I just interviewed @yasserlouati about the situation in France for French Muslims and Macron. We'll have the interview up shortly but, no matter your view on these issues, you should follow him: few people know more and express themselves better (also has a podcast in English!).
There's this amazing paradox that the western right -- which likes to wave the banner of free expression, free speech, privacy rights, and especially religious liberty -- cheers their erosion when it comes to western Muslims. Those only work if they're *principles* and rights.
Another irony of this debate: the key goal of ISIS, as @MazMHussain has often pointed out, is eliminating the "Gray Zone" by convincing western Muslims they can't be both Muslims and westerners: must choose. Seems Macron has the same goal and message:
Anyway, I put every hard question and critique to Yasser that I could so that people could hear his answers. We'll have the interview up by video shortly, with an accompanying article. If you say you want to hear from all views to test your own, you have to actually do that.
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Those who seek to erode core civil liberties use the same tactics everywhere: elevating fear levels, demonizing Others, equating authoritarianism with safety. The French debate is a harbinger of what's to come in the west: not only for Muslims but anyone deemed threatening.
"One of the most effective tactics is an intense focus on isolated but particularly gruesome crimes to overflow the brain with emotions of horror, disgust and fear, to prevent a rational calculus of the true magnitude of the threat posed." Don't fall for that: in France or the US
Very important exchange with @ninaturner on her great new podcast, in which @TulsiGabbard explains why it's so imperative for Trump to pardon Edward @Snowden & Julian Assange before January, and why the worst national security goons are so against it.
A Trump pardon of Snowden & Assange would be historic on so many levels. It would cause civil liberties groups, press freedom groups & leaders from around the world to praise him. He'd be the first President willing to confront the Deep State since Eisenhower's Farewell Address.
People across the spectrum - right, left and in between - would cheer .The only people furious are those whose abusive powers they revealed: @JohnBrennan, James Clapper, @Comey, @AmbassadorRice & @GenMhayden.
And Biden/Harris would be forced to denounce it, isolating them.
LOL. The notion that you can’t point out NBC’s long-standing role in spouting CIA propaganda without “endangering” their employees is manipulative bullshit.
They hired *John Brennan*, Ken Dilanian & every other operative puked up by the security state. People already know.
If you don’t want to be a news outlet globally notorious for disseminating propaganda in partnership with CIA, don’t hire the ex-Director of CIA to “deliver the news,” or people like this who are notorious for serving the Agency.
The CIA lies of the Iraq War were principally sold on Meet the Press. Ground Zero for mindless CIA stenography of the most unhinged Russiagate conspiracies was MSNBC.
If you don’t want to be known as a CIA outpost, then .... don’t be one.
Throughout the Trump era, mainstream liberal media outlets elevated the most deranged, neurotic and ridiculous people as “experts” to scare the shit out of everyone. Well beyond NYT putting *Louise Mensch* on its op-ed page about Russia, look at what this person is *still* doing:
This @SarahKendzior person was so blatantly a completely unhinged maniac, scaring the crap out of followers, telling them Trump was definitely going to nuke people, maybe even them. MSNBC put her on constantly. Look at the fear & sickness she spread:
And look at what media outlets even *now* are saying about her. Just look at these two tweets. Why the fuck would anyone in their right mind trust the media, saying stuff like this and elevating people like her? Trump permanently broke the brains of liberal America.
This point from Jonah @peretti, now the owner of BuzzFeed & HuffPost — that the NYT can’t be the “Paper of Record” because its subscription model means it only speaks to one like-minded group — is 100% true. But....
But it doesn’t have to be that way: millions & millions wants a media outlet they can trust: unconstrained by ideology. The mammoth success of Rogan, among others, proves that.
Huge opportunity to break free of the NBC/CNN/NYT/Fox prison & create that:
Relatedly: there’s suddenly a huge spate of articles about The Substack Craze in media outlets & I’m seeing an oft-repeated myth: that while a journalist can make more money there, your audience size shrinks. That assumption is false....
As @mattgaetz there was joined by @TulsiGabbard & @RoKhanna in a failed July effort to allow troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, you can see Liz Cheney in front of him. After accusing him of being pro-Terrorist, she joined with Dem Chair Adam Smith to smash them. Here's Smith:
If you're angry it was Matt Gaetz who made eloquent pleas with Ro & Tulsi to end the war in Afghanistan, while the Raytheon-funded House Armed Services Committee Dem Chair joined with Liz Cheney & other neocons to block withdrawal, blame them, not me: