I’ve talked about how making moral purchasing decisions likely doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this world, but I am still going to do it anyway. I’ve been meaning to donate to several open source technology and alternative media groups. These are small contributions in the overall scheme of things, but I hope they provide some value to each of these organizations.

Donations

I’m not going to go into details about every contribution in the list. I don’t agree with all of these people and organizations fully on every one of their talking points, but I find them informative enough that I want them to continue producing news, videos and analysis. For software, I’m contributing to tools that I use frequently and have made a positive impact on the open source world. I’m also limiting myself to one-time donations, as I’ve grown weary of past contributions made via reoccurring subscriptions.

The amounts I’ve given are fairly arbitrary, so don’t take them as an indication of rank. Sometimes it’s one of the suggested amounts. Sometimes it’s just what I’ve decided to give. All of these donations go to software or media outlets that I think provide a positive effect on the world. I try to avoid anyone who has any type of paid advertisements or sponsorship, or anyone with exclusive subscription content.

Alternative Media

I’ve been meaning to update my guide to alternative media, as many of the people I use to follow and respect have really fallen in recent years. With the absolutely rampant amounts of censorship on YouTube and corporate censorship of independent websites, I’ve seen more people in the alternative media space releasing articles questioning why they do the work that they do. There are very few people who truly understand Trump derangement syndrome runs both ways, and try to objectively address the absolute acceleration of news propaganda events flooding the human consciousness. These are the people I want to contribute to, because I think it’s important they keep challenging the media induced world view and the fake-left/fake-right paradigm.

Falling from Grace

There are several people and organizations I’ve contributed to in the past that have hit a lifetime limit for me. I used to follow Viva Frei and Robert Barnes for their legal analysis. However, Barnes’s legal analysis has turned to garbage, and Viva Frei has replaced his well-thought-out analysis videos with long, boring streams.

I tried to give Steven Crowder the benefit of the doubt during the 2023 controversies involving his co-host, his divorce and all of conservative media. However, his content declined heavily with massively misleading investigative stories. I archived his content from The Blaze as well as his content from Locals/Rumble before finally unsubscribing from him completely. I was glad to hear that at least one of his former employees won a legal case against Crowder¹. It turned out Crowder cannot let employees go like any normal business owner, but instead goes scorched earth in attempting to destroy their lives through lawfare.

October 2024: The Texas district court judge presiding over the defamation lawsuit granted Jared’s motion to dismiss that case on the grounds that the lawsuit violated Texas’s anti-SLAPP statute. The judge ordered Crowder to reimburse Jared for $43,037 of legal expenses and pay an additional $15,000 in sanctions in order to deter Crowder from filing any similar actions in the future. The judge also stipulated that Crowder would be required to pay an additional $35,750 to Jared if Crowder appealed the decision and then lost the appeal. -Bruenig, NLRB Edge¹

I’ve contributed enough to the No Agenda Podcast to earn the title of Knighthood from the show hosts. The show was in considerable decline even before I was knighted as Sir BattlePenguin². Adam Curry, one of the two show hosts, talked about his religious conversion on Joe Rogan’s show in 2023³. While religious beliefs are somewhat common in alternative media, Curry’s views began to feel almost proselytizing during the show. There was a large falling out with the show hosts and the community of people on their No Agenda Social Mastodon server. This led the server administrator to take down the server and migrate accounts over to No Authority Social.

The No Agenda show likes to separate people into Dimension A and Dimension B, distinguishing those who absorb the news uncritically from those who attempt to find the reality within the propaganda. However, in the past year I’ve felt the show hosts believe they are still providing critical analysis, even though they’ve fallen far into major mainstream narratives. Curry immediately dismissed the notion the first Trump assassination could have been staged⁴, something I firmly believe is obvious given the evidence. The hosts are an example of how Trump Derangement Syndrome runs both ways, and the show has fallen into a continual grift for donations. The co-host, John C. Dvorak, constantly complains in the show’s newsletters about how donations are down, while Adam discusses European vacation plans during the show. One-time donations over $49 are mentioned on-air in the middle of the show, and the totals from those segments are often far more than what any of their listeners earn. The two of them have really lost touch with true critical analysis, and the show has alienated much of their audience.

Closing Thoughts

Many of the individuals I’ve listed have mailing addresses (usually as Post Office Boxes) published. In addition to donating money, I’ve started to write to them individually. A letter in the mail can make a huge difference to those who are simply trying to get out their ideas in a heavily censored world. I hope my words of encouragement on physical paper can make an impact, and I know my physical message will reach them in the era of horrifically unreliable e-mail.

Back in January, I covered many of the New Year’s events, as well as the challenge to free speech. I had started a third piece, but the news cycle was accelerating, and I really wanted to focus on technology projects instead. I have a lot of respect for those individuals who can keep up with the opening insanity of this new year and the coming era. Many of the people I’ve donated to have a dedication that I often struggle to muster.

In the coming weeks I hope to have more technology and open source project posts, leaving the chaos of this coming year to those who have kept me sane for the previous decade. I will continue to encourage, promote and support them when I can, and I hope to make donation posts like this one an annual occurrence.