400 International Lawmakers Sign Open Letter To Bezos Demanding Amazon Pay & Tax Hikes Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/04/2020 – 05:45
Perhaps inspired by AOC and her ‘democratic socialist’ compadres, more than 400 lawmakers from around the world have signed a letter demanding Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos raise employee wages, and pay more in taxes (we presume they mean both Amazon the company and Bezos personally).
In an open letter, the lawmakers said that they were writing to put Bezos, the world’s richest man, “on notice”, and that “Amazon’s days of impunity are over”.
The movement is calling on Amazon to pay its “workers, its taxes, and its environmental costs fairly”.
We, elected representatives and public officials from around the world, hereby put you on notice that Amazon’s days of impunity are over. Last Friday, 27 November, workers, activists, and citizens around the world joined forces to demand justice from Amazon. Today, we pledge to stand with this movement in every congress, parliament, and statehouse where we work. In short, we write to you now with a single commitment: to Make Amazon Pay.
The letter was signed by several American lawmakers, including Ilhan Omar, who is still pushing to cancel rent and mortgages across the US until the COVID crisis is over, and Rashida Tlaib. Another signatory is California Rep. Ro Khanna who once said he would support making stock buybacks illegal outright (crashing the market, and the retirement savings of millions of Americans, in the process).
The movement even comes with its own hashtag, #MakeAmazonPay. The lawmakers claim in the letter that a coalition of not just Amazon workers, but workers all over the world would heroically band together to ensure that Amazon shoulders both its fair share of taxes while also covering “environmental costs” associated with its business.
The letter also knocked Amazon for its efforts to intimidate workers exploring unionization efforts.
“…[W]hile your personal wealth has risen by around $13 million per hour in 2020, these workers enter dangerous working conditions, enjoy little or no increase in their pay, and face retaliation for their efforts to defend themselves and organize their colleagues.”
Responding to the letter and its claims, an Amazon rep said the company accepts scrutiny from policymakers but also pushed back against parts of the new letter, saying that Amazon is “paying billions of dollars in taxes globally” and “has a strong track record of supporting our employees, our customers, and our communities, including providing safe working conditions, competitive wages, and great benefits.”
The letter and the protests were apparently organized by a group called “Progressive International”.
The United Kingdom Tory Party’s nemesis, Nigel Farage, has gone “full crypto.”
On Nov. 27, Farage sat down for a video interview to discuss all things crypto with Sam Volkering, the editor of Southbank Investment Research, which is, notably, the publisher of Farage’s recently launched investor newsletter “Fortune & Freedom.”
In the interview, Farage derided the government’s “funny money,” which it continues to print throughout the pandemic at warp speed, and concluded that it’s therefore “crucially important” to get one’s head around crypto.
“It’s the subject everyone’s talking about,” said Farage.
“From the poorest to the richest in the land, one of the conversations that are going on is about cryptocurrency. The reason is all too obvious: it’s that governments are, through this pandemic, creating vast amounts of funny money, debasing currencies, and people are scared about what this means for their money, their investments.”
He has elsewhere called Bitcoin “the ultimate anti-lockdown investment,” pointedly on-brand for his newly-launched Reform UK party.
Farage and Volkering’s video interview is apparently just the first in a series, which will educate viewers about how to buy crypto, how to store it and keep it safe.
Journalists at The Financial Times have apparently long expected the politician’s pivot to crypto — “it was only a matter of time,” as Alphaville columnist Jemima Kelly would have it.
The evidence for the “inevitable” crypto pivot is hard to quibble with. Farage’s Fortune & Freedom pitches itself to an audience that aspires to “grow [its] wealth” in a “New Britain, unleashed after Brexit.”
Farage, a former commodities trader, tells his readers that having secured political freedom through Brexit, it’s time for them to get their money and their destiny back in their hands.
Other newsletters published by Southbank Investment Research include titles such as “Short the World,“ “Crypto Profits Extreme,“ and “Exponential Investor Premium.“ Volkering is a self-described “authority in the new field of digital assets,” having first bought Bitcoin in 2011 and “followed the cryptocurrencies ‘wild west.’”
He is also the author of a book called Crypto Revolution: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and The Future of Money, also published by Southbank Investment Research. Kelly scathingly recommends the book as an opportune gift choice for FT readers who may have ended up with a despised colleague for their 2020 office Secret Santa.
The FT’s unabashed dislike of Farage and his crypto enthusiast colleague aside, some of the influences on Fortune & Freedom appear to be more eclectic than the alleged free-market fundamentalism of the Brexiteers.
The close ties between the libertarian movement and the arch-Atlanticists of the Vote Leave campaign have, by now, been well documented.
One Whitehall source stated that “not even Margaret Thatcher or monetarism at its height had contemplated such shock therapy” as the Brexiteers, with their drive towards a unilateral opening up of the U.K. to the United States market and a radical economic liberalization of the country.
Yet Farage’s partner on the newsletter, Nick Hubble, published a piece on Dec. 3, claiming that both “Keynes and Friedman died of COVID-19” and advocating the “radical future” promised by the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT.
MMT takes up the argument that states create the demand for their fiat currencies by taxing the population. Money is therefore seen as a unit of account for credit and debt, which can be created and destroyed at will by sovereign states. MMT popularizer Stephanie Kelton writes that the state can, “afford to buy whatever is for sale in its own unit of account.”
This is a view starkly opposed to many Bitcoiners’ conviction that loose monetary policy represents a putative, inflationary debasement of value.
How Hubble will reconcile his apparent embrace of MMT with his previous view that cryptocurrencies “represent the first reversal of […] government theft in hundreds of years” remains to be seen.
With the U.K. poised to face its worst shock in 300 years due to the combined impact of coronavirus and Brexit, it is perhaps the spirit of the monetarists, if not the letter, that will triumph according to Milton Friedman’s legendary maxim:
“Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”
Whether it be MMT, the crypto revolution or Farage-Hubble eclecticism, something will present itself as being ready to hand for the select few beneficiaries of Britain’s 2020 twofold crisis. It is, after all, the perfect time for someone’s preferred alternative to shift from “politically impossible” to being “politically inevitable.”
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Thai officials announced in November the largest ketamine bust in the nation’s history, some 11.5 tons of the anesthetic. They now say they were wrong. The white powder was all actually trisodium phosphate, a cleaning agent. Officials blame a field test that inaccurately indicated the powder was a drug. A government spokesman says it “might have been premature to hold a press conference” touting the bust before doing full lab tests on the powder.
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French Police ‘Swoop Down’ On Dozens Of Radicalized Mosques In Anti-Terror Raids Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/04/2020 – 04:15
France is much belatedly taking what many see as an immediate common sense approach to defeating terrorism against citizens, this after the latest series of ghastly terror attacks to hit the heart of Europe over cartoons depicting Mohammed, and after President Macron vowed not to cede France’s proud secular free speech traditions to the Islamists.
“French authorities will swoop down Thursday on dozens of mosques and prayer halls suspected of radical teachings as part of a crackdown on Islamist extremists following a spate of attacks, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said,” according to French media.
“Darmanin told RTL radio that if any prayer hall was found to promote extremism it would be closed down.”
Prior illustrative image of French police officer standing guard outside the Grand Mosque in Paris, via AP.
The Interior Minister specifically said authorities have identified up to 76 mosques that have been “flagged” for possible extremist doctrine or activity. This is out of an estimated total 2600 mosques and Islamic centers throughout the country.
The latest attacks on French soil included knife attacks inside a church in Nice, where three died, but also a major attack on a Jewish neighborhood in nearby Austria. In these as well as prior Paris attacks police uncovered networks of radical mosques which police claim they were previously unware of.
The Thursday operation to simultaneously “swoop in” and investigate dozens of mosques is likely the biggest such single effort in recent European history, but is also likely to add fuel to the fire of Islamist rage globally. In the past couple months since Macron blamed global Islam for having a “problem” with extremism, there’s been mass anti-French protests in places from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia to north Africa.
Over three weeks ago a terror attack on a French-consul hosted WWI remembrance day ceremony in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia resulted in at least three people wounded.
France to inspect 76 mosques in coming days in “massive and unprecedented” operation against so-called separatismhttps://t.co/tikZFHx334
“There are in some concentrated areas places of worship that are clearly anti-Republican,” Darmanin told RTL radio, “(where) imams are followed by the intelligence services and where the discourse runs counter to our values”.
But he added that the fact that only a fraction of the mosques in France were suspected of peddling radical theories showed “we are far from a situation of widespread radicalisation”.
The fact that the French government is willing to now openly admit its intelligence is in some instances following Muslims on French soil shows how sensitive authorities are to the avalanche of criticism that followed the recent months’ attacks.
Angry citizens have denounced that Paris and the security services have allowed for radicalization right under their noses while doing nothing. It appears Macron is finally serious about going “gloves off” – but only after multiple people have died. This also after the major Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3g75rK4 Tyler Durden
Thai officials announced in November the largest ketamine bust in the nation’s history, some 11.5 tons of the anesthetic. They now say they were wrong. The white powder was all actually trisodium phosphate, a cleaning agent. Officials blame a field test that inaccurately indicated the powder was a drug. A government spokesman says it “might have been premature to hold a press conference” touting the bust before doing full lab tests on the powder.
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The UK’s deputy chief medical officer warned Wednesday that despite the arrival of COVID vaccines, face masks will still have to be worn “for years” to come.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said that he expects to see the face coverings become as commonplace as they are in China and other places in the far east.
Van-Tam urged that there will be no opportunity to “have a massive party and throw out our masks and hand sanitiser” now that a vaccine is here.
Van-Tam also warned that “the vaccine isn’t going to help you if you don’t take it,” adding that “Watching others take it and hoping that this will then protect you isn’t going to work.”
He added that the virus is likely “going to be with humankind forever.”
Meanwhile, new guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that everyone should be wearing a face mask everywhere indoors at all times, as well as outdoors whenever they cannot keep more than a metre away from others.
The health body issued a new information sheet with the guidelines, but admits that there is “limited evidence” that masks have any effect on stopping the spread of coronavirus.
A massive Danish study on mask usage found no statistically significant difference in coronavirus infection rates between mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers. In fact, according to the data, mask usage may actually increase the likelihood of infection. https://t.co/ijUy8hfNTYpic.twitter.com/gYDtA8ac0p
Facebook-Backed Libra Association Has Renamed Itself “Diem” Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/04/2020 – 02:45
Isn’t it interesting how we are once again hearing about the Facebook-backed Libra currency only now that Bitcoin has gone on a meteoric run back to all time highs?
Perhaps getting closer to a launch with Bitcoin near highs, The Libra Association is rebranding itself as The Diem Association, it said in a press release early this week. Is it possible people knew the name Libra and already weren’t taking it serious enough? Or is the organization simply trying to distance itself from Facebook?
“The Libra Association announces the adoption of a new name and the recruitment of key executives, reinforcing its organizational independence,” it said on Tuesday. The organization said it “will continue to pursue a mission of building a safe, secure and compliant payment system that empowers people and businesses around the world.”
Stuart Levey, the Diem Association’s CEO, said: “The Diem project will provide a simple platform for fintech innovation to thrive and enable consumers and businesses to conduct instantaneous, low-cost, highly secure transactions.”
He continued: “We are committed to doing so in a way that promotes financial inclusion – expanding access to those who need it most, and simultaneously protecting the integrity of the financial system by deterring and detecting illicit conduct. We are excited to introduce Diem – a new name that signals the project’s growing maturity and independence.”
The Association also announced it had appointed a slew of new executives:
This includes the appointment of Dahlia Malkhi as the Association’s Chief Technology Officer, Christy Clark as Chief of Staff, Steve Bunnell as Chief Legal Officer, and Kiran Raj as Executive Vice President for Growth and Innovation and Deputy General Counsel.
Additionally, Diem Networks has recently announced the appointment of James Emmett as Managing Director, Sterling Daines, as Chief Compliance Officer, Ian Jenkins as Chief Financial and Risk Officer, and Saumya Bhavsar as General Counsel.
“This is a stellar group of executives and having the Executive Committee of Diem Networks in place alongside existing leaders and colleagues is a critical step for Diem to operate with appropriate autonomy,” Levey claimed.
With its team in place and its shiny new name, the association says it is “prioritizing technological and operational readiness for launch” – whatever the hell that means.
“The evolution of the project results from constructive ongoing engagement with governments, regulators and other key stakeholders,” Levey said.
This begs the question: How soon before Facebook can censor what you spend your money on in the same way they censor your right to free speech?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JDdG4K Tyler Durden
On the face of it, an alliance between Turkey and Ukraine seems like a rather odd creation, yet one that may surprisingly durable simply because neither country has anywhere else to turn.
What practically dooms them to a partnership if not an outright alliance is their unenviable geographic and geopolitical position of occupying the strange “no man’s land” between Russia, NATO, and the Middle East. It is, of course, largely a predicament of their own making. Ukraine, with considerable Western backing and encouragement but nevertheless mostly through efforts of a faction of its own oligarchy, opted out of the Russia-centered network of loose alliances, trade partnerships, and other forms of cooperation that were mutually beneficial to the two in the previous two decades. But that defection was not rewarded by the West in a way the likes of Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, Avakov, Parubiy, and other architects of the Maidan coup expected. Merely being stridently anti-Russian did not prove enough to warrant a shower of US and European cash, only onerous IMF loans which moreover come with conditions Kiev elites are in no hurry to abide by.
EU foreign policy chief Josef Borrel lecturing Kiev that the European Union is not an “ATM machine” delivered that point loud and clear: Kiev is supposed to privatize whatever crown jewels its economy still has (at this point, mainly agricultural land), fight corruption of its own elites and facilitate the corruption of Western elites. Joseph Robinette Biden Junior is hardly the only Western politician with a talentless son in need of a lucrative sinecure. There are entire Western companies eager to participate in the thinly disguised plunder that the privatization of Ukraine’s economy will inevitably turn into. A Kiev court’s recent decision to declare the country’s anti-corruption institutions that were painstakingly stood up with considerable aid and tutelage from Western governments, down to screening appropriately-minded individuals for the job, looks as if it were calculated to send a middle-finger gesture to Borrel in terms even dense EU bureaucratic hacks will comprehend.
Pro-EU newspapers like Kiev Post were quick to label this a “death of democracy”, presumably with the intent of interesting EU and NATO in sponsoring yet another Maidan since last one seems not to be delivering the goods. The expected shower of Western weaponry has not materialized, probably because NATO is afraid to give Ukraine so much aid that it will risk a full-blown war with Russia.
Erdogan’s Turkey, by contrast, is in process of de-facto opting out of NATO, though neither Turkey nor the alliance itself want to take the final step of severing ties completely. NATO membership is still beneficial to Turkey. While the procurement of Russian S-400 air defense systems angered NATO and US in particular, resulting in the expulsion of Turkey from the F-35 program and the cancellation of F-35 sale to the country, evidently Ankara hopes that by nominally remaining in the alliance it limits NATO and EU sanctions that would no doubt be far harsher if it were totally out of the alliance. The hope that Turkey, possibly post-Erdogan, will yet see the error of its ways and return to the fold, prevents NATO from adopting harsher stances that would definitely push Ankara away. Yet the drifting apart is unmistakable, and the animosity between Turkey’s leaders and their Western European counterparts is so intense as to beggar belief. While Germany’s Merkel is careful to tip-toe around the issue due to fear of another wave of refugees as well as unrest among the large Turkish diaspora in Germany, France’s Macron seems to have taken a personal affront to Erdogan’s suggestion he might need a mental evaluation and will press the issue of EU sanctions against Turkey at future Union summits.
But from Turkey’s perspective, getting a cold shoulder from the EU is par for the course. Its own migration to the geopolitical gray zone of Eurasia was motivated by EU’s failure to admit Turkey as a member after decades of leading it by the nose and promising neighborhood in some nebulously distant future right after Hell froze over. Like Ukraine, Turkey was not seeking EU membership because of some mythical “shared values”. It, too, saw EU as an ATM machine that would shower Turkey, one of the poorest countries on the continent, with development assistance and moreover allow Turks to freely travel and work throughout the Union. Needless to say, neither of these prospects appealed to pretty much any European country, no matter how close or distant it was geographically. So after decades of leading Turkey by the nose, EU politely put an end to the charade citing problems with Turkey’s democracy. Thus snubbed, Erdogan opted to chart an independent course and appears to be finding a similarly snubbed oligarch clique in Kiev looking for ways the two countries could extract mutual benefit from their isolated status.
There are plenty of those to be had, as limited as Ukraine’s and Turkey’s resources are, compared to such patrons as EU, NATO, US. Faced with isolation and even a potential ban on arms exports, Turkey has a strong incentive to exploit the resources of the Ukrainian defense industry and engage in some export substitution in case vital supplies are no longer available from the West. Canada’s and Austria’s ban on exports of optronics and engines needed for the Bayraktar TB2 combat drones means Ukraine’s ability to provide substitutes would be most welcome. Ukraine, for its part, would not be against deploying a huge attack drone fleet of its own in the hopes of replicating Azerbaijan’s successful offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh on the Donbass, though there Ukraine’s drones would probably run afoul of Novorossiya’s air defenses in the same way Turkish drones were brought to heel over Idlib. Turkey’s Altay main battle tank is likewise little more than an assembly of components imported from other countries, particularly Germany. Since Germany has already placed a ban on export of powerpacks and transmissions for the Altay, Turkey has been casting about for replacements, looking as far as China. Whether Ukraine’s developments in this realm can be adopted to rescue the Altay project remain to be seen.
However, the Oplot powerpacks and transmissions can probably be adapted to Altay use, resulting in Turkey realizing its goal of a home-grown MBT. Ultimately, the greater the contribution of Ukrainian defense industry to Turkey’s military modernization, the more freedom of action it would bestow on Turkey and make it less dependent on other foreign sources of military hardware who can exert influence over Turkey simply by withholding future technical support. If the United States were to follow up on the F-35 expulsion with a ban on servicing Turkish F-16s which form the mainstay of its airpower, the result would be crippling of the country’s air combat capabilities that drones cannot compensate for and which would be sorely missed in any confrontation with another comparable power like Greece. Turkey’s efforts to develop an indigenous fighter aircraft would benefit from Ukraine’s technological contributions and its own interest in indigenous aircraft designs. For Ukraine, the relationship would be an opportunity to acquire NATO-compatible weaponry with the caveat that it would have to pay in full for every last drone, either with cash or in kind. Turkey’s economic situation is not so strong as to allow largesse in the form of free military aid to anyone.
Mitigating against the long-term development of what Zelensky referred to as “strategic partnership” with Turkey is the erratic behavior of Erdogan who seeks to dominate any and all partners and tries to see how far he can push before the partners push back. This practice has led to the confrontations in Syria, Libya, and eastern Mediterranean. Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, France, and even Greece, is hardly in a position to push back. The most dangerous aspect of Turkish politics, from Ukraine’s perspective, is the ideology of Pan-Turkism that just might transform Ukraine’s Tatar community into a proxy force for Turkey right inside Ukraine, adding yet another fissure to the already fractured political picture. On the plus side, Erdogan does not appear interested in “combating corruption” in Ukraine, though that does not preclude the possibility Turkey’s military collaboration with Ukraine might not cost Ukraine dearly, though not to the same extent as EU-promoted privatization efforts.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3orfn3Z Tyler Durden
In my recent article ‘Power Is An Illusion, Control Is A Facade’ I outlined the realities behind power structures and how people dominate other people by conditioning them with false assumptions and misplaced fears. For example, many people make themselves easy to control by remaining dependent on governments during crisis events and emergencies; if you actually believe the government will protect you from any and all eventualities then why would you ever learn to protect and provide for yourself?
The infantization of a society makes citizens easy to dominate.
Another example would be instilling a fear of “standing out” among one’s peers – Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of being seen as aberrant or in opposition to the “majority” and will seek to fit in, even when they fundamentally disagree. A ruling elite merely need to manufacture the assumption or impression that the “majority” of the population are in agreement with oppressive measures. Even if this is not the case, the perception of a majority can be used to control those people that would otherwise rebel.
Controlling a population is more about thought control or “perception management” than it is about direct force. Power is an illusion, no large group of people can be controlled by force alone; eventually, they will find a way to wear down the totalitarian system and destroy it. So, the people must be tricked into enslaving themselves and each other. The people must police the very prison they are trapped in, otherwise they could simply walk away anytime they wished. It’s the only way a tyranny can survive in the long term.
The political left and the social justice cult have been particularly interested in the concept of thought control lately, or, at least, they are much more open about discussing their private obsessions these days. I have to say, their rhetoric in not at all surprising, but I think some analysis is needed to understand the root of their ideology and how they are able to rationalize their behavior.
I was watching an interview on MSNBC with an activist (fake journalist) by the name of Ben Collins who almost exclusively produces hit pieces and hatchet jobs on conservatives and the alternative media. His focus is generally on what he calls “disinformation” and “conspiracy theory”; in other words, his job is to identify what totalitarians would refer to as “wrong think”. The discussion centered on the social media website Parler and how it represents a “threat” to our “democracy”. You can see the interview for yourself HERE.
Collins is not all that interesting as an individual and he appears to be more of a mouthpiece than a thinker. His work is very similar to the SPLC’s in terms of tone and lack of tangible arguments; it is basic low brow propaganda revolving around little to no evidence or facts (i.e. propaganda for stupid people as opposed to carefully crafted propaganda designed to trick smarter people). He often uses omission of important details that might provide the viewer or reader with a clearer understanding of the subject matter. That said, this specific interview fascinated me because of how transparent he was in his lies, and how honest he was (perhaps unwittingly) in his agenda.
The initial goal of MSNBC and other establishment outlets was obviously to try to spread disinformation on Parler. When Parler’s traffic began to explode months ago I think the media’s intent was to slow the bleeding from sites like Twitter and Facebook. They were unsuccessful.
Today, there is a deeper issue of thought control involved. Alternative tech sites are going to continue to grow and establishment tech sites are going to continue to shrink. Lackeys and hacks like Collins now have to use a different strategy – Painting more conservative platforms as “dangerous threats” to our society.
First, Collins employs the standard attack that social justice mobs were using to vote brigade the Parler App months ago. When Parler began to receive more widespread attention, leftists conjured false claims that the website was not “user friendly” and that private data was “easily hacked”. Collins then tries to frighten potential conservative users by mentioning that Parler “asks for a drivers license”; of course, what he fails to mention is that this is only when you are applying for a special verification badge. He also fails to bring up the fact that Twitter does the EXACT SAME THING when you apply for “Blue Checkmark” status, and even then, if you don’t have the right politics Twitter is unlikely to give you verification anyway.
Already, Collins has exposed himself as a low credibility analyst; but here is where things get crazy…
As usual, identity politics enters the discussion as Parler is accused of being a haven for “racism”, but not real free speech. Now, I want to reiterate that “racism” and “hate speech” are typical thought control buzzwords of the political left. There is no such thing as “hate speech”, at least not in a constitutional sense. Free speech means you are allowed to say and think whatever you like as long as you are not making direct threats or spreading outright lies about a person to harm their reputation.
In a free society, you are allowed to not like a person because of their skin color or cultural differences. This is the cost of freedom; sometimes people are free to think in ways you disagree with or even abhor.
I abhor communists, but I actually prefer that they be free to make their insane arguments publicly; they only sabotage themselves. Leftists, on the other hand, do not believe in free speech, they believe in selective free speech, and this becomes evident as you watch the Collins interview.
Hate speech is code for “speech that we are allowed to censor”. Leftists view speech that hurts a person’s feelings as being exactly the same as punching that same person in the face or threatening their life. It is a bizarre conflation that we would usually expect to see in the thinking of children, but in this case it is full grown adults acting as if their personal feelings are more important that our freedoms.
In order to disrupt speech that offends their tender emotions, leftists consistently misapply accusations of racism and hate speech as a tool to silence opposition. Everything is racist, according to these lunatics, therefore everything can be censored if they deem it necessary. And, of course, they have declared THEMSELVES the arbiters of what is racist and what is not, therefore they become the arbiters of who gets to speak and what social platforms are allowed to exist.
Collins then laments the idea that debates between conservatives and leftists will no longer be commonplace on websites like Facebook or Twitter because people are migrating to their own political bubbles. Again, what he doesn’t mention is that conservatives and moderates are leaving Twitter and Facebook in droves because they are being censored or suspended from those sites on a regular basis. How can one have a fair debate on Twitter with a leftist when the leftist gets special treatment from the moderators? He has the option of flagging everything you say as “hate speech” or “dangerous speech” and having your arguments removed?
As I’ve noted in the past, private property rights do indeed apply to websites, and even though leftists don’t believe in such rights, they will use the private property argument to defend Big Tech censorship. Of course, there is a difference between a megasite like Twitter and other smaller platforms; namely that Twitter and many Big Tech companies enjoy massive tax incentives and welfare from the government. Once there are billions of taxpayer dollars involved in the upkeep of a social media company, I don’t think that their website qualifies anymore as “private property”.
Initially, big tech sites argued that they do not discriminate against users based on their politics, but of course the evidence shows this is a lie. The vast majority of users suspended or banned from Twitter are conservatives according to the data, and not because conservatives are more inclined to violate community guidelines.
Leftists and the MSNBC spin doctors want to keep all debate on the platforms THEY control, that way they can suppress the information they don’t like and give biased advantage to the arguments they agree with. Anyone who is conservatives has to self-censor constantly to avoid suspension while leftists are allowed to say almost anything they want without repercussions. Big tech platforms pretend they are neutral ground when they are the utter opposite.
These are typical tactics of socialists/communists/Marxists/collectivists; they are not interested in prevailing in a debate based on facts and evidence. They are not interested in being right, they are only interested in WINNING, and they will use any means available to them to rig the fight in their favor.
Finally, Collins suggests that if conservatives are allowed to migrate onto platforms that do not suppress their viewpoints along with the evidence that supports those viewpoints then there is a danger that they will then find themselves at odds with the “real world” and this will “cause problems in society”.
And here is where we get to the very foundation of thought control – The notion that some thoughts and ideas are “dangerous” or “destructive” and that merely being allowed to talk about them in an open forum could cause conflicts and disruption to society as a whole. By extension, Collins is suggesting that it is not okay for people to have radically different viewpoints at all. So what is the solution? For everyone to think exactly the same within a narrow margin of error?
Yes, that is what the leftists and the establishment want and you can see the beginnings of their Utopia on Big Tech social media; a society in which all citizens are part of a hive mind, an endless echo chamber in which only collectivist ideals are acceptable. Sure, there will be debates, but they will be meaningless fodder.
You will be allowed to argue about which groups are more oppressed, but you will never be allowed to question the idea of the oppression Olympics and their validity. You will be allowed to debate which brand of socialism is most effective, but you will never be allowed to take a stand against socialism as a system. You will be allowed to criticize certain people based on their victim group status, but not others. If you are straight, white and male you won’t be allowed to criticize anyone or anything ever, even if you’re the smartest person in the room.
Collins claims to be worried that internet “echo chambers” will undermine the conservative relationship with reality. Not surprisingly, leftists with the most disturbed and disjointed relationship with reality and logic are trying to elevate themselves as the judge and jury of reality. The schizophrenics want to run the asylum and determine who is “sick”. I think not…
As I have noted in the past, the attacks on websites like Parler are not in and of themselves about Parler. Parler is a lightning rod right now, the leftist reaction to its existence needs to be analyzed and observed because their hypocrisy can be used against them. The leftist mind is collectivist in nature, and they think in terms of plantations; they do not like it when people move freely away from one of their plantations and start their own systems.
This is why they are so infuriated by Parler and sites like it. They see people as property of the collective, and not as individuals with free will that develop their own opinions based on the evidence and facts they collect. For the political left, it’s all about who controls the environment.
Under communist regimes this chattel philosophy is taken to its natural end result; leftists will deny it to their last breath, but this is where we are headed if they get their way. In communist China after the invasion of Tibet a program of ethnic cleansing was instituted. Railroads were built to more easily relocate native Chinese in order to supplant the Tibetan population, and the Tibetans that remained were oppressed and brutalized. You might think that the Chinese would be happy to see the Tibetans leave on their own, but you would be wrong. Instead, the Chinese military set up snipers on the Nepalese border and began shooting any Tibetans trying to cross the mountains.
You see, collectivists, Marxists, leftists, whatever you want to call them, they want submission more than anything else. They want thought control. They want you to WANT to be a part of the hive, and if you don’t then you must be punished or reeducated. You cannot walk away peacefully and live your own life, or start your own website.
Collectivists see any contrary ideals or principles or voices as a threat to their existence, and perhaps they are right. If you think about it, their ideology is so fragile that they have to silence or destroy any and all alternatives. The only way their cult can continue to survive is if people believe there are no other options. The moment people are presented with another choice, they will leave the abusive collective en masse.
Leftists are angry about Parler and they see the alternative media as “dangerous” because it IS dangerous; it’s dangerous TO THEM and their dream of monopoly of thought.
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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JMdsrI Tyler Durden
Mapping The Global Lockdown: Where Air Travel Is Partially Open And Where It’s Fully Closed Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/03/2020 – 23:20
In a world gripped by partial (or full) lockdowns, the map below provides real-time data on the current state of air travel restrictions. It shows that 92 countries are currently partially open, 72 countries have no travel restrictions (having a list of these will come in handy during the next crisis), 50 countries are completely closed and 6 are reopening soon.
A quick look at North America reveals finds that the US, Canada, and Mexico extended their shared border restrictions through 21
December. This is the eighth extension since the restriction was first imposed on 18 March. “Essential” cross border workers, immediate family members continue to be excluded from the restrictions. Additionally, on 8 October, the Canadian government announced it would allow extended family members cross border privileges for those in an exclusive dating relationship for over a year and “have spent time in the physical presence of that person at some point during the relationship.”
Meanwhile, as a result of the ongoing partial or full lockdowns, air travel remains sharply lower than 2019. According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), checkpoint traveler throughput numbers over the last week were 56% (on average) below what they were in 2019, which nonetheless is an improvement off early and mid-April lows, which were 96% below what they were in 2019 according to BofA. That said the holiday uptick does not line up neatly with holiday travel in 2019 when Thanksgiving fell later in the month.
Chart 1 below shows raw number data for TSA checkpoint traveler throughput, Chart 2 depicts the year over year change in traveler throughput 2020 vs 2019.
Unfortunately, there is no quick recovery in sight: on 9/29, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) revised its 2020 forecast to a 66% Y/Y declined in air traffic demand as measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK). Previously IATA forecasted a 63% Y/Y decline. The forecast was updated to reflect a weaker outlook following 2020’s “dismal end to the summer travel season.”
On 7/28, IATA said the pandemic is expected to delay the recovery of air traffic demand to pre-COVID-19 levels till 2024, as measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) (vs. previous forecasted recovery in late 2022/ early 2023). At the time, IATA also revised its forecast to reflect a 63% Y/Y decline in air traffic demand (RPK) in 2020, and a 75% recovery in 2021 (still 36% below 2019 levels). Prior to that, IATA had estimated the pandemic’s impact in 2020 would be a 55% Y/Y decline with a 55% recovery in 2021(but still remaining 29% below 2019 levels).
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3mGmWUe Tyler Durden
