The bloodiest period of Soviet totalitarianism ended in the fifties, but the habits remained long after, including the advanced system of alternative media that ultimately broke the state: samizdat.
Tonight, along with Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and New York Post reporter Miranda Devine, I’ll be accepting the inaugural Samizdat Prize, given by the RealClear Media Fund. Samizdat is a bit of a play on words, since like a lot of politically oppressive groups the Soviets had a mania for reducing beautiful language to state-acceptable ugly compound words (GosPlan, GULAG, etc.), so in place of GosIzdat (State-Publish, the official publisher) dissidents created Sam- or “Self” Izdat: “Self-Publish.”
Ten years ago PBS did a feature that quoted a Russian radio personality calling Samizdat the “precursor to the Internet.” Sadly this is no longer accurate….
On the emergence of gatekeepers.
Racket News
Matt Taibbi
The digital infrastructure can be controlled. So it is back to paper and ink if the "authorities" decide to filter all network traffic.
ReplyDeleteInterview with George Galloway — Glenn Greenwald, System Update #240
ReplyDeletehttps://rumble.com/v4hueq6-system-update-240.html
Interview begins at 39:31
'Magic money tree' gets a mention.