#psy-ops

Confirming what was already pretty obvious, particularly in Tucker's case, but it is striking to see the head of government of arguably America's closest ally say under oath that both a major Canadian author and a major American broadcaster are paid agents of the Russian government.

Also, we see again that the Canadian Right is no different from the American one- treasonous scum employed by Russia to use "culture wars" to destabilize the country leading to a fascist state.

You all could have stopped a fascist from taking over the US and helped expand access to health care a month ago, but instead you chose to sit it out or actively help the fascist win because "Both Sides" or "Democrats are the real fascists" or you thought if you made things worse, hurt as many people as possible then The Revolution would happen, or you couldn't stomach voting for a woman of colour, or you thought prices were too high and somehow thought Republicans would help with that, or maybe you just couldn't be arsed to get your ass off your couch on election day.

You all could call a general strike now and shut the US economy down without firing a shot, and that would give you FAR more leverage for whatever you wanted than shooting the odd CEO. But you won't do that either because it would require boring organizing and inconvenience you, and it doesn't offer you that cathartic thrill of terrorism and murder.

Instead, you spam social media circle-jerking about how much you love a rich privileged white male Alt. Reich neppo-baby shooter, because it gives you the thrill of vicarious violence or it makes you feel like a Real Revolutionary without ever actually having to do any work or run any risks.

(Not sure of the original source for this post, but its similar to some other stuff I've seen, and I want to break it down).

Now, this is some bullshit.

It's also a good illustration of how propaganda takes factual details, extrapolates from and embellishes them, and builds a much more elaborate fantasy on top of them which may feel credible because it has elements of truth built in to it.

As the saying goes, the best lies are built on truth.

I posted a little while back about Amber Heard reportedly being in the Epstein Files. Its in the context of her and Depp being friends with Lawrence Krauss (who was a friend of Epstein's, but also at one time a highly-respected scientist), and her denying allegations that he had behave inappropriately toward her when he was under investigation for sexual misconduct. It reflects badly on her insofar as she was friendly toward a man accused of abuse, and volunteered information that would help in his defence, in seeming contradiction to her public advocacy. But it contained not a whiff of evidence that Amber Heard committed any crime, or ever even met Epstein himself.

I am also aware, as I've discussed before, about allegations that Heard was involved in abusive sex parties while she was with Musk. That's incredibly likely to be true of Musk, for a variety of reasons, but I questioned the claims about Heard's involvement because they were being pushed by obvious biased pro-Depp circles, because they tried to play up Heard as the mastermind behind it all despite Musk having far more power and a long history of abuse, and because Musks' own daughter (who is not a supporter of his and has spoken about his abusive behaviour) publicly refuted the claims, saying she had no knowledge of such a thing ever happening.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever claimed that Heard videoed sex parties to compile blackmail material of powerful people to make them support her.

And, five seconds' thought should show that that's ridiculous. Because Amber Heard doesn't have legions of powerful supporters. All indications are that she is still effectively blacklisted from Hollywood. The prominent celebrities who have spoken strongly in support of her are dwarfed by the number who either went "both sides," stayed silent, or outright supported Team Johnny. She was being painted as a liar and gold-digger by prominent people from the moment she spoke up about Depp.

But in the Deppie narrative, which is to say the MRA/incel/fascist narrative, Depp was the Scrappy Underdog against a vast, all-powerful Feminist conspiracy to frame him, who fooled the whole world (despite Heard being, in their narrative, a terrible actor who only had a career because she was sleeping with Depp). Until of course the Virginia trial miraculously exposed the deception. Its absurd.

And now apparently the Global Feminist Conspiracy is also the Global Rich Men Sex Trafficking Conspiracy*. Because once again, these motherfuckers want to have their cake and eat it too.

This is why you have to take any claims about high-profile controversial women, and especially about Heard, with a lot of skepticism. Because these people won't be satisfied with beating he in court or even proving her a villain, they will insist on claiming that she is every single bad thing in the world. Whatever the Threat of the Day is, it's her. Like, fuck, they even tried to claim she was involved in January 6th... somehow. I saw an actual article in a "news" outlet once claim that she delayed the development of the electric car by keeping Musk up late at night (as if Musk was ever essential to, as opposed to an increasing liability to, the development of electric vehicles).

It says a lot about their psychology, and the underlying tropes/mythology they're drawing on. Heard in this narrative is basically Eve: She is All Women, collectively guilty of the origin of Sin and the Fall of Man.

Like, they can genuinely damage her with her ties to Krauss** and Musk, and indirectly through them, to Epstein. They wouldn't even have to lie. Those are not good things. But these motherfuckers just can't help but overplay their hand, and end up looking ridiculous to anyone who isn't deep down the rabbit hole yet. Just like they couldn't just take their win with the VA trial, so a bunch of his fans crowdfunded to have the sealed court documents made public assuming it would be full of dirt on Heard, and instead it mostly just made Depp and the court look terrible.

(This is actually part of why I believe the Heard emails in the Epstein Files are genuine, despite the lack of a link to source- if they were a Deppie hoax, they'd NEVER have been that restrained or subtle in what they depicted.)

It reminds me of one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Empty House." In that story (spoiler warning because it's a great twist), the villain fakes his death in order to frame a young man for murdering him, as revenge against the guy's mother for rejecting his advances. He does a really good job of it, so much so that even Holmes can't prove the deception. But he can't leave well enough alone, and decides to fake EVEN MORE evidence- which is what tips Holmes off as to how he's still alive. Leading to one of my favourite lines and a devastating burn by Holmes:

"But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop."

*Its a very MAGA view of the world. Everything is a conspiracy against them, the oppressed underdogs (which they think they are even when they've successfully hijacked the US government). Even if those claims are in seeming opposition to each other. Everything is just a label to slap on any people they don't like to label them Bad People Who Shouldn't Have Rights.

I've seen this done to other posts for no apparent reason, but it's the first time its happened to one of mine.

I can think of three explanations:

One or more persons and/or bots are maliciously false-reporting pro-Heard posts.

Tumblr is relying on a shitty AI for moderation that repeatedly mislabeled pro-Heard content, perhaps because it was trained on the vast glut of material online both relating to her sexual abuse, and objectifying her and furthering said abuse (for example her illegally leaked nude photos).

Tumblr staff are abusing their position to suppress pro-Heard content.

My timeline is just wall-to-wall posts glorifying the UHC shooter. and I frankly find that I can no longer stand it.

It's not just that these posts are glorifying an act of terrorism and vigilante murder. It's certainly not out of any particular sympathy I have for the victim- though I do take the unpopular position that even bad people, even those who violated the rights of others, should still have rights. And if one of those isn't the right not to be murdered, all the other rights are a moot point.

Partly it's because of what it reveals about where we're heading, or maybe where we're already at: a society where terrorism is normalized, and indeed enthusiastically embraced, across the political spectrum. Where murder is not seen as wrong, or even a necessary evil, but something cool and sexy. A fandom to stan. And it reminds me of all the other principles that the Left has (largely) thrown under the bus in recent years, and all the other people and groups I've had to cut ties with as a result:

-Opposition to Misogyny/Patriarch- 2022, Depp v Heard (we could also talk about Democrats who keep trying to rehabilitate Al Franken, when it comes to hypocrisy no the subject of MeToo).

-Support for science and the public good- 2022, the bipartisan embrace of COVID denial.

-Opposition to war crimes, genocidal antisemitism, and Nazis- 2023, Hamas fans.

-False flag and rigged election conspiracy theorism- 2024, US election.

-Opposition to gun violence and extrajudicial murder, 2024, UHC shooting.

And, my hands aren't clean here. In particular, I've been far to cavalier about violence in the past, especially in other context and countries where it does not affect the status quo of my country or put me at risk directly. But this is (another) wake up call.

The problem is, I don't know what to do about it.

In the past, I would have just reported and blocked these fuckwits. I've done some of that. But I'm finding that I can't keep doing it, for a couple of reasons.

First, because far too many of these people are people I liked and respected. I am once again seeing that no matter how carefully I curated my circle to keep out the extremists, the tankies, the antisemites, the transphobes, the Putin-lovers, the Depp trolls, and every other variety of faux-progressive hypocrite, something else comes along and once again I find the people I thought were ethical and reasonable... aren't. That they'll jump on the latest hypocritical glorification of authoritarian violence as long as THIS one appeals to their personal sensibilities. It seems like I'd have to block half my followers to be rid of it.

And second, because I honestly can't justify reporting accounts for political speech, even violent political speech, when I know that the regime coming in in the US (and already in place in many other countries) is one that might throw someone into a cell to be tortured for an offensive joke. Nobody deserves that, not even terrorists.

But at the same time, if I have people supporting terrorism on my page, and I don't report and block, I feel complicit.

And, frankly, I can't stand to see it any more.