Buckle Up! The Crackdown Has Begun!
- Buckle Up! The Crackdown Has Begun
- It’s Over: Trump Promises “Orderly Transition” on Jan. 20 After Biden Win Certified
- MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot to Call for More Internet Censorship
| Buckle Up! The Crackdown Has BegunPosted: 07 Jan 2021 11:08 AM PSTIn today’s video, we break down the events of January 6 in Washington D.C. and what you can expect now.Follow us on Telegram: t.me/s/News4AChangeSign up for our newsletter: bit.ly/3ijjAopSubscribe on LBRY: https://lbry.tv/@wearechange:1Improve your gut health: bit.ly/34GHbdYFilter your water: bit.ly/37QriDtStorable food for emergencies: SafePreparedAndReady.com#1 best source of Collagen: bit.ly/3mw5uRK#1 best VPN to use: bit.ly/3iT4Ew3Exclusive members-only content: -> wearechange.org/donate -> patreon.com/WeAreChange -> subscribestar.com/wearechangeThe post Buckle Up! The Crackdown Has Begun appeared first on We Are Change. |
| It’s Over: Trump Promises “Orderly Transition” on Jan. 20 After Biden Win CertifiedPosted: 07 Jan 2021 07:44 AM PSTMillions of Americans will remember Wednesday as the first time in decades that the US Capitol building was successfully stormed and overrun – though, to be fair, when the British sacked Washington during the War of 1812, they didn’t stop to take selfies with the Capitol Police.At any rate, the flashes of the chaotic crowd breaking windows and scuffling with police, accompanied by the news that 4 people died during the chaos (1 woman was shot by a Capitol Police officer, while 3 others died during unspecified “medical emergencies”, according to media reports) was enough to convince half the US that a low-key “coup attempt” had just taken place. Though the fact that lawmakers returned to the floor a few hours later to finish up the certification vote sort of undercuts that notion.Citing Wednesday’s unrest as justification, GOP lawmakers largely dropped their objections and allowed the Electoral College tally to be certified, cementing his win.And as several staff members reportedly threatened to quit in protest, President Trump published a statement via spokesman Dan Scavino promising an “orderly transition” on Jan. 20. While Bloomberg described the statement as a “concession”, Trump continued to insist that he still “totally disagrees” with the outcome of the election.“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said. “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”Matt Pottinger, a deputy natsec advisor and an avowed China hawk, is reportedly among the staffers who resigned in protest. Pottinger was recently in the news for going public with new, credible allegations that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a Chinese lab.BREAKING: Deputy nat sec adviser Matt Pottinger resigned Wednesday afternoon. Pottinger among WH officials dismayed by protesters’ attack and Trump’s role in inciting violence. Pottinger had intended to resign election day, regardless of outcome, but stayed at O’Brien’s request.— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 7, 2021Meanwhile, the president’s twitter account remains locked.Snapchat joined Facebook and Twitter in blocking the accounts, according to a company spokesman.Before the vote in the Senate, VP Pence spoke to promise that those who contributed to the chaos will be prosecuted. According to Capitol Police, some 52 people were arrested.“To those who wreaked havoc in our capitol today, you did not win,” the vice president said. “Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people’s House.”Of the 52 arrests, 47 were related to violations of the 1800 curfew set by Mayor Muriel Bowser. 26 people were arrested on Capitol grounds. Several others were arrested for carrying firearms, either without a license or unlawfully.In addition, the DC police chief said two pipe bombs were recovered from the headquarters of the RNC and DNC, while a cooler from a vehicle on US Capitol grounds that contained Molotov cocktails. 14 police officers were injured, 2 of whom remain hospitalized after being attacked by members of the crowd. Police said more arrests are expected as investigators will now attempt to identify people from camera footage. |
| MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot to Call for More Internet CensorshipPosted: 06 Jan 2021 08:43 PM PSTThe United States received a very small taste of its own medicine today as rioting Trump fanatics temporarily forced their way into the nation’s Capitol building, and now the whole nation is freaking out.I am being generous when I say that America was given a very small taste of its own medicine; unlike the horrific coups and violent uprisings the US routinely orchestrates in noncompliant nations around the world, this one stood exactly zero chance of seizing control of the government, and only one person died.I am also being generous when I say the rioters “forced their way” in; DC chose not to increase its police presence in preparation for the protests despite knowing that they were planned, and there’s footage of what appears to be cops actively letting them through a police barricade. There was some fighting between police and protesters, but contrasted with the militarized squadron which greeted Black Lives Matter demonstrators at the same building a few months prior it’s fair to say the police response today was relatively gentle.the police opened the fucking gates. pic.twitter.com/HyDURXfoaB— katie (@cevansavenger) January 6, 2021For the record this was the US Capitol during the BLM Protestors pic.twitter.com/hyqneRtqMD— We have nothing to lose but our chains. Unionize. (@MartyOropeza) January 6, 2021Predictably, this entirely American disruption has blue-checkmarked commentariat shrieking about Vladimir Putin on social media.Of course. Of course. pic.twitter.com/00Xw0eC7Uw— Caitlin Johnstone ? (@caitoz) January 6, 2021Future historian: “As right-wing mobs were terrorizing the Capitol, liberal truth-tellers kept their eyes on the real villain.” #BlueAnon pic.twitter.com/VNpLASbD1L— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 6, 2021Just as predictably, it’s also got them calling for the censorship of social media.The New York Times has published two new articles titled “The storming of Capitol Hill was organized on social media” and “Violence on Capitol Hill Is a Day of Reckoning for Social Media“, both arguing for more heavy-handed restrictions on speech from Silicon Valley tech giants.In the former, NYT’s Sheera Frenkel writes “the violence Wednesday was the result of online movements operating in closed social media networks where people believed the claims of voter fraud and of the election being stolen from Mr. Trump,” citing the expert analysis of think tank spinmeister Renee DiResta of “Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset” fame. As usual no mention is made of DiResta’s involvement in the New Knowledge scandal in which a Russian interference “false flag” was staged for an Alabama Senate race.“These people are acting because they are convinced an election was stolen,” DiResta said. “This is a demonstration of the very real-world impact of echo chambers.”“This has been a striking repudiation of the idea that there is an online and an offline world and that what is said online is in some way kept online,” DiResta adds.The storming of the capital hill was organized on social media. Time to stop acting like things said online don’t translate into real-world action. https://t.co/tpEZZ2KfGZ— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) January 6, 2021This narrative which seeds the idea that unregulated communication on the internet will lead to violent uprisings is funny coming from Frankel, who, as a Twitter follower recently observed, wrote a piece in 2018 condemning the Iranian government for restricting protesters’ social media access during the demonstrations at that time.“Social media and messaging apps have become crucial to antigovernment demonstrators around the world, as a means of both organizing and delivering messages to other citizens,” Frankel wrote. “Not surprisingly, restricting access to such technology has become as important to government crackdowns as the physical presence of the police.”In the other article, co-authored by Frankel, Mike Isaac and Kate Conger, the message is driven home even less subtly.“As pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday and halted the certification of Electoral College votes, the role of social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in spreading misinformation and being a megaphone for Mr. Trump came under renewed criticism,” reads the article, adding, “So when violence broke out in Washington on Wednesday, it was, in the minds of longtime critics, the day the chickens came home to roost for the social media companies.”The article reports on the US president’s temporary suspension of social media privileges for allegedly inciting violence with his posts, then discusses the various kinds of disinformation and violent ideation being circulated in Trump discussion forums.“Those alternative social media sites were rife with Trump supporters organizing and communicating on Wednesday,” NYT tells us. “On Parler, one trending hashtag was #stormthecapitol. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a false rumor that Antifa, a left-wing movement, was responsible for committing violence at the protests.”“We know the social media companies have been lackadaisical at best” at stopping extremism from growing on their platforms, Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, told NYT. “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. That is not protected speech.”Violence on Capitol Hill Is a Day of Reckoning for Social Media https://t.co/UqDuAWShfg— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 6, 2021We will likely see many more such articles in the coming days, arguing for increased regulation of internet communication to prevent future incidents like today.In and of itself this won’t sound terribly concerning to the average citizen. Nothing wrong with taking steps to prevent people from plotting violence and terrorism on social media, right?But how do you predict what protests are going to be “violent”? How do you decide which protests and what political dissent need to be censored and which ones should be permitted to communicate freely? Do you just leave it up to Silicon Valley oligarchs to make the call? Or do you have them consult with the government like they’ve been doing? Are either of these institutions you’d trust to regulate what protests are worthy of being permitted to organize online?Because the actual power structures in the United States seem to be interested in simply censoring the internet to eliminate political dissent altogether.In 2017 top officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google were brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee and admonished to come up with policies that will “prevent the fomenting of discord” in the United States.Friendly reminder that last year representatives of Google/Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were instructed on the floor of the US Senate that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” so as to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”https://t.co/X4Hc56fH0k— Caitlin Johnstone ? (@caitoz) August 6, 2018World Socialist Websitereported the following in 2017.Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii demanded, for her part, that the companies adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord.”The most substantial portion of the testimony took place in the second part of the hearing, during which most of the Senators had left and two representatives of the US intelligence agencies testified before a room of mostly empty chairs.Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer, former FBI agent, and member of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, made the following apocalyptic proclamation: “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”He added, “Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced—silence the guns and the barrage will end.”That sounds an awful like government officials and operatives telling social media corporations that it’s their job to censor communication which could facilitate any kind of unrest, no matter how justified.Do you trust these monopolistic megacorporations to decide whether or not people’s dissident speech is acceptable? I don’t.Republished from CaitlinJohnstone.com with permissionThe post MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot to Call for More Internet Censorship appeared first on We Are Change. |
