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Is This The New Communism?

Bill Collier June 10, 2021

Bill Collier- Cancel culture ruins the platforms, wokism ruins the boardrooms, and critical race theory ruins the classroom. Is this the new communism, where the Party isn’t just using the state but every major institution to gain and keep monopoly power? Does the new communism co-opt rather than dismantle the corporation? Does the new communism enlist the old guards of crony capitalism to become the new politburo or central committee?

Ideologies evolve. To define communism using the classic old definition isn’t useful. The old idea of communism was for the state to control the economy, no private corporations, until full communism is achieved. The new communism has no manifesto per se, beyond the Democratic Party national platform.

A brief caveat. We believe not all, or most, rank and file Democratic voters are down with this new form of modern communism. Our use of the word “Democrats” here applies exclusively to the top Party brass and their corporate crony backers. As a second caveat, the Republicans aren’t exactly saints, some are even controlled opposition in cahoots with the Party, many are feckless cronies in their own right who soundbite all day about freedom and whatnot but who really only exist to enjoy the perks of office.

A few major themes of communism include “critical theory”, equal outcomes, deconstruction of history and heritage, destruction of the family in favor of the state, hatred for pure religion, and setting aside individual rights to acheive centralized control. Removing differentiation, atomizing individuals, and destroying all institutions the Party cannot control are the true hallmarks of communism.

Modern communism, led by the Democratic Party, is of the same vein. But here is the huge modern twist: the communism of today actually employs the corporation almost in the same manner as the old school communists employed the state. The old communists saw authoritarianism and socialism as the key to transitioning toward true communism and a withering away of the state. Modern communism seems to use new forms and methods of authoritarianism imposed as much by corporations as the state to eventually see the withering away of the corporation.

Communism always has many excuses and bogeyman claims to justify its limits on things like free speech, self-preservation, self-reliance, and religion. But while the excuses may run the gamit from the rights of workers to ending racism, the methods and end are always totalitarian.

The goals, which we know are empty, fantastical utopian promises that really only serve to con people into surrendering their individual rights, are the same: some form of equality of results for all regardless of the individual’s level and quality of participation and effort. The new Party Bosses and the new Politburo are just as likely to serve at the top of government and the Democratic Party as they are the cancel culture platforms and the woke corporations.

Make no mistake, the Democrats are modern-day communists and their communism, while still essentially totalitarian, looks a lot different than the communism of old. In fact, they would deny the label and probably accuse us of “red baiting” or of spreading “conspiracy theories.” But they are communists who have evolved their communism in the 21st century into something that is quite prepared to enlist and employ corporations that are privately owned to control or coerce people who refuse to countenance their totalitarianism.

Whether it is the state or a monopoly of a few corporations, if your means of self-expression, of economic exchange, and of self-reliance are blocked or controlled in such a way that you get canceled for engaging in dissent from the NEW form of “modern” communist orthodoxy, it’s still totalitarian in effect. If you cannot freely live and function without bowing the knee to someone else’s communist ideology, then you are not free and it doesn’t matter who your tormentors are.

If I say “Joe Biden is a communist”, you may conjure images of the Soviet Union and laugh at me. Clearly, Joe Biden is not calling for the end of corporations or “the market.” But the fact he owes his office to those whose rabid intolerance for all dissent is well known, should suffice to label him a communist. Arguing he is “playing them” or “placating” them but isn’t really on their team seems too generous and is naivete itself! Joe wants total monopoly power for the Democratic Party. Period.

The Democrats have evolved communism, they have chosen to enlist corporations rather than dismantle them. They have chosen to enlist the corporate bigwigs and fatcats as the new politburo and central committee. Like the top officials of the old Soviet Union, the top Democrats and their corporate cronies all carve out their own satrapies, all in service of the Party, and all eat and live well at our expense while lecturing us on equality and justice.

When we say today’s Democrats are modern-day communists, we clearly don’t mean they are exactly like the Soviet Union’s form of industrial age communism. Things have evolved in terms of methods and means, from only the state to a corporate and state partnership of totalitarian control. But the goal, absolute power by the Party at the expense of the rights of any dissenters, has not changed in general.

What the Democrats want is total control of our lives through a monopoly of power, which they are just as willing to exercise through the powers of the state or private corporations, and all in the name of equality and justice, as generally defined even by communists of old. That may be a new, evolved, modernized form of communism, but it is still communism.

A New Freedom Building Approach

Bill Collier June 9, 2021

Willem IV- An Essay On The NEW Upadarian Approach To Building Freedom

Building freedom in our era of top-down centralization of corporate and governmental power requires a new approach that transcends the 20th century industrialized society. We must resort to unilateral efforts that build freedom individually and locally but within a globally-distributed community of freedom-builders who share ideas and resources.

Through our new platform, called “Upadaria” and pronounced “you-pah-daria”, we want to create a global gathering of people who desire to build freedom, which results in a free and pluralistic society with universal opulence and absolute equality and equity under law. To build such freedom, we have to look for unilateral approaches which do not depend on reforming existing institutions and the existing ruling class.

To facilitate this virtual-to-local and, at the same time, global freedom-building movement, we are creating a new web 3.0 cryptonation platform called “The Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria.” Upadaria is a name that defines our core ideals and vision for a globally-distributed free and pluralistic, and totally freewill participatory based, “commonwealth of freedom.”

(“Upadaria” means “the people rule through God’s approved wisdom”, it stands for our core ideals <Unity in diversity, Popular sovereignty, Democratic equality, and Rule of law>, is the name of our new intentional spiritual nationality whose God is the Lord, and is the name of a new civilization founded on God’s standards of righteousness and justice.)

It may be that the vast majority of people, and/or the ruling class, in your country and your culture will continue to reject the things that lead to a free and prosperous society. This obstinacy may continue for decades or it may only end when that culture itself and all its institutions collapse in the future.

The present approach is to build freedom through reformation of existing institutions and changing the very makeup, qualifications, and decision-making structures of the ruling class. This mostly involves politicking, corporate activism, civic activism, and culture-changing efforts via corporate and political controls or influence.

There is no argument these things cannot or should not be pursued, inasmuch as lies within our means. But there is a strong argument that these things cannot and should not be our primary focus. This especially applies beyond the very local level. Only at the very local level can a small cohesive body of people influence and direct most local structures, like business, culture, and government.

A new blueprint for building freedom can be powered and supported through global connections and collaboration on a freewill participatory basis, hence our platform. But its greatest manifestation and impact, we propose, comes from a more face-to-face approach.

In sharing our overall plan for building freedom, even our specific approach to organizing principles and official designations, we are hoping to give enough concrete information from which you can glean your own ideas.

Our overall global plan includes a networking of area-wide “distributed privately developed free cities” we call “Shires.” Bear with us as we delve a bit into details whose minutiae may be less useful than their use as a concrete illustration of broader principles, which are useful.

We begin sort of in the middle, but with the first larger-scale effort that we think our overall movement will be mostly known for. Moreover, we suspect this type of structure will be the way most people in the future access and experience our vision.

What we think will be our main contribution to scaled-up efforts to pursue freedom is the concept of a Upadarian Shire community. Our concept of the Upo Shire is a distributed privately developed free city within a given area administerer by a chapter organization of a Upadarian Branch Society. It serves a broader clientele than just Society members or Christians.

(Note that other terms apply to special Shires, like urban Shires called Bergs or special home chapter organizations called Shiredoms or Regal Shiredoms, but all are still Shires. Just remember, a Shire for us is a distributed privately developed city capable of meeting the basic material needs of its participants. A Upo Shire is a Shire operated by a chapter organization of a Upadarian Branch Society.)

The distributed privately developed city itself, adminstered by a chapter organization connected to a Branch Society of our intentional NGO, owns lands distributed all over a given area as well as common facilities and hubs both to support their “citizens” and to conduct their mission to help people in need.

We plan a Upo Shire community called “Riqueday City, USA”, to be adminstered by an (also planned) area chapter organization for the Upadarian Society of America (a Branch Society of our NGO) which we will establish in the future.

This will be the genesis community for the whole concept Upo Shire communities and Shires in general. A s stated already, we do not use the term “Distributed Upo City” for a Shire, that is just a reference to its technical definition: a Upo Shire is a distributed Upo City adminstered by a chapter organization.

The general public who become subscribers join a virtual-to-local city and/or lease residential or commercial property from the “city.” Hence the term “city” will normally be used for the public-facing elements. “Riqueday City, USA” is a distributed Upo City adminstered by a chapter organization, a Shire.The official chapter designation for this important home chapter organization is “The Regal Shiredom of Riqueday.” This is just a specific form of a Shire.

While Shires will be the norm, we also plan larger contiguous developments as hubs for our global effort, these are called Upo Cities as well, albeit both in title and in definition. In other words, a distributed Upo City is called a Shire, but a contiguous Upo City is also called a Upo City.

A Upo City is a privately devleoped, locally autonomous, and free city that caters to a diverse population within a charter provided by a host country and whose governance and administration are organized around the ideals and etc of the Upadarian civilization and our spiritual nation. Additionally, and also importantly, its citizens are more like customers and it is administered by an area chapter organization and by Peers of a Upadarian Branch Society or a Upadarian Missionary Tribe (there are 17) who live there.

These general concepts also apply to Shires, though, unless some or all of their lands have a designation like a tribal homeland or reservation, they are not in any way autonomous.

In general terms, we also define contiguous Upo Cities as “Refuge and Freedom Support Hubs”, or just “Hubs”, because they are a refuge of freedom and provision in a world riven by conflict and where freedom itself is the constant target. They will often act as regional to territorial support hubs for whole Branch Societies, major chapter organizations, or Missionary Tribes in their work.

Some may have strategic importance for some aspect of the global NGO mission, like Novazzia City, a planned Upo City, called a Regal City because it will host major support services for the global mission of the NGO. In this case, it will host international services and resources related to security and safety and for training people in the Upadarian governmental system.

Note: another Novazzia, called Novazzia City, USA, is the planned genesis community and home chapter organization for a territorial chapter organization of the Upadarian Society of America. This planned Shire will be responsible for establishing the first overseas development from which the international Upo City, Novazzia City, will grow.

Riqueday City, USA is meant to be a Shire within the greater Twin Tiers. It will be physically manifested in the form of various Hubs, contigious larger-scale developments called Upo Communities, clustered housing developments (Estates, Castles, or Villas) and common/support facilities (Embassies, Missions, Castles, Common Houses, and Chapter Houses). It will also be the provisional world HQ for our planned NGO and for the platform. It will also have its own area-wide virtual network within the Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria.

Other Shires (as distributed cities) are planned for the lower Delmarva Peninsula, northern California, West Africa, and other locations around the world. Riqueday City, USA will also sponsor the eventual development of other Upo Cities, such as The Crown Principality of Upadaria, the official chapter designation for this Upo City, the planned international HQ for the NGO, and Riqueday Regency, a chapter organization within the EU.

Just remember that Shires are our version of distributed privately developed free cities adminstered by a chapter organization of a Upadarian Branch Society but that serve a broad cross-section of people as subscribers to its service, what we call eCitizens.

The Shire concept can be adapted by any group of people and if a number of Shire-type communities coexist within a given area there is room for a coalition or compact for mutual support in the cause of freedom.

These Shires, as both distributed cities that serve a broad audience of client-citizens and as chapter organizations with a Upadarian Branch Society, will mostly consist of local to very local trust communities organized around a modern version of the ancient extended multi-family household community.

This leads to our proposed primary innovation, the intentional modern adaptation of the ancient multi-family extended households, called “oikos” in the Greek of the 1st century world.

How can we conceive of these oikos-like local communities?

Think of a modernized “tribal village” of around 120 adults that is distributed throughout a small town and that gathers and clusters around common facilities (Common House, Chapter House, Mission, Villa, etc.) for activities and events. Imagine an entire area-wide network of such “villages” with larger hubs and facilities, distributed among many towns or cities within its service area.

As these new frameworks become alternative, unilateral structures, a drive to actually transform your local neighborhood or community into a sanctuary for freedom can be successfully conducted.

Imagine a small city of 50,000 people where over half of the voters sign a Freedom Sanctuary Pledge and are engaged in some form of gathering together or in clustered housing developments like unto these modernized forms of the ancient multi-family extended household. Such a city may pass a Freedom Sanctuary Ordinance that commits the city government to basic human rights and liberty based on the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Rights.

Note that we do not only want this for local governments in the USA, we want this wherever in the world we can do it.

Practical things like alternative energy, sustainable agriculture, mutual assurance funds, cooperatives, mircofacturing, 3d printing, and the like will be needed. But the greatest change will be a personal lifestyle change that comforms to the most successful sacred patterns and standards in a thoroughly future-looking manner. Without such a lifestyle change (ideally within a new sociocultural structure of globally scalable organic cohesiveness) these practical things will benefit only a few people and only for a limited time.

This begins as people choose to adopt a new lifestyle and governance philosophy, a new civilizational paradigm, and even a new spiritual nationality, which is the practical glue that creates non-hierarchical organic cohesiveness. Those who go as far as to adopt the new spiritual nationality can use this new-found organic cohesiveness to quickly gather and, starting as individuals and families, autonomously use a common blueprint to create their own very local to regional alternative structures.

Our blueprints and frameworks are directed toward a specific vision for a specific new spiritual nation and the distributed global emergence of a new civilization all centered on the person, works, and truths found in Yeshua. We also introduce a new lifestyle and governance discipline, or philosophy, that anyone can apply the broader, more general principles and ideas to their own efforts to build freedom through unilateral action by organically cohesive free association of people.

We are building virtual support structures now. We propose that we must begin at the level of a global-scale but virtual-to-local gathering of people who at least adopt a new lifstyle philosophy and then a new civilizational paradigm based on freedom as defined by God’s standards of righteousness and justice. The Virtual Commonwealth of Upadaria is a new platform that will gather people, impart the vision, support them, and enable them to build connections for mutual profit and support. From virtual-to-local connections, local gatherings of people can autonomously use these blueprints in a manner suited to their immediate needs and resources until whole distributed cities that are part of this globally-distributed “Commonwealth” of free people are established here and there.

Our distributed free cities (Shires) will be adminstered by area chapter organizations within the Branch Societies of our international NGO. They will own real estate such as lands, common facilities, and hubs, along with clustered housing options. Through local chapter communities and coalitions with other civic groups, they will be able to influence local institutions and even county/provincial or municipal governments until actual Freedom Sanctuaries are declared.

This will not be successful everywhere. But the presence of free communities of people can be everywhere and, through an international NGO and other legal structures can be a new layer of protection and support from abuse. This NGO can emgage in international advocacy for universal human rights and universal liberty based on the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Right

We also envision larger hubs, possibly whole “Upo Cities”, like a modern version of cities of refuge, but based on legal structures like special economic zones and other larger-scale developments or private cities. If and when these emerge they would also be part of this global Commonwealth organized and administered through a recognized international NGO.

We are literally talking about a new civilization being unilaterally built all over the world. We are literally talking about people adopting a new form of spiritual nationality that individuals adopt on their own right along with their ancestry.

The lifestyle change envisioned within our vision, which you can adopt wholly or in its broader outlines in your own way, is vital. The lifestyle of the atomized life (without real mutuality at the familial and community scale and without a globally scalable organic cohesiveness) has rendered everyone prey to corporate and governmental influence and control through material dependency.

There are those whose culture is already supportive of some form of Shirehold, but it tends to lack scalability, is limited to blood kinship, and can be constrained by manipulation and control that tend to work against individual spiritual sovereignty. Many of these extended families and tribes lack organic cohesiveness in practical matters and/or retain some of the worse elements of ancient tribalism that the modern world has rightly discarded. Moreover, many are not under the voluntary lordship to Yeshua.

Building freedom demands a lifestyle change. It requires a return, in modern form, to proven ancient norms and structures which would make you materially independent of the present top-down systems of control. Without a restoration, again, in modern form, of the ancient multi-family extended household community and its networks which became a whole distributed city within areas, we will not build freedom that lasts.

What we call a “Shirehold” is the modernized version of this ancient extended multi-family household, a community of around 120 connected adults and their children. Your involvement in something like a Shirehold would render you vastly more free, secure, and prosperous than you are now or could ever be outside of such an arrangement.

In addition to a shared culture and way of life as well as a shared mission, the core element of a Shirehold is that every participant feels that the success and well-being of everyone else is equal in value to their own success and well-being. This feeling of belonging and acceptance and its practical impact is lost among many modern cultures. Without this nurturing enclosure that doesn’t smother the individual but, rather, awakens their potential, personal freedom can be easily manipulated or removed.

You are connected to and governed by many relationships and people. This cannot change. It is part of the human condition and experience. Moreover, strong mutual bonds between individuals and bodies of people are ordained and prescribed by God for human civilization. What we propose, and what constitutes our major breakthrough innovation, is that we unilaterally choose what relationships and mutual bonds we will partake in that conform with God’s scroll of destiny and purpose (what we call “wyrd”) for our own lives.

Our blueprint for a new civilization and a globally distributed Commonwealth of freedom is conveyed through a fictional future history written in 2147 AD, called “The Blue Book of Upadaria: A Secret History of The New Civilization.”

Herein lies the spiritual, sociocultural, socioeconomic, and philosophical DNA of a new spiritual nation as the vanguard people of a new civilization. It uses creativity and imagination, in the form of a fictional future history, but its core ideals, principles, practices, and mandates are useful in the here and now.

You can choose to adopt that new spiritual nationality, but you can also only engage at the level of the civilizational paradigm or by using the lifestyle and governance discipline (philosophy) conveyed.

Our Gideon’s Call is initially meant to gather the core of spiritual nation and freedom builders. At the same time, we are sure to find and connect with many more individuals who will find the philosophical foundations or the whole civilization paradigm useful and/or who choose to adopt this new nationality.

Whether or not you are called to participate in our particular effort and vision to build freedom, we hope to convey broader ideas and principles for unilaterally building freedom. You may not form or participate in a Upadarian “Shirehold” community, but, we propose, you will need something like this in your life if you desire less material dependency and more personal freedom.

The practical elements of having your own local food through renewable resources and having your own local micro-factory which uses recycled materials to produce consumer items, and many more, are not possible without a new underlying paradigm and culture. We have to be able to build freedom on our own through personal choices, relationships, associations, and communities of trust based on organic cohesiveness that can scale globally.

It won’t be easy or fast. Many changes can happen just through adopting a more freedom-oriented mindest and paradigm, but also many changes take years of mutuality and collaboration on a local to regional and global scale. Where you live may or may not change, but how you live, how you spend time and money and who and when you do this with will shift in a manner that more directly harmonizes with your God-given “wyrd”, which we explained is the scroll of purpose and destiny fulfillment for your life.

These Shirehold communities may not, especially now, take the form of an intentional community where everyone has a residence on a shared piece of real estate. Their smaller “Kinship Groups” of 10-20 adults and 5-10 nuclear families with attached single adults may have some form of clustered housing options for participants, but even these may just be a neighborhood group who gather at a Common House for activities and functions.

Clustered housing is definitely an idea we support, but it is more essential, and more practical, for most people, to remain in their existing homes, especially if they own them, and not to physically change their residence. What is essential is that when you gather with a group of people who have all adopted the same sociocultural identity and way of life, which is a function of national identity, you begin to act as an extended multi-family household that cares for its members as a large extended family or a tribal village of old would have.

It is important to not that Upadarians are from every race and ethnicity. Anyone who adopts our nationality through freewill participation and by making the Pledge of Peers between themselves and God alone, is a Upadarian.

Among us we have no race or ancestry, though we do honor our ancestors as individuals. Upadaria has no past. There is nothing we have done to be ashamed or proud of, our history begins now and we have a clean slate. When you become a Upadarian, your spiritual nationality is Upadarian and this transcends all identities save our identity as followers of Yeshua.

Every Upadarian, regardless of racial background, ancestry, or anything else is an equal Peer, loved and valued as kin and as part of our tribe, our People. The disadvantaged and downtrodden and those who experience prejudice and hate are our welcome kin and know that as a Upadarian, every other Peer of our spiritual nation will stand with you and for and against your abusers! We are not white or black, brown, red, or yellow, we are all Upadarian Blue!

(Note that we do not mean to erect some sort of color-blind society that doesn’t recognize past and present abuses based on race and ethnicity. Nor do we want to whitewash or erase diverse cultures and historical peoples. The idea here, specifically AMONG those who ADOPT our shared nationality, is that we are creating a NEW spiritual nation not limited to or defined by historical or present-day social constructs of race, or to bloodlines or ancestry. We are a new spiritual nation and a “race”, that isn’t a race, built on shared ideals and values. Our “color” comes not from our skin, but from our flag, and that color is blue.)

Back to our essay.

Each Shirehold is like a distributed little tribal village, a kindred of around 100 or or so adults and their children, centered on the nuclear family and kinship groups of around 5-10 nuclear families and attached single adults. This is the modernized version of the ancient way which you adopt by CHOOSING to participate in such groups of people ONLY if their shared ideals and etc. harmonize with your own wyrd. This is all freewill participatory association, nothing is manipulation or coercion.

Building freedom in our world takes a new approach based on unilateral action and connections, all based on freewill participation, that are both very local in their application and global in terms of networking for mutual profit and support. Our approach may or may not be the only one of its kind, perhaps others exist (we hope they do!), but we predict this approach will become more and more prevalent among freedom seekers and freedom builders in the coming decades.

Our blueprints and frameworks can be accessed and plugged into, through premium paid subscriptions to our Virtual Commonwealth (our platform). You can then use these blueprints and frameworks in your own autonomous manner and eventually opt to create a formal chapter community within a chapter organization of a Branch Society of our NGO.

This is how we propose freedom will emerge unilaterally and globally through unilateral activities, one person and one family at a time, as facilitated by a virtual platform that connects people on a virtual-to-local basis.

From this will emerge:

1. a new freedom-building lifestyle and governance philosophy as a personal discipline and shared way of life that can can be adapted and applied to making better choices, building better and stronger relationships, and consciously aligning your life, relationships, and associations with God’s scroll of destiny and purpose for your life as a spiritually sovereign human being

2. a new nation of people whose God is the Lord, adopted by individuals who are called to be part of such a nation, a nation called from all races and ethnicities, a nation with a clean slate and new history begining now, and called to be a wholly new ethnicity, whose people and communities are distributed globally as a beacon of the Kingdom and of freedom to the nations

3. a new international commonwealth of freedom organized as a virtual platform and an NGO with many Branch Societies, Chapter Organizations, and Chapter Communities based in the modern multi-family extended household, called a Shirehold

4. a global network of distributed cities called Shires seeking some form of legal standing as private developments and of freedom refuges, called Upo Hubs, Upo Hub Communities, and Upo Cities, with special economic and sociocultural status under national and international laws (like tribal homelands or special economic zones)

5. a new a worldwide “freedom civilization” with adherants in every land that transforms lives and communities and results in a flourishing of freedom around the world that no power on this earth can overcome or prevent from being established

Building freedom requires unilateral activities among people who come together in freewill participatory association to create the things that enhance their lives while influencing the world around them without solely or primarily depending on convincing the majority to embrace these ideas.

This is a big vision, it begins small and it can be useful in your life in the here and now, but the work involves many tens of thousands and may require multiple generations.

Twitter Versus The Nigerian Government!

Bill Collier June 7, 2021

Willem IV- Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, stated on June 7, 2021, that it was “suspending Twitter indefinitely” from their country’s internet over Twitter deleting a tweet by President Buhari and its continued allowance of tweets by Biafran independence activists. (Full disclosure, we support Biafran independence.)

Twitter responded by arguing that access to “a free and open internet” is a “basic human right”, a “right” this company, although private, doesn’t value internally (Twitter is not a free speech platform). The truth is that Twitter is a private company and a private company banning access on the basis of political opinions, as Twitter is alleged to do, is not the same thing as Nigeria’s government banning a private platform from its internet.

But the moral high ground is lost. True, it may be legally defensible for Twitter to ban anyone it wishes to ban, but when Twitter experiences the ban hammer from governments that use the same language Twitter uses to justify its bannings, and when that justification is thin, no tears are shed.

If Twitter relents and restores the deleted tweet by Nigeria’s President and begins cracking down on Biafran dissent, it makes its public image worse. It would have to reinstate Trump at that point!

Twitter presents ifself as a neutral platform. But this is a myth, even if it is the true intent. No human being can be neutral. What is more, the staff, especially moderators, of that platform lack any kind of ideological or philosophical diversity. Most tend to fall into the left-authoritarian spectrum. Twitter pretending it doesn’t take sides is setting itself up for easy fault-finding because the weight of judgement tends to run against the orthodoxy of its staff, and that orthodoxy cuts against people right and left of the political divide, by the way.

This is Twitter’s right. They began as an essentially free speech platform and have evolved into something like a hybrid between a publisher, gatekeeper of “acceptable content”, and limited free speech zone within a spectrum of acceptable orthodoxies but with limited tolerance for dissent. All of this is perfectly legal. It may eventually prove to drive people away from the platforms like Twitter to alternatives, if or when something truly viable comes along, but so far their bottom line hasn’t suffered due to their shift away from pure unadulterated free speech on a strict First Amendment basis. The people paying the bills like it and the audience hasn’t exactly turned away wholesale.

It used to be, if the speech was protected by the First Amendment, it was protected on Twitter. As a corporation, Twitter decided to bend to its clients, namely investors and advertisers, to define the limits of speech it would allow more narrowly. As the rules became more extensive, the ability of moderators to keep up with all the needed moderation has fallen behind.

This has resulted in inconsistencies and gross mistakes, banning content labeled as false which later turned out to be true, while allowing grossly false content to remain unmoderated and unchallenged. Users whose views run afoul of a narrowing orthodoxy, more reflective of a left-authoritarian staff than a broad cross-section of perfectly civil and legitimate beliefs, find that policies about hate speech, racism, bullying, and all the other triggers, become easy excuses to justify bannings.

Most people don’t want those things, but the definition of what constitutes those things is broad and its enforcement is opaque. And that is the problem. Nobody is seriously defending actual racism, hate speech, and bullying. But the instances of where these rules are applied and not applied have been questionable, mostly because it wasn’t obvious or evenly applied.

If you cannot enforce a standard evenly, consistently, or fairly in a way that everyone can easily understand, then you have a governance problem. You also have an optics problem in the international community.

Unlike Twitter, who tend to read the standards and norms of a free and open internet in a less than objective and consistent manner, always in a way that favors their particular ideological bent, we absolutely support Twitter acting as a private, corporate, world power pursuing its aims and interests. Twitter is now seen as a not only such a “soft power”, able to sway election outcomes, but, for some world powers, a potential threat.

In becoming a platform for limited free speech whose owners clearly push their own ideology, which is their right, Twitter is no longer seen as neutral and is seen as a player in its own right. There is a reason the Red Cross steers clear of politics; it doesn’t want governments to view it as a potential competitor or ally to the opposition.

Twitter isn’t a country. But it does wield soft power on the world stage and is, in a new kind of way, more of a world power than many countries. Twitter definitely has its own policy goals based on its own ideology, which it pushes on its users through content, through programs and initiatives, through charity, and through its very concepts of what is or what isn’t acceptable speech. All of these things are, as much as Twitter likes to pretend some form of absolute a priori objectivity, ideological value judgments not shared by most people or most governments.

Twitter as a free speech platform could not be said to be for any given side. Through taking this new tac, as a limited free speech platform and partial publisher which makes ideological statements as if they are objective truth nobody should object to, Twitter no longer has the same kind of neutral status as the Red Cross deserves.

As noted, all this speech moderation is perfectly legitimate, even if a growing plurality of people, whose speech almost no normal person thinks should be banned, find the platform to be useless. Eventually it may happen that Twitter’s list of banned users reaches parity with those left standing.

Either way, when Twitter touts a human right to access a free and open internet it is rank hypocrisy on a moral basis, even if legally it’s not the same thing for Twitter to ban a country’s President as it is for a country to ban Twitter. Although a country can choose what businesses operate in its borders.

Twitter could have argued that banning access to a private platform that users who wished to associate with violates a right of free association. But pretending Twitter operates as a “free and open internet” in its culture, content promotion, and governance system is laughable.

We have never touted a free speech platform. We don’t object to Twitter choosing who can use its platform, even if we think their governance is sorely lacking because they have too few moderators, a stunning lack of diversity, too many rules that are opaque in their meaning, and too many users. Twitter should have transitioned to a more moderated platform more reflective of its own orthodoxy by hiring and training many more moderators and by enacting very clear, transparent rules that leave little doubt as to interpretation.

But claiming that it is a basic human right to access a free and open internet, when all your “qualifiers” for acceptable speech tend toward opaqueness or a particular ideological orthodoxy, shows a lack of self-awareness. If people have a “right” to access Twitter why has Twitter banned speech that was not otherwise illegal, that, if Twitter were a government platform, would be protected speech?

As an example, Twitter bans anyone who defies or argues against it’s supposition that “gender is a social construct.” This ideological statement is most definitely not agreed to by almost every other person around the world, but Twitter insists it is hate speech to disagree. Its reasoning lacks logical depth and this kind of stance clearly places it within a narrow ideological camp. In one day, if all Twitter users decided to post their own views on this, perhaps 70% would be banned.

Imagine if #saywhatgenderis became a thing. Twitter would suppress it from trending, probably block it, and ban the ring leaders. This is hardly the kind of company that can claim to be a champion of free speech!

People do have a right to free speech and a free and open internet. They don’t have a right to access Twitter, which is not a free speech platform and which isn’t a public space. Twitter has every right to make its own ideological statement on gender something you get banned for disagreeing with. But the consequences are that people and governments no longer feel any moral obligation to treat Twitter as anything but a corporate power on the world stage with an agenda that goes well beyond just defending free speech.

A government can ban certain businesses from its country, they have the sovereign right. Twitter has no standing under international law, it is a private platform, and no government has to allow any business to operate in its borders, whether physically or virtually. Because Twitter has made itself a player with its own agenda, it is now being treated like an external power trying to effect the political climate within another country, something governments are loath to allow.

If Twitter was a free speech platform, like it used to be, warts and all, then it could make a moral case against actions by governments, such as India, Russia, Nigeria, and China to ban free speech. It could claim to have no agenda, but already, in its gender ideology, Twitter is showing it wants to control the very narrative in a very important political issue for every country on the planet.

Twitter, though a private company, albeit with more money than some countries and more power too, isn’t a champion of free speech on its platform. It doesn’t have to be.

To claim a moral high ground as a champion of a free and open internet, which necessarily involves an internet where all save criminal speech is protected, is just not going to fly. No country is going to threaten to sanction Nigeria over this move, the moral basis of doing so doesn’t exist.

But let’s be clear, Abuja isn’t protesting Twitter for banning the speech of its President. All its complaints about Twitter allowing Biafra activists to speak freely, accusing them of terrorism, are authoritarian excuses that are worse than Twitter banning its users. Perhaps if said activists said gender is determined at birth and isn’t a social construct, Twitter would have banned them. Instead, they rail against the excesses of Buhari’s security thugs and his allowing the Fulani herdsman to terrorize the land.

Abuja wants Twitter to ban more speech and sees the fact Twitter protects its own orthodoxy from too much dissent as hypocrisy. Clearly, the logic runs, Twitter isn’t protecting these Biafran activists because it stands for a free and open internet. Twitter isn’t banning this speech, which is quite pointedly against the Buhari regime, because it wants to undermine Nigeria’s stability. It’s personal. It’s not principled.

This is nonsense, but abandoning its former stance for free speech and resorting to a very sloppy and opaque application of limited speech rules, while making dissent from their gender ideology bannable, has opened Twitter up to such attacks. When American platforms argue that China should let them in, China can reply, “we are doing to our internet what you do to your platform.”

Is it the same thing? No. But the moral difference between a private platform that claims to be for free speech banning otherwise legal speech or dissent from its ideological statements on gender and a government claiming to be looking out for its people keeping private platforms out whose services would benefit those people isn’t too far in the eyes of many.

We propose the creation of diverse niche communities, not free speech platforms, within a pluralistic ecosystem. We remain convinced that private communities paid for by their subscribers and not beholden to corporate sponsors are the cure for top-down, poorly governed mega platforms. We argue that smaller, paid subscription based communities built around niche interests and shared ideas or what have you, and connected via API hooks within a larger, decentralized digital ecosystem, are the future of the internet.

Twitter is wrong insofar as it cannot claim to be a free speech platform or that is holds the moral high ground. On the other hand, the authoritarians who run the Nigerian federal government are far, far worse. They are defying Twitter’s refusal to become even less of a free speech platform by banning everyone the Buhari regime hates.

In this particular case, Twitter is right to defend the free speech of the Biafran activists, while the deletion of Buhari’s tweet may have been impolitic, it was probably deserved (the man is an unscrupulous liar). But claiming that everyone has a right to its platform is morally laughable. The difference is, Twitter can only ban you, Buhari wants to use violence to silence the Biafran activists.

Ransomware Attacks Earn The Government’s Ire

Bill Collier June 7, 2021

IT’S WAR ON THE RANSOMWARE HACKERS- The ransomware group, Dark Side, has earned the ire of the Federal Government after their hacking and blackmailing of the Colonial Pipeline. This attack shut down fuel for a good portion of the southeast, leading to gas shortages and gas lines at the pumps, and the victim, the company, paid the ransom. But little did the ransomware attackers realize the ire that would come their way. The Department of Justice announced that they have “turned the tables” on the hackers, recovering most of the Bitcoin paid in ransom, and disrupting the network.

By attacking core infrastructure these allegedly Russian hackers have finally gotten to unwanted attention of a massive system that prides itself in doing the impossible. Imagine the entire US “intelligence community”, including NSA and CIA, waking up every day looking for ways to make your day go badly. This is what the “Dark Side” group has earned, and what many of these Eastern European and Russian or other hackers have earned for themselves: the unmitigated ire of the entire US Government directed every day at them.

It is about time. These types of people who stop people from getting dialysis or shut whole hospitals down truly deserve to be disappeared late in the night and never to be seen or heard from again. They endanger human life on a massive scale, on a war crimes scale, and they must be made to pay a steep and ridiculously high price.

We applaud what Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, “By going after the entire ecosystem that fuels ransomware and digital extortion attacks, including criminal proceeds in the form of digital currency, we will continue to use all of our tools, and all of our resources to increase the cost and the consequences of ransomware attacks and other cyber-enabled attacks.”

The NECESSITY Of Paid Subscriptions For FREEDOM

Bill Collier June 7, 2021

If we want to promote freedom outside the monopoly platforms we must use paid subscription models that aren’t so cheap that the alt platforms cannot afford a robust architecture and virtual infrastructure.

Free, monopoly platforms make you the commodity. They sell your data and moderate content in a manner not suited to your needs or values, because your needs and values are meaningless to them.

Platforms that are not adequately funded by users are incapable of providing the technical infrastructure needed to be an alternative to the monopoly platforms. We propose that for those who love freedom, the paid subscription model is the only way to go. The $4.95/month or less subscription model doesn’t begin to raise enough money in the early stages to provide a robust enough platform that has the right content and features and that just works without crashing.

If we are going to unseat the woke monopoly platforms and their anti-freedom agenda, then both platform builders and their supporters will have to shoulder the cost, and not on the cheap!

To create these platforms a crowdfunding effort that has a basic starting point and adds content and features as the subscriber base grows is necessary. Only paid subscriptions can replace the need or temptation to bow to the whims of “woke” corporations who cater to a vocal, shill monitory of freedom taking loons!

That is why subscribing to The Freedomist is so urgent and necessary at this hour. Our company is investing in a new platform, called “Upadaria”, as a virtual homeland for freedom seekers and followers of Jesus, as well as anyone who loves freedom. We are also investing in and building The Freedomist itself in terms of content.

We acknowledge that our subscription prices are not competitive with subsidized or free platforms that offer you free or cheap access in exchange for selling your data and bowing to the whole of “wokedom.” Our goal is to provide you bespoke level content and then features, as eCitizens of our new platform, which you can use to connect, collaborate, and broadcast your own message or promote your own business, organization, or ministry.

The “supporting subscriber” level is $45/month, $105/quarter, or $295/year. As a supporting subscriber you will gain beta access to the new platform, called Upadaria, you will gain more and more premium, bespoke content that informs and empowers you, and you will be supporting people who work every day to promote freedom for all people.

When the new platform is ready, we will send you a login so you can set up your account at no additional charge. You will not lose access to this site, however you may have two logins until, eventually, the entire Freedomist site is ported over to the new platform.

Why should you support our efforts?

You are sick of the monopoly platforms, you are sick of the woke authoritarians and their war on freedom, and you want to gain access to trustworthy, accurate, and detailed news and other content that enhances your life. For all these reasons and more, your decision to become a supporting subscriber to The Freedomist and, eventually, become an eCitizen, Freeholder, or Ecclesian of our “Virtual Commonwealth” (all at no extra cost), is a decision to fight for freedom and defy the opposition in their bid to erect an authoritarian stranglehold over the web.

This is NOT a so-called “free speech platform.” Our concept is based on the idea of niche communities, in our cause one catering to more socially conservative freedom lovers whose Judeo-Christian worldview is under constant assault. This niche comnunity, called Upadaria, will become part of larger internet ecosystem of various diverse and independent niche communities which connect via API hooks for mutual benefit. You might post a classified ad in one community that is shared with many others.

This is our vision for a free and pluralistic internet of independent niche communities connected voluntarily through API hooks or other means.

The recapture of the digital commons will have to be financed by us as paid subscribers and it will have to begin one niche community at a time. Your support of our effort will begin a process of digital liberation that will extend well beyond our core audience.

Why supoort US?

My name is Bill Collier and I have been engaged in successful efforts to take back lost freedoms and advance good policy at all levels since 1992. As a political and marketing professional with decades of news experience, I have assembled a team of world class developers and virtual community builders. I may not be famous, I don’t seek the limelight, but I have been a part of major newsworthy efforts for almost 30 years.

As coauthor of “The Capitalist Manifesto”, my work has been praised by the top minds in the economic world, including Steve Forbes, whose business and economic acumen is well known. Given the right support from people like you, my team and I can build an online property and resource that will also make history, even as my work has for almost 30 years.

Our team are proven, consumate professionals who have a track record of success and if you back us we will build a platform and community that simply WORKS and that isn’t beholden to the woke authoritarian freedom takers.

I have personally, through my company, invested over $80,000 and others are basically matching that with services and resources. This is not something planned and dreamed, it is being built: a website, a platform, and a book all tied in together. You have a chance to become an early supporter and help us get over the top and add more content and staff to ensure this works well and is well worth it.

Some cannot afford this. We have no intention of leaving anyone behind. But for now we need to build a base of support from those for whom $45/month or $295/year isn’t a whole lot of money. Indeed, anyone who can afford this has the greatest incentive to support this as the success of our efforts will have the net effect of preventing wealth redistribution by the property-hating woke extremists.

The first intended “victims” of the woke freedom raking authoritarians will be those who have property and wealth worth taking and who refuse to tow the line. So get on board now and help us fight back!

Yes, we make no apologies for the fact our appeal for support is to those who can afford this kind of commitment to invest in both their own freeom and prosperity and the advancement of freedom in general.

Explore this website and decide for yourself if you want to support a freedom-building effort that will result in a new platform that paves the way to unseat the woke monopoly platforms and their freedom taking agenda.

JOIN US NOW

Quantum Thinking: Hype Or Valuable Skill?

Bill Collier June 7, 2021

Willem IV- It is now emerging as all the rage to become a quantum thinker. Whether this becomes a true trending fad or not, it has gained enough traction so as to warrant a thoughtful response and explanation.

While people may argue the definition, in general, the ability to step outside of the confines of time and space and the ability to perceive and then understand the origins and potential outcomes of a given event or data point from multiple perspectives and facets all at once is quantum thinking.

It is a form of thinking that is multidimensional, multi-faceted, and non-linear but that is capable of translating into any dimension or facet, though it often requires explaining those dimensions and facets in a linear manner to a broader audience.

Can quantum thinking be taught or is it an innate capability one may develop if one has it but which not all people can develop? Is it purely a function of IQ?

I tend to believe that almost anyone can benefit from and learn some level of quantum thinking but that most people won’t because they are habituated to think as they do. They may be ego-stroked, for a fee, into imaging they are quantum thinkers, but most people tend to be unwilling to truly change their mode of thinking as they get older.

That being said, linear, one-dimensional thinking from a limited perspective of mostly personal experience or internalized acculturation serves most people, most of the time, for the roles, functions, and lifestyle most tend to follow.

While it may be argued that quantum thinking is “superior”, it is far more complicated, it can be cumbersome, and it may not be necessary in most cases, for most people, most of the time. Quantum thinking can overwhelm you with possibilities and opportunities, but it can also open your mind to new possibilities and opportunities you never saw before and which could greatly improve your life.

For as long as I remembered I was blessed, or afflicted, with the innate ability and tendency to use quantum thinking, though I did not call it that. Ideas like non-linearity, eternity, no beginning, quantum entanglement, and even the concepts related to emergent reality from 2-dimentional data are not complicated to me.

For example, long before I heard of the concept of 6 degrees of separation, I spoke of a global web in which anyone was indirectly removed from anyone else on the planet by only 5-7 people. I actually used this deliberately to connect to famous or influential people, so it wasn’t a theory, it was a practical methodology for personal advancement which has served me well.

It has been said that in order to engage in quantum thinking one needs to be engaged in higher level math for many years. I do not agree that this is absolutely necessary, mostly because many of the hard concepts explained by higher math are understandable to me, sans the math.

But I do think anyone, including myself, would benefit from the mental experience of using higher math. I also think that learning and using higher math can allow someone otherwise unable to engage in quantum thinking to do so.

It may not be a coincidence that I took a math aptitude test when considering enrolling in a university and was told it was the highest score ever in the history of the campus. I’m not sure this was true, they may have been engaged in exaggeration. The truth is, math is not my favorite thing, but it comes quite easy. I am convinced, therefore, that if you do not already innately use quantum thinking that you should begin with algebra and advance into the highest levels of math possible.

That being said, for many who use math to access quantum thinking there is possibly a difference between their perception and mine. Namely, for them this is all a mathematical formula, but for me these things are not a formula, they have a certain experiential quality I cannot explain in linear language, or in plain English.

When I sense being outside the time and space continuum, it is not a formula, it is a certain reality I feel and experience just as I do the linear reality.

The ability to engage quantum thinking is not all we need. Linear, one-dimensional thinking in the here and now is also useful for daily activities. It is also useful for marketing purposes, I might add, because a direct appeal to a need or desire cannot be complicated.

A bus driver may find quantum thinking a distraction from navigating a roadway. But when they are not driving, they may use quantum thinking to determine their next career move or to understand the potential future developments in society or their industry that may impact their life.

If they begin learning higher math and even the principles of logic, as a discipline, they will begin to use quantum thinking more and more. They may not feel and sense multiple dimensions of reality or non-linear reality (though, who knows, maybe they will) but they will have a mathematical comprehension that is quite useful.

As this concept of quantum thinking begins to be shared, and if it becomes quite the fad, I suspect a watered-down or fake version thereof will be sold to stroke people’s egos that they are quantum thinkers, without any of them experiencing actual quantum thinking. It will be far easier to sell the ego boost of fake quantum thinking than to actually impart the skills of quantum thinking.

Being a “quantum thinker” doesn’t make you better than anyone or necessarily smarter. Many linear thinkers run circles around me in terms of success and happiness and, in the end, all who follow God’s best for their life with excellence (as we often say) will eventually, if not in this life the next, become quantum thinkers.

I have spent all my conscious life, over 45 years, actively engaging in this kind of multi-dimensional and multi-faceted as well as non-linear thinking to navigate life. I have used it to see and predict future realities, to connect with people of influence in order to advance myself, and to see problems and solutions from many angles to suss out true origins and probable end results.

But I also learned to use and apply linear, one-dimensional, and single faceted thinking or presentations to navigate daily activities and to reach people where they are through communications and marketing.

Knowing when and where to apply the two primary types of thinking and knowing how not to get overwhelmed in all the possibilities of quantum thinking are skills I still strive to perfect.

Can you learn quantum thinking? Generally, I think most everyone can learn some level of quantum thinking, while some will have more innate abilities than others, and that learning higher level math is the best way to approach this if it is totally alien to you.

One the other hand, there are those who do innately seem to have this skill and for them quantum thinking is not limited to or obtained through mathematical forms, though it is likely they also have good math skills.

Quantum thinking is not the only way to think and at times it isn’t even the best way to think. People can have quite happy lives with only linear thinking and nobody will really navigate this world successfully through only quantum thinking.

If you are offered some quick way to master quantum thinking, don’t fall for it. There is no quick way to do this, unless it is innate already in your thinking, as it may be, in which case you don’t need some quickie way to master it. It takes years of discipline, even if you innately have the basic skills.

Quantum thinking will never replace the need for linear thinking in the here and now. It isn’t ever one or the other and one can be quite happy without any quantum thinking at all while one is unlikely to be happy by only ever using quantum thinking.

Ironically for me, linear thinking was more of a struggle, I am far more comfortable in a multidimensional and non-linear reality. I learned that without linear thinking as well I would fail to truly experience the here and now and would find quick decision-making in the here and now to be difficult.

Quantum thinking may become the rage, and many will gladly take your coin to stroke your ego and convince you through some simple exercise that you have mastered quantum thinking in 30 days or less.

Don’t follow the hype. Quantum thinking is useful and can be learned through disciplined efforts over many years, but it will never eliminate the need or usefulness of linear thinking in the here and now, and mastering it doesn’t make you better or necessarily smarter than anyone else.

About our featured photo: a B17G the author flew in, demonstrating a kind of immersion into the past, seeing that plane as both in this time and representing another time, allowing oneself to experience the very sounds and smells of the past, and letting that inform your present future. This is a kind of limited quantum thinking.

Tolerant Tribalism Is Good For Society

Bill Collier June 6, 2021

Society benefits from tolerant tribalism because it prevents the emergence of “One Big System” of an authoritarian bent and prevents divisions and strife along tribal lines. Tolerant tribalism is where you identify with a tribe but you do not have intolerance toward other tribes in your community or society. Tolerant tribalism is unity in diversity, intolerant tribalism is hatred and authoritarianism.

The tendency to always view an ethnic group, race, religious group, Party or a other group as always good or bad, with no exceptions, is a form of intolerant tribalism. Intolerant tribalism is when your identity with your perceived tribe is the only thing that you consider it right or OK to be part of. It’s beyond simple tribalism, where you adopt a tribal identity of some kind but don’t have intolerance toward other tribes.

Feeling your tribe is the best isn’t intolerance. Feeling your tribe is best and others are just a pure evil that needs to be expunged from society is intolerance.

Those who argue against all forms of tribalism, even tolerant tribalism, are coming from the perspective of atomized individualism wherein we are all separate but non-differentiated and are only subject to One Big System (OBS) which everyone is subjected to. Tribalism forms voluntary identities and purposes shared by numbers of people and is a necessary intermediary between OBS and the individual. Without some form of tolerant tribalism we become mere nameless cogs in the machine!

For example, Christians believe Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to salvation, but they recognize the humanity and dignity of people of all faiths and don’t assume everyone in any faith community is all this or that. There are those who become intolerant tribal toward others, and in the name of Christ, but this is a contradiction of the Gospel and of core Christian ethics.

When your tribe and the leaders and/or institutions that represent your tribe, like a politician or a news source, cannot ever be wrong while the others are always wrong, you lose the power of critical thinking. You cannot see things objectively and are likely to miss good ideas and opportunities that are presented by other tribes you have foolishly dismissed.

Often, people infected with this malady of intolerant tribalism do not know or refuse to use basic rules and principles of critical thinking. They generally don’t really have a “true north” set of ideals, principles, or values that govern their thinking. Not using or knowing these things makes intolerant tribalissts easily controlled by the tribal leaders they associate with, to the point where it becomes hero worship and idolatry. Knowing your true north and using critical thinking and logic in light of your core beliefs, values, and convictions prevents you from falling for intolerant tribalism. It prevents you from missing good ideas from other tribes. It keeps you safe from hero worship.

The intentional tribal identity of our new platform, Upadaria, as “Upadarians”, is a purely voluntary identity based on explicitly shared ideals, principles, and practices. It is a tolerant tribalism that welcomes others, even within that same platform, on the basis of shared human dignity and a love for freeedom for all.

A society riven by intolerant tribalism is a society headed for some form of crisis where one tribe wins power and lords it over others in some authoritarian fashion or where the tribes fly apart, resulting in upheavals and even potentially civil war or secession, or some form of insurrection. Eventually, violence follows intolerant tribalism.

As for tolerant tribalism, it does not cause division, it can engender organic unity across diverse groups. Tolerant tribalism prevents the individual from beyond absorbed by an OBS while also preventing them from becoming separated from or hostile to the larger society.

Intolerant tribalism is bad for any society and if we adopt it, becoming blind to any flaws in our tribe and to any good ideas from other tribes, we shorten our own horizon of opportunities and we increase the chances for upheaval and crisis in our society.

America, you’re really getting on my nerves, but I love you still

Freedomist Editor June 3, 2021

The derth sounds, heart and it is was is

The i

The illiterate vagabond with a bag of gold

Fine tunery.

The angels ate the hairs of the mint caterpillars glistening
across a munch of mid-summer maple.

Fine.

The derth doth sing,

“I am a penny in a sea-salt of slow, a dog whipped to the post by the pant of the moon.”
Adrenalin, then,

The pitch.
He payed is taxe doth droth….

A fairy load, the slaps of tar on the pitched atmosphere as the engines slowly blow
holes in the hills the size of seas and oceans.
I curse this land. I empty my load. The season of suck is on.

Pillory’d the Janissaries lack the efficient fauna
to manage the shores of the Susquehanna, mentioned, and named and pondered

By generations of illiterate vagabonds with bags of gold.
The quaint atmosphere. I bust you into the ground and I rise the sun with gold.
I bust you,

Son, work the load.
Mothers and children tied to the vernacular of the furrows of good, fertile soil, black,

Glistening with mint caterpillars under the golden sun.
Such a load.

The idiot took the plans and turned them into a Da Vinci sketch of a Renaissance simulated agency machine,

The damned thing.

I took my heart into the woods and I made a bride of the snakes and the deer.
I do not say these things in jest, friends,

America is a load.

The very thought of her spits on a hot skillet and wafts of sweetmeats and flours roasting in a brood of spices.

There are teams for these things, some drink mud and grind out in three score or less, some eviscerate their lives on haughty displays of “I am the ice that eats the grape.”

A beautiful jewel at a point, before cessation, but then…..

We see ourselves wrapped in whatever flag we’re born into. Some of us wear green, blue, some black, some white, and many, many more, with mascots and agencies of the mind attached to our visceral load.

We are no thing that has not been seen, but yet…..

The moon touches the rivulet of coal clusters glistening across her face like

laced obsidian across opal faced girls with skirts in tall grasses mingled with mud and honey and a touch of tar.

The moon.

Not just any moon, the newest of news in the frost of the grape still in flow.

We see ourselves in the blood of the myths dripped with real bones and sinew and marrow. The effort to undeath the death.

To un.

To death.

To the load.

I sing patriotic songs and I mean it.

Trapped in the I am that I’ve known, I take on the cloak and manage its affairs as unique,

Glistening with mint caterpillars like so many others, and yet….
The heavy load.

Life is death. The body eats and a body dies. The Is eats the Was.

We know this. WE KNOW THIS!

We know this.

We do.

But we hide in the glitter of the frosted grape where the peak is the ponder of the not.
We do not choose, but we do, in this exchange, lest we choose to break the stake

That makes our killing further from the home, the load, the scene where we tore into the valley with steamed assault rifles and assumed the forever of the land. LIKE EVERY OTHER HOME.

I am not letting go, but I am not giving in.

We do. We imagine the song of the distance is death in its notes despite the stark similarities between the melodies of all the lands, where hawks and otters eat from the same death on the shores of the Susquehanna.

Our flag, our load. We are that home.

There is no changing it. The world hates the rabble.

To confront the diminishment and pragmatically choose.
To black bear or tiger, the only load.

A distance built on patterns outside the frame.

I am distanced. I am load. I am home.

A Capitalist Response To Big Tech Market Dominance

Bill Collier June 3, 2021

Regal Blue Media will be launching a new niche, boutique platform, called “Upadaria”, catering to a mostly, but not exclusively, Christian audience seeking personal fulfillment of God’s potential for their lives through mutual self-reliance. This user-backed “virtual-to-local” community, we believe, is the future of the digital commons and is the proper capitalist response to fears and concerns about a few firms dominating the marketplace.

It is argued that “Big tech monopolies control the public square in terms of economic exchange and the sharing of information and public opinion.” Those who find themselves at odds with this alleged “big tech oligarchy”, it is claimed, are effectively shunned from the economy and public discourse, what they call “deplatformed.” We propose a capitalist response to what is really a case of earned market dominance by the creation of user-backed niche communities which mesh together to organically create a larger decentralized digtial ecosystem.

It is argued that if the entities that, allegedly, control economic exchange and public discourse are using their ability to control access to these things to hinder free speech in ways government, which used to control these things, cannot legally do, the net effect is not a free society. Increasingly we may be forgiven for the false impression that the accepted orthodoxy of a few people at the top of these platforms controls the discourse and shuns dissent on ideological grounds.

But it’s not necessarily what you think, it’s not so much ideological as it is good old-fashioned greed. The ideology of big tech is monopolism, which doesn’t mean they have achieved monopoly status. It is not necessarily a good response to cancel the corporations so much as to invent our way around them. Demonizing big tech and ascribing motives to them that may be fantastical and inaccurate won’t liberate the digital commons and may introduce government controls that are worse than the monopoly power big tech wields.

What some call “the big tech oligarchy” who, it is argued, seem to be determined to use their marketing position as arbiters of the digital commons (in their own best interests). This is a situation, it is feared, where economic life and public discourse are controlled in a manner that is favorable to this “oligarchy” maintaining their monopoly while disrespecting the basic dignity of the human beings they were meant to serve.

The goal isn’t ideological, it is to take and keep more market share and to shield themselves from possible competitors while keeping government at bay. This isn’t monopoly per se, people will argue whether there is a monopoly, but it is monopolism, that is, a desire to gain as close to monopoly advantages as they legally can.

There are those who debate a need for reforms meant to nuetralize this dominant market power over the digital commons. There is a desire to push back against this “oligarchy” and its perceived control over the economic life of most people and their seeming ability to literally decide the content of our public discourse.

While the narrative is that the big tech oligarchy are driven by ideology, the truth may be more complicated. There are conservatives who have used and continue to use big tech to promote themselves and there have been people on the left, especially the anti-war left, who have endured deplatforming.

Some are focused on the narrative assumption that this “big tech oligarchy” are anti-conservative zealots trying to help Democrats win. One suspects that if Republicans were more favorable to the monopolism of big tech, they would have better access to the platforms. Many, especially those who adhere to the ideological bias assumption, are focusing on using the power of the state to prohibit these platforms from moderation of their content according to the standards they deem best suited to their needs.

The danger to this approach is that such powers to dictate how private firms choose to moderate their content or who and what they desire to associate with can cut all ways, not just the way we might want it to cut.

It is problematic for many that a “big tech oligarchy” has the power to control so much economic activity and sharing of content, news, and opinion that those who do not have access to their systems are generally at a decided disadvantage in our society. The existence of such a massive marketplace dominance, many argue, is akin to a concentration of power in government, against which America’s founders crafted a Constitution that involves checks and balances and a federalist system that keeps power from concentrating at the center and the top.

Those who may argue that the monopoly powers being used by big tech are not ideologically motivated have a point. But the reality of power, others retort, is that if, say, the top 10 platforms decide to deplatform someone who has not violated the law for speech or opinions that even most people would disagree with, than that person’s right to free speech is effectively meaningless. Or so the narrative runs.

This, however, is not the goal of big tech or the greatest problem. Their goal is to have as much of the market share of advertising dollars and audience size as possible and to prevent the emergence of competition while creating a political situation in which those most favorable to them are in office. This concentration of marketplace dominance is antithetical to a free market, but having the government step in to punish “the big tech oligarchy” may itself be a worse cure than the disease.

Freedomists are not likely to be fans of big tech and its monopolistic ambition, even if monopoly itself is yet to be achieved. The issue here is centralized marketplace dominance, which goes against our instinct toward decentralization as much as possible. Our opposition is principled, not ideological. But our instinct for a capitalist response tends to go against a knee-jerk authoritarianism over the platforms, telling them how and when to moderate content, is

What is the response?

In general, the best response, we propose, is to undermine the monopoly through creating a new digital commons that is NOT simply a re-creation of alternative massive platforms but that is an interconnected mesh network of diverse autonomous and user-backed niche digital communities. Efforts to create the next mass platform will necessarily come against a system that is more sensitive to the needs of the advertisers than to the users and the irreducible complexity of creating an alternative structure that can attract a comparable audience size and advertisers.

The new approach may look more like a thousand cuts against the monopoly holders. It may be thousands of user-backed niche communities that find ways to connect to each other in a decentralized mesh.

Where government can be useful is if those who pursue monopolism go off their platforms to collude in order to prevent the market from operating freely. If banks close accounts to businesses simply because they are creating alternative digital commons structures, in collusion with big tech monopolists, this may be actionable from an anti-trust perspective.

Those banks who have ended relationships with personalities and groups whose rehtoric harms their brand through that association aren’t facing public blowback, again, because most people don’t LIKE the deplatformed personalities or groups. But if this became a general trend targeting personalities and groups who have not been overtly offensive, the legal and public relations problems would become insurmountable.

The “free speech platform” approach is problematic for a few reasons. First, it is irreducibly complex in terms of attracting a comparable audience that would be of interest to advertisers and, second, because it would cost billions to build and market. At this stage, it must still rely on an ecosystem that is more sensitive to the needs of the marketplace giants than to small would-be competitors. Finally, and overlooked, is the fact most people don’t want to be on a platform that gives space to actual Nazis or totalitarians or any of the other socially unacceptable extremes. Moreover, they don’t want vulgarity and smut, except in the adult websites they subscribe to.

The inability of these “free speech platforms” to compete even on a technical basis, they often crash, or to gain access to the digtial ecosystem to reach a mass audience is abysmal to date. By allowing some speech that is definitely beyond the pale of social acceptance, these platforms have given an easy justification to ecosystem giants, which dominate economic exchange providers (e.g. credit card companies and payment processors), domain name registrars, and hosting providers, to deplatform them. The pushback from the public against these behemoths is muted because very few people want to defend actual racists or neonazis.

The clawback of a distributed and decentralized control over the digtial ecosystem and the digital commons will take time and resources from diverse communities of people. If, however, users continue to refuse to want to pay for access and demand freebies, they are showing that the only way to thrive as a platform is through the exact approach being taken now: cater to corporate backers, treat users and their data as a commodity, and obtain market dominance.

No corporation, sensitive to the pressure of activist communities and thought leaders and to their brand, will back mass appeal alt platforms that allow things most of the public tends to feel negatively about. On the other hand, if such a community had a core of 30 million paid users who tended not to populate the platforms, advertisers would bend over backwards to reach them, regardless of branding issues.

The alternative niche communities, backed by paid subscriptions, will have the means to form their own niche ecosystems and then connect to other autonomous niche ecosystems. This doesn’t spell the end of the free user, ultimately even paid communities will tend to collect free users, even if only through a free email list.

Instead of simply deplatforming one erstwhile competitor, with easy justification based on content deemed hateful by most people, the marketplace giants would be forced to deplatform hundreds and thousands of niche communities whose ONLY “crime” is providing an alternative digtial venue. This would run afoul of antitrust laws in an obvious way, therefore it is unlikely.

Because of the backing of paid users, which could garner advertising support in the future, the ability of these niche communities to invent around the present digital ecosystem or to wage legal challenges on an anti-trust basis would grow and grow as time goes on.

The demand of some to a right to actually USE the existing platforms to attack and undermine the existing platforms is unlikely to gain public support and if it gains official support it can be used against even those invoking it.

These platforms, as “monopoly” as they aspire to be, grew through an ability to meet market demands, both free users as a commodity and the 1% of firms that spend 80% of the marketing dollars that fund these platforms. Like it or not, the functionality of these platforms when compared to their would-be competitors is far superior. In short, the “big tech oligarchy” earned its special status through excellence. Undermining its position of marketplace dominance, through free and fair competition, may require a marketplace response that isn’t merely a re-creation of mass market alternatives.

Regal Blue Media is funding, with the backing of partners, the first prototype for these niche ecosystems, one that both caters to more socially conservative Christians or people of a Judeo-Christian worldview, without allowing any kind of hate speech, bigotry, or intolerance directed at any other group of people. This will be a user-backed platform through paid subscriptions, with a free email list as the open end of its funnel, that will succeed or fail, in part, on the basis of the willingness of those who decry the “tech oligarchy” to choose to become a paying customer rather than the commodity sold to the actual customers.

The concept of a niche ecosystem is that participation is based on prior agreement to transparent common standards and to common ideals and purposes while funding is from users, as opposed to users being the commodity sold to advertisers. Our gamble, and it remains to be seen whether it is justifed, is that users will want pay for access to features and content to avoid being the commodity. The idea is that when access is free, the provider is more sensitive to those who want to “purchase” the user data and sell to them, as opposed to the users.

Quite simply, a “free to use” platform cannot actually be freedom-oriented or user-centric, it has to cater to the wants and needs of the major firms that provide over 80% of its funding.

The proliferation of these niche ecosystems, paid for by users, and their connections to one another over time, so that one might broadcast a message to many of them at the same time, will answer the complaint that we have an unhealthy monpolistic digital commons and ecosystem that is increasingly insensible to legitimate market demand.

Efforts to rein in “the big tech oligarchy” which tend toward duplication of massive alternative platforms and government regulation are essentially going in the opposite direction of what is necessary and possible. Creating multiple niche ecosystems, backed by paid subscriptions, that connect to one another is not irreducibly complex and it is simply not possible, under present law, to “deplatform” all these alternatives without facing legal consequences.

Our platform, called “Upadaria”, will not allow bigotry or hate speech, it envisioned as a user funded niche community that caters to social conservatives of a Judeo-Christian worldview in a positive and life-affirming manner, being more for something that against anything or anyone who may not fit such a profile.

What we are aiming for, partially through our own development of multiple niche communities, is the proliferation of diverse, user-backed communities connected to a free, pluralistic, and decentralized, alternative digital ecosystem and digital commons. No, in such a network, there won’t be space for the intolerant, hateful, and racist “communities” whom no other community of decent people wants to connect to.

Let the hateful and intolerant build their own things, the market won’t support them and no platform should be compelled to host them.

The “problem” isn’t ideological and it isn’t the “censorship” of actual intolerance. The main problem is a digital commons and digital ecosystem with a small group of major market leaders that cannot be sensitive to user needs and wants because their platforms aren’t user backed. But the solution is to build alternatives that are not irreducibly complex and that cater to niche communities while enabling interconnectedness among those user-backed communities through a decentralized ecosystem.

Our response is to build an alternative platform that is user backed, but definitely not welcoming of actual hatred or bigotry, and that caters to its users as a niche community based on predefined common standards and goals.

Bad News From Israel

Bill Collier June 2, 2021

Willem IV- OPINION: The drawn-out drama of the results of the last Israeli election is now apparently over and a new coalition government has been announced. Sadly, it seems, the real winners of this hobgoblin coalition led by formerly right coalition hero Naftali Bennet and “centrist” Yair Lapid, are the Islamists who desire to destroy the Jewish state.

This weak and freakish coalition, united only around hatred for Bibi Netanyahu, will likely begin a rapid retreat for Israel from the world stage. Indeed a retreat from Israeli territory cannot be ruled out either. Look to see access to the Temple Mount more limited, settlements abused or abandoned, and general retreat across the board in favor of the Islamists. Hamas may have lost much in people and resources, but they now have distant and indirect ideological cousins inside Israel’s cabinet.

The bad news from Israel is that “centrist” Yair Lapid and rightist Naftali Bennet have formed a monstrosity of a coalition with right and left parties as well as an Islamist Party. The new Israeli President, Herzog, is a former Labor leader and unlikely to be a friend to the cause of a strong Israel. For those who desire a strong Israel pushing her foes back, this unwieldy coalition can be seen as a dark cloud of uncertainty and trouble.

Israel may have won the mini-war with Hamas, but with this coalition, it has lost the peace.

The root of the problem, in the estimation of some, was Netanyahu’s refusal to step aside and let another right coalition leader take the helm. Naftali Bennet has joined arms with a slick former TV newsman and “centrist”, Yair Lapid, leftist parties, and a pro-Islamist Party. These are mostly unpopular parties, drug in to get to the magic 61 MK’s at ANY price, whose anti-Zionist agenda will have far more weight than is merited by the vote. Their desire to win has led them to gain power at the expense of their own avowed principles and perhaps to detriment of Israeli security.

Israelis who supported Bennet and his Yamina Party, Yamina meaning “rightwards”, were unlikely to have desired such a Frankenstein government of leftists and Islamists. Meanwhile Yair Lapid’s “Yesh Atid”, meaning “new future” Party, may be dragging Israel into a past more reminiscent of Olmert, who unilaterally decamped from the Gaza strip out of a misbegotten notion of “land for peace”, than any kind of future Israel can be proud of.

The possibility of this coalition urging the US to move its embassy back to Jerusalem, to assuage the Islamists, and their insertion of the Palestinian question into peace talks with other Arab powers cannot be dismissed. This isn’t a prediction and is unlikely, but it is as unlikely as this coalition.

Netanyahu’s fall from power may be permanent this time, his many foes from every side having made a game of the often Byzantine tangle of Israeli politics, losing sight of everything but the desire to be the big man on top. On the other hand, Bibi has come back before and could again. But his opponents want to eliminate him permanently through the use of politically-motivated prosecution, they want him in jail and there doesn’t seem to be groundswell of popular support for him.

Of the two coalition leaders, the greatest betrayer of his own principles is Naftali Bennet, whereas Yair Lapid, who began his career as a news “reporter” and whose political party, Yesh Atid, pretends to be centrist, is a typical anti-Zionist party committed to a “two-state solution” and avowedly against the role of religion in Israeli society.

Most Jews in America will applaud this change, but it remains to be seen if, after recent events, Israeli society will have the stomach for such a coalition, even if Netanyahu isn’t popular.

One may count the life of this hash of a government, and its popular support by Israelis, in terms of weeks or months. It won’t last. The people didn’t give a mandate to such a government.

Front

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A New Freedom Building Approach

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The NECESSITY Of Paid Subscriptions For FREEDOM

Quantum Thinking: Hype Or Valuable Skill?

Tolerant Tribalism Is Good For Society

America, you’re really getting on my nerves, but I love you still

A Capitalist Response To Big Tech Market Dominance

Bad News From Israel

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