Marshall Sutherland

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 22:36:04 -0500

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^IG11: Julian Assange's Most Courageous Defenders - Instant Grace with Jim Babka

I (Jim) took a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on Free Press rights. I have unique thoughts to offer on that subject. But not today.
Instead, I want to share something that no one else (that I've heard) has said about Julian Assange's case. It's something a show like Gracearchy would be tuned-in to notice. Give us four minutes - discover something spiritually profound.

#free_press #video #podcast

free press video podcast

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 11:33:17 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Javier Milei Delivers Argentina’s First Surplus in Over a Decade—and US Media Is Silent

The revelation that Argentina has done something the US government hasn’t done in more than two decades—run a budget surplus—seems like a newsworthy event. So why the silence?

#debt #free_press

debt free press

show all 4 comments

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 14:20:53 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I'm glad someone did.

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 04:35:13 -0500

Papa Dragon

thomas@caselibre.fr

Yes, it's good to remember that solving money problems can be as easy as that.

For example, at the moment we're a little short of cash at home, so I was thinking of doing things Milei's way by cutting out food and heating completely for the next three weeks. It might be a bit difficult for the kids, but the family's financial balance will be much better after that, won't it?

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 08:21:46 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Several years ago, I was told I'd be getting my pay cut by about 1/4. At the time, we were pretty much breaking even every month. They gave me one year's notice, so we had lots of time to figure out how to adjust. By the time that year passed, we had not only reduced our expenses (refinancing our mortgage was a big one), but had managed to save off enough to cover the last couple years of an expense which would go away after that and we've been running at a surplus every year since. Well, OK, I guess not the year we did major repairs to the house, but we were able to save up and do that w/o taking on debt.

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 13:47:45 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Good News For A Change, Part 1: Independent Media Is Replacing the MSM

What’s really happening is a textbook case of capitalist creative destruction. Good journalists — and their readers/viewers — are leaving platforms that have been captured by an aristocracy that profits from war, debt, and ill health. And they’re migrating to platforms like Substack and Rumble where real journalism is still happening.

A whole constellation of independent journalists/interviewers like Joe Rogan, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Russell Brand, Maichael Schellenberger, and Breaking Points’ Krystal and Saagar are thriving. A typical long-form Joe Rogan interview will attract ten times the audience of CNN’s prime-time lineup. And Matt Taibbi recently noted that his Substack newsletter earns multiples of his previous salary as Rolling Stone’s political bureau chief.

This is the profile of a growth industry, not a dying one. Today’s media ecosystem is selecting for talent and integrity while punishing arrogance and dishonesty. That’s a recipe for upward evolution.

#free_press #free_markets

free press free markets

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 14:11:56 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

He meant it as a good thing:
Creative destruction

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 14:45:57 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

To me, the "capitalist" adjective is a given as, in most, if not all, non-capitalist systems, any such change isn't caused by creative destruction, but by bureaucratic dictate.

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 15:18:45 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Yes, I think he is saying the system is working as it should.

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 18:59:08 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^EP71: You Can Shout Fire In A Theater - Gracearchy with Jim Babka

It's time to demolish the myth that you cannot shout fire in a theater.

It's not insightful. It's not graceful. It's not applicable. Instead, it's such a flawed concept that anyone who invokes it is worse than wrong.

This canard is rolled out every single time someone wants to suppress expression they dislike. You'll turn on your TV, and some interviewer will say, "But the First Amendment says they have a right to free speech," to which the Authoritarian of the Hour will respond, "Well, there are exceptions to the First Amendment, I mean we already know that...

"You cannot shout Fire! in a theater."

Except...

1. You absolutely CAN shout fire in a theater.
2. It might be morally wrong to do so, but your action will have nothing to do with the First Amendment activities.

#video #podcast #free_speech #free_press

video podcast free speech free press

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 08:01:35 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

#^EP68: Is Censorship Graceful? Ready to Rumble? - Gracearchy with Jim Babka

Because Gracearchy was recently censored, we're ready to Rumble.

YouTube removed one of our episodes. The good news is that we appealed and within four hours they restored it.

We're not leaving YouTube because it's the biggest platform. It's natively on everyone's phone and smart TV. The goal of any show, including ours, is to reach as many people as possible. This is an outreach, and we believe we must reach into the Matrix.

But Rumble doesn't censor the kind of content we produce, and they have very recently resisted doing so when the United Kingdom's government directly "urged" them to do so with Russell Brand. So, starting today, we will also put our podcast on another streaming service – Rumble.

We explain two recent events in this episode.

First, which episode did YouTube censor? Why did it happen?

Second, did YouTube "dial down" another one of our programs (a.k.a., suppress the algorithm)? If so, which one and why?

Other reasons to listen...

- Our handling of the dirty words you cannot say on YouTube is one of the funniest things we've done.
- We break down the result of Missouri v. Biden.
- We explain how censorship cancels epistemological journeys and crushes respectful dialogue.

#free_speech #free_press

free speech free press

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 14:17:34 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9nrlw5OLx4

Streamed live on Aug 17, 2023
Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1:30 p.m. Eastern for a live discussion of the Missouri v. Biden case with Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, and John Vecchione of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, an activist law firm that joined the suit on behalf of Bhattacharya and several other plaintiffs who allege the federal government illegally suppressed their speech throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 presidential election.

"The freedom of speech in the United States now faces one of its greatest assaults by federal government officials in the Nation's history," reads a line in the opening paragraph of the plaintiff's complaint in Missouri v. Biden, a lawsuit naming the president, the DOJ, the FBI, and nearly the entire federal public health apparatus as defendants.

Attorneys general for the states of Missouri and Louisiana brought the case against the federal government in May 2022 for what they describe as "open collusion with social media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content."

On July 4 of this year, U.S. District Court judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary injunction ordering the federal agencies to cease from meeting with social media companies for the purpose of "inducing in any manner the removal of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms." Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a challenge to that injunction.

They'll talk about the state of the lawsuit, what a victory or loss in court would mean for free speech online, the legal limits of government-social media "partnerships," and the ways in which the government blurred the line between private content moderation and outright censorship to suppress or mislabel factual information or opinion as "misinformation" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

#video #law #free_speech #free_press

video law free speech free press

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 16:24:26 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I feel conflicted about posting the youtube version of this, as youtube is part of the censorship industrial complex.
Censorship Industrial Complex: Bret Speaks with Michael Shellenberger on the Darkhorse Podcast
by Bret Weinstein on YouTube

Bret Speaks with Michael Shellenberger for the second time on the DarkHorse Podcast. They discuss censorship, the intelligence apparatus, and political disagreement with decency.

#free_speech #free_press

free speech free press

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 17:09:24 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Even ignoring the 1st Amendment implications, this is the way to madness. Who gets to decide what is true and what is false? Does it change depending on who wins an election? Does it change from one tech companies platform to another? If so, true and false are a meaningless concepts.

Most Americans favor restrictions on false information, violent content online

Most Americans say the U.S. government and technology companies should each take steps to restrict false information and extremely violent content online. However, there is more support for tech companies moderating these types of content than for the federal government doing so, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

#free_speech #free_press

free speech free press

show all 6 comments

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 19:07:06 -0400

Shimriez

shimriez@zotum.net

Oh dear, don't they see where they're heading?

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 19:18:13 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 19:20:32 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Based on the other survey I posted about recently, I wonder how many would support making it a crime to post "false" information online.

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 19:25:48 -0400

Shimriez

shimriez@zotum.net

Yeah, it's worrying.

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 19:28:39 -0400

Mike Macgirvin

mike@macgirvin.com

And who gets to determine what is false? The government? (Proven liars). The tech industry? (Proven exaggerators - and also liars).

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 20:00:15 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Who gets to decide? People who agree with whomever is answering the question, obviously! (excluding those of us who say "no one")

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:11:28 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai's Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom

THE HONG KONGER is a documentary by the Acton Institute. When Hong Kong’s basic freedoms come under attack, newspaper publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai finds himself in the crosshairs of the state and must choose between defending Hong Kong’s long-standing liberties, or his own freedom.

Jimmy’s story is one that cannot die in a prison cell—it is one that must reignite a persistent movement to defend the cause of freedom for Hong Kongers, for China as a whole, and humanity everywhere. You can make a difference. Learn about the three ways you can get involved with the film.

If you would like to watch the movie commercial-free and youtube-free, you can register for a free account at asg.stream and watch it there like I did.

#FreeJimmyLai #FreeHongKong #free_speech #free_press

free speech free press

Sun, 14 May 2023 13:05:42 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century: Thirteen ways of looking at disinformation

Something monstrous is taking shape in America. Formally, it exhibits the synergy of state and corporate power in service of a tribal zeal that is the hallmark of fascism. Yet anyone who spends time in America and is not a brainwashed zealot can tell that it is not a fascist country. What is coming into being is a new form of government and social organization that is as different from mid-twentieth century liberal democracy as the early American republic was from the British monarchism that it grew out of and eventually supplanted. A state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals, is being replaced by a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms. It resembles the Chinese system of social credit and one-party state control, and yet that, too, misses the distinctively American and providential character of the control system. In the time we lose trying to name it, the thing itself may disappear back into the bureaucratic shadows, covering up any trace of it with automated deletions from the top-secret data centers of Amazon Web Services, “the trusted cloud for government.”

In a technical or structural sense, the censorship regime’s aim is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule. That’s why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation. Not when they lied about Hunter Biden’s laptops, not when they claimed that the lab leak was a racist conspiracy, not when they said that vaccines stopped transmission of the novel coronavirus. Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is. That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.

If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind. What follows is an attempt to see how this philosophy has manifested in reality. It approaches the subject of disinformation from 13 angles—like the “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” Wallace Stevens’ 1917 poem—with the aim that the composite of these partial views will provide a useful impression of disinformation’s true shape and ultimate design.

#free_speech #free_press #Internet #politics #satesploitation #surveillance

free speech free press Internet politics statesploitation surveillance

Mon, 15 May 2023 18:53:07 -0400

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

In some ways, the Twitter Files disclosures are similar to the Snowden disclosures 10 years ago. So many things that had been dismissed as "conspiracy theories" turned out to actually be true.