Things to Remember - A List So You Won’t Forget
A tight list of important recent events and investigations that you will be encouraged to repress or self-censor
“The point of punishing a few is to encourage the many to self-censor. Classic authoritarian tactics.”-Ruth Ben-Ghiat
I have watched the greatest reporters, researchers, historians, public servants, and scientists of our time - a time of mass deception - endure relentless terrorism to try to disparage their work and to encourage others to look away or abandon them.
Investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr described it like this: “It is this sort of visceral thing, living with this disinformation and this propaganda every single day and feeling the effects of it and knowing that it does work and does have an impact in real life whether people believe that or not.”
I have been - and currently am - the target of paid harassment campaigns, and I watch my colleagues endure character assassinations daily for their work exposing the villains of our times. As you know, I stay loud. To be quiet during the fascist creep is to obey in advance - something I am incapable of doing.
In an interview with RadPod, Ruth Ben-Ghiat warned of self-censorship.
She said that “when you have autocracy coming up, there is a huge work of memory repression or self-censorship… you are going to be encouraged to forget. The warning is not only a warning of what can happen, but what has happened.”
And then she noted, we can’t just memory hole a violent coup.
We are being encouraged to forget - daily, hourly, and by the minute. The propagandists distract with horrible words and actions - their awfulness designed to grab headlines, as we look over there, feeling the outrage rise.
What Candace Owens says does not matter - she is a chaos agent. What matters is there are hundreds of bills in this legislative session aimed to harm the LGBTQ+ community. These bills are nationwide, and the propagandists are distracting you from that fight. You will be shocked to find this is happening in your state, too. I have an in-depth report on this running this weekend in Byline Supplement and will post it here when it drops.
How many warnings did I send about Roe? How many in-depth reports begging people to pay attention, and then one day, just like that - our rights are gone - a mere memory of what once was. And the GOP - which corporate media still paints as a normal political party - is not stopping there. They are coming for all our rights. That’s how fascism works.
So while I am still free to write, and while I still have hope that the agents assigned to my case will arrest the domestic terrorists who send me death threats, I am going to offer a list of things not to forget, so you know where to focus, and you have easy access to the facts. A lot of progress has been made to expose the villains and as Joyce Vance wrote: “Let’s let our justice system work: slow, imperfect, but still essential to the rule of law.”
Hold steady.
PUTIN ARREST WARRANT - Putin now joins Gaddafi in receiving a warrant for his arrest from the ICC for war crimes of trafficking children. Although an Orbán goon just declared Putin would not be arrested if he came to Hungary, the decision to indict him isolates and humiliates him on the world stage and also signals to his enablers that they’re next
TRUMP’S LEGAL CASES - Piecing together Trump’s legal entanglements was like documenting mobland. His base has shrunk, and he is using victimhood to profit. The legal nooses tighten
BIOLOGICAL WARFARE BY PROXY - How Russia joined anti-vaxxers to wage biological warfare by proxy against the West, and why we need a commission in America to investigate the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic. His administration needs to be held accountable for all the deaths by their anti-science propaganda
THE ROLLING INSURRECTION - Putin is waging a war against the West and we better f**king declare it and start putting some domestic traitors behind bars
UNMUSKED - I document how Elon Musk is attempting to destroy truth, and I illustrate historic examples of how authoritarian countries’ capture of media is first-stage fascism
HOW I LOST MY FATHER TO FOX NEWS - Fox News is actively stealing the brains of millions and as the Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit exposes the company as liars top down, we have to pressure the Biden administration to send Fox packing like RT
PUTIN’S BANKERS PROSECUTED - The West is finally going after Putin’s cash through a cellist and Swiss bankers. Thank you Panama Papers
TUCKER CARLSON’S DAD ON ORBÁN PAYROLL - Dick Carlson is a director of a firm that takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Orbán regime, which explains some of his son’s simping behaviors
TRUMP UNMASKED - I document the fascist rhetoric in Trump’s 2024 announcement speech and expose how victimhood is his key money-making device
AGITATION AND PROPAGANDA - A Russian indicted for paying US groups on the left and right to cause destabilization in America for ten years
THEATRE CRAFT - WHEN LYING IS THE MESSAGE - With chaos agents, lying is the message. Their job is to create a distortion field to confuse and distract from the corruption of the authoritarian-right. Proof - they lie and inflame 24/7, except when under oath. That is the tell
BIG BUSINESS BACKS FASCISM - The author of How Fascism Works Jason Stanley said on RadPod: “When fascism wins it does so by co-opting the business elite. Fascism allies with the business elite against the cultural and intellectual elite.” Today, DirectTV announced it was re-platforming christofascist network Newsmax. So, the drip drip drip poison into American brains continues
DISPATCHES FROM UKRAINE - We are being encouraged to forget about the war in Ukraine. The christofascist propaganda networks are lying about the war. I compiled a year of reporting so you have the facts from people on the ground, doing the labor of democracy in a warzone.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST - Brexit and Trump were Russian attacks
SPY V. SPY - Wray reputation washing Fox and spreading Kremlin propaganda is an indication that he needs to be fired and replaced stat. My Spy v. Spy series documents the McGonigal indictments and the active measures of 2016. As Wes Clark Jr. wrote: “The FBI needs a new director who can mercilessly clean house of the incompetent and corrupt.” It is my hope that the good agents working within the FBI will prove we are still a country with rule of law - the sooner, the better.
THE GOP’S MASSIVE CRIMINAL COVERUP - Repeat Ruth’s words like a mantra: “It is time to think of the GOP as an autocratic force working from within to destroy our democracy, in tandem and in sympathy with foreign autocratic states which have that same goal.”
That’s the entire game.
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Save the date! The next Bette Dangerous ‘Speakeasy’ Zoom for paid members is Sunday, March 26, 4 pm PT. Each ‘Speakeasy’ features special guests, and if you are not yet a paid member, please consider subscribing to join the community. Our featured guest this Sunday is retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil, who will answer questions about Trump’s legal and financial entanglements. Looking forward to meeting new members and seeing Bette’s core group! If you join now, you will receive a 20% annual discount.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, that can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member
(Salvador Dali, ‘The Persistence of Time’ , 1931)