We Are On the Precipice — Here’s What We Need to Do, and Can’t
A legal, practical set of impossible steps the Biden Administration can take to save the country
Divided, Being Conquered
There has been no time since the 1850s that our country has been so “divided.” The red lights are long past flashing — strobing is more like it.
The reaction to the second attempted assassination of the Speaker of the House in the last two years laid bare how bad this really is. A smattering of “oh what a shames” from the Republicans and a veritable ocean of normalization and outright celebrations from the rest.
Normalization of political violence is a late stage symptom of a failing nation-state.
Moreover, as a sociopolitical problem, our situation is much more complex than the 1850s, when the divisions could be described both geographically and ideologically. Now the division is based on individual “identity” — much of which has been manufactured through propaganda and psychological operations which are primarily conducted online — in virtual space.
In a new civil war, you and your next door neighbor end up as enemies.
And you are both armed to the teeth.
“Social Media”
Of course, the biggest difference between then and now, and arguably the most destructive factor in all of this is “social media” — a phrase which will be seen in the future as a historic misnomer. In reality, it was never designed to be social, it was always meant to end up as a radicalization engine.
In the 1850s, high-speed internet was the Pony Express. Now, there is effectively real time connectivity with nearly half of humanity through a mechanism controlled by a small set of extremely problematic technology billionaires who have decided that they should control the minds of American citizens for power and profits.
The “algorithm”
Remember, as we learned from Facebook, “the algorithm” is simple:
Advertising = Money
Traffic = Advertising
Engagement = Traffic
Anger = Engagement
This simplifies to: Anger = Money
This means there is a financial incentive for social media companies to make people angry. And our arcane capitalist system actually legally requires public companies to make as much money as possible, as fiduciaries.
So, we have created a self-reenforcing, multi-headed hate monster that is about to eat us alive — and a small set of psychopaths are intent on riding it all the way into the apocalypse. They think they will profit from the end of liberal democracy, escape responsibility for their crimes, and pick up the pieces of civilization in the aftermath in order to recreate society in their own image.
To be fair, their plan is working.
Who owns “social media”?
Twitter — Psychopathic, pro-Putin anarchist Elon Musk
Facebook — Sociopathic Thiel acolyte Mark Zuckerberg, originally funded by Peter Thiel and Russian investors
TruthSocial — Sociopathic Putin puppet Donald Trump and Kremlin assets Devin Nunes and Kash Patel
Rumble — Psychopathic pro-Putin anarchist Peter Thiel
Telegram — Pavel Durov, Russian national living in UAE
Gab — Pro-Putin, neo-Nazi Andrew Torba
Parler — Antisemitic, Elon-loving, self-immolating rapper Ye
These large networks are buttressed by a complex, interconnected set of smaller propaganda networks that both feed the bigger ones with content and feed from them for traffic. Many of these smaller networks are highly radicalized environments and provide a hothouse for criminal activity and brainwashing. For example, “Natural News.”
Russia
It cannot go unnoticed that most of “social media” is controlled by people who are at best influenced by Putin, if not fully dedicated to delivering his propaganda. Putin has been working on subverting the United States for decades but has struck gold with a completely unregulated social media industry and Americans willing to weaponize it for him.
So What Do We Do?
In principle, there is a simple set of steps to slowing the psyops, propaganda and radicalization to a tolerable level so we can short circuit the current spiral into mass violence:
Stop people committing crimes
Stop Russian influence motivating the current insurgency
Regulate “social media” like a utility instead of a private software product
These are all well within the power and mandate of the US Government, and a motivated Executive Branch should be able to accomplish them, especially in a near-wartime environment with the country blatantly teetering on the edge of mass violence.
In my view, someone is not advising POTUS correctly or there is a choke point somewhere else in the intelligence stream. We are not reacting to this threat in any perceivable manner remotely commensurate with the danger it represents.
1. Arrest Criminals
There are a number of people who are in the process of conspiring to commit sedition, in public. They have been allowed to burrow in and somehow escape any accountability.
These criminals need to be stopped by our law enforcement and intelligence communities whose job is to protect the American public and investigate crimes.
#ArrestMikeFlynn and Co-conspirators
The fact that the military has allowed Mike Flynn (and his brother Charles) to continue to operate freely in pursuit of ending American democracy, that the intelligence community has done nothing to expose his loyalty to our enemies, and that law enforcement will not even investigate him for his ongoing crimes is not only wrong, it is suicidal.
The Secretary of Defense is either ignorant of what Flynn is doing or is intentionally allowing it to continue to avoid embarrassment. Neither is any excuse. There are three public documentaries and more coming about the danger Mike Flynn poses. He is the worst traitor in American history using military PSYOP on American citizens — in the open.
Mike Flynn is Putin’s General in America — the head of the snake. We need to cut it off and then do the same to Bannon, Stone, Prince and Trump.
The crimes these men are committing are public. If our justice system cannot prevent the imminent overthrow of the government by arresting the criminals executing it, our justice system is worthless.
2. Stop Russian Influence
Our intelligence agencies have failed to identify and prevent Russian interference in our elections — and failed to stop Putin from running a proxy war through American traitors.
We must investigate Elon Musk’s businesses and find out about his phone calls with Putin. Warn him directly that he is blatantly interfering in US geopolitical affairs and creating more problems in Ukraine that he is solving. Reevaluate the laws pushed by Putin Congressman Dana Rohrabacher that enabled SpaceX in the first place.
Identify the sources of Russian propaganda and force them off of American networks. This should start with Rumble, Truth Social and Telegram, which are nearly 100% anti-American Kremlin propaganda.
Investigate Fox News and Rupert Murdoch for foreign interference.
Investigate Peter Thiel’s connections to Mercer and Putin and reevaluate his companies’ contracts with the government that he is in the process of overthrowing. Remove all Palantir products and cut off its access to government data.
3. Regulate “Social Media” Like a Public Utility
Any industry that can affect the hearts and minds of billions of people, including nearly every American citizen, should be regulated by the government the American people hired to protect themselves.
It should not have been legal for Elon Musk to buy what amounts to a public utility in Twitter, take it private, do whatever he wants with people’s data and intentionally use it for anti-American radicalization. This is especially true after Musk proved that he is more loyal to Putin than he is to the United States.
“Social media” companies should be regulated like a utility. For example, think about the ability to communicate with fellow humans like water.
Everyone needs water and it should always be available and healthy to consume.
But right now the social media landscape is like the water in Flint, Michigan — slowly poisoning American minds and damaging them forever.
Practical, Legal and Impossible
Our governmental and societal processes have been systematically and intentionally weakened by our adversaries to the point that we can’t do basic things like protect our own citizens from being attacked by foreign governments and domestic traitors through digital, psychological warfare.
The CIA, DIA, FBI, DOD and DOJ are either complicit at the top or so compromised that they have been rendered blind to massive infiltration by the Russians into centers of American power. In short, the intelligence community is not doing its job.
When Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland announced a press conference about a major foreign influence campaign two weeks before the midterms, they raised hopes, and then dashed them — by pointing the finger at China.
To be clear, China may ultimately be the biggest geopolitical threat to America, but unless we defeat the fascist in Russia on the verge of destroying us right now, Chinese interference is moot.
The January 6th Committee did not say the word “Russia” once.
Twitter is now owned by a man who openly sides with Putin.
The GOP is a fascist, pro-Putin cult.
Real Talk: Joe Biden Needs to Lead Or America Will Fall
The only chance we have is the only remaining branch of the government not completely disabled by our enemies, the Executive, which is led by a near-octogenarian who does not seem to be getting the information he needs to make the hard decisions that will save us.
I believe Joe Biden is a good man, who could be a great one. He is trying to lead us through the most dangerous period since the end of the 1850s. The question is: Will Biden be our next Abraham Lincoln by recognizing the existential threat for what it is, confronting it directly and doing whatever it takes to keep our nation on the right side of history?
Or, will he allow the greatest geopolitical threat since the Nazis continue to infiltrate and poison the body politic until we are too paralyzed to realize we are being smothered to death?
It’s this simple:
Stop people committing crimes
Stop Russian influence motivating the current insurgency
Regulate “social media” like a utility instead of a private software product
Apparently this is impossible. I hope for all of our sakes that I am wrong.
#ArrestMikeFlynn
This is a heavily informative article. It lays out the starting points of what we need to do as a Society in order to manage the multitude of real life harms and abuses that begin, and are generated, via unregulated and un-prosecutable social media platforms. The architects of these platforms are identified as well. Listening to this one again.
Excellent, Jim.