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Aug 16Liked by Claire Berlinski

I haven't even started reading this whole post yet but THANK YOU Claire!! Super excited to see this in my inbox last night!

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So pleased!

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In the past couple of weeks, European elites have put on a remarkable display. In the UK, two teir Keir ignored riots by Muslim immigrants while dropping an anvil on the aspirations of native born and working class British citizens. The Labor Party and their conservative rivals are virtually indistinguishable. Both parties represent the interests of the college-educated lap top class while demonstrating disdain for the interests of the working class who's prospects have been diminished by the hordes of illegal immigrants who have cheated to gain entry into the country.

So hostile to the legitimate anger of the working class is the leadership of the British governing class that their favored solution is censoring the ability of the workers to speak their minds. They’re not to riot and they’re not to peacibly demonstrate. If two tier Keir has his way, they wont even be able to verbalize their greviences. Keir and the college-educated brats who surround him will be the only arbiters of what’s true or untrue. Only they will be anointed to distinguish information from disinformation.

The same dystopian approach characterizes much of the EU; an organization led by narcissistic monsters convinced that given their superior credentials, only they are qualified to determine what ideas and opinions are worthy of entering the public square.

Parties of government in the West (the Democrats and mainstream Republicans in the United States and the leftist and centrist political parties in Europe) are horrified that the disintermedistion revolution has come for them. The internet in general and Twitter-X in particular allows anyone with a computer or cell phone to say anything they want. Parties of government hate this and long for the world where only a small number of news outlets, led by members of the same class that they belong to, curated “all the news that's fit to print.”

Its no wonder that the governing class is as hostile to Twitter-X as full service brokers were to online start-ups or the three American broadcast networks were to cable television when it first appeared. We see the same hostility from the governing classes being recapitulated in the realm of digital currency. Its always been the government that controls the currency; a system outside of government control is profoundly distressing to government leaders because it diminishes the one thing they crave more than anything else; power.

To make matters worse, leaders in the UK and the EU even believe they have a right to control what Americans can say and read if the information being published happens to be accessble to Europeans. A British police official recently appeared in a video suggesting that Elon Musk and Americans who post on his site might be criminally liable in the UK for comments they make that dimwitted British officials conclude are bigoted or disinformation.

The EU disinformation Czar just a few days ago warned Elon Musk about what he might allow Donald Trump to say in their recent interview that has now been viewed by almost one billion people. The arrogance and stupidity of British and EU leaders is only surpassed by their incompetence. Even the EU President, had to disown the comments of the EU disinformation czar that she appointed.

As for two teir Keir, his censorship regime has already surpassed anything Prime Minister Orban of Hungary has ever dreamed up. We can only hope that the British censors stop short of what we see in Putin’s Russia, but so far the signs are not promising.

The UK is already in terminal decline. The nations of the EU are not far behind. If Harris wins, the United States might very well join the list of has-been nations.

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Aug 16·edited Aug 16Author

This is, of course, nonsense. You're so susceptible to ideas like this that I know what you're going to write before you write it: I just have to read whatever fantasy MAGA-world is spinning up this week. It's really tedious, WigWag. I relish spirited disagreement, but when you do it in a series of clichés and Twitter memes--without having asked yourself if what you've been reading is true--it's just a bore. When you do it without responding at all to the arguments I've made, I begin to fear you're not reading them but rather disgorging talking points in response to a stimulus (the words "Keir Starmer" and "Elon Musk," presumably) like a rat in a Skinner cage. (If you'd like to focus on the argument I made, here's a hint. The key phrases are *algorithmic amplification* and *without transparency.* I really do recommend that interview with Renée di Resta, too.)

As for your belief that you've a unique insight into the "legitimate aspirations" of "native born and working class" British citizens, I would urge you to subject that assumption to close scrutiny-- along with your belief that you understand better than the British do Keir Starmer's place in Britain's class hierarchy. Likewise your certainty that you've acquired such expertise in the British legal system, the UK's Public Order Acts, and the way they've historically been applied and interpreted by the Crown courts such that you're in an excellent position to determine whether these laws are just and whether they've been selectively enforced.

It's unbecoming to deplore as "dimwitted" and "arrogant" British and EU leaders even as you pronounce judgment on them based on ludicrous nonsense you've heard Glenn Greenwald say on Rumble--or wherever it was that you learned this week's Party Line.

For what it's worth, the people feeding that line to you don't have your best interests at heart. They don't care about the truth. They don't care about justice. They don't care about liberty--and they sure as hell don't care about the working class. The working class is exactly the cohort that suffers most from riots like these--as this article describes in painful detail:

https://unherd.com/2024/08/will-the-rioters-attack-my-carers/.

It's the working class that puts out the fires (risking their own lives), sweeps up the broken glass, repairs the broken windows, tends to the injured when they pour into the A&E--and who suffer the most when taxes go up and public services go unfunded because of the millions of pounds of damage done by these swastika-tattooed thugs with whom you vibrate in telepathic empathy. (Tell me, who in this scenario are the "brats?") It's the working class whose small businesses are burned down, who can't get to their jobs and home again safely during a riot because they use public transport, not limousines. It's the working class who are afraid to send their children to school because this kind of thug doesn't ask, "Tell me, Sir, are you a British citizen?" before beating the shit out of anyone who strikes them as foreign--and they can't afford in-home private tutoring.

By the way, The Sun is the British working-class's newspaper of choice: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/29697270/civil-war-trending-uk-why/. They're widely viewed by the "laptop class" as reactionary, jingoistic, jingoistic, unenlightened, right-wing, racist, xenophobic, and just plain tacky. What's your theory about the headlines and the article? Why don't they understand what you, Elon Musk, and all of those Russian bots do about the "legitimate anger" of the British working class? Why are they calling these legitimately angry working-class stalwarts the "sickening far-right," and "vile organized racists and fanatics?" (Do you realize how sickening, racist, and fanatical you have to be for *The Sun* to be sickened by your fanatical racism?)

How strange that the it's the very tribune of the British working class that's baying for Starmer to "throw the book at them." What's your theory--how do you imagine the Sun was co-opted to traduce the noble, authentic, and put-upon British working class by deploring the rioters and those who incited them? (Could they secretly be college educated?)

Seriously, WigWag, do you truly imagine Elon Musk, the Federalist, Breitbart, Newsmax, and the #MAGA#QANON#FREESPEECH#ElonMusk #Conspiracy #Illuminati #Pizzagate #SecretElite #Vance #Adrenochrome set know the first thing about the UK? It's actually a real country, not a MAGA porn flick. With real people who suffer when assholes like Musk egg on the *very worst people* that noble country has produced in this century to loot, burn, pillage, and murder. If this had happened in your neighborhood, and if your kids had been the victim of it, you'd be singing a very different tune. But it didn't, so why not disgorge the latest phantasmagoric mass-produced MAGA fantasy about how much our NATO allies suck. After all, there's an election coming up.

Which is, of course, why you're hearing this crap.

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Aug 17Liked by Claire Berlinski

Thank you Claire.

Know that your time is more valuable than to waste on dishonest interlocutors. You've been more than generous.

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It is simply a fact, Claire, that the obsession of the hyper-educated lap top class currently centers around “disinformation” in social media. It’s merely their way of saying that only educated elites should be the arbiters of truth versus fiction and information versus disinformation. The examples of this are numerous, but far and away the most famous was the decision of pre-Musk Twitter as well as Facebook to censor the Hunter Biden lap top story. The youngsters who Twitter and Facebook deputized to identify disinformation pretended the story was disinformation to avoid a politically embarrassing story from damaging their preferred candidate. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it.

Of course, the youngsters had allies in their scheme to censor what Americans could read. A who’s who of the American intelligence community insisted that the story was almost surely disinformation. Given their sterling credentials, how could anyone doubt them?

Claire, you’re being credulous if you don’t think the British authorities believe they have the right to request the extradition of Americans who post things two tier Keir doesn’t approve of. London’s Metropolitan Police Chief, a moron if there ever was one said,

“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”

Here’s the story; your readers can decide for themselves whether he was threatening not only Musk, but all Americans. See,

https://nypost.com/2024/08/10/media/uk-police-commissioner-threatens-to-extradite-jail-us-citizens-over-online-posts-well-come-after-you/

Then there’s the incident with the EU’s chief censor, Thierry Breton, warning Musk not to permit Trump to say anything in their recent interview that monstrous EU bureaucrats might define as misinformation. Don’t take my word for it, here’s the evidence. See,

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-elon-musk-donald-trump-interview-thierry-breton-letter-social-media/

If it’s only or even mostly about the algorithms, why are British and EU officials threatening Americans with arrest for what they post on social media?

At the very least, Breton’s comments represent electoral interference if not something more sinister. Orban may have a fondness for censorship, but he’s never threatened to extradite and try Americans in Hungarian Courts for saying things he doesn’t approve of.

If you don’t think that Britain and the EU are heading down the road of Orbanism (that you’ve made clear you disapprove of), you’re deluding yourself. The question is whether two tier Keir and Breton plan to stop when they’ve reached the censorship levels seen in Hungary or whether they plan to emulate Putin.

You did say one thing that I agree with; riots are wrong and can be countenanced. They do hurt the working classes particularly hard. But think about it, Claire, if you take away people’s right to speak their mind, do riots become more likely or less likely?

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Aug 16Liked by Claire Berlinski

Couple thoughts on the Ukrainian invasion of Russia:

1) "Strict operational security obviously helped. Ukrainian commanders learnt of the operation only three days in advance; ordinary troops on the day it took place."

That is tight OPSEC and COMSEC; it's also terrific discipline on the part of the Ukrainian soldiers, who otherwise have an unfortunate habit of bragging publicly about every victory. Key players and the astute among the troops must have known something was up, though, given what must have been accumulated and prepositioned. The AFU units didn't make a cold start with the forces in place.

What's more surprising to me is the surprise achieved over the Russians. Where were their surveillance facilities, their satellite surveillance? Their fusion centers?

2) Regarding the barbarian chieftain Vladimir Putin's bleat about the lack of western condemnation of Ukraine's entry into Russia: "[D]o they not care about the dead littering the streets when they're Russian bodies?"

Frankly no, at least not me. I joined the USAF those years ago for the chance to kill fucking Russians. I never got the chance, but I don't--and won't--begrudge others getting their chance.

3) The photo of the surrendered Russian troops and whether it was photoshopped: I can't tell whether it might or might not be, but there are a couple of things that give me pause. One is the crystalline clarity of the image itself. The other is the female soldier sitting up while all her comrades are required to be prostrate face down. I can't say that's evidence of photoshopping, but it does strike me as, at best, poor operational practice. The need to keep the prisoners face down and feeling as helpless as they are is absolutely necessary, and the prisoners' sex is completely irrelevant to that.

Eric Hines

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" I joined the USAF those years ago for the chance to kill fucking Russians."

Thank you for your service. You actually did something much better than kill them: You won without firing a shot.

(Strictly speaking, I hate that cliché--there were many shots fired in the Cold War. Many graves were filled with its very real victims. But you know what I mean. And seriously, thank you.)

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I appreciate the thought, but a couple of things....

1) I'm not sure what was won; the evil still exists, as anyone in eastern Europe, especially Ukrainians, can attest. Related to that, I'm not sure leaving evil extant is a better outcome than killing it (except long-run metaphorically: we need evil in the world in order to understand and appreciate the good in it). Make no mistake about it; Russians are evil. It's the product of Russian culture, of Russian society, from bottom to top, who are committing the atrocities in Ukraine, from direct participation through watching them to ordering them done.

2) There were many others who served much more deeply than I: those who were killed in service, those who were maimed physically and/or mentally in service.

Eric Hines

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Could you expand on your analysis of evil in Russia? What is its nature, its origin, its history? A comparison and contrast with Ukraine would also be helpful if you can manage it.

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When Russia invaded Czechoslovakia in the late '60s, the European units of the Red Army weren't raping and pillaging enough to suit the Russian government, so they were replaced by Asian units who did so.

When Russia invaded Afghanistan, the situation was reversed, with the Asian units not raping and pillaging with enough zeal, so they were replaced by European units who did.

That's just recent history.

If you can't see the evil in that, or see the evil the Russian Army is perpetrating in Ukraine, then there's no point in wasting further time.

Eric Hines

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I don't mind examples, but I'd hoped for something deeper too. E.g. when did Russia start being evil, is there a common theme running through its evils, was Ukraine part of the evil when it was part of the "Russian world"?

Also, I don't know about the Afghan war which was a long one, but the invasion of Czechoslovakia was over pretty quickly. Do you perhaps mean that Asian units were used from the beginning?

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Don't overthink it. They are evil because they do evil, and they do it not by accident or ignorance, but on purpose.

Eric Hines

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