Freedom Protests: The Neoliberal War On Dissent In The West

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Mon Feb 21 16:12:51 PST 2022


Greenwald: The Neoliberal War On Dissent In The West

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-neoliberal-war-on-dissent-in

When it comes to distant and adversarial countries, we are taught to
recognize tyranny through the use of telltale tactics of repression.
Dissent from orthodoxies is censored. Protests against the state are
outlawed. Dissenters are harshly punished with no due process. Long prison
terms are doled out for political transgressions rather than crimes of
violence. Journalists are treated as criminals and spies. Opposition to
the policies of political leaders are recast as crimes against the state.

[65][IMG][66]Police in Canada deployed to dislodge the final truckers and
protesters from downtown Ottawa, aimed at bringing an end to three weeks
of demonstrations over Covid-19 health rules. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
(Photo by DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

When a government that is adverse to the West engages in such conduct, it
is not just easy but obligatory to malign it as despotic. Thus can one
find, on a virtually daily basis, articles in the Western press citing the
government's use of those tactics in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and
whatever other countries the West has an interest in disparaging (articles
about identical tactics from regimes supported by the West — from Riyadh
to Cairo — are much rarer). That the use of these repressive tactics
render these countries and their populations subject to autocratic regimes
is considered undebatable.

But when these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise
opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer
obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western
adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom
of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded
from the temptations of genuine repression. Indeed, to suggest that a
Western democracy has descended to the same level of authoritarian
repression as the West's official enemies is to assert a proposition
deemed intrinsically absurd or even [67]vaguely treasonous.

The implicit guarantor of this comforting framework is democracy. Western
countries, according to this mythology, can never be as repressive as
their enemies because Western governments are at least elected
democratically. This assurance, superficially appealing though it may be,
completely collapses with the slightest critical scrutiny. The premise of
the U.S. Constitution and others like it is that majoritarian despotism is
dangerous in the extreme; the Bill of Rights consists of little more than
limitations imposed on the tyrannical measures majorities might seek to
democratically enact (the expression of ideas cannot be criminalized even
if majorities want them to be; religious freedom cannot be abolished even
if large majorities demand it; life and liberty cannot be deprived without
due process even if nine of out ten citizens favor doing so, etc.). More
inconveniently still, many of the foreign leaders we are instructed to
view as despots [68]are [69]popular or even every bit as
[70]democratically elected as our own beloved freedom-safeguarding
officials.

As potent as this mythological framework is, reinforced by large media
corporations over so many decades, it cannot withstand the increasingly
glaring use of precisely these despotic tactics in the West. Watching
Justin Trudeau — the sweet, well-mannered, well-raised good-boy prince
of one of the West's nicest countries featuring such a pretty visage (even
on the [71]numerous occasions when marred by blackface) — invoke and
then harshly impose [72]dubious emergency, civil-liberties-denying powers
is just the latest swing of the hammer causing this Western sculpture to
crumble. In sum, you are required by Western propaganda to treat the two
images below as fundamentally different; indeed, huge numbers of people in
the West vehemently denounce the one on the left while enthusiastically
applauding the one on the right. Such brittle mythology can be sustained
only for so long:

[73][IMG][74]Reuters, Aug. 8, 2019 (left); BBC, Feb. 15, 2022 (right)

The decade-long repression of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, standing
alone, demonstrates how grave neoliberal attacks on dissent have become.
Many are aware of key parts of this repression — particularly the
decade-long effective detention of Assange — but have forgotten or, due
to media malfeasance, never knew several of the most extreme aspects.

While the Obama DOJ under Attorney General Eric Holder [75]failed to find
evidence of criminality after convening a years-long Grand Jury
investigation, the then-Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security
Committee, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), [76]succeeded in pressuring
financial services companies such as MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Bank of
America to terminate WikiLeaks’ accounts and thus banish them from the
financial system, choking off their ability to receive funds from
supporters or pay their bills. Lieberman and his neocon allies also
[77]pressured Amazon to remove WikiLeaks from its hosting services,
causing the whistleblower group to be temporarily offline. All of that
succeeded in crippling WikiLeaks’ ability to operate despite being
charged with no crime: indeed, as the DOJ admitted, it could not prove
that the group committed any crimes, yet this extra-legal punishment was
nonetheless meted out.

Those tactics pioneered against WikiLeaks — excluding dissenters from
the financial system and coercing tech companies to deny them internet
access without a whiff of due process — have now become standard
weapons. Trudeau's government seizes and freezes bank accounts with no
judicial process. The "charity” fundraising site GoFundMe first
[78]blocked the millions of dollars raised for the truckers and announced
it would redirect those funds to other charities, then refunded the
donations when people pointed out, rightly, that their [79]original plan
amounted to a form of stealing. When an alternative fundraising site,
GiveSendGo, raised millions more for the truckers, Canadian courts
[80]blocked its distribution. And it was just over a year ago when
Democratic politicians such as Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
[81]successfully pressured tech monopolies Google and Apple to remove
Parler from its stores and then [82]pressured Amazon to remove the social
media site from its servers, at exactly the time the social media
alternative became the single most-downloaded app in America. (This
morning we [83]published a new video report on Rumble that traces the
emergence of this new anti-dissent tactic first pioneered on WikiLeaks and
now widely used against dissent generally: “Banishment from the
Financial System: the War on Dissent").

That the U.S. and UK Governments have kept Assange himself — one of the
most effective dissidents in the West in decades — in a cage for years
with no end in sight by itself highlights how repressive they are. But the
precipitating cause of Assange's apprehension from the Ecuadorian Embassy
has been forgotten by many and it, too, illustrates the same disturbing
trend.

In 2017, [84]mass protests erupted in Barcelona as part of a movement in
Catalonia for more autonomy from the Madrid-based Spanish government,
culminating in a referendum for autonomy on October 1. In 2019, even
[85]larger and more intense protests materialized. The methods used to
crush the protests shocked many, as such domestic aggression had been
rarely seen for years in western Europe. Spain treated the activists not
as domestic protesters exercising their civic rights but as terrorists,
seditionists and insurrectionists. Violence was used to sweep up Catalans
in mass arrests, and their leaders were charged with terrorism and
sedition and given lengthy prison sentences.

About the crackdown, a protest video [86]proclaimed that Spain had just
witnessed “a degree of force never seen before in a European member
state.” While a fact-check by the BBC [87]failed to affirm that
maximalist claim, it documented multiple grave attacks by the police on
protesters in Catalonia. Meanwhile, “Spanish police engaged in excessive
force when confronting demonstrators in Catalonia during a disputed
referendum, using batons to hit non-threatening protesters and causing
multiple injuries,” Human Rights Watched [88]concluded, adding that
though the protesters were "largely peaceful,” some “hundreds were
left injured, some seriously. [89]Catalonia’s Health Department
estimated on October 2 that 893 people had reported injuries to the
authorities.”

>From the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange, in both 2017 and then again in 2019,
used WikiLeaks’ platforms to vocally publicize and denounce the actions
of the Spanish government — not to express support for Catalonian
independence but to denounce the civil liberties assaults used to crush
the protest movement. Assange made multiple media appearances to object to
the use of violence by the state police, and WikiLeaks’ Twitter account,
virtually on a daily basis, was publicizing videos and other testimonial
evidence of the crackdown.

  Spain's National Police brutalize voters in Catalonia polling center (a
  school) today in an attempt to suppress [90]#CatalanReferendum vote.
  [91]pic.twitter.com/jh4xA8u8Bb

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) [92]October 1, 2017

It was Assange's reporting on and denouncing of violence by the Spanish
government against its own citizens that was the final cause of Ecuador's
decision to rescind its asylum. The Spanish government made clear to
Ecuador how indignant they were that Assange was publicizing their abuses.
It was just several months after the first protest movement that Ecuador
[93]announced it was cutting off Assange’s internet access, claiming the
WikiLeaks founder had been "interfer[ing] with other states” — meaning
speaking out on the civil liberties abuses by Madrid. And it was the
following year that Ecuador, pressured by the U.S., UK and Spain,
[94]withdrew its asylum protection and allowed the London police to
[95]enter its embassy, arrest Assange, and then put him in the
high-security Belmarsh prison where he has remained ever since despite
being convicted of no crime other than a misdemeanor count of
bail-jumping. All of this reflects, and stems from, a clear and growing
Western intolerance for dissent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This last decade of history is crucial to understand the
dissent-eliminating framework that has been constructed and implemented in
the West. This framework has culminated, thus far, with the stunning
multi-pronged attacks on Canadian truckers by the Trudeau government. But
it has been a long time in the making, and it is inevitable that it will
find still-more extreme expressions.

It is, after all, based in the central recognition that there is mass,
widespread anger and even hatred toward the neoliberal ruling class
throughout the West. Trump, Brexit and the rise of far-right parties in
places where their empowerment was previously unthinkable — including
[96]Germany and [97]France — is unmistakable proof of that. Rather than
sacrifice some of the benefits of inequality that have generated much of
that rage or placate or appease it with symbolic concessions, Western
neoliberal elites have instead opted for force, a system that crushes all
forms of dissent as soon as they emerge in anything resembling an
effective, meaningful or potent form.

So many of the controversies over the last decade, often analyzed in
isolation, have been devoted to this goal. The pervasive surveillance
systems constructed by the West — revealed during the Snowden reporting
but only partially reined in at best since then — are crucial tools, as
surveillance powers always are, for monitoring and thus stifling dissent.
We have now arrived at the point where the U.S. Government and its
security state is [98]officially and explicitly clear that it regards the
greatest national security threat not as a foreign power such as China or
Russia, and not as non-state actors such as Al Qaeda or ISIS, but rather
“domestic extremists.” For years, this has been the unyielding message
of the DHS, FBI, CIA, NSA and DOJ: our primary enemies are not foreign but
are [99]our fellow citizens who have embraced ideologies we regard as
extremist.

This new escalation of repression depends upon a narrative framework.
Those who harbor dissenting ideologies — and particularly those who do
not embrace that dissent passively but instead take action to advocate,
promote and spread it — are not merely dissenters. The term "dissent,”
in Western democracies, connotes legitimacy, so that label must be denied
them. They are instead domestic extremists, domestic terrorists,
seditionists, traitors, insurrections. Applying terms of criminality
renders justifiable any subsequent acts of repression: we are trained to
accept that core liberties are forfeited upon the commission of crimes.

What is most notable, though, is that this alleged criminality is not
adjudicated through judicial proceedings — with all the accompanying
protections of judges, juries, rules of evidence and requirements of due
process — but simply by decree. When financial services companies
[100]“choked” WikiLeaks back in 2010, they justified it by pointing to
the government's claim that the group was engaged in crimes and therefore
in violation of the rules of the platforms ("‘MasterCard rules prohibit
customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any
action that is illegal,’ spokesman Chris Monteiro [101]said" when
explaining its shutting of WikiLeaks’ account). The [102]same was done
to 1/6 protesters who have been punished in countless ways prior to
conviction. And now Canadian truckers have been magically transformed into
criminals [103]without the inconvenience of a trial; “‘we now have
evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration
has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other
unlawful activity,' GoFundMe said” when explaining why it shut down
fund-raising accounts.

Last June, PayPal [104]announced a new partnership with the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whereby the liberal activist group would
identify individuals and groups whose ideology is, in the eyes of the ADL,
“extremist.” This would enable not only PayPal but financial services
companies around the world to then terminate their accounts and exclude
them from the financial system. Clearly, once the ADL declares a person or
group to be “extremist” and PayPal banishes them, no other mainstream
corporation will want to be accused of hosting them. As PayPal's founding
Chief Operating Officer David Sacks [105]warned at the time the
partnership was announced, the purpose of this program is “shutting down
people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful, even
if they are unpopular in Silicon Valley.” Comparing this to the
[106]spate of unified Silicon Valley censorship that has erupted over the
last several years, Sacks explained why this power is so alarming:

  As for the notion of building your own PayPal or Facebook: because of
  their gigantic network effects and economies of scale, there is no
  viable alternative when the whole industry works together to deny you
  access.

  Kicking people off social media deprives them of the right to speak in
  our increasingly online world. Locking them out of the financial economy
  is worse: It deprives them of the right to make a living. We have seen
  how cancel culture can obliterate one’s ability to earn an income, but
  now the cancelled may find themselves without a way to pay for goods and
  services. Previously, cancelled employees who would never again have the
  opportunity to work for a Fortune 500 company at least had the option to
  go into business for themselves. But if they cannot purchase equipment,
  pay employees, or receive payment from clients and customers, that door
  closes on them, too.

This is why it is so imperative for the Democratic Party and their media
allies to describe the four-hour riot at the Capitol on January 6 as an
insurrection and attempted coup. If those are mere protesters or even just
rioters, then all the standard protections and legal safeguards apply to
them, as liberals demanded be applied to protect BLM and Antifa
protesters, even ones who used violence. If, however, they are part of a
broader insurrectionary movement — an ongoing attempt to overthrow the
U.S. Government — then they are elevated from ordinary political
adversaries into a faction of sustained criminality, and anything and
everything, from censorship and detention to extra-legal means of
banishment such as no-fly lists and exclusion from the financial system,
becomes justified, even necessary. (Note that such repressive tactics,
cheered by liberals and even many on the left, have often [107]swept up
anti-establishment voices on the left, such as when PayPal banned
Antifa-linked individuals along with Proud Boys members, and when
[108]animal rights activists are targeted for persecution by the FBI along
with Oath Keepers, but such is the inevitable outcome of censorship and
dissent-repressive schemes).

  67. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1495432214489796608
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  86. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41677911
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  89. https://twitter.com/salutcat/status/914778176781537280
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 101. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mastercard-pulls-plug-on-wikileaks-payments/
 102. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congresss-16-committee-claims-absolute
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 105. https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/get-ready-for-the-no-buy-list
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 108. https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/the-targets-of-bidens-war-on-domestic


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