JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR WRITES ON THE UNHOLY MARRIAGE OF FACEBOOK AND THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL - FREE SPEECH UNDER ATTACK AS WASHINGTON'S NEW AGGRESSION FOR EMPIRE IS PROTECTED - ROLE OF THINK TANKS - EXPLOITING MARKET-DOMINATING OUTFITS LIKE FACEBOOK WHICH SHOULD IN FACT FACE ANTI-TRUST ACTION

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN RUSSIA INSIDER



“Facebook Identifies Former British Ambassador as Russian Troll, Deletes His Post History

Beware, the Atlantic Council is now in charge of curating your social media content”

 “Craig Murray is a former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan”



https://russia-insider.com/en/incompetent-facebook-identifies-former-british-ambassador-russian-troll-deletes-his-post-history



Good piece.

And this is scary stuff.

You just can't help wondering where all this American government-inspired activity is headed.

And, remember, it comes on top of all the vast intrusions into the public’s privacy by the NSA, CIA, and FBI. On top of outfits like Facebook and Amazon already often assisting the work of secret state security.

Of course, outfits like Facebook should long ago been subjected to anti-trust legal action, and just on grounds having nothing to do with political activity but on the traditional basis of their inordinate size and market dominance, just as once the massively powerful Standard Oil Company and Trust was legally broken-up.

But that is not likely to happen so long as they can serve the needs of the political establishment, and serve they will. Which is exactly what they are doing here.

It is interesting to note in these activities that the traditional political identities, “Left” versus “Right,” do not apply. Just as the divisions “public” versus “private” and “government” versus “civilian” no longer apply.

The Atlantic Council would undoubtedly be understood as being on the traditional Right, a height-of-the-Cold-War, drum-beating outfit, one given a make-over to look more stylishly contemporary.

But it is “the same old, same old.” Cold War warrior-type stuff. Military-spending promotion and fear-mongering under a guise of impartial expertise.

Indeed, that is the traditional situation with virtually the entire fleet of American “think tanks,” some just having focuses other than NATO and the Pentagon.

They are advocacy groups, generally privately-endowed and churning out slick propaganda, all while assuming the pose of almost academic, truth-seeking research institutions, effectively claiming impartiality and truth for biased information and propaganda. This is the case for a huge range of these outfits from the Heritage Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute. The Atlantic Council is different only in that it gets a flow of resources from government through NATO.

Facebook is often accused of being Left, on the basis of its working actively against Trump's interests as well as the sort of precious, whole-earth “guru in grey T-shirts” image of its boss.

But what we really have here is two large and extremely well-financed outfits working together concerning nothing about Left or Right but about promoting and protecting the position of imperial America in the world, especially now that it is on such a vast tear to expand and intensify its global dominance.

And doing so by effectively suppressing free speech and the principles of a free society.

Just as neither American political party, Democrats or Republicans, represents anything but a continuation of America’s imperial position.

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Response to a comment, “I think this Bot-babbling is just an expression of the uneasiness the western establishment is starting to feel about being despised by their subjects”:

Yes, and it is just a stylish new form of name-calling.

Calling someone "commie," as they did in the 1950s, sounds primitive today.

Calling someone a "bot" seems less encumbered with old ideology.

Of course, it also picks-up on a term that is stylish with young and technically-oriented people.