We Are All Rebels Now: The Global Attack on Memory and Truth and What We Can Do About It
Many Western so-called "democracies" are turning to China and Soviet-style censorship, manipulation of "facts," and punishment of unauthorized thought. Why is this, and what can we do about it?
Will democracy world-wide fall without a shot, fading into a cloud of amnesia, as corporations censor sane, factual thought and replace it with delusional, self-serving propaganda? How did we get here, and what is going to be required of us going forward? We are being called to link arms, to defend “the lands of the free and the homes of the brave,” and to band together across ideological and cultural lines to address the most colossal threat to collective sanity and well-being in modern history.
I am a lifelong rebel of sorts. From an early age, I developed critical thinking and “alternative” (health, political, economic, spiritual, etc.) consciousness due to my family’s involvement in grass-roots organizing, food co-ops, consumer protection, and the defense of real science. My dad, John Yiamouyiannis, was a scientist with brains and integrity and later a health rights activist. He paid the price early on (and so did our family) for his truth-telling.
As a Ph.D. biochemist, my dad was fired from Chemical Abstracts for conducting lab studies and later epidemiological studies that established a link between fluoride and cancer. For a time, mom and dad and we six kids lived off food stamps and selling firewood. He later joined with a non-profit called the National Health Federation, where he took on the pharmaceutical industry and their stable of hired pseudo-scientific quacks over the fight against swine flu propaganda and the drug companies’/FDA’s attempts to classify Vitamin C as a drug (yes, that did happen, and it was a serious push).
Here is a particularly apt quote from him:
Ignorance, apathy, greed, and fear provide a well-balanced diet for tyranny. The thalidomide tragedy, the swine flu hoax, and the fluoridation fiasco represent only the tip of the iceberg of the ravages of tyranny in the United States. Tyranny comes easily. Freedom takes work.
It is interesting to note that the swine flu fiasco was revived more than 30 years later with the exact same playbook (regulatory capture, gun-for-hire pseudo-science, fear-mongering, multi-billion dollar taxpayer-supported Big Pharma fraud) and was deemed a legitimate “conspiracy” as a small number of players did indeed plot in secret to injure people, yet again, and wrangle billions in profits with no significant consequence.
Now we are at an end-game of sorts, where we must choose and fight for democracy or succumb to corporate tyranny (and the technocrats, bureaucrats, and elected officials that support such tyranny). We have a choice to make. And that choice must be made together, from a grass-roots COALITIONAL base, where we refuse to allow ourselves to be divided. FREE and INFORMED choice means we will NOT be forced to take anything we do choose for ourselves AND we will have the full range of information, thoroughly inclusive of all views and thoroughly vetted pro or con by actual scientific and moral knowledge NOT entangled with political or economic influence.
This currently is missing. Drug companies alone have spent 10 of billions of dollars each year to garner literal trillions in profits, while paying pennies on the dollar when they are caught committing fraud and killing people. It is clearly not a fair fight, so what can we do right now?
Support Substack and the writers on it. So far, anyway, this has been my most reliable source of information on Covid, on efforts at resistance (i.e. the Canadian Freedom (Truckers) convoy), on issues that are actually BRINGING TOGETHER progressives, libertarians, conservatives, and liberals from an informed, inclusive grass-roots perspective. The Canadian Freedom Convoy (it’s spreading beyond truckers) places the emphasis where it should be, uniting against billionaire-funded media and corporate tyranny and advocating for the “little guy.”
Withdraw your funding and support of corporate-controlled parties and candidates in the U.S. and around the world and encourage your friends to do likewise. In the U.S. this means not giving a cent to EITHER the Democratic or Republican Party. Register independent.
Support growing movements (i.e. the People’s Party) that are grass-roots and NOT beholden to any pat ideologies, identity politics, or dogmatic agendas. This will likely mean abandoning ALL the “isms” except democracism (the belief in democracy). This means throwing out “wokeism” as well as racism, Repulicanism as well as Democraticism, socialism as well as authoritarianism. Do not support any prejudice against any group for any reason, including white, Christian, and male as well as people of color, Muslim, and female. We all have something to contribute, and our experience and values allow us to be authentic contributors.
Develop community organizations and groups that focus on COMMON core democratic principles in action (i.e. medical freedom, being both pro-life AND pro-choice, being anti-censorship, challenging the immunity of international corporations to national rights and environmental laws). Support these groups and individuals with your money. Rein in and unplug from Big Everything (Tech, Social Media, Pharma, Med, Government, Bureaucracy, etc.).
Get to know, include, and respect those of good will who think differently than you and defend THEIR right to live their lives as they choose. Conversely, resist any temptation to TELL THEM what to do or be seduced into developing laws that force your ideas on them. This means “no” to vaccine and mask mandates, especially when the science clearly does not support mandates.
Educate yourself about alternative ways to conduct economy. In my book, Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities, I talk about all the ways we can actually build power from the local level through debt forgiveness, time-banking, peer-lending, tool lending libraries, simplified living, personal gardening, gifting, tiny homes, low-maintenance/high quality lifestyle, etc.
This means PRESERVING collective memory and a nuanced, broad and deep truth by collating and preserving knowledge. We need our hackers and rebel techies to develop accessible “way-back machines” to help us assemble knowledge before it becomes forever scrubbed. Wikipedia is now irretrievably compromised, as are Google searches, as is YouTube and all major legacy media outlets (whose “trusted news” initiative is nothing more than a corporate friendly information-channeling, re-education, and propaganda effort).
This means MOVING YOUR PLATFORMS and habits from corporate controlled money and information to alternative, censorship-free democratic forums that welcome collaboration and a diversity of views. This could mean moving from YouTube to Rumble, Odysee, Locals, or Bitchute. This could mean moving from Twitter to GETTR. This could mean getting the heck off Facebook altogether. This also means moving our money from multinational banks to local and regional banks and credit unions.
Align with local freedom efforts even if they originate in another political orientation. I am signing up, as a progressive, with “Moms for Liberty,” which had its genesis in Republican concerns about local control and opposing attempts to undermine parental determination. I may see things differently, but we both agree on the centrality of parental rights and the ability to walk out and start our own schools if we feel top-down agendas are being pushed through our schools.
Rebel against corporate junk food and go to the local farmer’s market, plugging into local health. Rebel against the monopoly of social media and electronic screens by going outside, walking, spending time in nature and feeding the soul with real birds, trees, and earth rather than hollowing it out with an endless stream of hype and fear porn. Instead of consuming, volunteer. Contact local churches, organizations, civic associations, schools, and and see what direct, positive, community-enhancing things you can be a part of. Write. Talk. MOVE well and REST well!
As one of my favorite Substack writers El Gato Malo (The Bad Cat who writes under Bad Cattitude) says: “Become Ungovernable!” to which I would add: “So we can govern ourselves!”— a government by, for, and of the people. And maybe if we move in this direction we might have an inclusive, free, and diverse democracy for the first time in the history of this planet.
Nice reminders Zeus! I have one of those signs in each of my stores by the way. :)
I like your ideas and share you sentiments about our government so closely tied with corporations that is loses sight of its citizens.