Ukraine’s blacklist, as reported yesterday, is a pretty bad development for free speech and open discourse.
But it’s trifling when compared to what the UK is doing to one of its own citizens, the journalist Graham Phillips. Namely, putting him on the list of sanctioned persons, alongside a wide variety of mostly Russian ‘enemies’ who committed crimes like being members of the Russian equivalent of the Senate. iEarlGrey coverage again:
British Journalist Graham Phillips Added To UK SANCTIONS LIST
In brief, an individually personalized ‘sanction’ means that with no due process or even being charged with a crime, Phillips (who is out of the country covering the war as he has been most of the time since 2014) can have his house taken away, his monetary assets frozen, and his ability to live destroyed.
It has happened to plenty of Russians before, especially those living and doing business inside the UK–one of them owned a major soccer team. But whacking one of their own citizens, and a journalist at that is completely unprecedented and a very alarming sign.
In this country we have something called ‘civil asset forfeiture’, where the cops can steal your money or your truck on the side of the road at gunpoint simply based on the ‘suspicion’ that the assets came from ‘drugs’. They don’t have to go to court. They don’t have to prove you guilty. You have to try to prove your innocence, and even just trying that takes a lot of time and money. If you think I’m shitting you, please look up the term. It literally happens every effin’ day in the land of the free.
But … small saving grace … at least those cases are motivated by the stupid greed of evil cops, and not political malpractice from the lofty heights of a national government.
The Phillips case is more akin to what Canada did to the convoy truckers in Ottawa. They too were targeted economically for political purposes: insurance cancelled, employers threatened, donations seized.
As far as I’m aware, this level of injustice being perpetrated on people simply for holding anti-governmental positions, or committing acts of civil disobedience, hasn’t happened in the US (at least not openly).
But as late-stage capitalism morphs into fascism, and as the US begins to fall from the exalted unipolar heights of power faster and faster, and as the economy is torn up worse and worse by idiotic policies crafted by fools and knaves, they’ll bring the big hammer down on you or me without a second thought, just like happened to the truckers and is happening to Graham Phillips right now.
Since this story broke quietly, Graham’s channel hasn’t posted any new videos, but I hope to hear from him soon.