Debate: Joel Rosenberg, a so-called intellectual living in a world of the naive, versus Glenn Diesen, who lives in the real world

I wanted to give you a warning, because frustrating is an understatement for what you’ll see in this video. I already used one video from this channel with a debate involving Glenn Diesen with some other so-called intellectual named Silicon Curtain — which was just as frustrating as this one. In this post.

God bless Alex Christoforou for being the voice of reason! It was freaking awesome to finally hear a voice of reason against this “Orange Jesus” bullshit narrative! Also, props to Glenn Diesen!

While I am a huge fan of Glenn Diesen, just as I am a huge fan of The Duran, I still have some criticisms of him. I also want to point out that although I praise Brian Berletic and John Helmer very highly and consider them the closest to my own views, I also criticize them. I often write about my disagreements and criticisms of people. I share more views with them than disagreements, but simply repeating what they say and praising them, in my opinion, is pointless. So don’t take the fact that I criticize them in my posts as meaning that I only disagree with them. In my opinion, I have the same goals as Glenn Diesen, Brian Berletic, The Duran, or John Helmer, but simply repeating what they write makes no sense. It makes more sense to point out differences in my point of view, since people can already hear their perspectives — which I mostly agree with — directly from them.

This debate involving Glenn Diesen reminds me of my own attempts to talk to and debate people who live in a world of the naive. Ironically, the most entrenched people in this world of the naive are often highly educated individuals who see themselves as elitists and so-called intellectuals who surround themselves with elitist circles, and hold high-level careers. This can even be seen at The Duran, where, as I wrote before, Alex is more open-minded, while Alexander — who I assume is more highly educated and immersed in elitist intellectual circles — has been infected with this brainwashing, which entrenches him in this world of the naive and make him resistance to reality.

I really like Alexander, and I don’t think I’m smarter than him or that he is stupid. I have simply observed how people’s minds get infected by this kind of brainwashing. It fascinates me how intelligent people can believe such illogical and absurd things. That’s why I became interested in education and the indoctrination it causes through this brainwashing, and I’ve even written a few posts about it.

A huge part of this is external validation, which is like a cage people are put into, as I wrote before. I also understand that part of the issue is that Alexander cannot speak openly about certain things because doing so would prevent him from being invited into elitist circles. Only people who don’t care what others think can truly open their minds and be genuine free thinkers. Higher education actively tries to weed this out by teaching people that the opinions of others and their own respectability are the only things that matter and should be the measure of self-worth.

This leads to situations where people avoid looking at or speaking about certain things because it might harm their respectability and result in being chased out of polite society. That is the cage many intelligent people live in. I understood this some time ago, which is why I call myself nobody. I don’t care if people label me a conspiracy theorist or say I’m crazy and chase me out of polite society — because the moment I start caring about that, I will have put myself in the same cage as all of them.

Debate

Again, I went on a rant, and I am sorry about that. I am trying to keep this post short, because I have so much to write. I could easily make this post 100 pages long or more. I also encourage people to write comments with arguments and questions, because there is so much I have left out of my posts. I have so much to say that it is hard for me to decide what to write about and what to leave out.

First, I would like to highlight some statements made by the person who debated with Glenn Diesen.

Joel Rosenberg: Tell us what you would have done after 9/11 and the 3,000 Americans and internationals murdered in the United States. You’re talking about the American occupation of Afghanistan, so let’s just limit it to Afghanistan for a moment. What would you have done after 9/11? Because right now, you look like a ‘do-nothing, see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil’ leftist, and I don’t understand. Saying that Iran was responding to the American occupation of Afghanistan is pretty rich.

This part was funny to me because Glenn Diesen is called a “leftist,” which has become a slur — just like “conspiracy theorist.” After all, our Orange Jesus Trump is fighting the “radical left,” LOL. The same thing is often used against me, with people calling me a “leftist” as a slur.

Now I would like to highlight another statement:

Joel Rosenberg: But it’s astonishing that you could actually say that to the millions of people who are listening. You could be disagreeing with this particular policy at a given moment, but you are making an apologist case for one of the sickest and most cruel regimes on the planet, claiming that it’s really America’s fault. I just don’t buy it at all, and I’m astonished that you would even say it in public.

Again, this same thing has happened to me — this “I’m astonished that you would even say it in public” attitude. These so-called intellectuals think they should be allowed to decide what can be said.

Someone highly educated, with the same elitist attitude, told me that I should apologize for what I wrote in my posts, said he didn’t believe I would publish what I wrote, and claimed that I should be stopped from posting. By the way, the same person was criticizing Glenn Diesen and saying I should not listen to him because he is a liar and not a good analyst and academic. So if I were to listen to those so-called intellectuals, I should also not listen to Glenn Diesen.

I would like to highlight another fragment:

Glenn Diesen: I’m not buying into the premise that any of this has anything to do with love for Iranian civilians, because I think what the Israelis and Americans have planned is a very gruesome fate for the Iranians.
Joel Rosenberg: Well, there it is again: America’s always wrong; America’s the bad guy.

Again, I have often been accused of hating America or saying that America is the bad guy. I prefer to call it our “Western capitalist empire of evil led by America,” rather than blaming only America, but I have also been criticized by so-called intellectuals for being unfairly anti-American and labeled an America-hater.

America is responsible for most wars after World War II. It is responsible for the starvation and deaths of millions of people caused by sanctions imposed around the world. America created Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations; turned Libya from the most prosperous country in Africa into a failed state with open slave markets; supported Nazis in Ukraine; and facilitates literal genocide in Gaza. Yet calling America evil is supposedly “not objective.”

No matter how many horrible and evil things America does, I am told I should not call America evil or bad, because by doing so I am “losing objectivity.” Meanwhile, I hear from the same people that Islam, Muslims, Arabs, leftists, and Marxists are pure evil and nothing more. Now Glenn Diesen is called a leftist, so he is also considered pure evil — and soon they’ll probably call him a Marxist too, LOL.

Glenn sees only the tip of the Iceberg

Now I would like to explain my point of disagreement with Glenn Diesen. While I like him and am a fan of his work, I believe he still doesn’t fully understand the bigger picture. He has only recently begun to see the real world and, so far, has only seen the tip of the iceberg.

He reminds me of myself almost 20 years ago, when I first began to understand the real world and realized that most people experience it through narratives — something that became clear to me during the Second Iraq War. At first, I thought the West became evil during the Iraq War. Then I looked into 9/11 and thought the West became evil after that. Then I looked into the JFK assassination and thought the West became evil after killing Kennedy. Later, I examined the Dulles brothers, the OSS, and the creation of the CIA, and realized it went even further back. One could even argue it goes back to the creation of the Federal Reserve, but World War II and Operation Underworld — when American intelligence agencies began working with organized crime and Nazis — are probably the clearest starting point.

In the beginning, I also thought it all started with Iraq, but the more I researched, the more I realized it goes back much further.

Here is the most recent video from Glenn Diesen’s channel:

I like both Glenn Diesen and Patrik Baab, and I have shared videos with Patrik Baab before. However, one thing that really irritates me is the claim that what is happening now is something new.

Before addressing that, I want to talk about the nonsense of America lecturing Europe about free speech. Yes, America has more free speech protections than Europe, and Europe should have learned from America. I have written before that Europe should remove laws outlawing the promotion of Nazi and communist ideologies, as well as laws protecting people from antisemitism.

I hate Nazis, and I am not a communist, but I don’t believe talking about these ideologies should be illegal. If these ideas are bad — as I believe they are — they should be challenged through debate and argument, not outlawed.

The same applies to antisemitism protections. I hate antisemitism, but at the same time I hate the Israeli state and believe it should be dismantled. Under my posts, there is often a lot of antisemitic nonsense. I have the ability to remove those comments, but I don’t. Instead, I try to argue with people whom I believe can be reasoned with.

The moment I start removing comments and arguing that people should be silent — I am allowing someone else to decide what we are allowed to talk about and I am effectively establishing a Ministry of Truth. If you hate antisemites or Nazis, argue against them instead of silencing them, because the moment you argue they should be silent, you allow for the existence of a Ministry of Truth that can later be used against you.

That’s why I argue for the right of even stupid, Hitler-worshipping Nazis or antisemites to write whatever they want. Ironically, those same people argue against my right to post, calling me a leftist, Marxist, or conspiracy theorist. That hypocrisy is astounding, and I don’t want to be a hypocrite like them.

Again, I went on a bit of a rant. Here is a fragment I strongly disagree with—one that praises America. I hate this, and I hate the naive people who praise figures like J.D. Vance when they talk about free speech.

Yes, on the first level I have to say Europe needs help from outside. And this is exactly what the U.S. Congress did. They published a report because U.S. citizens are affected by that. U.S. citizens are affected by traveling through the EU, and so the rules of the EU are working worldwide. So U.S. citizens are affected by that.

Oh, so “U.S. citizens are affected by that.” What about EU citizens who have their visas denied, canceled, or who are deported for criticizing Israel? So U.S. citizens are affected, but EU citizens are not?

Here is an American member of the military being questioned for criticizing Israel:

US sergeant says he is under investigation for sharing anti-Israel social media posts

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Here is a woman being questioned for a Facebook post criticizing her mayor for supporting Israel:

Miami Beach Police Accosted a Woman for Posting About Mayor's Support For Israel

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I would like to point out that this happened not in a “liberal,” “communist,” democratically ruled state, but in Republican-controlled Florida, governed by Ron DeSantis.

So America can deport EU citizens for criticizing Israel, surveil and blacklist American citizens who criticize Israel, label leftist organizations as terrorist organizations — and then lecture the EU about free speech.

Similarly, in a recent video, Alex criticized France for proposing social media ID verification. I even wonder whether Alex realizes that he had to provide biometric data to “X” to get a blue checkmark — and that this data was later sent to Israel. So French ID verification is bad, but providing biometric data to “X,” which is then sent to Israel, is acceptable?

I don’t support French ID verification, but at the same time, the “X” blue checkmark requirement is not much better. I oppose European censorship and want to fight it, but I won’t accept Americans lecturing Europeans about free speech when they are not much better themselves — a point many people conveniently forget.

Now I want to address this claim that what is happening today is something new. I’ve already written about my heroes — people like Gary Webb, Assange, Snowden, Parenti, Douglas Valentine, and many others. All of them faced the same treatment Glenn Diesen is facing today.

Here is what Glenn Diesen said:

In this country, I have noticed this even against myself. Governments sometimes act indirectly. They finance organizations they call ‘human rights NGOs,’ but you see them writing smears on social media. They write articles denouncing me as a propagandist for Russia and send letters to my university questioning whether I should be allowed to work there. They even put pictures of my house on social media after I removed my address from the public realm.

Recently, the Norwegian defense minister warned that Norwegians are being exposed to Putin’s propaganda. I found this strange because Norwegian media only permits one narrative: that everything is ‘unprovoked’ and that Russians are led by a ‘new Hitler.’ When asked where this propaganda comes from, he mentioned my name—and only my name.

My ‘great crime’ was saying NATO contributed to provoking the war. If we had open discourse and discussed what is actually happening in Ukraine, solving the crisis would be easy, because there is abundant evidence. Instead, evidence is treated as treason.

This is exactly what happened to Michael Parenti. His "thoughtcrime" was being objective and refusing to blindly support the Western narrative. Just as they are trying to destroy Glenn Diesen’s academic career now, they did the same to Parenti decades ago. This is nothing new — Glenn Diesen is simply seeing it for the first time.

Michael Parenti once said:

You will have no sensation of a leash around your neck if you sit by the peg. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.

That leash has existed for a very long time. Glenn Diesen didn’t feel it while he stayed close to the peg, but now that he has strayed, he feels the tug. What frustrates me is the claim that the West has somehow “changed.” It hasn’t. The only difference is that in the past, dissenting voices were excluded from public consciousness by controlling media and access.

Now that information can spread more freely, those in power call it “misinformation.” Nothing happening today is new. This naïve, propaganda-driven world has existed for a long time. Just because you’ve only recently noticed it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before.

I could write about this at length and point out many examples, but there is one particularly poignant one. I will post here a movie that is entirely about this: “The War You Don’t See” by John Pilger. I have already posted it many times, and for those who haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend watching it in full. However, I would like to highlight one specific moment.

10:51

But it was not happening across the rest of Iraq. This was another illusion. The toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein was seized upon by the invading forces as a target of opportunity. What was not news was a U.S. Army investigation describing how they exploited what they called a ‘media circus.’ ‘There are almost as many reporters as Iraqis,’ the report states.

It was an American PSYOPs officer who ordered the statue brought down. The resulting TV pictures gave no sense of the bloody conquest of Iraq that was already well underway.

‘I didn’t really do my job properly; I think I’d hold my hand up and say that I didn’t press the most uncomfortable buttons hard enough.’

As you described the arrival of the Americans, you didn’t tell us the story of how the toppling of the statue was itself manipulated. Why not? The entire live cameras of the world’s press were on the balcony of the Palestine Hotel, and that was really the only event they saw coming out of Iraq. It was a “made-for-TV” moment.

I was just a kid when this happened, but I remember very well watching how the Saddam Hussein statue was brought down. The whole operation was organized by “an American PSYOPs officer,” not by Iraqis. Most importantly, I want to highlight how it was called a “made-for-TV moment.” And remember, this was in 2003.

Now I would like to highlight some modern examples.

A CNN report sniffing backpacks to “confirm” chemical weapons were used in Syria.

Or this “rescue” of someone from a Syrian prison. The acting in this one is extremely bad, but it represents the same kind of “made-for-TV moment” as the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue.

Now people watch these clips and can’t believe how bad the acting is. They see it for the nonsense that it is and say, “What propaganda we suddenly have in Western media.” What they fail to do is connect these events to the past and recognize that the same type of “made-for-TV moments” were organized in 2003 and long before. Back then, they were simply much better at creating narratives and propaganda than they are nowadays.

I have pointed out many outrageous examples, such as the absurd story about Russia using rape as a “military strategy.”

Russia using rape as 'military strategy' in Ukraine: UN envoy | CNN

Russia is using rape and sexual violence as part of its "military strategy" in Ukraine, a UN envoy said this week.

“When you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy,” Pramila Patten, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said in an interview with AFP on Thursday.

Do you remember how we were told Russia was giving Viagra to its soldiers to rape women? I pointed this out in my previous posts, and unlike most people, I have a good memory for this kind of bullshit. Instantly, I got flashbacks to Libya.

Gaddafi 'supplies troops with Viagra to encourage mass rape', claims diplomat

US ambassador Susan Rice has also said, without offering evidence, that Iran was helping Syria to suppress dissent

So again, people who are outraged about lies and propaganda regarding Ukraine completely omit — or pretend — that the same lies didn’t happen 14 years ago during the Libya conflict, or over 20 years ago during the Iraq conflict.

This talk about the West suddenly having propaganda upsets so much because it ignores the fact that nothing happening now is new. People are simply waking up to the existence of the real world after living in the world of the naive. Just because you didn’t see the real world before does not mean it didn’t exist — just like Parenti’s said: just because you didn’t feel the leash around your neck because you stayed close to the peg doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

So while I am a fan of Glenn Diesen, it irritates me that he acts as if what is happening now is something new. In the past, they controlled what books or articles could be published and how far they would spread. Now, however, we have places like The Duran forum, which they do not control, and which allow some nobody with knowledge — like me — to post truths they don’t want you to know. That is why they are panicking.

They also try to control the spread of information by outright bans. The Duran forum is banned in Poland, and I need to use a proxy site on my phone just to visit it. But that is not enough for them. I once wrote that I would appreciate it if someone with a good VPN could check which countries this forum is banned in, because I can only confirm Poland. I genuinely wonder, in how many other countries this site is blocked.

I would also really appreciate it if you supported The Duran. They already suffer from reduced reach because they allow people like me to post truths that affect them negatively — such as being banned in Poland, which directly reduces their audience.

That is why we should support sites like The Duran. They sacrifice reach and popularity because they allow people to speak freely. That is why I respect them so much. Someone once commented that it is “laughable” that I hold such a high opinion of The Duran simply because they allow me to post my content. But if they cared more about reach than truth, they would not allow me to post at all. The fact that they risk their own reach shows they care more about truth than popularity.

They have also allowed me to post content critical of their positions, which I respect greatly. If they were pushing propaganda or a narrative, they would not allow posts that undermine it. The fact that they do allow such posts shows they are pursuing truth rather than pushing agenda.

They are sometimes wrong — and so am I. I am not claiming to always be right. I have admitted, for example, that I once compared Trump to JFK before his fake assassination attempt, which later made me realize he is a deep-state candidate. I also promoted Tom Luongo, who later became a delusional “Orange Jesus” believer and even accused The Duran of hating America for not blindly supporting his “Orange Jesus” Trump.

So it’s not as if I don’t make mistakes. I admit them. And the fact that The Duran can also admit mistakes—as they did by inviting Brian Berletic and admitting they were wrong about Trump—shows they are not propagandists, but truth-seekers.

I have heard criticism that The Duran pushes an agenda, and I’ve read comments saying they shouldn’t be trusted. I disagree, and I will defend them.

Please support The Duran, because we need places like this forum where people can speak freely.

I will end it here thanks to everyone who stuck with me until the end of my post. And, as always… 

“Knowledge will make you be free.”

― Socrates

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“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”

― Richard P. Feynman

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“Freedom is not free, you need to pay attention.”

― Grzegorz Ochman

"The media have been tireless in their efforts to suppress the truth about the gangster state."

― Michael Parenti

"To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people."

― Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti on U.S. empire

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“Do not join those critics who say US policy is stupid. It's so foolish, it gets all mixed up. Why do we keep getting into these silly messes? It's stupid. You're stupid if you think the people who own and run this country are stupid.”