Glenn Greenwald Profile picture
Feb 5, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read Read on X
It was only a question of time before the all-out war on Rogan began. He's way too big and off-key to permit him to keep going. The concept of free speech in the US is a mirage: you have it right up to the line where it matters or can threaten power centers, then you don't.
Every major institution is united to destroy Rogan, including the WH. The Press Secretary -- speaking on behalf of the US Govt -- demanded Spotify do more to stop him, and this is treated as normal and benign. Ask Julian Assange if *effective* dissent is permitted.
The power derived from controlling the flow of information is immense. That's why every tyrant and authoritarian wields censorship power. Tyranny can't exist without it. And as Orwell and Chomsky have both said, the most effective form isn't jailing dissidents but doing this.
Read what Orwell said about why censorship in the UK during the war was so much more effective than the overtly autocratic regimes that just imprisoned dissidents. The British don't have to: they have their compliant media unite to punish and destroy the reputation of dissidents: Image
We're at the point where we also arrive in these cycles. If you object to the attempt to silence Rogan, then you will be instantly tarred with the same brush used to try to destroy him: You're a racist, anti-vax, etc. etc. That's the enforcement mechanism to keep everyone quiet.
This racism charge, from splicing together a bunch of context-free snippets over the years, reeks of desperation but it, too, was inevitable. Racism accusations are the central toy to every silencing game in the US. You can make anyone look racist with it

By far the most important part of what's happened in this Rogan melodrama is that WH weighed in, demanding Spotify "do more." It's part of a long line of Dem politicians using their domination of DC to coerce censorship: a clear violation of the 1st Am.

rumble.com/vtyr34-democra…
If you actually think that finding old clips of someone using the n-word is proof they're a racist, then you would find this 👇 infinitely more alarming and important given that he is kind of more powerful than Joe Rogan. But you don't think that: it's just a game to silence him.
Everyone knows that if Spotify removes Rogan, he will move to a new platform with his millions of listeners. The points of this:

1) Deny him the credibility of a major corporate platform.

2) Vilify and ostracize him to prevent further growth.

3) Create an example for others.
Good time to post one of Barack Obama's best moments, where he denounces what he calls "woke" activism as the superficial and self-serving delusion that it is, explains that it's just about the self-esteem of the denouncers, and mocks the idea that silencing people is activism.

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More from @ggreenwald

Jan 23
John Brennan, whined on MSNBC about the revocation of his security clearance for lying, and lied again (see video below).

He denied he and CIA goons said the Hunter laptop was "Russian disinformation."

Here's what POLITICO said after they fed the story to @NatashaBertrand. Image
Beyond that, the letter itself that they fed to their puppet Bertrand (now promoted to CNN as a reward for her service) explicitly referenced claims in the last part of the letter that the materials on the laptop were "Russian disinformation": exactly what Brennan denies. Image
Indeed, this pre-election lie from CIA goons had only purpose: to protect Biden by deceiving key institutions to believe the materials were unreliable because they were "Russian disinformation."

That's how people like Jen Psaki promoted it, and it's why Big Tech censored it. Image
Read 5 tweets
Jan 19
The only thing more stunning than watching the US Government forcibly close a speech, information and community social media platform that 170 million of its citizens voluntarily chose to use is seeing that it's Trump, almost alone in DC, fighting to keep it open:Image
If you think that TikTok was banned was due to fears of China, then you haven't been paying attention. That was the original impetus for it (including under Trump), but everyone involved says the reason it got enough votes was fear of Israel criticism:

This was as frontal an assault on free speech as it gets. The proposed TikTok ban lingered in DC since 2020 without nearly enough votes.

It only got a majority after the ADL said it must be banned to stop young people from being turned against Israel:

Read 5 tweets
Jan 8
A Globo e autoridades brasileiras alegaram que a descrição de Zuckerberg das ordens "secretas" de censura do Brasil eram "sem provas".

Isso é desinformação. Há provas esmagadoras para isso. Em abril, a @Folha publicou um Editorial condenando a censura de Moraes e seu sigilo: Image
Enquanto a Globo defendeu repetidamente Moraes e suas ordens secretas de censura — da mesma forma que defendeu tudo o que Sergio Moro fez — a Folha, em 2024, condenou repetidamente o esquema de Moraes como perigoso, antidemocrático e inconstitucional:

www1.folha.uol.com.br/opiniao/2024/0…Image
Qualquer um que negue que Moraes esteja usando ordens secretas de censura está mentindo.

Publicamos as ordens de Moraes onde ele fez exatamente isso - inclusive no Facebook e no Instagram. Você pode lê-las e ver por si mesmo:

Read 4 tweets
Dec 8, 2024
The US media, 2001-17: We must radically restructure our foreign policy and civil liberties to vanquish the existential threat of Al Qaeda.

The US media, this week: Meet the glamorous, reformed, media-trained, wise, diverse, borderline-woke AQ leader prepared to govern Syria.
The US Govt and its US corporate media partners can fundamentally rehabilitate anyone it needs to overnight:

US, 2012-2022: The Azov Battalion is a gravely dangerous, fascist, neo-Nazi threat to the West.

US, 2022-24: Azov fighters are reformed, moderated, genuine heroes. Image
After seeing things like this so many times, how can you do anything other than laugh:

Read 4 tweets
Nov 27, 2024
Left-liberal Twitch streamers and YouTube shows knew that to attract a pre-election audience (money), they had to tell their viewers Kamala was *clearly* winning.

So they randomly anointed a random Twitter user, @Ettingermentumv, into a data guru, who assured them all of it.
For months -- including just a couple weeks before the election -- this fraudulent partisan data guru kept saying the polls were wrong, the polling experts were wrong, the secret numbers he saw made clear that Kamala wasn't just ahead but ahead by a good distance. Image
This is as much a problem with partisan independent media as partisan corporate shows: they have to validate their viewers' desire to believe things even if untrue.

So after all the profit and Substack subscriptions were sold by this fraud, he wrote his "I-was-wrong" confession: Image
Read 4 tweets
Nov 11, 2024
"That there’s more affinity between Democrats and the Cheneys than Democrats and the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world says a lot."

It says a huge amount. It's long been clear that the Dem/neocon alliance -- that goes far beyond Trump -- is a key to understanding US politics:
The belief that Joe Rogan and those like him are just an updated Fox News -- a non-stop messaging of right-wing ideology -- is beyond stupid.

Those podcasts grew organically: in part because they're not ideological or partisan. They're normal conversations: how humans speak.
Depicting Rogan as a far-right ideologue is something only those who never heard his show would say. AOC separated from Bernie's campaign after Bernie touted Rogan's endorsement.

He is a vehement defender of same-sex marriage. He believes in full freedom for adults' personal lives. He frequently argues that corporate power is suffocating the lives of ordinary people, etc. etc.
Read 4 tweets

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