United We Stand

By Georgy at hilislaw.substack.com; @hilislaw at x.com

As some of you might know, just a couple of days ago, the @IslanderWORLD account on ‘X’ got suspended. No reason whatsoever was given to its baffled owner. Sometime later, the “tech support” automaton coughed up a canned reply – something along the lines of ‘repeated violations of X rules’ (without, of course, providing any specific cases or examples), and then the front got silent, remaining silent ever since.  

Such displays of shameless, brazen censorship aren’t exclusive to ‘X’. Indeed, the problem we’re facing is much larger. Everywhere and on every platform – be it in web-space, real-life politics, or academia, individual truth-seeking voices are silenced and destroyed as the censorship picks them out one by one. The excuse? Well, I’m afraid, but the apparatus is past offering excuses: today, they don’t deem it necessary to explain themselves, even superficially. A couple of years ago, one could still have expected some semblance of excuse, no matter how bogus, no matter how superficial, yet at least a symbol of due process, a nod to the niceties of “free speech” and “rule of law”,the notions of which, no matter how profaned and besmirched in reality, were still nominally upheld. Today, however, the superintending techno-cluster doesn’t deem us worthy of pretexts. They begrudge us even the old, duplicitous techno-babble about ‘hate speech’ and ‘malinformation.’ Present censorship is sneeringly reserved, their grinning mockery is silent, yet the core message rings loud and clear: “We silence you. Why? Because we can.”  

And this, my friends, must stop!

 

The Source and The Answer

“Is it possible to stop this? After all, we’re dealing with major players, with vested interests, with money and influence beyond the dreams of avarice, with cloak-and-dagger operations, with dark powers, forces and alliances beyond all ordinary notion!” – runs the counter-argument. And, quite frankly, I’m dead tired of it, I’m sick to my stomach with all those conjured spectres of apocalyptic doomsaying. The gibbering ghosts of the ‘mondial cabal’, the dark wizards in their towers, the evil geniuses manning the ineffable machinery – most, if not all of that, is plainly bogus.

You see, dear friends, while evil is altogether real, what we’re dealing with in its absolute majority is plain, old natural human evil. Our modern censors and oppressors aren’t supernatural orarcane – an ineffable coven of maguses presiding over mysteriesof some dreadful, incorporeal techno-magic, oh no. They are, if we look squarely at them, but a bunch of sleek, greedy, scaredy corporate merchants, hiding behind the bloat of legal papers, accounts, and bodyguards. They are small, mediocre, beetle-like men, and whatever powers they have are mostly because we’ve given them those powers.

Certainly, it is their greed, their malice, their stupidity, their treachery and unnatural human-hatred that animates most of our present troubles. But likewise certainly, dear friends, it is the toxic drug of indolence that allows that animation of evil to happen. The social and cultural poison of indolence, partly as narcissistic individualism, partly as a mere fashion, has been the root of many ills, past and present. J.R.R.Tolkien, the ever-wisestoryteller, just as he described the resurgence of a supernatural evil in his beautiful work of fiction, pointed squarely at the root: “But the strength of Gondor failed, and men slept, and for long years the towers stood empty. Then Sauron returned.” Men slept, this is the root! And even as the natural evil creeps upon us today, in our lived realm of reality, lots of men are lolling in comfortable slumber, poisoned by indolence.

Coming roundly to our present problem: should we shake off that torpor, should we gather our God-given reason and strength, we can disarm the censorship apparatus with relative ease. What we need, in my view, is first of all unity – and not just unity in rhetoric, but formalised unity, an association, a league, a fellowship, an alliance, a union – you name it! It has to be an organised structure of outspoken resistance with truth-seeking individuals standing hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.

Right now, we’re isolated, picked out one by one, and erased. And because we remain isolated, this stupidly simple censorship works! Organised unity will make the difference: when one of us is picked out and erased, others immediately muster and rally round: all members of the truth-seeking league, no matter the size or the scope of their audience, speak loudly out, spread information and, importantly, return the silenced voice to the public! And that’s precisely how censorship fails: the silenced member comes back with no delay whatsoever, with their new platform amplified and rendered even stronger by the vaulting surge of support.

In my view, this ought to have been done a long time ago, especially considering how easy it is to do such a thing. All that’s required to put such a plan into motion is, essentially, human will, and that is all. What is stopping truth-seekers, especially those with large, extended, multi-million audience and reach, from standing up for a fallen colleague? There’s no obstacle to proffering a strong arm of fellowship and crying to all those hearkening millions, just like the great Swiss hero Arnold von Winkelried did in his glorious time: “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno - One for all and all for one!” Mess with one of us? Mess with all of us!  

 

E Pluribus Unum

“United we stand, divided we fall” – I know, it’s a commonsensical old hat, yet common sense, as I say time and again, is the cornerstone of all worldly wisdom. Mark my words: if we don’t follow our common sense, if we insist on keeping separate, dwelling solemnly each in one’s own watertight bubble, if we keep thinking of ourselves either as “too big to fail” or, conversely, “too small to be bothered about” – then all of us will fail, will be crushed, and that’s the truth of it.

Of course, achieving this unity is, in some respects, not too trivial a task. Most of us are divided geographically. Geographical division often brings about a certain lack of interest, a detachment, a distancing which resolves into a form of dejectant ennui: “Oh, why should I care about what that bloke from Spain/England/Russia/Slovakia/Germany/etc says or thinks? This hardly concerns me here and now, in my homespace of Italy/Spain/Moldova/Ireland/Greece/etc.” Likewise, strong voices from certain locales can command more interest, respect, and attention than others because of a certain historical mien - a species of cultural panache if you will: “That academic bloke from Cambridge knows what he’s talking about,while that other cheeky chappie from Chelyabinsk… na-ah, he’s just some provincial wiseacre from the very edges of civilisation, what on earth can he know?” Then there are qualms (sadly, often justifiable) about the purity of one’s motives: “Is he saying that because he believes in what he says, or is he just farming engagement or stroking his internet ego?”

Mind you, I’m not trying to make an accusatory point about‘inequality’ or unreason! All I’m saying is that such reservations, such qualms, whether real or imaginary, must be overcome, for otherwise it would be too late: it’s either we learn how to bring ourselves together and stand up collectively for our freedoms, or an elite of technocratic managers would preside over us with its neo-feudal worldview and immoral censorship.  

So, if we don’t act and, instead, stay within the nihilistic spirit of our modernity, each in our separate lane, then… then it’ll mean we’re not serious. It’ll mean that all our truth-seeking is either amateurish idealism or just so much empty breath and sophistry– a useless wind-egg farm built on base foundations of indifference and egotism. The result of all our activity (if one can call that a ‘result’) would be mere internet noise, a tempest in a virtual teapot, and personally, I don’t want any of it. Better be a desert hermit than a webspace demagogue.

And the censors, the selfsame glib and mocking apparatchiks, oh - they would be proven divinely right! Presently, they think we’re just a bunch of toothless busybodies, clout-chasers, blabbermouths (as they imagine everyone is, outside their ‘anointed’ group), yet if we don’t act on our words, we’ll just prove those fiends right. I can only hope it will not come to that.

All in all, in order to save and rescue what we love and hold dear – the beloved ideal of an open society blessed with truth, honesty, and free speech, we need to take action presently, action that might appear “impracticable” or even “unthinkable”in this suffocating climate of indolence, nihilistic individualism, grandstanding, and decadence. Our case is, in essence, theperennial case of free-thinking humanity, a history of every dissent against tyranny, manipulation, coercion, and deceit. Our adversary is not a mage, a genius, or a wizard – it’s a churlish humbug, a varlet and a villain who styles himself a king. And if our sires and grandsires succeeded in throwing off the yoke of such false royalty, why shouldn’t we succeed? Why should those doctrinaire centralisers win when there are so many ways to make them lose? Let’s make them lose, dear friends. Let’s stand together and, in great bravery and noble lustre of our spirits,defy them. Forward-ho, avaunt!