At the end of his note today (via TheInstitutionalRiskAnalyst.com), Chris Whalen dropped the following bombshell...

Finally, we cannot fail to mention that The IRA's Chris Whalen has been included in the list of enemies compiled by the minions of George Soros. We are in decidedly good company. David Ignatius. Ann Coulter. The editor of The Nation. The "tout US journalism." Apparently everybody who is anybody in the world of media has earned the enmity of Mr. Soros, the architect of the Ukraine disaster and one of the world's great war mongers. We bask in his scorn.

For anyone that knows Chris, this is certainly a shock to discover he is so subversive. In a tweet slamming the "authoritarian tilt of warmongers like Soros," Whalen links to an excellent discussion by Renegade's Claire Connelly... and why black lists matter...

Connelly begins...

There’s a scene in Aaron Sorkin’s critically acclaimed political drama, The West Wing, where President Bartlet, (played by Martin Sheen) is in an argument with his communications director, Toby Ziegler, (played by Richard Schiff) over a speech he has to write condemning Hollywood for its gratuitous use of sex and violence in entertainment:

“…If I were an actor or a writer or uh, uh, uh, a producer in Hollywood and someone were to start coming at me with lists of things that were American and un-American I’d start to think that this was sounding eerily familiar.” Bartlett replies: “Do I look like Joe McCarthy to you?”, to which Ziegler responds: “Nobody ever looks like Joe McCarthy, Mr President. How do you think they get in the door in the first place?”

Well, I’m afraid to say, Democracy 2.0 is having its own, new, modern-day McCarthy moment .

Some very disturbing things happened this week which I have been trying to high-road by ignoring and getting on with the job, but this has really stuck in my craw:

About a week ago, gazillionaire, George Soros, became a modern-day McCarthyist by publishing a report and accompanying excel document via European think tank “European Values” (which he funds, incidentally), listing hundreds of writers, journalists, celebrities, authors, academics, experts and ‘miscellaneous persons’ that have ever appeared on the Russia’s public broadcaster, Russia Today, tarring them as ‘useful idiots undermining Western democracy’.

RT is often accused of acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for Putin and his ‘lackeys’. More on this shortly.

The report lists 2327 US and UK politicians, political figures, diplomats and military leaders that have appeared on the the channel including Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkinson, US Representative and Deputy Chair of the DNC, Keith Ellison and US National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn.

British figures named include former Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, British MP, Vince Cable, former Deputy Labour Prime Minister John Prescott, former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage and Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

The many, many, names ‘gracing’ Soros’ excel spreadsheet include my colleague and mentor, economist Professor Steven Keen, Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, economist Professor Michael Hudson and feminist author and intellectual, Germaine Greer. Celebrities on the blacklist include SNL stars Fred Armison, Bill Hader and Alec Baldwin, Seinfeld star, Jason Alexander, and actresses Patricia Arquette and Christina Ricci. Fox News host Ann Coulter, journalist Seymour Hersh and MIT linguist Professor Noam Chomsky are also named, (at least I think he is named. Whoever compiled the document spelled his name wrong and referred to him as ‘Noah Chomsky’. I’m guessing it was some junior employ that helped build out the list because no seasoned researcher would misspell Chomsky’s name!). It even lists Virgin CEO, Richard Branson and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, along with tv show host, Piers Morgan. Even the Dalai Lama rates a mention. Download the full list for yourself here.

The blacklist is designed to discourage advertisers from doing business with RT, discourage broadcasters from hiring anyone that has ever appeared on the channel, and create an environment that discourages anyone and everyone from putting their careers at risk by associating themselves with the network.

This is textbook McCarthyism.

Read more here...

As Caitlin Johnstone explained...

The plutocrats who own the media make alliances with the plutocrats who own the government, and the intelligence agencies which serve this establishment power structure actively infiltrate media outlets on all levels.

Which of course makes the current crusade against Russian state media ridiculous.

Your true rulers do not oppose RT and Sputnik because they want to protect you from propaganda and psy-ops, they oppose RT and Sputnik because they gum up the gears of the propaganda and psy-ops you’re meant to be consuming.

...

The only thing holding the omnicidal power structure in place is its propaganda machine, and as AI gets more advanced the manipulations of corporate propaganda and corporate censorship are only going to get more difficult to deal with. All it will take to overthrow the ruling elites who are choking our species to death is for us to kill the establishment propaganda machine and/or become much more difficult to propagandize.