In most of my posts, I indicate the sources of my information. Some sources have been more frequently referred to than others, for instance Glenn Greenwald, the courageous former lawyer who has devoted much of his career to defending free speech and freedom of information.

It was thanks to Glenn Greenwald that I learnt about the Uhuru Movement, which is led by the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). I smiled when he spoke of them. So they’re still around, I thought, sending a sympathetic thought to them. According to Greenwald, their leaders are now in their seventies and eighties. Back in their heyday, Malcolm X and his ilk were considered slightly ridiculous, but they undoubtedly contributed in a big way to black pride, and in its wake black self-assertion and demands for civil rights.

Now their leaders have just been tried and acquitted on charges of acting as agents of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda within the USA, because they are as opposed, still, to US militarism, as they were back in the days of the Vietnam war. However, they have been found guilty of conspiring to sow division in American politics. Glenn Greenwald retorts: “I had always thought the purpose of the free speech clause and free press was to create division by challenging things that the government was saying.”

Yes, Glenn Greenwald is undoubtedly an important figure in the US press landscape. Not only there! Europe is a greatly discredited appendage to the “Democratic” USA, and everything that goes in Uncle-Sam-land is copied over here. UK subservience, in particular, is striking. They have no “first amendment” in the UK, and dissident journalists have long been subjected to regular harassment. The recent arrest of Richard Medhurst under Section 12 of the draconian Terrorism Act, however, is not the culmination of UK suppression of a free press, but augurs what many independent reporters warn is incipient totalitarianism.

If soft power and gentle indoctrination fails, harsher methods must be employed, it seems, cf. “1984”.

The banning of Tiktok and of RT are, on the face of it, of a different nature. After all, there is no doubt that Tiktok has Chinese owners, and that RT is funded by the Russian government. I put to you though, regarding Tiktok:

  • The USA is not at war with China.
  • If all companies owned by US, EU or UK citizens were banned in, say, all BRICS countries, I don’t think the USA would be happy.
  • I understand that Tiktok’s software is open source. It can therefore easily be monitored. Tiktok has complied with all US demands, including the banning of all discussion regarding Bin Laden’s post-9/11 letter to the American People.

and regarding RT:

  • True, the USA is at war with Russia, but is that not all the more reason to understand the “enemy’s” rationale and position?
  • RT is not the wolf that ate little Red Riding-hood’s grandmother. It does not pretend to be anything other than an outlet funded and controlled by the Russian state. Anybody who reads RT is fully aware of what he or she is reading.
  • I find, as a rule, that if civil rights are curtailed, some people get very angry. If the powers that be tell me not to read RT news, because they fear that RT may cast aspersions on them, I might be tempted to do just that, i.e. read RT news. That is at least the case if I already suspect that self interest governs the actions of those same powers that be.

In fact, I have never been particularly impressed with RT and have only occasionally visited their site. They have been far too non-committal for my taste. I cannot remember having used them as a source, until now since the ban. In fact, I find them much improved. They are sharpening their claws.

So all in all, and to be quite clear: The problem with the USA is not the existence of the USA. It’s all US presidential administrations’ insistence on retaining total global supremacy at any cost (including to the climate and not least to the US population), their total disregard for international law, their total disrespect of “the other”, their total (psychopathic) indifference to the suffering in the wake of their decisions, and their mind-numbing hypocrisy.