15 Comments

I don't believe the CIA is "woke". I tend to agree with Glenn Greenwald that that this is merely deflection to allow their continued assault upon democracy around the world. They, obviously, don't give a whit about civil rights or gender identity but they do care very much about maintaining power and this bow to the woke helps them do so.

The woke in this country are very good at ignoring what really matters in order to publicly preen.

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When I posted this article, a Facebook friend responded:

I'm sorry, but I don't take anyone seriously who says this: "For example, Iran has actual elections that determine who gets in power and have legitimate consequences for economic and foreign policy, even though many candidates are disqualified from running." The last Iranian election that remotely resembles what he says was the one in 2009, which the regime lost, and then brutally suppressed, jailed and tortured the protestors. All "elections" since present the same ideological diversity as the ones held in N. Korea. ALL power is in the hands of the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_election

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You are clearly showing your bias here... while I like reading your articles, because they are quite often heterodox, it seems that here you are just feeding "red meat" to the right-wing populists, especially in the US.

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Not surprised that Freedom House is a woke GONGO - a Government Organized Non-Governmentqaal Orgqanisation, in other words. If democracy means anything at it's core it's the rule of the demos, ie the rule of the people, and the particular ideology that the people chooses for itäs society has nothing to do with the core concepot of democracy.

By Freedom House's evaluation, ancient Greece would probably score around 5 even though it was to a large extent much more democratic than many western countries are today, which have become more and more a kind of oligarchies where an unremovable elite rules with thinly veiled contempt for the opinions of the demos.

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Very curious sir. How do thinktanks get funding? Does the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology receive money from wealthy donors who have an intellectual interest in your study? Do you receive any grants?

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That's what Trump meant by "the Deep State." These bozos will now recruit CIA agents that are even woker than ever with such an ad. Some said the ad was just the CIA trying to adapt to the times and attract the youths; no, it's just pinkos within the CIA who want to recruit more of their ilk, because conservatives will be mostly put off by that nonsense.

I think it's high time the American Right quit its worship of its federal security agencies. They ain't on your side! And they should be treated like any other federal agency, i.e. in dire need of some shrinking and some defunding, if not outright abolition.

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FH measure civil and political liberties, not just electoral democracy. This explains why 1) restrictions on either are penalized (though perhaps not with enough consistency) and 2) Why Iran would score lower than Oman for example. Those are not the only valuable measures of a country, true, and the methodology is always going to be a bit subjective but it’s not a free for all. I have done a bit of work with them - they’re not perfect but I don’t see them as a woke institution run amok.

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Excellent writeup. I myself grew skeptical of these kinds of reports after seeing their slanderous commentary on India (which I contend has issues, but then you have V-Dem saying it’s an “autocracy” comparable in freedom to the military junta next door.)

I am not surprised they attack Poland and Hungary as well, this whole democracy promotion thing is an exercise in ideology rather than anything else.

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The "civil liberties" people have obviously nothing to say about heavy-handed lockdown policies from Covid.

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Tucker should bring this up and shed some sunlight on these bastards.

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