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A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

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Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#22

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That's my main argument when people say: "What they are doing is exactly the same what we did in Iraq/Afghanistan" etc.

Yes, it might be true. The big difference: In the West you can actually go out on the street and protest against the acts of your government.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#23

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Julian Assange is thrilled we live in such a free and open society where revealing the wrongdoings of government is protected.

Snowden would be a better example I think, as Assange just published everything classified he could get his hands on.

So there were also bits of wrongdoings here and there, but they seemed more random and the "collateral murder" as the shining example way overblown and missrepresented (as unprovoked murder of journalists, when they were in fact covering insurgents, who were engaged in combat in that area)

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#24

I've been thinking a lot about these kind of scenarios lately: Autocratic regime holds power over a territory with a long history of violent instability. The regime is guilty of corruption, nepotism, human rights violations, suppressing dissidents, etc. This is I think a requirement for it to hold power given the conditions. If the regime collapses even greater violence and general horrible stuff happens. There are p…

> If the regime collapses even greater violence and general horrible stuff happens.

There might be violence, but in general you can't know this. And in the end you end up arguing against democracy itself; the opposition cannot be allowed to win, even if they have the votes, because of the risk of rioting by pro-regime supporters. And in order to suppress them winning, you have to commit more crimes.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#25

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Julian Assange is thrilled we live in such a free and open society where revealing the wrongdoings of government is protected.

A much darker problem is that people disagree to extraordinary extents as to what counts as "wrongdoing".

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#26

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This is propaganda and you don't even know it... People get silenced in the US every day because they have a different opinions on current events, for example the US proxy war with Russia.

I always noticed when certain amount of decades pass it's okay to say certain things, like "Allende was assassinated by the CIA", but back then you'd get persecuted to even mention that.

Yes, when it doesn't matter you can say whatever you want, god bless the USA... Because of opinions like yours is that America is the empire who gets the "Okay" to be the police of the world, and it's terrible at that.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#27
post #22

[flagged]

That's my main argument when people say: "What they are doing is exactly the same what we did in Iraq/Afghanistan" etc. Yes, it might be true. The big difference: In the West you can actually go out on the street and protest against the acts of your government.

Unless you're in florida and you get run over by a car: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/ron-desantis-anti-ri...

There are protest everywhere, west or east, don't be ignorant.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#28
post #22

[flagged]

That's my main argument when people say: "What they are doing is exactly the same what we did in Iraq/Afghanistan" etc. Yes, it might be true. The big difference: In the West you can actually go out on the street and protest against the acts of your government.

There's a lot of differences. For example, NATO doesn't force countries to join, and doesn't invade countries if they want to leave or join another alliance. See France.

In fact - previous instance of russian CIS - Warsaw Pact - was unique among military alliances in the fact that it only invaded its members (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan). It was a prison not a military alliance.

And in current CIS Russia sent army to Belarus to pacify million-strong protests against faked elections in 2020. And recently did the same in Kazakhstan.

The west isn't innocent. But it is infinitely better than the authoritarian alternative China, Russia, Iran and North Korea offer.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#29

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Yes, if it's regarding some unimportant foreign entity or just general inconsequential political banter.

Find a controversial topic (covid, January 6th protest, anything non-mainstream lgbt, ukraine, etc.), you get "censored" (in one way or another) in most social networks.

Actually have some real info? You get Epsteined. Or well, the Assange treatment just for reporting it.

But yeah, you can scream "Fuck " at the wall, all you like, that's true.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#30

[flagged]

This is propaganda and you don't even know it... People get silenced in the US every day because they have a different opinions on current events, for example the US proxy war with Russia. I always noticed when certain amount of decades pass it's okay to say certain things, like "Allende was assassinated by the CIA", but back then you'd get persecuted to even mention that. Yes, when it doesn't matter you can say what…

> People get silenced in the US every day because they have a different opinions on current events, for example the US proxy war with Russia.

Uh, sorry what? It was Russia that decided to invade a sovereign country for annexation. Not the other way around.

And of course everyone is free to disagree with your take. You are not being "silenced" or "canceled", you are being told your opinion is completely contrary to facts.

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