SCOTUS to Rule on Maine Barring Faith from Education Funds

Freedomist Editor September 2, 2021

EDITORIAL – The state of Main has passed a law that bars any state funds be used by organizations of faith to produce a service for the state, such as running a tuition program for kids of need. A Christian school had previously been given state subsidies to run a tuition program, but then was cut off from applying because they were a faith-based organization.

The Supreme Court will decide if the state can prevent faith groups from creating state services, which is essentially what happens when the state grants a non-government entity a grant, or a subsidy, or a no-interest loan that doesn’t have to be paid back if you meet the need the state wanted you to meet.

The question is, does the Separation of Church and State mean the state can cut off the church (any faith group, Muslim, Brahman, Zoastrian, etc) to seek state funds to provide a service to meet the needs of those who are found needing? If the answer is yes, then the separation of church and state might as well be changed to the hostility of state against the church.

As we experience the types of faiths that have no agentic presence outside of existentiality, we will come to understand (and for many, they already do understand) that ‘faith’ groups are not just about sky daddies, they’re about moral authoritrain assumptions wrapped around some narrative that makes one group the angels and the other group the demons. They’re about a lot more than that, but all ‘faith groups,’ whether they have sky daddies or not (and there is a pretty healthy mix of the two at this point), that fit into this category are the ones that are easy to produce proscription lists, lists of people who are, on a merciful day, worthy of being completely excommunicated from any way of making any type of decent living, and on a usual day, should possibly be inspired to drink a gallon of ‘kill me immediately’ poison that would kill them so bad their grand grand grand kids would also instantly die, ending their wretched heritage.

Then we might come back, if there is mercy enough to give us the grace to do so, and revisit this whole question of church and state and, perhaps, we will conclude that so long as there is a state there must be a state religion. The question is, can we build such a thing, a religion, a habit of action assumption between a people based on a narrative anyone in that group can enter into, that can reflect the diversity of the religions and non-religions that America currently represents?

I believe we can, and I believe that religion is built aroound the American narrative of an idea overcoming a human flaw, to give in to the temptation of majorityism, to use coercion to attempt to assure your conditional advantage, unearned on the main, should be protected, by any means necessary, from further competition.

We as a people, a people of the world, found ourselves by little effort on our part, the benefactors of an idea that, for a variety of practical reasons, created a significant choke on the power of the winners of the exchange of value from coalescing into ever larger spheres of influence controlled by ever smaller individials.

Our narrative recognizes the contributions of many peoples of the world with influences that range from the Koran to the Upinishads, from the Bible to the Annalects. All of the wisdom traditions of the world have found themselves in part influencing the America that we have become, and all have been given that space to cross-hybridize one another thanks to the creation of a civic space that allowed all of our fundamental differences to be non-relevent when getting down to the simple act of exchange value with one another.

Where we exchange value with one another, for whatever reason, our exchange in this space should be the same whether we are dealing with one of our own tribes or one from a tribe that our tribe detests. Whatever we feel about Dallas Cowboys fans, when they come to our stores in Philly, we serve them and treat them well.

We can exchange value even with people we hate if we honor one another’s bills of rights in all the spaces in which we exchange value with one another outside our consensually created specific fellowship associations. In other words, if we are addressing or serving the public, we are operating in civic space.

The Bill of Rights, and how they emerged, an honest look at how they emerged, not an ideal one, is a compelling story in and of itself that all of us in this nation can enter into. The way in which so many people among us were pressed by the fact that our use of slavery, our definition of human beings as being 3/5 of a person were so violently and vulgarly out of line with these bill of rights standards that, for so many others, had brought checks on state power in ways few realized at that time.

The few that understood what the Bill of Rights did to empower the weakest of us against the most majority of us, be it in numbers or resources or both, knew that so long as a land with such a power-flipping tool as the Bill of Rights continued to allow the weakest, the most vulnerable, of their land, the coerced sojourner, if you will, to be denied the Bill of Rights protections of the land, to be enslaved and defined as non-human, the power of the Bill of Rights was dying as these people died, under the same oppressive whip.

Thus America struggled to overcome its utter failure at the most crucial place in society, to assure that the weakest, the most hated, the most vilified, are afforded the same Bill of Rights protections as the most powerful, an ideal that surely is never to occur, though, if your starting point does not at least give myth to this goal, then your sense of fear of the outrage of the people you allegedly serve will be significantly reduced, and your authoritarian solutions to authoritarian problems is only sure to multiply upon itself.

It would be too much for the Supreme Court to fundamentally revisit the whole question of separation of church and state, since it is based not on the letter of the Constitution, but on the letters of Jefferson to a Church that was concerned the state would be encroaching on the church. The separation of church and state phrase itself was directed at assuaging the fears of the church that the state would impose itself on them. Jefferson was assuring them that the church was separated from such an attenpt.

Regardless, as I stated earlier, in some part, the notion that the state can exist withoout a church is simply not possible. The state must have a myth and an ethos that emerges from that myth that the vast majority of peoples it governs can enter into. The real question is not a separation of church and state, but can the state create a church without an answer to a creator or non-creator that has standards that allow humans of diverse faith and non-faith views to exchange value in open, non-coercive ways despite these fundamental differences in ‘belief’?

My assumption is you can, and the honest American story as a hard, diffuclt path, one we have yet to overcome, but are seeking to get to, building a consistent space in all our civic arrangements reflect the values expressed in our Bill of Rights, where humans are sovereigns in and of themselves insofar as they do not generally first aggress on others.

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Maine dispute over religious schools

From www.reuters.com
2021-07-02 07:00:00

Excerpt:

July 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday took up a challenge by two families with children attending Christian schools to a Maine tuition assistance program that bars taxpayer money from being used to pay for religious educational institutions in a case that could further narrow the separation of church and state.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, agreed to hear an appeal by the families of a lower court ruling in favor of the state that concluded that Maine’s program did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The eventual ruling could build on other decisions by the court in recent years allowing public funds to go to religious institutions.

It was one of 10 new cases the justices added to their list of ones they will hear during the court’s next term, which starts in October. Friday’s announcement on cases was the final action in the court’s current term, which culminated in a major 6-3 ruling on ideological lines on Thursday that could make it easier for states to enact voting restrictions.

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95 Percent oof Ocean Surface to Change by 2100 on Current Carbon Path

Parker Davis September 2, 2021

A secret group of researchers called US-based researchers have produced a theory that, based on current carbon emission projections, by 2100, 95 percent of the oeath’s ocean surface will change, which, they say, will lead to this terrifying conclusion, “Without (emissions) mitigation, novel and disappearing climates in the sea surface will be widespread around the globe by 2100,” said Lotterhos. (from article linked below).

Nowhere in this article does this suggest the death of life in the oceans, rather, it suggests changing of life in the oceans. Perhaps scientsts have a hard time arguing that the biological life patterning throughout our known existence as a planet is capable of adapting and producing new patterns where new circumstances arise.

Carbon emissions will change ocean surface climate by 2100 by 95 percent: Study- Technology News, Firstpost

From www.firstpost.com
2021-08-30 12:22:56
Agence France-Presse
Excerpt:

Up to 95 percent of Earth’s ocean surface will have changed by , tthe end of the century unless humanity reins in its carbon emissions, according to research published Thursday.

Ocean surface climates, defined by surface water temperature, acidity and the concentration of the mineral aragonite — which many marine animals use to form bones and shell — support the vast majority of sea life.

The world’s seas have absorbed around a third of all carbon pollution produced since the Industrial Revolution.

But with atmospheric CO2 levels increasing at a rate unprecedented in at least three million years, there are fears that ocean surface climates may become less hospitable to the species it hosts.

US-based researchers wanted to see what effect carbon pollution has already had on ocean surface since the mid-18th century. They also projected the impact of emissions through to 2100.

To do so, they modelled global ocean climates across three time periods: the early 19th century (1795-1834); the late 20th century (1965-2004); and the late 21st century (2065-2014).

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Nation-Building At Home Through A Spiritual Air Force

Bill Collier September 2, 2021

To nation-build at home, The Freedomist plans to create a country-wide “spiritual air force” of freedom building activists within every US Congressional District and County/Parish. This spiritual air force will be based around very local Freedomist Guard Flights of 10-20 activist freedom builders who conduct peaceful local activities to build freedom locally first and foremost.

As the US learns the lessons of foreign nation-building in a land that rejects the values upon which that effort is based, what about the situation at home where a majority of people at home lack trust in major institutions? Who will engage in and upon what basis will they engage in nation-building in America’s neighborhoods and communities?

Nation-building at home is all about building or restoring LOCAL institutions, including entities that influence government and other institutions or that have a public trust, and making them trustworthy in the sense they protect and honor the human dignity, human rights, and human flourishing of every person in that community, showing no favor or prejudice toward any, and with both the individual’s good and the common welfare in mind, always.

Too many efforts to nation-building at home are disjointed, narrow on focus, and not broadly backed by an organized polity of any kind. Often, projects we may call aimed at nation-building and freedom and prosperity building efforts, are hit or miss, reactionary, and short-lived in their scope and impact. People suddenly respond, rally, demand something, and are usually ignored, then the moment passes and the issue becomes another in a long line of frustrations until the next dramatic rally.

To nation-build at home would demand the deliberate gathering and organizing of a cohesive polity who are capable of influencing a strong plurality of voters and consumers who will take their cue from them and actually vote, petition, demonstrate, boycott, or buycott, en bloc. Building a strong polity of freedom loving people who can and will act as one with discipline and focus is a necessity that must presage the rallies, votes, and etc that are often launched by a few vocal people as a strong reaction to a controversy or offense.

It is argued that one needs a cause or issue to elicit the kind of response upon which to build a movement. It is certainly easier to use an issue and generate meetings, activities, and rallies. But it doesn’t last without a serious outlay of funding and professional leaders and organizers being paid. An army of all volunteers motivated by an issue of the moment is ineffective in the long-term.

The war we are fighting is a war against diverse ruling class factions, to the left and the right, who desire to own our possessions and suppress our God-given human dignity and human rights and to thereby deny our human flourishing. We must gather a country-wide digital army of freedom builders in every Congressional District and County until we have depth and breadth on an unprecedented scale.

The Freedomist List, for now, is gathering people interested in our content but we aim to find, gather, organize, and mobilize Freedomists in every US Congressional District and County until all these places have at least one active Flight of 10-20 freedom builders and on Club of 120 or so activists and we can mobilize over 100,000 Americans for any visible rally, event, or peaceful demonstration at any time or location.

If we do not focus on building both a volunteer and professional activist corps of freedom builders then we will always be at a disadvantage to our diverse opponents and those masses they have fooled into following and fighting for them. If we want to nation-build at home we must begin with building a virtual-to-local Freedomist corps of freedom-building activists who have a presence in most all or all Congressional Districts and Counties.

Just what this network does will be as diverse as one may imagine. They may enage in a boycott or buycott, they may conduct an awareness and education campaign with public events or parades, they may canvass for ballot initiatives, they may perform opposition research on the ground and/or virtually, they may lead local efforts to pass a Freedom Sanctuary Resolution or Ordnance in their municipality or county, and the list goes on.

The main concept here is sort of like a spiritual air force, organized like an air force but the only “weapons” are things like prayer, peaceful public events and outreach, information, legal actions, and the such. Still, however, the spirit and vibe should come off as a sort of spiritual air force and not some hodgepodge, indisciplined, “leaderless movement.”

We want to find, train, and fund leaders, organizers, and experts/professionals who will support the many millions of people we envision joining this “spiritual air force” to wage unrelenting spiritual and then information, economic, legal, and political warfare, albeit 100% peaceful and within the law, to defeat the freedom taking factions that rule this land right now. We aim for a total transfer of power from the top and center to the People in their families, free associations, local communities, and the states and away from the Federal power and monopoly corporate powers.

Subscribers to The Freedomist will be crowdfunding this effort.

Organizationally, we plan to find provisional leader candidates to help, on a voluntary basis, build the core infrastructure of this spiritual air force, consisting of chartered clubs and chartered Freedomist Guard Flights of around 10-20 activists.

The Flights are more active freedom builders who are committed to making a visible showing for freedom in their locale, including participation in parades, setting up booths at events, providing ushering and basic unarmed security for events like rallies, doing door to door canvassing, and assisting people with things like understanding gun laws, home safety and security, amd disaster and emergency preparedness.

The Clubs will also be activists and freedom seekers and will focus on creating a local mirror structure to hold all government and other entities with a public trust accountable to the Bill ofRights, gaining the signature of voters for the Freedom Sanctuary Resolution and to get them to take The Freedomist Pledge, and having a space for gatherings and social activities.

If we say the Freedomist Guard is the “military” branch of our movement, we don’t in any way mean anything beyond a spiritual warfare and the symbolism of a spiritual air force. We are not advocates for any kind of militia that isn’t regulated by local, state, or federal authorities and we are definitely strongly opposed to violence in any form or fashion. But we do believe that a “military theme” in our approach engenders the spirit of our efforts as a form of peaceful spiritual and information warfare in defense of freedom with justice for ALL Americans of every demographic grouping or identity in this land.

Through our spiritual air force, the Guard, and our parallel civic/social structures in the form of Clubs, the Freedomist aims to build a strong freedom movement built on Judeo-Christian values while respecting the human dignity and human rights of all fellow Americans and promoting universal human flourishing for them as well. Our cause is to build the Freedomist as a strong and well organized, if also decentralized, movement for freedom that serves all Americans without exception.

What this movement does, the battles it fights, such as so-called “critical race theory” or the lying corpostate press establishment, or specifically ballot initiatives and candidates it supports, will emerge both through leadership and through the People engaging in the decision-making process whereby these priorities are set.

But FIRST we must BUILD THE MOVEMENT!

Building the Freedomist Movement through The Freedomist, as crowdfunded by our subscribers, is the key to nation-building at home.

See Your Unborn Baby in 3D Virtual Reality

Paul Collier September 1, 2021

A new device that’s billed as a tool to help Mothers bond with their unborn babies is promising to deliver a virtual reality encounter with a pregnant woman’s unborn child. The tool will also allow you to create 3D models of the unborn child, but, more impactfully, it will allow you to virtually interact with your child in physical space, and you can watch your child grow and change inside you week to week.

But the tool will also have another impact, one that many will have already figured out before they read a word I am writing here right now. This tool will disarm the efforts by pro-choice advocates to dehumanize the unborn, to make of them something that can be disposed for any reason, any reason whatsoever, up to and including even birth. A tool like this, if it spreads, and more and more people share their experiences on social media, the humanization of the unborn will become more and more apparent, and harder and harder to ignore.

The necessity to subhumanize is required in a land where the aborting of life is not only legal, but the corporate powers that be overwhelmingly assumes should be the moral right of the land, a moral right that might even be worth protecting from dissenting views alone.

Pregnant women can soon use Virtual Reality to ‘meet’ their unborn babies

From www.mother.ly
2021-08-31 15:05:06

Excerpt:

Meet baby via VR: A virtual reality rendering of your unborn baby from Motherly on Vimeo.

Using a VR headset, (did Santa bring you one this year?), you can hear your baby’s heartbeat and, by moving your head, study the baby’s anatomy—examining whether your little one has your eyes, dad’s lips, or grandma’s cute nose.

Here’s how the RSNA describes the technology’s capabilities—

Researchers in Brazil created virtual reality 3-D models based on fetal MRI results. Sequentially-mounted MRI slices are used to begin construction of the model. A segmentation process follows in which the physician selects the body parts to be reconstructed in 3-D. Once an accurate 3-D model is created—including the womb, umbilical cord, placenta and fetus—the virtual reality device can be programmed to incorporate the model.

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News Creators Have Yet Another Reason to Abandon Facebook

Parker Davis September 1, 2021

At some point, we in the news world became largely dependent on traffic from social media sites rather than placement in google search results, especially those of us in the bottom tier of scale as far as newsing is concerned.

Twitter was once a relaible source for traffic to news websites, but, in time, it became more and more difficult for smaller scale operations to get any results worth any time that might be spent to get those results. Facebook, however, continued to be a great driver of news traffic to news websites, such as ours. And even as I write this, Facebook continues to be a major driver of traffic to this site as well, though not nearly as signficantly as it once was.

We at The Freedomist have been working on other methods of traffic generation with an awareness that Facebook should not be looked upon as a secure space to set up shop for any significant period of time. We have in our network multiple Facebook pages, some of which have well over 100k likes, but we view these almost as ghosts still able to produce a few worthwhile results for a little while longer.

WIth the news that facebook will be throttling political content, which is most news these days, since everything is political now, we can expect to have even less traffic from Facebook than we already have, and many other operations such as ours will as well, which might cause some short-term for some (some more than others), but will produce longterm gains in terms of leading more and more people to build social media sharing platforms that are more stable and more free speech rooted in their method of governance, and more fundamentally aligned with the spirit of the Bill of rights and not the CCP or DNC or even GOP for that matter.

Facebook’s continued zeal to be the moral gatekeeper of socety is leading it to conclude its poor uneducated roobs that utlize its platform are hardly smart enough to discern for themselves what they find offensive, what they find misleading, what they find good, what they find bad. For this reason, Facebook will try to hide all those flame-shooting links that might upset the poor delicates who can hardly dress themselves each morning let alone think for themselves.

This means the political links gots ta goes, and Facebook gives the primary drivers of traffic to their platform, news creators, more incentive to develop better non-Facevook ways to get traffic to their websites.

Facebook to downrank political content, hurting news publishers

From www.washingtonexaminer.com
2021-08-31 16:08:42
Nihal Krishan
Excerpt:

Facebook will reduce the amount of political content on its news feed due to negative user feedback, a move that could hurt news publishers and those that post about politics, according to reports Tuesday.

The social media giant will reduce political content by not relying so heavily on its content engagement algorithm, which focuses on the likelihood that a user will share or comment on a post based on past behavior, Axios reported .

It will also start to experiment with limits on how much political content people outside of the United States will see on their news feeds, including countries such as Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain, and Ireland.

Facebook announced in February that it would look into ways to reduce political content on the platform to better meet the needs of users, it said. According to the company, an average of 6% of a user’s feed represents political content.

“There has been this trend, I think, across society…

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GETTR, the Safe Haven for Conservatives, Has a Heavy Ban Hammer

GETTR, the Safe Haven for Conservatives, Has Censored Roger Stone

Parker Davis September 1, 2021

It appears the so-called safe space for conservstives, specifically Trump conservatives, Gettr, is having a hard time managing its content creators. From the beginning, it was promised that Donald Trump would build a social media answer to all the baddies, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. That became a blog site that Trump sometimes posts stuff on. Later, we heard about Gettr. Initially, it was thought to literally be a Trump-led project, but, in fact, it had no real affiliation with Trump at all, it was just a social media platform that marketed itself as a free speech social media platform specifically friendly to Trump supporters, especiallly those that had recently been axed from one of the baddies, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The recent Gabs by Roger Stone, another free-speech-promising platform, this one billed as an alternative to Twitter, suggest that the site is using its power as a gatekeeper not unsimilarly to how the baddies use their position of power advantage as gatekeepers of little accountability to the ones they serve.

Roger Stone is complaining about the free speech platform, Gettr, silencing him, censoring him, because, he alleges, he said something bad about the Gettr founder, Jason Miller, as well as Steve Bannon. Given what Trump has said about Bannon in the past (he essentially called him an amateur, he threw Bannon under the bus hard), one is doubtful that even Trump would have that much of a problem with anyone talking smack about Bannon. This appears to be about protecting a certain faction’s particular useful narrative, and that faction might just be a Bannon faction. Regardless of what Jason Miller represents, making factional gatekeeping decisions makes you one of the baddies, sir.

Of course, all of this suppses Stone is being totally truthful and transparent in what he relates as his version for why Gettr has censored him. The story itself though is telling in that one member of a larger faction, the Trump faction, seems willing to cast into doubt the legitimate credentials of Gettr as a bastion for conservative safe-spacism. This would not be done lightly, even by Stone, so that leads me to believe there was some degree of real throttling of this man’s voice on Gettr because he broke a factional narrative, this one being, at the very leas,t the Jason Miller faction, which might just be Jason Miller alone, given factional power, so to speak, by share weight of his controlling of the filter on the Gettr platform.

Gettr, to me, is yet another example of a good idea for a group of people, say, a faction, to get behind, the idea of building a people-reaching free speech platform to counter the controlling social media platforms we now have, and a few people with deep pockets or relationships with networks of people with deep pockets, slap together some stuff to co-opt the idea and turn it into a quick money maker and/or prestige builder that ends up being an unprofessional cringe fest that implodes within a couple or so years (if not sooner) leaving everyone highly discouraged at ever trying the actually good idea ever again.

Let’s hope Gettr doesn’t discourage others for finding way to build such social media platforms, but don’t let’s make them just safe spaces for conservatives, make them actually as extremely free speech as human to human contact on a digital platform can be.

Trumpist Gettr Social Network Continues To Speed Run Content Moderation Learning Curve: Bans, Then Unbans, Roger Stone

From www.techdirt.com
2021-08-26 16:45:00

Excerpt:

Remember Gettr? That’s the Trumpist social network run by former Trump spokesperson (and vexatious lawsuit filer) Jason Miller that promised to be supportive of “free speech.” As we point out what happens with every new social network that jumps into the space with promises to “support free speech!” and “not censor!” before long they will begin to realize content moderation is required to keep your site running — and soon they discover that content moderation will involve difficult choices. And, sometimes, it involves making mistakes.

Of course, whenever Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or whoever else note that they made a “mistake” with a content moderation decision and reverse it, there are always some people who insist it couldn’t possibly be a mistake and must be [insert conspiratorial reason here]. So I find it hilarious that on Wednesday, Gettr got to experience all this as well. First, Trump buddy and admitted “dirty trickster” Roger Stone went on Gab — another such social network — to whine about how he was “censored” by Gettr, claiming it was because he had made what he believed were disparaging remarks about Miller (and Steve Bannon).

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DNC House Targets CCP Corps on US Exchanges

Paul Collier September 1, 2021

In the complicated relationship that is the DNC and the CCP, the frenemies that have, until recently, been more friend than enemy, the methods of shifting the balance of power to favor this or that side when it comes to the hardball negotiating can become ultimately sabotaging to the ability of two camps that, at least for now and the near-foreseeable future, kind of both need each other to make the others’ dreams come true.

The US Hoouuse, led by the Democrats, in the case, the direct party that finds itself in that frenemy space with the CCP, is seeking to perhaps either clip some of the wings of their CCP counterparts, or maybe only bluster just to show that, if they wanted, they could clip those wings. They are conducting investigations into the listing of some Chinese companies on their US exchanges, which follows the announcement by China that many American “data-driven” mega-corps might find themselves de-listed on their exchanges, or more, facing draconian regulations that mgiht all-but cut off that fat Chinese markets from the corporations in America that desperately need that Chinese revenue if they are to continue to use their platforms to adviance ideology and not serve diverse pluralistic cultures and beliefs that we Americans represent.

If the corporations must actually produce products the plurality of Americans, across our diverse divides, likes, then they cannot continue to advance their current chosen vehicle of power to hopefully cut off competition from the poors for generations to come. But, to make that transition, to end the Bill of Rights constructs of the land and to replace it with a return to a sort of priest-king model of the Bronze Age, the mega-corps, the corpo-nations, maybe, nations into themselves, with budgets that many actual nation-states would love to have, must have a source for revenue

That’s where China comes in. But China herself still needs America, the America the DNC offers, and still needs the DNC to finish off the Bill of Rights constructs of the land, to end the more fundamental threat to their plans, not the people in this land, but the ideas in the Bill of Rights that many poors, including their own, would quickly recognize as giving them protection against the tyranny of the majority, be it the numerical or by measures of power.

My bet is China will have to walk back some of their restrictions newly placed on America to gain access to her fatty markets and the DNC will produce a little pony show to send a message to the Chinese that they have teeth as well, and also to keep people off their trail when it comes to their alliance with the CCP itself. How can you say they are allied with the CCP when they are investigating their companies that are listed on our exchanges?

Of course, at least in this article, I think I’ve already explained how I can say that. This type of working for and against other parties is not even new, nor unique to our current age, when we can just look at the relationship betwen Russia and Turkey to see how it is that two “allies” can also be enemies in other spheres. There are times when some Turkish military assets are being assisted by Russian military assets while in another part of the world Russian drones and Turkish drones are battling each other over another poor nation that finds itself being used as a war games proving ground for the world powers’ new toys, especially those drones.

And so it is with the DNC and the CCP, frenemies, and the DNC is sending a message to its frenemy, we can do this to your companies as well, so back off.

U.S. House panel targets Chinese listings on U.S. exchanges

From finance.yahoo.com
2021-08-31 15:22:40

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives panel focused on protecting investors will hold a hearing on Sept. 22 about risks related to Chinese stock market listings on American exchanges.

The Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets hearing will take place among growing concerns about recent Chinese government actions that spurred sudden and unexpected swings in share prices of Chinese shares listed on U.S. exchanges.

Earlier this week, for example, China forbade under-18s from playing video games https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rolls-out-new-rules-minors-online-gaming-xinhua-2021-08-30 for more than three hours a week, hitting shares of some Chinese gaming companies traded in the United States.

U.S. lawmakers have also complained about Chinese corporate accounting practices and alleged ties between some Chinese companies and the military. (Reporting by Chris Sanders; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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The Corpostate Press Try To Rehabilitate The Taliban

Bill Collier September 1, 2021

Perhaps it is owing to their desire to prop up President Biden, perhaps they have members being held hostage, and perhaps any enemy of America is their friend, but the corpostate press are propping up the Taliban as reasonable, changed, and professional.

Below is a screenshot of one example:

A “businesslike” group of anti-American terrorists who treat women like property, kill Christians and gays, and conduct a reign of terror? The old mob line, before they murder an old friend, “it’s not personal, it’s just business” seems to be the idea here.

But transport the Taliban to the US and make them not Muslim but Christians or agnostics even and the corpostate press would rightly condemn them every day, all day, and vociferously, unelss of course they voted for Democrats and/or were high paying customers. The camera only points in the direction that benefits the ruling class and the tone of coverage is all about coralling people, definitely not informing them.

The Taliban may have “helped” in some show fashion to let some Americans leave, but we didn’t need them in any way. The proper operational plan would be to have increased our military strength prior to leaving, remove all our people and allies, and depart one area at a time. Keeping Bagram as a permanent base could have also been on the table to support the Afghan government.

The truth is, the US, from Trump until now, was all too willing to rehabilitate the Taliban just to get out, consequences be damned to everyone left behind. But when Biden, darling of the ruling class (because he’s such a shill to them), walked that same line, suddenly the “new” Taliban was “businesslike.” It isn’t an issue of their bias, it is an issue of their dishonesty: they don’t for a minute believe the things they are saying.

The Power of Big Social to Control Your Religious Beliefs

Paul Collier August 31, 2021

Christian groups around the world are beginning to wonder if the international monopolies on social media might just be used as filters to prevent their worldviews from gaining access to the public stage, which is, de facto, social media overwhelmingly.

They’re not the only groups complaining or worrying about this type of control being placed in the hands of a few billionaires. Other groups are also finding it difficult to get through the filters imposed from on high, and this experience only promises to repeat itself for an increasing range of groups that hold beliefs outside the accepted orthodoxy of the state and the corporation (and where the one begins and the other hands, who knows, the lines at this time are very blurred, if they exist at all).

The question is, what can be done about this? Should we use the state to resuce us from corporate tyranny, and thus empower the state to control the de facto public square, social media? That’s already happpening in many countries, with others also choosing to attempt to build their own nationalist social media platforms safe from the prying filters and promotions of the corpostates within them that are increasingly being thought of as being de facto states that maybe, at some point, should be dealt with as such.

Big Tech might very well find itself hoisted on its own success, and its willingness to spend that success so recklessly to serve the agenda of a petty party, the DNC, because orange man bad or conservatives are evil or whatever other cartoon villain narrative you’d like to choose. But it pushed too far, and now, people are starting to realize how much power it is, and some of those people have real power, government gun power, and they will soon be using it, even as some already have.

‘Big Tech’ censorship of religion is real and deserves an effective response, critics say

From angelusnews.com
2021-08-31 16:40:37

Excerpt:

The power of major internet companies like Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter over public life is a particular threat to religious groups that focus on controversial issues like abortion, marriage, and sexuality, several commentators said at a roundtable last week. These groups should prepare for the possibility of censorship and organize effective countermeasures, they said.

“You might not know the hour nor the day you will be censored,” Joshua D. Holdenreid, vice president and executive director of the California-based Napa Legal Institute, said at a roundtable on internet censorship.

Holdenreid said those involved in public debates “need to plan ahead and assume that if they are a religious organization or faith-based organization operating in the public square and focused on an issue that’s related to pro-life (topics), marriage, sexuality, Christian anthropology, they should just assume that they will eventually run afoul of these vague and arbitrary terms and…

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China Youth Only Get 3 Hours a Week for Gaming, CCP Uncle Tells Them

Freedomist Editor August 31, 2021

The CCP is going to attempt to make sure its kids don’t fall prey to the evils of excessive video gaming by making sure its youth cannot play video games more than 3 hours a week, and even then, only on fridays, saturdays, and sundays.

The CCP can enforce this because their big tech walks closely beside them in censoring, filtering, controlling, monitoring the users on their social media platforms. As a matter of fact, you can’t even get on the internet without a face scan, and that face scan better be attached to a good social credit score or no video game time for you. Who knows, maybe Uncle will visit you in the middle of the night and question your choice of using a darker red to color the communist flag the other day at school. Who knows?

There is another significant tradeoff the Chinese have made here that could be very telling. The Chinese are throwing away a massively huge potential low-invest high-reward mobile game market not just for its own developer but for foreign ones as well, and that removes a LOT of incentive for a LOT of American companies to suddenly be less intersted in buidling within the CCP-correctness code of video gaming in pursuit of the massive youth gaming market that is still mostly untapped.

China video game ban for children raises questions

From fortune.com
2021-08-30 22:53:26

Excerpt:

Chinese children will soon be restricted from playing video games more than three hours weekly, the country’s regulators said Monday. National playtime, the Communist Party kids you not, is scheduled for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time.

Weekday gaming? Banned, for youths, starting Wednesday.

China is framing its heavy-handed nannying as being for its people’s own good—an antidote to “spiritual opium,” the since-stricken label a state media outlet used to criticize video games some weeks ago. In an article announcing and justifying the government’s rationale, the Chinese state-sponsored media outlet Xinhua, cited by Reuters, quoted a spokesperson as saying that “protecting the physical and mental health of minors is related to the people’s vital interests, and relates to the cultivation of the younger generation in the era of national rejuvenation.”

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