Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has just announced that Meta will be “dramatically reducing censorship across all its platforms”. Obviously, he means that they will dramatically reduce censorship of fascism, specifically. Zuckerberg said Meta would “get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse” and “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”. If that wasn’t bad enough, Meta has also chosen Dana White, a very public Trump ally, to join its board of directors.

This is just one indication that the oligarchs have decided that fascism has won in the United States and they’re all jumping on the bandwagon. Zuckerberg isn’t content to allow fascism to promote itself on his platforms in the US — he’s ready to let it go global. To be clear, this is a shift from the oligarchs (and the media they control) supporting neoliberalism to, now, fascism — they never have and never will support progressives or the left (i.e., authentic democracy). Meta’s platforms are about to become systems that act as cheerleaders for fascism because fascism does not threaten their power.

Meanwhile, affiliates of the Democratic Party are organizing rallies all over the country to “resist” the fascist takeover and try to get voters energized about the midterm elections. In Columbia, the rally is scheduled for January 18, and will feature at least 20 organizations:

• Boone County Democratic Party
• C-TAB
• Columbia MO NAACP
• CoMo Jews 4 Ceasefire
• CoMo Street Frenz
• Islamic Center of Central Missouri
• Liuna Local 955
• Mid-MO Democratic Socialists of America
• Mid-MO Fellowship of Reconciliation
• Mid-MO Green Party
• Mid-MO NORML
• Mid-MO Peaceworks
• Mid-MO Sierra Club Group
• Mid-MO Veterans for Peace
• Missourians for Justice in Palestine
• MIZZOU YDSA
• Native American Support Group
• Planned Parenthood Great Plains
• Renew Missouri
• Rock Bridge Christian Church

There are two types of organizations on that list. The first type is neoliberal organizations that will never truly support working class people so they have no choice but to double-down on the Democratic Party. The second type are genuinely good people who keep getting fooled again and again into believing that the Democratic Party is capable of doing the right thing and winning elections. For example, any of the organizations above that support either the existence of the Palestinian people or peace in our time are barking up the wrong tree.

But hey, let’s get back to Mark Zuckerberg and how he is going to kill us all.

The crisis of propaganda in this country is not a new thing. It’s been going on for many decades. What we are seeing now is this prolonged campaign of lies coming to fruition. One of the most important lies from the perspective of the oligarchs is the claim that climate change isn’t real, or at least is not an urgent issue. They knew that the only way to stop climate change was to sacrifice capitalism itself and lose their lofty positions.

It is far too late to stop climate change now. Now, the question is not, “Will climate change end industrial-technological civilization?” but rather, “Will climate change end the human species?” (I’ll let Richard Crim explain in detail what is going on with the climate.) With the owners of US media shifting decidedly to the far right, the answer is a clear “Yes”; I don’t see a way out of this when the opposition to fascism is so completely ineffectual. Those media platforms will either be flooded with propaganda promoting the idea that climate change is no big deal, or they will simply never talk about it again, and distract us with even more of the usual array of bullshit.

People like Mark Zuckerberg are personally responsible for this. Climate change is specifically shadow-banned on Meta’s platforms.

As has been the case, none of the organizations that will be at the January 18 rally will be censored because they were never a threat to the oligarchs; they are completely incapable of challenging their power. Meanwhile, the actual left will continue to be banned from Meta’s platforms (“terrorism” is now a code for anything that threatens the power of the oligarchs), while the far right are allowed to sneak back in and promote their toxic views on immigration (i.e., “brown” people), gender (i.e., feminism and transness), and, of course, the climate.

It is not possible to make any meaningful progress in the world without opposing and seizing the power of the oligarchs. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wasting their time.

Addendum

Let’s see who is not on that list of attendees for the January 18 rally in Columbia:

• COMAC: The amazing Columbia Mobile Aid Collective that brings food around to all the homeless camps in Columbia which is based on the much smaller John Brown Mobile Soup Kitchen which was run by members of our club
• Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church: One of the rare churches that takes the Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously by materially helping their community
• The Mid-Missouri John Brown Gun Club: Yes, us.