through discovery in Berenson v. Twitter and a FOIA request by America First Legal, expose the extent of the administration’s appropriation of big tech to effect a vast and unprecedented regime of viewpoint-based censorship on the information that most Americans see, hear and otherwise consume. At least 11 federal agencies, and around 80 government officials, have been explicitly directing social media companies to take down posts and remove certain accounts that violate the government’s own preferences and guidelines for coverage on topics ranging from COVID restrictions, to the 2020 election, to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Correspondence publicized in Missouri further corroborates the theory that the companies dramatically increased censorship under duress from the government, strengthening the First Amendment claim. For example, shortly after President Biden asserted in July of 2021 that Facebook (Meta) was “killing people” by permitting “misinformation” about COVID vaccines to percolate, an executive from the company contacted the surgeon general to appease the White House. In a text message to Murthy, the executive acknowledged that the “FB team” was “feeling a little aggrieved” as “it’s not great to be accused of killing people,” while he sought to “de-escalate and work together collaboratively.” These are not the words of a person who is acting freely; to the contrary, they denote the mindset of someone who considers himself subordinate to, and subject to punishment by, a superior. Another text, exchanged between Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and another CISA employee who now works at Microsoft, reads: “Platforms have got to get more comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain.” This is another incontrovertible piece of evidence that social media companies are censoring content under duress from the government, and not due to their directors’ own ideas of the corporate or common good.

Further, emails expressly establish that the social media companies intensified censorship efforts and removed particular individuals from their platforms in response to the government’s demands. Just a week after President Biden accused social media companies of “killing people,” the Meta executive mentioned above wrote the surgeon general an email telling him, “I wanted to make sure you saw the steps we took just this past week to adjust policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation, as well as steps taken further to address the ‘disinfo dozen’: we removed 17 additional Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts tied to [them].” About a month later, the same executive informed Murthy that Meta intended to expand its COVID policies to “further reduce the spread of potentially harmful content” and that the company was “increasing the strength of our demotions for COVID and vaccine-related content.”

Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter and a prominent critic of government-imposed COVID restrictions, has publicized internal Twitter communications he obtained through discovery in his own lawsuit showing that high-ranking members of the Biden administration, including White House Senior COVID-19 Advisor Andrew Slavitt, had pushed Twitter to permanently suspend him from the platform. In messages from April 2021, a Twitter employee noted that a meeting with the White House had gone relatively well, though the company’s representatives had fielded “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” to which “mercifully we had answers” (emphasis added).

About two months later, days after Dr. Fauci publicly deemed Berenson a danger, and immediately following the president’s statement that social media companies were “killing people,” and despite assurances from high-ups at the company that his account was in no danger, Twitter permanently suspended Berenson’s account. If this does not qualify as government censorship of an individual based on official disapproval of his viewpoints, it would be difficult to say what might. Berenson was reinstated on Twitter in July 2022 as part of the settlement in his lawsuit.

In 1963, the Supreme Court, deciding Bantam Books v. Sullivan, held that “public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against” booksellers who carried materials containing obscenity could constitute a First Amendment violation. The same reasoning should apply to the Biden administration campaign to pressure tech companies into enforcing its preferred viewpoints.

The question of how the Biden administration has succeeded in jawboning big tech into observing its strictures is not particularly difficult to answer. Tech companies, many of which hold monopoly positions in their markets, have long feared and resisted government regulation. Unquestionably—and as explicitly revealed by the text message exchanged between Murthy and the Twitter executive—the prospect of being held liable for COVID deaths is an alarming one. Just like the booksellers in Bantam, social media platforms undoubtedly “do not lightly disregard” such possible consequences, as Twitter’s use of the term “mercifully” indicates.

It remains to be seen whether Bhattacharya and Kulldorff will be able to show that Fauci and Collins explicitly ordered tech companies to censor them and their Great Barrington Declaration. More discovery lies ahead, from top White House officials including Dr. Fauci, that may yield evidence of even more direct involvement by the government in preventing Americans from hearing their views. But Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and countless social media users have had their First Amendment rights violated nonetheless.

The government’s involvement in censorship of specific perspectives, and direct role in escalating such censorship, has what is known in First Amendment law as a chilling effect: Fearing the repercussions of articulating certain views, people self-censor by avoiding controversial topics. Countless Americans, including the Missouri plaintiffs, have attested that they do exactly that for fear of losing influential and sometimes lucrative social media accounts, which can contain and convey significant social and intellectual capital.

Moreover, the Supreme Court recognizes that a corollary of the First Amendment right to speak is the right to receive information because “the right to receive ideas follows ineluctably from the sender’s First Amendment right to send them.” All Americans have been deprived—by the United States government—of their First Amendment rights to hear the views of Alex Berenson, as well as Drs. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, and myriad additional people, like the reporters who broke the Hunter Biden laptop story for the New York Post and found themselves denounced as agents of Russian disinformation, who have been censored by social media platforms at the urging of the U.S. government. That deprivation strangled public debate on multiple issues of undeniably public importance. It allowed Fauci, Collins, and various other government actors and agencies, to mislead the public into believing there was ever a scientific consensus on lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates. It also arguably influenced the 2020 election.

The administration has achieved public acquiescence to its censorship activities by convincing many Americans that the dissemination of “misinformation” and “disinformation” on social media presents a grave threat to public safety and even national security. Over half a century ago, in his notorious concurrence in New York Times v. United States (in which the Nixon administration sought to prevent the newspaper from printing the Pentagon Papers) Justice Hugo Black rejected the view that the government may invoke such concepts to override the First Amendment: “[t]he word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment,” he wrote. Justice Black cited a 1937 opinion by Justice Charles Hughes explaining that this approach was woefully misguided: “The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press, and free assembly ... that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.”

The Founders of our country understood that line-drawing becomes virtually impossible once censorship begins and that the personal views and biases of those doing the censoring will inevitably come into play. Moreover, they recognized that sunlight is the best disinfectant: The cure for bad speech is good speech. The cure for lies, truth. Silencing people does not mean problematic ideas disappear; it only drives their adherents into echo chambers. People who are booted off Twitter, for example, often turn to Gab and Gettr, where they are less likely to encounter challenges to patently false posts claiming, for example, that COVID vaccines are toxic.

Indeed, this case could not illustrate more clearly the First Amendment’s chief purpose, and why the framers of the Constitution did not create an exception for “misinformation.” Government actors are just as prone to bias, hubris, and error as the rest of us. Drs. Fauci and Collins, enamored of newfound fame and basking in self-righteousness, took it upon themselves to suppress debate about the most important subject of the day. Had Americans learned of the Great Barrington Declaration and been given the opportunity to contemplate its ideas, and had scientists like Bhattacharya, Gupta, and Kulldorff been permitted to speak freely, the history of the pandemic era may have unfolded with far less tragedy—and with far less damage to the institutions that are supposed to protect public health.

Biden to America, "Throw Away Your Masks!"

Lazare Carnot (1784): "If man wants to progress, he must create new forms of energy of greater and greater densities."

Sundance, "The Great Economic Pretending Yet Again Meets Main Street Reality"

The great economic pretending is predicated on denying that major western economies are shrinking because political leaders are collectively destroying cheap and reliable energy production (oil, coal, gas), while simultaneously chasing expensive and [un]sustainable energy development (wind, solar).

The Build Back Better / Green New Deal climate change agenda is destroying every economy based on ‘collectively agreed‘ energy policy. Energy driven supply side inflation is crushing consumers in every western economy. Sales and purchases of goods have stopped. Affording food, fuel and housing is the focus of billions. Yet, denial is everywhere.

It was not that long ago, June 23rd to be precise, when Fedex gave a forward-looking forecast based on existing operational results. In late June Fedex anticipated a generally stable continuation of business operations. Here we are, three months later and Fedex business collapsed in the last quarter. CEO Raj Subramaniam says shipping demand unexpectedly plummeted. The great economic pretending meets reality.
Keep in mind, about six weeks ago Maersk, the international shipping company that delivers millions of containers of goods all around the world, mostly by ship, said they saw demand and orders plummeting as shipping warehouses were full of unsold goods {link, Aug 3rd}.

[The Fedex Collapse] – […] The company scrapped its forecast for its earnings in its current fiscal year that it had issued less than three months ago. For the three months ended Aug. 31, FedEx now projects adjusted earnings per share of $3.44 and $23.2 billion in revenue. That’s below analysts’ consensus forecast of $5.14 adjusted earnings per share and $23.6 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. (more)

The company is also revising its 2023 financial outlook and said it expects conditions to worsen further in its second quarter. Economists have sparred for months over whether or not the US is heading into a recession. (more)

Bow to the NUO - New Universal Order!

The Dasein of In-Authenticity

'

We pride ourselves in our own authenticity to the point of hubris, yet fear, hate and condemn its presence in others... Likewise, we demand the justice of Themis when applied to ourselves, and the retribution punishments of Nemesis when applied to others

Being-in-the-World (Dasein) (Martin Heidegger, 1930s) – a notion drawn from Existentialism that has to do with the situated and ever-evolving nature of human identity. Being-in-the-World is about meaning and growth – which, while applicable to all humans, is unique to/for each individual. (“Dasein” means, literally, “being there.”)

Bo Winegard, "Against Authenticity: To be human is to be artificial"

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.
What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

~Oscar Wilde


That we should not lie is generally sound advice, though few of us are able to navigate life without uttering or affirming the occasional falsehood. However, some—generally those of a romantic temperament—also strive to apply this counsel to the self. They argue that authenticity is one of humankind’s chief virtues and that betraying it is immoral and tragic—immoral, because it requires a person to lie about their underlying being; tragic, because it smothers the unique self beneath a dull blanket of conformity.

I do not share this enthusiasm for authenticity because it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. At best, authenticity can be undesirable; at worst, it is philosophically incoherent. The word “authenticity” is sometimes useful in ordinary discourse—we may say that a person is authentically a lover of the arts or authentically cheerful or authentically kindhearted, and it’s obvious what these claims mean. Nor will I deny that lying about one’s own traits and tendencies is often a bad idea and sometimes genuinely immoral. Nevertheless, authenticity, as understood by many of its modern champions, is not a noble or even attainable ideal.

The first problem with authenticity is that the very nature of the human self is artificial, and shaped by its surrounding culture. The romantic idea, familiar to most teenagers, is that the true self precedes society, that it develops according to its own logic like a self-contained embryo, and that it is dependent on others only for life-sustaining nutrients. To the extent that cultural influences are important, they are often seen as sources of alienation, coercion, and manipulation. The true self is precisely that which is not a product of society, that which resists instruction and conformity, and that which makes an individual unique. As a result, the romantic is obsessed with novelty in art as in life, praising the new often simply because it is new.

But this romantic conception of the self is wrong. We are not flowers or butterflies whose growth is largely an unfolding of prespecified potential. We are profoundly social animals with brains designed to absorb and assimilate our surrounding culture, beginning most dramatically with language. A person without culture is an abstraction like form without content, and the few known cases of “feral children”—that is, children who grew up with little human contact—are tragic testimonies to the indispensability of social learning.

Even a person’s most sacred beliefs—those about God and the relationship between humans and the cosmos—are inextricably connected to culture. The ancient Mediterranean worshipper of Isis and Osiris may have been a zealous Protestant in 17th-century Germany and a combative skeptic in 21st-century America. Similarly (though less consequentially), a champion of free verse in the 20th century may have been a stickler for meter and rhyme in the 14th. Dante wrote as he did because of his surrounding culture. Five hundred years later, he would have written differently. The same holds for virtually every imaginable belief and activity, from the mundane to the sublime.

Of course, the romantic would likely counter that although preferences about poetry and metaphysics are culturally influenced, deeper and more important predispositions are not. Maybe Dante would have written blank verse had he been born in England in the 1570s or free verse had he been born in England in 1930s, but he still would have had many similar traits and tendencies—a reverence for hierarchy and order, a sensitive and poetic mind, a disgust of moral treachery.

Furthermore, we know what it is like to defer to social conventions and hide our feelings and opinions from others. More poignantly, we know the painful dissonance of dissembling about crucial components of our identity, our political beliefs, our sexuality, and so on. Does this not suggest an authentic self that persists behind our everyday social self, impervious to cultural accidents and influences although it can remain forever hidden? And is it not to this self that we owe our fidelity?

Arguments like these can feel compelling because they are congruent with everyday experience, even though traits and tendencies are different from what most of us would call a self. Humans are complicated and multifaceted; they are capable of suppressing impulses and of outright lying. And society often encourages such suppressions and deceptions, rewarding those who politely respond to “How are you today?” with, “Great, how about you?” while punishing those who honestly respond, “Metaphysical despair is eating a hole in my heart, my dog is dying, I am lonely, and I get no joy from life.”

This can be frustrating, stifling, and in some societies, tyrannically oppressive. But it also makes civilization possible. Because we are both cooperative and highly competitive, our thoughts and impulses can be prosocial or antisocial. Some of those antisocial thoughts and impulses are relatively benign, though potentially offensive. Most of us have unflattering opinions about those with whom we interact, which we wisely suppress. This is one of the reasons children are both exasperating and effortlessly funny: They do not restrain their thoughts. If they think your eyes are too bulgy, your nose is too big, or your hair is too thin, they will say so.

More importantly, some of our thoughts and impulses are coercive, violent, or destructive. Few people are so virtuous that they have never wanted to denigrate, push, punch, or even kill another person. Some people are filled with rage and antipathy, and would happily dominate others if they were in a position to do so. One of the crucial functions of civilization is to curb these inclinations so that we can cooperate (and compete) without constant violence. Although this might be annoying from time to time, it leads to wealth, comfort, and cultural achievements that would otherwise be impossible.

Romantics may respond that it is not inauthentic to repress a fleeting desire to insult, assault, or murder someone else. It is inauthentic to suppress and distort one’s fundamental beliefs and desires. But is it inauthentic for a violent sociopath or a hateful racist to suppress his desires? If not, why not? Did Joseph Stalin live more authentically or less than he would have otherwise because he obtained near absolute power and could therefore act on his whims without fear of reprisal?

To put a finer point on the problem: Suppose we are comparing the behavior of Thomas and John, two people who are, for whatever combination of reasons, both full of hatred and envy. But while Thomas struggles to contain his rage, his competitiveness, and his jealousy, John does not. After years of hard work, Thomas has built a successful company and become a revered businessman who provides hundreds of jobs to a once-impoverished community. He attends church and is kind to everyone, despite his seething resentment. John, on the other hand, is unemployed and constantly bickers with others. He frequents bars and brawls to relieve his rage. But he does not lie—he is candid about his contempt for everyone. The champion of authenticity appears to be committed to claiming that John should be celebrated whereas Thomas should be condemned.

When I challenge those who value authenticity with questions like these, they generally respond that wanting to be a murderous dictator or a bitter bar fighter are artificial and alien desires. And since racism must be learned, that too is artificial and alien. After a string of such responses, they usually end up defining the true self as that self of which they morally approve. Of course, this makes the praiseworthiness of authenticity tautological, since the true self is, by this definition, capable only of generating morally laudable beliefs and behaviors.

For the value of authenticity to have force, it must mean something more than “One should live in a way that I consider to be admirable.” The most natural meaning of the claim is that a person should live in accordance with his or her natural tendencies and beliefs. But, as already noted, this proposition runs into problems once we accept that (1) some natural tendencies and beliefs are either offensive or destructive; and (2) some people are full of antisocial tendencies and abhorrent beliefs.

I would go even further, though. To get something worth praising from humanity requires effort, discipline, and constant constraint. The celebration of authenticity is premised, often only half-knowingly, on a quasi-Rousseauist belief that humans are naturally good and only corrupted by society. But this belief is patently wrong. Humans are not naturally good or evil. Rather, they are flawed, limited, and contradictory creatures, capable of envisioning a peaceful, cooperative society of abundance, but unable to achieve it because their efforts are undermined by selfishness and rivalry. Although they cannot fully achieve their moral goals, they can, with the guidance of wise norms and institutions, create a lively and flourishing civilization. And the function of these wise norms and institutions is to suppress, discipline, and reshape our natural inclinations. It is, in other words, to produce a cultured and civilized—that is, an artificial—human.

But to be human is to be artificial. And to contend that it is inauthentic to conform to one’s culture and to strive to suppress and overcome one’s natural tendencies is like contending that it is inauthentic for a mockingbird to imitate the song of another species. Paradoxically, the most authentic thing we can do is strive to transcend ourselves and become what we are not.

Happy Labour Day!

Can America's DNC Elite's Survive the "Working Man's Gaze" Come this November?

'F the Wolves. Go MAGA Baby!

Is Segregated 'Brown v. Board' Style Education Making a Comeback in Baltimore?

 

Spencer Lindquist, "BIPOC Students Must be Protected from 'The White Gaze'"

The Director of Diversity and Inclusion for a private school in Baltimore expressed support for racial segregation in order to protect students from the “white gaze” and promoted turning children into woke activists.

Kalea Selmon, the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Maryvale Preparatory School, gave a presentation where she argued that nonwhite students must be given spaces away from white students and described how those who work in education can use students as activists.

The presentation was given at the People of Color Conference, which is hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and tells teachers and administration how to embed the tenets of Critical Race Theory into their schools. The NAIS is America’s largest accreditation agency for K-12 private schools.

In a video of part of her presentation, Selmon claims that “BIPOC spaces are sacred.” The term stands for “Black, Indigenous, People of Color.”

Selmon then goes on to say “It’s necessary for BIPOC students to have space away from white gaze and that it is absolutely okay to give black and brown students things you’re not giving white children because the white children are fine.”

In a second clip, Selmon discusses the utility of racially segregated affinity groups, saying that they can be used to find future leaders, who she refers to as “boots on the ground,” for organizing.

In yet another video clip, Selmon explains that her work is motivated by what she calls “70 over 460.” She goes on to explain that 70 is “the number of BIPOC students” while 460 was the total number of students at the school. The slide read “This is why we do this work!”

According to her LinkedIn profile, Selmon “Supervises affinity student groups with the Dean of Students” and “Chairs the Equity and Justice Committee” in her role as a diversity director at Maryvale Preparatory School. Selmon is also tasked with developing “inclusive and multicultural curricular and co-curricular programming that reflect the school’s mission and commitment to diversity.”

The school teaches Critical Race Theory to its students, with lessons for middle school students, like “The Historical Construction of Race and Current Racial Identities Throughout U.S. Society,” and “Racism as a Primary ‘Institution’ of the U.S. – How We May Combat Systemic Inequality.”

Meanwhile, teachers at the school have engaged in professional development training seminars based in the tenets of Critical Race Theory. Among the professional development training resources listed on their website are talks titled “Identity, Race, and the Classroom,” as well as “Let’s Talk! Discussing Whiteness.”

There is also a talk from Critical Race Theorist Robin DiAngelo, titled, “Healing the Racial Water: a half-day Anti-Racist Workshop with Dr. Robin DiAngelo.”

In the talk, DiAngelo presents a “systemic analysis of White Supremacy and work around Whiteness and White Fragility. Dr. DiAngelo takes participants through topics including white socialization, systemic racism and the specific ways racism manifests for white progressives.”

Maryvale Preparatory School received over $1.2 million dollars in federal money through the Paycheck Protection Program. Maryvale, which is an all-girls school, is a 501c3.

In addition to being the school’s diversity director, Selmon works with the Wells Collective, which provides diversity consulting services. The organization, which describes itself as “one of the few organizations in the United States that is run exclusively by all Black women,” consults on topics like “diversifying constituent groups,” “diversity audits,” and “curriculum development.”

“The Wells Collective is intentional about prioritizing the needs of the marginalized by changing the narrative, educating the privileged, and creating safe spaces for women of color to improve their wellbeing,” the group’s website reads.

Maryvale Preparatory School is associated with the NAIS. The accrediting organization has a history of pushing both Critical Race Theory and “queer inclusive,” transgender ideology on young students.

A covert network of concerned parents, called Undercover Mothers, has formed to fight back against the indoctrination of students at the hands of the NAIS. The organization describes indoctrination in the private school system as a form of “elite capture.”

Following exposés by the Undercover Mothers, Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) pledged to investigate the NAIS if the Republicans retake the majority in Congress. Representative Banks specifically scrutinized the organization’s role in political advocacy given its 501(c)(3) status as a non-profit.

Citizens for Sanity

Biden Wants YOU to Switch to 'Republican Lite'... the SAFE De-MAGAfied Republican Alternative

So Enjoy 'DeSantis (R)*' - the SAFE non-MAGA Republican alternative!

Do it for your COUNTRY!

...the one that has lost its' SOUL...

...and goes along to get along with Democrats.   :(

*DeSantis (R) contains RINO, which if imbibed in excessive quantities leads to progressive polices, taxation, and in extreme cases, a complete loss of Liberty.

How Government Spends YOUR Savings...

RINO Midterm Genius in Action...

Thanks Mitch!

This Website Belongs to a PROUD MAGA Jew!

Jeffrey Folks, "Biden's Semi-Fascist America"

We live in an Orwellian world in which words have lost their exact meanings, or in the case of President Biden, any meaning at all.

Last Thursday at a fundraising event in Maryland, Biden said the "extreme MAGA philosophy" is "like semi-fascism." He added that if the GOP wins in the November elections, they will be "wiping out choice, across the board." It's not clear what "extreme MAGA" meant (was he saying that all MAGA philosophy is extreme, or is there some especially extreme MAGA philosophy?) or what sort of "choice" he was referring to.

It's common to hear the word "fascist" thrown around, especially by those on the left, with little concern for its actual meaning. This outworn usage is so ambiguous that it's little more than hitting the "dislike" button on Facebook. In this illiterate usage, "fascism" means nothing more than "you bad, me good," and that seems to be the level of a lot of Biden's thinking.

But Biden's remark should remind us of one troubling fact — one that is quite the opposite of what he intended. It is not that the MAGA philosophy is "semi-fascist," but that Biden's own progressive philosophy is, and that it has a long history of connections with European fascism and authoritarianism.

The origins of progressive thought lie in European political philosophy going back to German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and continuing through Italian fascist Benito Mussolini and German Nazi Adolf Hitler. In America, Mussolini was much admired by FDR and, in the case of German political philosophy in general, by Woodrow Wilson, a product of the German university model of research and a founder of American progressivism. In Wilson's case, he "had carefully studied the administrative practices of not just France and England but a small nation like Prussia and praised the ruler Frederick the Great who regarded himself as the chief servant of the people and his office as a public trust."

Bismarck in turn greatly admired American president Abraham Lincoln, a lifelong proponent of the American System, an early version of progressivism traceable back to Alexander Hamilton that called for consolidation of power in the federal government and for larger expenditures on public works and social welfare. From Hamilton to Lincoln to Bismarck, Mussolini, Lenin, and Hitler, and on to Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Obama, and Biden — the progressive vision is one of a Perfect Society engineered by an all-powerful and centrally planned State.

There are several characteristics shared by all fascist states. It is not just control of the economy, but also control of the minds of citizens to the extent that a majority either support the State unquestioningly or are rendered incapable of opposing it. In any case, no opposition is permitted, and the effort to stamp out the opposition begins in schools and continues in the workplace, media, and even religious institutions.

Under fascism, the individual is exposed to an endless bombardment of lies, all of it devoted to solidifying the power of the State. Eventually, individuals lose the ability to conceive of a democratic alternative. Cult leaders play an important role in this destruction of freedom. In place of critical thinking, individuals find that they can evaluate the State only on its own terms and with the information it provides.

The crucial fact that freedom of thought no longer exists — and would not be permitted if it did — is beyond the understanding of ordinary citizens. What remains is the State's promise to feed and house citizens at a minimal level in return for uncritical support. The State even expects gratitude for this degrading system of dependence — a system that is celebrated on any number of May Days and commemorative holidays, and attendance is obligatory. Eventually, even the suspicion of opposition is enough to earn that midnight knock on the door.

For President Trump, the strongest opponent of fascism in our time, that knock came on August 8, 2022. The FBI was once highly respected, but now, after its involvement in Russia-gate and the Mar-a-Lago raid, the agency seems to be an instrument of partisan politics. And the sort of power the FBI wields is typical of State agencies under fascism.

One of Hitler's first actions after he became chancellor was to weaponize governmental agencies, and create new ones, so as to control the media, schools, and the polling place (which of course were never legitimate after his initial success, and even then, he won only 37.4% of the vote at the height of his popularity in 1932). But Hitler moved swiftly to establish power: within three months of taking office, he established Dachau, at first for the purpose of liquidating political opponents. In Biden's case, in little over one year, he has passed an astounding $7 trillion in spending on top of a normal $5 trillion in annual budgeting, and this spending solidifies his political power and that of his party since much of it goes into the pockets of his political base.

The totalitarian state possesses unlimited means of persecuting all who oppose its power. That, I believe, is the point of hiring 87,000 new IRS agents, many of them licensed to carry firearms, as are agents of the EPA, Fish and Wildlife, and other federal agencies. Yet these 87,000 will probably never audit Hunter Biden or the Clintons — they will focus on small business–owners who tend to vote for conservatives.

In reality, we face a simple choice: an all-powerful State exercising total control over its citizens or a democratic capitalist system with limited State powers as intended by our Founders. President Trump earned the permanent hatred of the left because he had begun to limit State powers, and the left is determined not to see him run again in 2024. That was the point of the Mar-a-Lago raid — the sort of midnight raid so common in fascist societies as to go unnoticed.

It is frightening when an administration carries out midnight raids on the home of a former president and future candidate for the presidency and when a sitting president starts accusing the opposition of "semi-fascism." These actions are truly assaults on democracy, and they must not be allowed to stand. Conservatives need to speak up against Biden's attacks on democracy and to vote for conservative candidates in November.