Tag: oligarchy

Biden Warns of Tech Oligarchs’ Power in Farewell Speech, Ignoring His Own Role in Expanding Digital Censorship

Outgoing President Joe Biden concluded his presidency with a farewell address on Wednesday night, sharply criticizing what he termed the “tech-industrial complex” while urging tighter accountability for social media platforms. Ironically, Biden’s remarks highlighted the decline of free press and the dangers of “misinformation,” even as his administration has often been linked to censorship efforts and suppression of dissenting viewpoints.

During his speech, Biden drew parallels to President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous warning about the “military-industrial complex.” He stated, “Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.” His comments painted a picture of concentrated power in the hands of tech oligarchs, whom he accused of enabling an “avalanche of misinformation and disinformation” to flourish unchecked.

The president, leaving office with historically low approval ratings, accused social media platforms of abandoning fact-checking efforts and contributing to the erosion of public trust. “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking,” Biden said.

Biden’s condemnation of social media fact-checking policies appeared aimed directly at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose platform recently transitioned away from third-party fact-checking to a “community notes” model reminiscent of the system employed by Elon Musk’s X.

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While elections keep the population distracted, America is being bought by oligarchs

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear … They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else … It’s called the American Dream, cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”—George Carlin

Who owns America?

Is it the government? The politicians? The corporations? The foreign investors? The American people?

While the Deep State keeps the nation divided and distracted by a presidential election whose outcome is foregone (the police state’s stranglehold on power will ensure the continuation of endless wars and out-of-control spending, while disregarding the citizenry’s fundamental rights and the rule of law), America is literally being bought and sold right out from under us.

Consider the facts.

We’re losing more and more of our land every year to corporations and foreign interests. Foreign ownership of US agricultural land has increased by 66% since 2010. In 2021, it was reported that foreign investors owned approximately 40 million acres of US agricultural land, which is more than the entire state of Iowa. By 2022 that number had grown to 43.4 million acres. The rate at which US farmland is being bought up by foreign interests grew by 2.2 million acres per year from 2015 to 2021. The number of US farm acres owned by foreign entities grew more than 8% (3.4 million acres) in 2022.

We’re losing more and more of our businesses every year to foreign corporations and interests. Although China owns a small fraction of foreign-owned US land at 380,000 acres (less than the state of Rhode Island), Chinese companies and investors are also buying up major food companies, commercial and residential real estate, and other businesses. As RetailWire explains, “Currently, many brands started by early American pioneers now wave international flags. This revolution is a direct result of globalisation.” The growing list of once-notable American brands that have been sold to foreign corporations includes: US Steel (now Japanese-owned); General Electric (Chinese-owned); Budweiser (Belgium); Burger King (Canada); 7-Eleven (Japan); Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge (Netherlands); and IBM (China).

We’re digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt, both as a nation and as a populace. Basically, the US government is funding its existence with a credit card, spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford. The bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of Congress and two wars. The national debt (the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is more than $34 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. Foreign ownership makes up 29% of the US debt held by the public. Of that amount, reports the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “52 per cent was held by private foreign investors while foreign governments held the remaining 48 per cent.”

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Former Top Level Facebook Executive Claims “150 Men Rule The World” & Everyone Else is a ‘Puppet’

“Here’s the thing, there’s about 150 people that rule the world. Anyone that wants to go into politics they’re all f*cken puppets, okay? There are 150 — and they’re all men — that run the world. Period. Fullstop. They control most of the important assets — they control the money flows. And these are not the tech entrepreneurs. Now, they are going to get rolled over, over the next 5-10 years by the people that are really underneath pulling the strings.”

— Chamath Palihapitiya, Nov 10, 2017, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Some of you may remember Chamath Palihapitiya from his warning that social media was “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” which received generous attention in the media and went viral as a result. What most people completely missed, and what no single major media outlet reported — at least to the best of my knowledge — was when he explained that “150 men rule the world” and they are “going to roll over” the tech entrepreneurs in the coming years.

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