Comrades, history rhymes…
In his latest review of the Twitter Files, a supplemental to drive home the importance of what is visible – and what was kept hidden, Matt Taibbi focuses attention on the activity of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), and how they monitored public comments on Twitter and gave instructions to the platform on what content should be removed and/or controlled.
Pause for a moment and think about that.
[SEE TWITTER SUPPLEMENTAL HERE]
The House Intelligence Committee, that’s the government of the United States folks, assigning staff to monitor Twitter conversation and remove or control public commentary. Using the justification of “national security interests”, Adam Schiff was telling a social media platform what content should be permitted to exist and what content should be removed.
The ‘Stasi’ used to monitor phone calls and conduct targeting operations based on intercepted communication. In the modern era, the Twitter Files clearly demonstrate, with an unequivocal amount of evidence, that the United States Government was/is monitoring social media content and then dispatching FBI officers based on intercepted public communication.
This is the House Intelligence Committee doing this. This is our taxpayer money funding this.
I really don’t want to write anything further on the specifics of this one. I would rather just like to let these facts simmer in our minds as we contemplate the ramifications of what is now being outlined within this very specific release.
The need for control is a reaction to fear.
What exactly is it the Adam Schiff’s and Intelligence Community of the United States Government is fearful of?
Apparently, there’s a House subcommittee about to begin under the auspices of looking at weaponized government against the people.
I hope the members of that committee are sitting quietly alone somewhere, thinking, evaluating and contemplating what this example is showing us.
I know what’s there.
You know what’s there.
None of us are pretending.
Hope is not a strategy.
Will be glad when that pompous bug eyed devil croaks.
I want to see his bug eyes when he’s sued into oblivion and loses every illegal thing he ever acquired.
The US constitution is the highest law of the land and yet somehow it’s just not taken seriously…. at all!
Nancy needs some home-safety box -garage-storage locker raiding.
She supposedly has Schiff pedo-action (when & where the drugged black male child died) in a hotel room
-video.
What did happen that evening at The Standard Hotel? Anthony Bourdain knew but he cannot be reached for comment.
…thinking lawsuits playing a role here is the great pretending when we all know where this is actually headed.
As long as Communist Democrats & their pet Republican Establishmentarians are in Sewer, DC, the Constitution & thus American Citizens Freedoms & Liberty are irrelevant. Until these life forms lower than Pond Scum are voted out of office, America is headed for the dustbin of history!
Perp walk in chains first!
And up 13 steps…
There are THOUSANDS to replace him – they will be even more dangerous then him
The gallows will need to be heavy duty.
Martin Armstrong’s “Socrates” has been projecting massive civil unrest turning up in 2023 and now its clear as day. We are most likely going to see some stuff none of will like. Climate lockdowns? ID,s? Who knows, but I have never once argued with Socrates, this AI has never been wrong in the 12+ years I’ve followed it.
There was massive civil unrest in 2020. Did socrates predict that too?
Also in JAN 2017.
Yes it did.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/the-rising-tide-of-civil-unrest-globally-2/
Thanks for the link. Read it.. Interesting. Is Socrates an artificial intelligence program?
Yes, it writes over 1000 reports daily, tracking the entire globe economies, It’s massive.
It’s a lot of computer code and some data bases, all with a fancy pants name.
That came out 12/6/2019. Talk about what we are see now even more so.
Doubt Socrates if you want, I won’t, been there done that 12 years ago.
Does socrates have a prediction for: 1) future of Adam Schiff; 2) Winner of 2024 election? 3) Future of Obama, Hunter or Pelosi.
It doesn’t predict like that, it understands Capital flow across the globe. It also understands historical trends, cycles, in which we all live by. Everything is cyclical.
here’s one that he discussed in 2016. All I know is, Socrates has never been wrong!
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong-in-the-media/armstrong-trial/government-preparing-for-world-wide-civil-unrest-why/
I’ll read it. In the event of all this pending civil unrest, Does Socrates discuss the price of Gold or Bitcoin in say 10 years from now?
Did socrates predict the birth of crypto currencies?
what Socrates sees are peaks and troughs just like any trader would see but on a much more dead on date than anything I’ve ever seen. Yes, gold is going up, Bitcoin of ant type, stay away from. That one is actually very simple when you think it out like this… “Would any government ever allow another currency to have control over its own?”
It took me years to truly understand how our global economies are connected. Everything has a “tell”and Capital flows to Socrates is on that level. 1000 reports daily.
it’s not free mind you and I’m not trying to sell you something, I’m just saying… Socrates is never wrong.
Sometimes using the past to predict the future cannot detect the “black swam” Talib refers to in his book. Just saying.
sschu
you’d be amazed at all the black swans Socrates pick up. Bitcoin to the day it peaked , Socrates saw it way ahead of time, Pfizer’s peak for 2022, way ahead of time, the global recession in 2007-09, way ahead of time. The crash in 2020 markets, way ahead of time, I could go on and on!
I guess you must know a little something about M Armstrong. The gov jailed him for it, they wanted it bad and still do. He won. Go do some research your questions will be answered.
What was the prediction on 9/10/2001?
We are in uncharted territory with uprisings in all corners of the globe.
AI does not take into account the human spirit, it cannot and does not have emotions of all the different philosophies out there to put into its permutations.
Note to AI: You’re a thing, you’re an it, and will not replace humans.
Even Armstrong agrees with you, That’s why he says the WEF will fail. AI has no capability to look into a humans mind and pull up their past. Events from our pasts, are hidden away to only ourselves. It only sees how Capital moves throughout the globe.
China for instance, Has been reducing its treasury holdings and buying up gold. Why? Because they saw what the USA and Europe did to Russia by confiscating the reserves. Here is a delayed treasury’s holdings documents from our own government. It updates every month, albeit, delayed.
https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt
It a Pi cycle sort of way, it was on a turning point but it didn’t predict what was going to happen mind you, the ECM (Economic Confidence Model) gives a date years in advance but it’s not a crystal ball. It cannot predict something unknown only something happening on that Pi cycle day, domestically or internationally. I hope that made sense. Just type in a search on his site for ECM’s and study what I’m talking about.
I go to Armstrong’s website on a regular basis and it’s hard to argue with the track record. Martin Armstrong was basically thrown in prison because he was setup and refused to give up the source code to Socrates (it’s more complicated but “The Forecaster” is a movie about his life).
The software uses historical info about currencies dating back hundreds and even thousands of years. Armstrong was/is obsessed with numismatics which is a great way to learn about history.
He also predicted the ’87 crash and ’89 Japanese Market top on the exact days they occurred.
In a nutshell, before something really big happens, the powers that be always move their assets ahead of time to avoid the fallout. Socrates picks up on this among many other things.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/conspiracy/911-the-false-flag-allegation-bin-laden/
Yeah, and the PTB ought to be jailed for insider trading (looking at you congress) while the rest of us pray we won’t take a 20%+ hit to our portfolios; the ones we scrimped and saved and did without to achieve so we could retire not a pauper. 😊
Lottery numbers?
😉
In the end, are we looking at meaningful action against the Stalinists who occupy every roach infested crevice of this America hating government?
Or is this simply going to end up as Durham 2.0…
Pretty certain I’ve seen many versions of this movie before. And the endings have all been disappointing…and rage inducing.
I really do want to be hopeful…but I am not.
I don’t know about you, but the Durham 2.0 era was one of gradually increasing awareness for me. For that matter, every day, every month, every year since about 1994 has been one of increasing understanding of the world I’ve/we’ve been living in. Just because this may be old wine in new bottles for you doesn’t mean it is for everybody. More and more is being learned with each one of these disclosures, but waiting for a courtroom climax in which the bad guys get convicted is the stuff of novels and movies, not real life.
We obviously aren’t where we need to be as a culture, yet, to mobilize the outrage and abject indignation needed to put back into the bottle the genie that we stupidly and lazily released, but that day is coming. This is how revolutions work, slowly, slowly, slowly and then all at once. We need to stop being guided by what we want and instead prepare for the various ways that day is likely to unfold. Waiting for a savior on a white horse doesn’t cut it in real life and instead is just a prescription for disappointment, at best, and lack of preparedness at the worst.
Well stated castelletto. No expectations. Just learn as much as we can and be prepared for any contingency.
I can’t recall what it was or when, castelletto, which made me realize that we were not heading towards the cliff, but were well and truly over it. As you say (and Mark Stern pointed out about such circumstances in America Alone) our decline has been little by little…slowly…for decades. It’s the fall that kills. So thinking on, for me that point came, I believe, on the night of the 2020 election.
And suddenly, I understood and was able to reevaluate many occurrences which always seemed to me to a bit, shall we say, suspect. Things which didn’t add up.
Now I am clear-eyed and clear-headed. You are right. What we want is justice. I include punishment with that. Because mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. I’m pretty sure we’ll not get it.
These will not come through any man. Our saviour in all this is our Saviour. At what point this happens, none can say. So as we continue to watch whatever morality this nation bragged about descend further into corruption, criminality, perversion, debauchery, and an acceptance of it as our (hated phrase) “new normal”, I feel as if I’m a spectator of it all. And will continue to wait, watch, and hope there will be a quiet revolution to at least get us headed back in the right direction. Through the exceeding grace of God and His mysterious ways. His will be done, as we know it will always be.
Betsy:
Steyn is quite sick these days, after two heart attacks.
Mark chased me off his web site, and I learned he regarded Steynonline as a fan club, and little more..
But Steyn remains a profound thinker, and few conservative intellectuals have survived the Trump years.
I knew he’d had two, raptors. He has always been ahead of what has been going on, able to define issues well before they have become front and center. The book I referenced he said was about demographics, for which he was roundly ridiculed. And yet 17 years later, people are starting to realize he was prescient. exceedingly so as western countries have been busy little bees, importing cultures antithetical to ours. For longer than has been heretofore admitted. Look at Sweden, Germany, and all of the EU to be completely correct. We’re not there yet but headed in that direction…not good.
I’m sorry for your experience with his site. His voice is one we cannot afford to lose, as we did Rush’s. I pray for his full recovery.
So sorry to hear that about Mark. I’ve always been a great fan.
Good post thank you.
Hopeless == Defeated.
Hopeful == Victorious.
Gods gift == Hope.
Hope full hearts are filled with Gods fuel. Gods fuel makes it possible for humans to perform miracles.
Allowing our heart to be filled with Gods gift of Hope allows God to work with us and through us so His will, not ours, is done here on earth, as it is in heaven; joyfully and without hesitation.
You and I are of similar belief…per my reply to castelleto above.
They, as individuals, need to be sued into the loss of everything they gained while under government employ. That will be multiple millions of dollars they magically get after first getting into office. They, as individuals did immeasurable harm to the public but to the people silenced specifically as evidence is available need to lawyer up and trash them beyond their ability to pay.
Sue THEM and their “foundations” and other charitable money laundering shelters.
It goes well beyond suits. Under present conditions, they do not let kari lake or Trump into the courts so this isn’t settled there by all evidence! We need to stop pretending.
There is GOOD and there is EVIL. In Pope Benedict’s own words the ANTICHRIST (EVIL) is sharing and ascending in the church and the manifestations (technology, the shot, all of it are being revealed. As I read this article it struck me that the one thing trans humanism and AI will never obtain is FAITH in GOD!
Let us pray that HIS will be done.
Mr Musk, can you attest that these practices have ceased?
There’s evidence that it hasn’t. There are still being being censored and banned through what could only be back channels or back doors. When called to Elon’s attention, he replied “Interesting.”
TheLastRefuge being one of them
Yeah, Elon is always good with a one-liner that tells you absolutely nothing!
Nothing significant has changed.
Some accounts have been re-instated.
But, everyone is just chasing that bright shiny object while the code still does its thing.
It’s a distraction.
Not sure its JUST a distraction, but it does feel like Elon “in charge” of Twitter, is a lot like PDJT “in charge” of White House or the Executive branch, or being “the LEADER of his party.
How much control does Musk really have, os questionable. WE ARE getting SOME valuable info, but WHAT are they still concealing?
I say Elon, if he’s really serious, should fire just about everyone, put an ad on every lightpost for job opportunities for those gamers and computer savants that want to make more than the job they have now where they say “Do you want fries with that?” No special-visa-foreigners need apply.
I personally don’t trust Elon Musk, but that’s my hang-up.
Time for more firings at Twit.
Musk continues this in Europe or his site will be banned.
The early tell for the freedom of this new House committee will be how McCarthy won’t allow various subpoenas to be issued. Agree totally the threat of criminal prosecution should be off the table for those currently in government to give testimony. However, it’s a steep hill to climb to get those fully immersed in the criminality of their work peer groups to see any real benefit to fully cooperate with the committee. A lot of risk, where’s any type of reward?
The threat of criminal prosecution should ONLY be for the unelected. ELECTED members of government should NOT be able to skate.
THOSE WITH THE MOST POWER HAVE THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY… AND SHOULD BE HELD TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF ACCOUNTABILITY!
Holding those pieces of human garbage like Schifforbrains criminally accountable sounds great with about zero chance of happening in the current DC environment. Since the House can’t use handcuffs or prison sentences we’re up against eunuch Garland enforcing anything against the dims. Nice thought but not a chance
Not having your neck stretched is a pretty good incentive to spill the beans on what you know if you ask me, and that should be the starting point for discussions on cooperation with committee questions, especially when they have all the info they need to neuter you completely.
Info is one thing. The will to use it is quite another. All of those involved, on both sides, being far removed from my immediate family & circle, are in “show me” status.
They have to re-establish the antiquated notion that lieing to Congress is a CRIME, that WILL be prosecuted, first.
Force them to either take the 5th, commit perjury and go to jail, or tell the truth.
Otberwise, ANY immunity is meaningless.
How did immunity work out when Comey agreed to grant Cheryl Mills immunity in exchange for her cooperation in the Hillary investigation. He also agreed to ground rules that left some lines of inquiry off-limits. When agents tried to pin her down on the procedures she used to search for Hillary’s e-mails under order, she and her lawyer stormed out of the room. So much for Comey’s cooperative witness.
He gave her a pass on the whole question of the criminal obstruction behind which she looked to be the mastermind. No one would have ever let H.R. Haldeman get away with editing the Nixon tapes. Why would the FBI director let Hillary’s chief of staff get away with deleting her e-mails?
Before any immunity grants are given, Republicans better be damned sure they aren’t being played.
Their necks won’t be stretched out is the reward!
What about the reward of just being a decent human being?
Nobody should be receiving participation trophies.
“I know what’s there.
You know what’s there.
None of us are pretending.
Hope is not a strategy” Sundance, Conservative Treehouse
If I had the dollars, I would put it on billboards. Heck, I’d buy a tee shirt with that quote if there was a treehouse store. I hope the members of the house subcommittee have distanced themselves from any “friends” of the clintons.
Hope is Gods fuel that allows strategies inspired by Him to succeed even when success seems impossible.
Can hopeless Davids defeat Goliaths?
As God said about His plans for us, “My plans are not to harm you but to give you hope so you can prosper”.
Do I trust the plan; His plan? Yes.
I also often repeat what’s called an arrow prayer, ” Lord I believe; help my unbelief”.
Onward Christian Soldiers. Semper fi.
Onward, I am with you and Gods plan thank you for your service.
Hope is the oxygen for the soul.
Notable from Taibbi’s release today:
“…the DOJ indicted 12 individuals they knew would never show up in court, but had to drop two related cases of companies that did fight back, rather than go through discovery.”
Those dropped court cases made for fascinating reading. The defendant’s lawyer was an outstanding writer/communicator.
Lawyer Eric Dubelier is the absolute best. He destroyed an army of Lawfare all by himself.
His briefs held entertainment value at the very least.
With every passing tidbit of information about corruption coming out, shoulders are shrugged but people won’t make the connection to how their lives are forever altered.
The irony here in all of these revelations, no one is any longer shocked to the point of saying, no! Enough is enough!!
Plus, those found out are never shamed into, at best, just going away. Instead, they stay, discovering they can continue with zero accountability.
Have a nice day.
We’re saying it within this community, Phflipper. About a lot of things.
Unfortunately, unless an issue affects most people directly, this is the sad state in which we find ourselves.
Most don’t believe they’ll be eaten last, or at all, because they are completely unaware they are on the menu.
God is not mocked what you sow is what you reap, that’s what the Lord said in his BOOK! All of Satan’s Little kids will pay the penalty soon enough.
“Those found out are never shamed”
Swallwell and Schiff were just removed from their positions on the House Intel Committee.
Not seeing what’s happening =/= nothing is happening.
Thank God from another “nice day” full of so many great things to see. “Arise, rejoice and be glad” Or dont.
If Swalwell and Schiff haven’t gone anywhere. While I understand being removed from HSPCI, they are still in a position to cause great damage.
Yes, great damage if they don’t get the coffee order right or Nanzi’s vodka tonic just right. 😆
Taking away their voice is at least a good first step. Maybe their constituents will not choose them if they’re assured they won’t deliver anything for their district.
The 800 lb gorilla in the room is the millions of Americans who like and support this state (State?) of affairs.
Thousands of Americans happily took part in the corruption of the 2020 election. They do not wish to live in a democracy. They believe a one-party State will produce a better world.
The welfare state came to the western world in the late nineteenth century. Fascism came to the western world in the late nineteenth century.
The Republican Party dominated American politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Then FDR with his New Deal brought the welfare state to America. Roosevelt had profound doubts about what this new welfare state would do to America, but he persevered. And the Democrats went from being the eternal second Party in American politics, to dominance.
The welfare state and the one-party State – all one in the minds of so many. And black Americans vote 95% Democrat. Scale that cliff.
I’m betting, raptor, that there are (disturbingly) millions of Americans who are completely unaware of what’s going on. They are all in a world of their own.
Ignorance is a disease. One symptom is insouciance (a shoulder shrug, per Phflipper’s remark above yours). There are way too many who are infected. Not sure if there is a cure.
Betsy:
I despair at the Republicans/conservatives who think quoting the Constitution (Second Amendment, of course) will hold back the tide of rabid leftists.
Leftists remain utterly committed to their hatred and opposition to America’s Constitution. Indeed, all flavors of leftism are driven by hatred of America.
The glorious American revolution or feudalism/fascism. The path forward for humanity is just that simple.
The average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth… It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.
H. L. Mencken
Each person chooses stories to repeat to themselves and to share with others.
Some choose inspiring stories. Some instead choose despair summoning stories.
We are in a spiritual war; a psywar for control of our hearts and minds. Psyops attack our hearts and minds 24/7 seeking to influence our choices.
Why?
Perhaps because, over time, we become our choices. We create ourselves through the choices we make, including which stories we choose.
Beyond impacting ourselves, our choices affect others, often in ways we will never know.
As the New Testament reminds readers, all things may be “lawful” however, when making choices beware of putting others into temptation.
Perhaps temptations include despair summoning”stories”?
Cozette:
Would your reply to me apply to Jews in the Holocaust?
I’m 65, and I’m frankly hoping as a conservative, that I’ll outlive the opposition to my views and politics.
This is not an intellectual game. The most superficial of conservative poseurs could not outlive the mild opposition of the Trump years.
If you oppose the State, in the impeding days, you are in jeopardy. Start there.
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw
If McCarthy is worth his weight in salt, he will go after this demon with both barrels blazing. H’es done almost as much damage to our country as Obama.
… when we stop pretending some more, it will be nearly impossible to be “almost as much as obama”… when we stop pretending.
This is the Democrat party from it’s beginnings. Anyone shocked or surprised by these revelations simply don’t know our history. The Democrat party has always used government for its benefits beginning with creating Jim Crow.
How many times did TCTH make the Schiff list?
Can these congressmen be charged with a crime, or at least sued in civil court, for violating our 1st Amendment rights?
I know, who in the DOJ would prosecute them?
I am so tired of this crap.
Lets’s ask Socrates. The AI computer.
Two good questions. Article 1, section 6 gave Congress “privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”But it made exceptions for “treason, felony and breach of the peace.”
But that privilege only extends to “speech, voting and other legislative acts as exempt from liability that might otherwise attach, it does not privilege either Senator or aide to violate an otherwise valid criminal law in preparing for or implementing legislative acts.”
https://constitution.findlaw.com/article1/annotation21.html
The Department of the Obstruction of Justice and Partisan Politics has given its own branch broader powers to use office to commit crime. Prosecutors have absolute immunity.
In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that it was “better to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation.”
https://www.nlg-npap.org/about-npap-justice/
Forty-six years later the courts might ask if absolute power corrupts, and whether the justice system itself could be co-opted. Ironically, the site I link to is a liberal project that wants police relieved of their qualified immunity but probably not prosecutors absolute right.
https://www.nlg-npap.org/about-npap-justice/
Are any of these
politiciansbottom feeders starting to feel the heat?! Are they afraid that maybe, just maybe there will finally be some consequences – SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES – ????? IMO – if a few at the *top* start getting the s**t kicked out of them (interpret that any way you choose), I believe that is when things will start to change – again, IMO.Bottom line, this short funny video clip,
is just the tip of the iceberg to the ugly truth:
Never believe them when they say the room is soundproof, right?
Right
“When my circle got smaller, my vision got clearer.
There’s strength in loyalty, not numbers”
Politicians serve themselves, protect THIER silos and impose their values on constituents.
And this bug eyed lying pos can’t stay away from a rolling live camera to spout more of his bs. The fact that there are people who believe anything roots moron says is amazing.
Schiff’s really good looking. Can’t imagine why he isn’t a big Hollywood Star! Hollywood’s Finest as a Congressional idiot.
Failed screenwriter.
It’s all theater. Enjoy the show.
I see all this coming out with Matt Taibbi’s reporting. You know as well as I that this is illegal and very much like was done in Nazi Germany and also in communist countries. But I don’t care if the republicans control congress or not, I just don’t see anyone ever being held accountable for any of this. History tells us absolutely nothing will be done. They will have investigations and hearings and we will see all kinds of news stories I’m sure. But that will be the extent of this discovery and proof of illegal behavior.
This pukes in DC do not have to live with Laws or rules. They are for everyone else. I don’t want to be pessimistic but I have yet to see any accountability with anyone in Washington DC. Federal workers caught breaking laws and violating peoples civil rights end up getting promoted . They write up a news story on how they are being held accountable by removingthem from that job ,but they end up in a better position making more money . After all whatever laws or rules they violated were in the name of protecting the DC power structure .
Even now, they are monitoring the narrative and constantly tweaking and shaping it.
As I posted in the other thread , many ‘ experts ‘ that pushed Covid lockdowns , etc , were BOTS , fake 100%.
So now CDC says it will take a look at VAXX and strokes ( feeling some heat ? )
BREAKING: CDC to Investigate Link Between Strokes & COVID-19 Vaccines
“The CDC is now saying there have been enough cases of people who have received the vaccine and then suffered a stroke”
@TheChiefNerd
My head is still spinning from the website you shared yesterday….about ‘bad’ batches of clot shots.
Those numbers are frightening!
Sadly, we are still in the early stage. The 5 year survival rate looks bad.
I’ve always thought this dangerous freak is a textbook sociopath, just an intuition , I could be wrong but I don’t think I am .
Smithsonian Magazine, August 1, 2012 “Research Suggests Politicians are most likely to be Psychopaths”
always follow your instincts.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/research-suggests-politicians-are-more-likely-to-be-psychopaths-11364143/
WHICH particular dangerous freak? So many to choose from.
they’re trying to keep the lid from blowing off the pressure cooker
“Lives of Others” A great movie on the end of the STASI and how they controlled people.
Everyday it gets closer to pitchforks, are we there yet?
All of this crooked crap given to us by the shrub “W” made legal under emergency powers and the Patriot Act. It must be ripped out root & branch!
The Lives of Others. An excellent movie, in German, made in Germany, that the late Rush Limbaugh once favorably reviewed.
By the end, the Stasi even despised themselves. Evil is all-destroying.
Very instructive.
Yeah, I heard about it on Rush.
The German caption for the photograph:
“The tapes rustle, the (electrical) connection crackles, and the Secret-Police man listens.”
I visited East Berlin in early 1989 with a group of students, 7 months before the Berlin Wall fell.
On the nearly deserted streets we saw curious booths with mirrors, as if they might be outhouses with a mirror to comb your hair after you were done closing the door.
One of my students asked: “What are those things?”
I said: “That is where a member of the Secret Police is sitting and watching you and anybody else on the street through a 2-way mirror.”
My students were a little skeptical, but not long afterward we saw one booth where the door opened and out came a “Stasi”* agent in uniform.
We also saw the spot where the most recent escapee trying to reach West Berlin had been shot by guards. That happened in February 1989, I believe.
In November, he could have walked across!
But let me assure you: when we were there in the early summer of 1989, there was no sign of impending implosion in the totalitarian surveillance state.
Collapse of institutions sometimes happen unexpectedly: only after ward can one put the dominoes back up and see the connections leading to the event.
* Sta-si came from “Staatssicherheit Polizei” = Police for the Security of the State.
Not for your security, Comrade, but for the state’s!
(I taught German for many decades in a Catholic all-boy high school. I took groups over to Germany every summer on an exchange program for about 20 years.)
Always a pleasure to read your posts – thanks for sharing!
It all started in that Polish shipyard.
It only takes a few who can stand up to the pressure to start a chain reaction.
Just ask Matt Gaetz and those five others for more recent anecdotes.
True, in part: Lutheran pastors in East Germany also began to raise their voices, along with others in other countries behind the Iron Curtain at about the same time!
However, for the Poles, keep in mind that having a Polish pope who had been in the anti-Nazi underground – as well as an opponent of Communists of any nationality – kept “Solidarity” energized and courageous.
Ronald Reagan may also have helped! 😉
All great kindling to keep it going. Saint JPII was the perfect Pope, at the perfect time.
But that first spark was still needed to get it going … Those few shipyard workers risked all.
Memories of the Prague Spring must have been in their thoughts throughout.
Little rectum mouth Adam.
Not only rectum mouth but…
jeepers creepers where’d ya get them peppers
jeepers creepers where’d ya get them eyes
So we may be the proverbial dog who finally catches up with the car. Now what?
Not only is “tax payer money paying to spy on the same tax payers” …. this is the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, whom are ELECTED to protect our interests and not their reputations and careers.
It is the same as electing and paying your jailer.
I think the pucker factor is going to be very strong with Adam Schiff once the new committee starts their deep dive into his role in suppressing the freedom of speech of USA citizens. I hope it crushes any thoughts he has of moving on up to the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Darth Vaderess and he soon joins his boyfriend Buck in the Iron Bar Hotel.
They’re not afraid of We the People finding out anything. They laugh at us.
They’re afraid of the anger and vengeance of their master….. Whoever that is scares them completely.
Their master is the Intelligence Community.
“Adam Schiff was telling a social media platform what content should be permitted to exist and what content should be removed…”
What content?….what speech?….what thoughts?….
With regard to the individual, the carrot is –“you don’t want to be rude/stupid!” (iow–you don’t want us to think you are rude/stupid or, worse, accuse you of being rude/stupid).
The stick is — you will be ostracized and judged and punished by us if you don’t comply. (and those doing the judging are those who most frequently are yelling about how it’s not right to judge anyone).
This principle-in-practice has been hammered into public discourse for at least fifty years and, inevitably, it has brought us to where it was headed all the time. Funny how that works.
The kids who were burning down campus buildings in the ’60s are running the country now. They are nothing if not consistent. I believed them when they revealed who they were then. To this day, there are still individuals among my peers (I’m 78) who want to explain to me how I misunderstood what they said, meant, and did.
The willingness to be deceived, regardless of the reason or motivation, comes with a very high price tag for individuals, groups, and nations.
“The need for control is a reaction to fear.”
And I’m the Queen of Spain.
Their compulsion to control is in their nature, their DNA. Did we create their DNA ? And then scare their DNA?
How would we scare them anyway as they are a lot more powerful than we are. That may be changing a bit now, but this has been going on for some time.
Does anyone here think the CIA is afraid of you?
Claiming “The need for control is a reaction to fear.” is, in effect, claiming it is all our fault, not theirs. I reject this.
Thankfully, forcefully asserted opinions/guesses =/= factual statements about reality.
However, it can be interesting to read the guesses others are making
If you are bored and want to watch a great TV series check out The Weissensee Saga. It is on Amazon/MhZ. All about living under the Stasi. In subtitles so you have to pay attention unless you speak German.
Leavemygunsalone: Looks interesting. I’ll check it out.
It is really good. I have seen it several times. It has something like 6-7 seasons. It is a drama w/real life events threaded in. I hope you get to watch it and like it as much as I did.
Oh wow, I was just going to do some sleuthing to find the title of this series which I saw, of all places, on public TV a number of years ago. Fascinating and chilling. Thank you. According to a long time colleague from East Berlin, as real as she remembered while living there.
Article I of the Constitution provides for an expulsion of a House member by a two-thirds vote (294 members). There is no mechanism for impeachment of a House or Senate member. They can be censured, but, let’s face it, that’s a pat on the hand saying, “Quit pulling your sister’s hair,” as they sneer and stick out their tongue.
Fraudulent elections have catastrophic consequences.
One day, one vote, one piece of watermarked paper with a valid signature on it, no machines, no mail-in ballots, you’d better be very ill and bedridden or at death’s door (and requested your ballot with proof of residency way beforehand) for an absentee ballot, and of course exceptions for overseas military, et al.
This isn’t hard; we just have to get the criminals out of the way.
Offering a link shared by President Trump https://theprecinctstrategy.com.
Please. Read it. Share it. Do it.
More Skinner, less tolerance.
Negative reinforcement– In my words: “An **increase** in frequency of behavior to avoid aversive stimulation.”
In other words, make them press that lever to avoid electric footshock.
I can’t see it happening anytime soon.
Just how bad are these statists? This bad …
Matt Taibbi has been described in various articles and I think even by Tucker, as a *liberal*. I’m wondering how he’s feeling about that now?! 🙂
Hopefully he feels great!!!
Liberals are a VITAL part of Trumps MAGA Alliance.
When liberals (not Death Cult leftists) and conservatives listen to each other and work together America is healthier.
This is true of healthy families that have a mother and father who learn how to work together despite their differences.
I remember when Candice Owens ripped him a new one.
At one time Ted was besties with Ed Buck, see how that turned out?
Would it be too much to ask to see Swiffty carted off to jail in the carriage that carried the Hunchback pulled by oxen, in the Rose Bowl Parade so we can throw spoiled fruit at him.
” Komrade, vee know what you haff been saying about not wanting to eat zee bugs …… ‘
Adam Schiff not only lost his seat on HPSCI, he lost his membership in the Gang of Eight and access to tippy-top secret intelligence.
So far so good, Kevin.
Meanwhile Jordan takes the bait and launches headfirst into garagegate docs. What a maroon.
Adam Schiff is pals with Ed Buck.
Ed Buck was a CA Democrat donor who is now in prison for injecting cocaine and overdosing his gay lover.
This happened twice within about a year.
Two dead by lethal injection and Ed Buck involved. (Whether he personally administered the injections, I’m not sure).
If you do a search on Ed Buck, Adam Schiff, and Ted Lieu (yes, he was part of that gang) you”ll find them, all wearing their little rainbow bow ties.
From what I read at the time, Ed Buck once served as the presidential elector from Adam Schiff’s district. Apparently the California congressmen have discretion over who receives that honor. Nanzi appointed one of her daughters once. That tidbit does not say anything positive about Shifty Shiff.
When do the executions start?
Perhaps use WW2 era as a guide.
When did the military tribunals, including The Nuremberg Trials start?
What had to happen first?
Perhaps frame DC as our WWs Berlin.
Such a sick minded puke.
“Hope is not a strategy.”
It is in Ukraine. It was in Vietnam. It was in Afghanistan.
Perhaps it would be better to say “hope is not a good strategy”.
Hope is the fuel that makes it possible for good strategies to succeed.
More often, hope is the fuel that makes it possible for good strategies to not be considered.
Proof within a reasonable doubt is all we have to run on.
That used to be very good justification.
Now it doesn’t.
What the hell.
We are done
Stick in the fork
Speaking of Stasi, I don’t know about everywhere, but at the medical practices I go to they record our phone calls, and have no problem whipping them up if you dare to disagree as to what was said and what wasn’t. I think it is wrong, one thing to take notes and another to record the calls.
Do they inform you ahead of time that you are being recorded? I think the laws on notification requirements vary from state to state.
In for a penny
In for a pound
What will the House subcommittee find when it looks around
We all know Schiff is a hater
But could we find he is also a TRAITOR
Some are getting too caught up in the specifics of personalities.
Schiffs come. Schiffs go. We can mock the Schiffs of the world as much as we want. We can punish them as much as it is within our power to do so.
Until we break the system through which the Schiffs of the world abuse the people, the abuse will persist.