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I'd love to understand who is the genius over at @UCalgary who included me in a list of "Top Russian Influenced Accounts" together with such notorious Kremlin agents @TulsiGabbard, @ggreenwald or @johnpilger ๐คฆ
A small ๐งต on why lists like this lead to totalitarianism.
A small ๐งต on why lists like this lead to totalitarianism.
First of all anyone with a modicum of intellectual honesty who follows me knows the sheer idiocy of my presence on this list (and frankly, same for most if not all other people on there).
Russia just isn't my subject, I have 0 link to the country and have never even been there!
Russia just isn't my subject, I have 0 link to the country and have never even been there!
So what lands someone on this list? Apparently, being an account with many followers and propagating one of "the five main narratives" described below ๐ฝ
1) Fascism in Ukraine
2) Mistrust in institutions & elites
3) Mistrust in liberals
4) NATO as aggressor
5) NATO expansion
1) Fascism in Ukraine
2) Mistrust in institutions & elites
3) Mistrust in liberals
4) NATO as aggressor
5) NATO expansion
This provides a big clue for why I am on this list.
When the war started I made a thread that went viral, compiling the dozens of famous figures - from Kissinger to Chomsky - who warned over the years that NATO expansion would eventually lead to war ๐ฝ
When the war started I made a thread that went viral, compiling the dozens of famous figures - from Kissinger to Chomsky - who warned over the years that NATO expansion would eventually lead to war ๐ฝ
I also have a very healthy amount of mistrust towards institutions and elites as well as liberals. Guilty as charged.
But, breaking news, that makes me a normal human being, not a "Kremlin agent". Pretty much nobody in the West trusts elites anymore ๐ฝ
But, breaking news, that makes me a normal human being, not a "Kremlin agent". Pretty much nobody in the West trusts elites anymore ๐ฝ
The danger therefore doesn't come from me or the other people on this list but very much from those making lists like this, framing as "disinformation" narratives which are extraordinarily legitimate beliefs!
Let's push this list to its conclusion.
That it is being a victim of "Russian propaganda" to mistrust institutions/elites/liberals or to believe expanding a military alliance carries the risk of triggering a war.
And those people therefore should be silenced and intimidated.
That it is being a victim of "Russian propaganda" to mistrust institutions/elites/liberals or to believe expanding a military alliance carries the risk of triggering a war.
And those people therefore should be silenced and intimidated.
With this conclusion you have a textbook example of totalitarianism: trust the state, its elites, its institutions, its ideology or be branded, quite literally, an enemy combattant.
This list might seem innocent enough but it doesn't come in a vacuum, it's symptomatic of an extraordinary dangerous drift our society is taking.
This scares me to no end, not so much because I am myself on it, but because of the totalitarian direction it implies for all of us.
This scares me to no end, not so much because I am myself on it, but because of the totalitarian direction it implies for all of us.
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