Today’s blacklisted American: You are supporting the blacklisting of someone, no matter what you do
Click for video.
Today’s column on blacklisting won’t point out any particular person or group being blacklisted. Instead, I want to make it clear to my readers how completely dominate the intolerant culture of blackballing and censorship has become in America.
This intolerance has been well documented for years in the political, academic, and artistic communities. If you dare to be an outspoken conservative or Republican you will quickly find yourself an outcast, your job threatened and your future squashed. I know. I have been both a filmmaker and a film teacher, and am now a journalist writing often about political matters, and have had to face blacklisting myself more than a few times.
It is only in the last year that it has become evident that the the business community wishes to join in.
To fight this, many open-minded and tolerant Americans try to avoid companies that oppress people for their political views or ethnicity, in the hope that the loss of income will force these companies to change their behavior. In fact, there is now even a webpage, Cancel This Company, that tries to provide a complete list of the worst and most oppressive companies, while also carefully documenting that bad behavior so you know your decision is based on fact.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well it ain’t that easy.
As my readers know, I do not use Twitter, Facebook, and Google expressly because I think they are corrupt and unethical companies who eagerly participate in the blacklisting of conservatives. I also make a dedicated effort to buy goods from decent businesses, avoiding companies whom have proven themselves bigoted.
Yet, in reviewing the list of businesses on CancelThisCompany, I discovered that there are vast areas of modern American business where it is almost impossible to avoid supporting such companies, especially in the computer and communications world. For example, to avoid Google I use DuckDuckGo. Yet, it appears that it is, like Google, a partisan search engine that has been shaping searches to shadow-ban conservative sites.
Similarly, I try to limit my use of Amazon but as a writer who wants to sell his books this is literally impossible.
Want to buy groceries from a company that treats everyone equally? Can’t do it where I live. All the nearby supermarkets are on the list. There are no options otherwise.
There are many other examples. Take a look for yourself.
Nonetheless, I encourage all my readers to use this website as a guide for taking your business to rational and fair-minded companies and away from businesses that have decided that oppression is their business.
But be warned. You are going to find it difficult to succeed. The modern American culture of oppression has become widespread, dominant, and enthusiastic. It has its tentacles in everything, and fighting it will take great courage and possibly a great deal of sacrifice.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Yes, it’s difficult to boycott everyone. But it’s been easy for me to stick to one boycott, or nearly so. I’ve greatly reduced my Amazon purchases ever since they censored “When Harry Became Sally”. I typically find other sources (like Newegg for computer parts, or Thriftbooks for books and DVDs).
Welcome to Obama’s America, land of the formerly free.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
obamas amerika
To be fair, this has been going on far longer than most think. Before the Obama Administration, we had academia and Hollywood blacklisting conservatives, and many corporations supported leftist causes. Khrushchev said: “We will bury you!” But rarely is anyone buried with the entire mound of dirt at once, but rather a little at a time, one shovelful after the next, until it’s too late. Many of us have been pointing this out for years, but we have been ignored as “crying wolf.” Now the wolf is in full view, and it’s almost too late to do anything about it.
If you really want to know how far back this goes read Dr Paul Kengor’s book Dupes
I’m surprised Amazon still lists it:
https://www.amazon.com/Dupes-Americas-Adversaries-Manipulated-Progressives/dp/1610171462
I tried to replace Amazon with Newegg. When my purchase arrived, the box said ‘Amazon’ as did the gift receipt. It was not a gift.
You guys may not like this-but this is why you have to have regulations. For too long, libertarian-conservatives have been shills for big business….and what did it get you. Time for reverse psychology…time for the better looking sister of Mich’ gov. -Jenner-to call for 50 bucks an hour wages of those most troublesome big box and shipping firms-but not mom and pops…unless the pogrom stops…and for every job lost to China…the CEO suffers an amputation.
How to Starve Big Tech
Jim Daws
Big Tech is wholly owned by the Left and they’re using that power — unprecedented in human history — to muzzle any effective opposition.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/how_to_starve_big_tech.html
Suggestions from this article:
• Use Linux instead of Windows and Mac operating systems (Robert has written several articles on reimaging a computer to Linux. Search this site for “Linux”)
• Use Brave browser instead of Google Chrome or Apple Safari
• Use DuckDuckGo instead of Google search
• Use ProtonMail (end-to-end encrypted email service) instead of Gmail
• Use Gab and Parler for social media
Here is an article Robert wrote with links to reimage a computer to Linux:
Google routinely hands your smart phone data to the police
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/google-routinely-hands-your-smart-phone-data-to-the-police/#comments
Jeff, libertarians and conservatives have been advocates for FREE businesses, to the great benefit of this nation and the world. All your approach does, IMO, is replace a tyrant (or incompetent busybody) with another potential tyrant (or incompetent busybody) to lord it over us … while eroding our justification to demand respect for our own rights.
The problem we have, is similar to the problem we have with China … we become complacent, put too many eggs in the baskets of too few suppliers, then a new leadership comes along that attempts to leverage our new-found dependence upon that relationship, to jam their morality and politics down our throats.
The core problem, though, is not “bigness” short of monopoly … it is a lack of respect for individual liberty, not only by those who currently have us dependent upon them to support our lifestyle, but our culture at large.
One side of the political debate, far more than the other, believes that they have a lock on truth and virtue, to the point that they see the world not as Left vs. Right, but Normal vs. Bad, and that Bad has no right to respect for their liberty and lives. They have become the very fundamentalists that they have decried for years …, even though all they have, is the fallacious confession of their blind faith … that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. … and the mere assumption that this belief leads to the Best of All Possible Worlds.
That self-righteous intolerance of these know-it-alls – some of it even with racial overtones – is what has to be dissuaded if we are going to still have a nation worth living in.
However, these new woke businesses only can, at most, collude with government to impose their will. They themselves can’t make us do business with them, especially now that they have shown their true colors. And fortunately (at least for now) we have several states who are not in thrall to the Church of Woke the way some of their peers, and DC, are.
These are the areas where, with great difficulty admittedly, we will have to take our nation back and restore its primary virtue: respect for those self-evident truths it was founded upon …
… and a resolve to not become so dependent on so few, so “we won’t get fooled again”. (insert Pete Townshend guitar lick here)
Jeff/Jester—
“The Progressive Era?”
(Lecture 9 of 13; The American Economy and the End of Laisse Faire 1870-WW-2
Murray N.
https://youtu.be/t-0X81v-NvI
1:27;51
“The progressive movement came in 1900 to eliminate political parties. Technocrats and bureaucrats take over political power. Rural versus urban. Eliminate mayors, eliminate voting altogether, have appointed bureaucrats only. Nationalize public school system so costs could be socialized, like getting the public schools to teach Spanish. Children can all be part of a collective, without parental influence. Control shifted from ethnic working class small communities to upper class WASPS. Only synthetic drugs remained legal in medicine. Rockefeller Institute backed it. Homeopathy was outlawed…….”
“Mengerville: Anarcho-Capitalist Town”
2018
https://youtu.be/swzMMCMlR0g
2:03
“Fabian Socialism”
https://www.conservapedia.com/Fabian_Socialism
“Fabians have as their coat of arms, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
–>
https://www.conservapedia.com/images/3/3c/Wolf_in_sheeps_clothing.jpg
At this late date, do any readers of Behind the Black still believe that that we are not in the midst of a cultural civil war for the future of this country?
Yes, a civil war, with all that this implies. We are not, in short, enjoying a nice academic argument about which ideology is “better,” but we are engaged in an all too real Kulturkampf — including the violence of the “peaceful demonstrators” and the government’s calculated attack on civil liberties — for our survival.
As Robert observes, “But be warned. You are going to find it difficult to succeed. The modern American culture of oppression has become widespread, dominant, and enthusiastic. It has its tentacles in everything, and fighting it will take great courage and possibly a great deal of sacrifice.”
The sad thing is that among many of the people that I know, courage and a willingness to sacrifice are in short supply, and a goodly number of the Republicans / conservatives that I am acquainted with still do not think that we are in any kind of crisis. They believe that “politics as usual” — and more lackluster, RINO-like elected officials who are too timid (and well paid) to even call out the evil that is engulfing us — will save us.
Paraphrasing Barry Goldwater, in the midst of a war, *moderation is not a virtue.* (Unless you don’t care who wins.)
#15: BIG TECH, SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR FREE SPEECH
”Twitter will now encourage you to pause and reconsider when you post something unkind in reply to someone else. The company has been testing a function that identifies potentially harmful, offensive and inconsiderate replies and then prompts users to potentially reconsider their Tweet before sending.”
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/twitter-mean-tweets-prompt
Helping and improving the situation? Or long term controlling what is allowed to be said? Should people be allowed to say what they please and suffer the consequences and there by actually learn how to better communicate? Or is it a good idea that a program algorithm clean up and restructure what you intended to say to make it more acceptable by their “Acceptable” standards?
Who is to say what is, “harmful, offensive and inconsiderate”?
There are programs like Grammarly that does similar, but I would never use it. And God knows it might well improve what I write. But then there is no honest feed back and there are no consequences for mistakes in thought and choices in communication made and in turn how would anyone learn how to communicate more better?
The concept about consequences for actions taken is very important, consequences give valuable feed back.
Free speech is primarily about political speech and what some might consider offensive speech. And people should be free to say what ever they please, but that does not mean that there will not be consequences. If and when private corporations who dominate the method by which the American people communicate and express their free speech and those corporations have a clear political agenda and pervert that method to favor their perspective, whether they be on the Left or the Right, that must be corrected by Congress.
The big tech media corporations have evolved into utilities and utilities are for all to have access to without qualification. Should Con Edison be able to turn your power on and off depending on what your politics are or what you may have written and posted on line? Of course not. And so big tech and Social Media must be seen in a similar light.
And if this condition is not remedied by Congress and that monopoly on the method of communication and free speech is purposefully allowed to favor one political philosophy over the other and it is allowed to persist then that is a direct threat to the country and the Constitution and your and everyone else’s freedoms and Rights.
Whether it favors the far Right or far Left. In this case today it is controlled by and favors the Left, the far Left.
The nature of power is that when it is acquired it will be abused, and when it is absolutely and exclusively acquired it will be exclusively and absolutely abused. And so it is. JGL 5/8/21
Take a lesson from South Africa where we all applauded the end of the Apartheid.
Reparations are indeed there as the government tries to take from the whites and give to the blacks. It is coming to North America, IMHO
https://news.sky.com/story/special-forces-teach-south-african-farmers-how-to-fight-off-violent-attacks-11392795
https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-ex-special-forces-trains-south-african-farmers-960376
https://www.rt.com/business/429362-south-africa-farmers-trained/
https://www.enca.com/news/ssa-probe-farmers-self-defence-camps
SA news24https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/free-state-farmer-charged-with-murder-after-shooting-dead-3-people-who-stabbed-him-20210212
Cotour..My hats off to you sir. As I have thought the same about regulating these entities.They are a day late and
a dollar short on this issue (congress).I`d like to think the market can decide this but that takes time and the left
aint gonna wait for that.All we have is the 2022 elections to steer us clear of a civil war…Cheers.!
Cotour-
ref– ‘grammarly,’—
IMHO– it’s spyware. And secondly, holy-cow, whatever happened to proofreading oneself? Measure twice and cut once, and all. Coherently writing stuff, requires practice.
[i had mistakenly assumed it was owned by Google, but it’s just the Ukrainian’s, so we’re safe.]
It’s this, ‘type it and press send instantly,’ thing’. (exactly like what I’m going to do right now….)
Randy: The market will NEVER and can never make the need adjustments, their business model will not allow it. Allan Greenspan thought the banks would self regulate also. That as we know never happened, the real world market took care of business in the end like it always does. The government caused the problem then, and its causing the problem now. Fix it.
Congress, both parties, must be dragged kicking and screaming to making the needed changes, what ever they are determined to be. End 230? Modify 230? End anonymity on the web? Modify the internet business model? Its a difficult problem, but it must be resolved.
Wayne: Yes, learn to communicate “More Better”.
And many people really should not be sharing with the instant touch of a key on a key board what is bouncing around between their ears with the rest of humanity.
It causes problems for them particularly.
The internet and Social media is not normal communication for the human animal. The algorithms are designed as amplifiers of the dark nature of humanity. Not normal.
“The market will NEVER and can never make the need adjustments, their business model will not allow it. ”
Should have read: The company’s will NEVER and can never make the need adjustments, their business model will not allow it.
Bob do you have any examples of or a place to find info about DuckDuckGo shadow banning? This is a big disappointment.
Why Coca-Cola Invented Fanta In Nazi Germany
2019
https://youtu.be/bc5QU-DCtUE
8:18
Given the plethora of sites to avoid, that list is of little value.
What is needed is a list of companies that should be supported.
I’m changing my name, since after sixty-two years I am also moving out of the intolerant state California. I won’t need to listen to people telling me how the police are murderers. I had to endure that one last Thursday. People here have their own reality.
Et Tu, DuckDuckGo?
Gary in Transit: If you, or anyone, can tell me of such a site, listing companies that do not support blacklisting or oppression, please let me know and I will gladly publicize it.
Bob:
I know of one site.
That comment really wasn’t meant as a criticism, nor as encouragement to action on your behalf. It was meant to further make your point as to how far we find ourselves under water. I think that our only hope of finding such businesses would be to find organizations under fire by the left. We would be looking at Hobby Lobby and the NRA. “Cancel This Company” started down this road with:
https://www.cancelthiscompany.com/Good-Companies.html
Gary in Transit: I wish I had noticed that CancelThisCompany.com also had this list of positive companies for this particular essay. I would have noted it.
No matter. I will make a point at some point of bringing it up, probably more than once.
“Gary in Transit: If you, or anyone, can tell me of such a site, listing companies that do not support blacklisting or oppression, please let me know and I will gladly publicize it”
Bob:
Just to be clear..When I replied, “I know one site”…The site was your site.. Between your essays and the subsequent comments, lots of positive suggestions have come my way. Conversations which began here prompted me to leave Firefox and move to Braven, use Silence for text and protonmail vs google. I’ve made some imperfect choices like replacing Amazon with Walmart and google search with DuckDuck, but at least I’m moving in the right direction. Yup, losing weight now that I’m dumping CocoCola products. Dumping California, years after California left me feels the best and is the most expensive of all changes. California, Oregon, Washington, New York and many states are beyond help and it is time to stop giving them your earnings and giving up your personal freedom. For me, this last point revolves around, but isn’t limited to 2A issues.
Robert and Gary in Transit,
The list already contains an alternate business for many of the listed bad companies.