- [M]edia polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold
almost diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news
corporations predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."
- Americans have correctly concluded that [with the "Russia Hoax" and
suppressing reported influence peddling in Hunter Biden's laptop ]
journalists and spies advanced a "fraud" on voters as part of an effort
to censor a damaging story and "help Biden win." Nevertheless, The
New York Times and The Washington Post have yet to return the
Pulitzer Prizes they received for reporting totally discredited "fake
news."
- "Under the current approach to journalism, it is the New York
Times that receives a Pulitzer for a now debunked Russian collusion
story rather than the New York Post for a now proven Hunter Biden
laptop story." — Professor Jonathan Turley, George Washington University
Law School, Twitter, May 15, 2023.
- The government apparently took the public's censorship concerns so
seriously that it quietly moved on from the collapse of its plans for a
"disinformation governance board" within the DHS and proceeded within
the space of a month to create a new "disinformation" office known as
the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which now operates from within the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Although ostensibly
geared toward countering information warfare arising from "foreign"
threats, one of its principal objectives is to monitor and control
"public opinion and behaviors."
- As independent journalist Matt Taibbi concludes of the government's
resurrected Ministry of Truth: "It's the basic rhetorical trick of the
censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a
battering ram to get everyone from Congress to the tech companies to
submit to increased regulation and surveillance. Then, slowly, adjust
your aim to domestic targets."
- Democrat Senator Michael Bennet has already proposed a bill that
would create a Federal Digital Platform Commission with "the authority
to promulgate rules, impose civil penalties, hold hearings, conduct
investigations, and support research."
- Effectively, a small number of unelected commissioners would have
de facto power to monitor and police online communication. Should
any particular website or platform run afoul of the government's First
Amendment Star Chamber, it would immediately place itself within the
commission's crosshairs for greater oversight, regulation, and
punishment.
- Will this new creation become an American KGB, Stasi or CCP —
empowered to target half the population for disagreeing with current
government policies, promoting "wrongthink," or merely going to church?
Will a small secretive body decide which Americans are actually
"domestic terrorists" in the making? US Attorney General Merrick Garland
has gone after traditional Catholics who attend Latin mass, but why
would government suspicions end with the Latin language? When small
commissions exist to decide which Americans are the "enemy," there is no
telling who will be designated as a "threat" and punished next.
- It is not difficult to see the dangers that lie ahead. Now that the
government has fully inserted itself into the news and information
industry, the criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. This
has always been a chief complaint against international institutions
such as the World Economic Forum that spend a great deal of time, power,
and money promoting the thoughts and opinions of an insular cabal of
global leaders, while showing negligible respect for the personal rights
and liberties of the billions of ordinary citizens they claim to
represent.
- If Schwab's online army were not execrable enough, advocates for
free speech must also gird themselves for the repercussions of Elon
Musk's appointment of Linda Yaccarino, reportedly a "neo-liberal wokeist"
with strong WEF affiliations, as the new CEO of Twitter.
- In an America now plagued with the stench of official "snitch
lines," censorship of certain presidential candidates, widespread online
surveillance, a resurrected "disinformation governance board," and
increasingly frequent criminal prosecutions targeting Americans who
exercise their free speech, the question is not whether what we
inaudibly think or say in our sleep will someday be used against us, but
rather how soon that day will come unless we stop it.
If legacy news corporations fail to report that large majorities of the
American public now view their journalistic product as straight-up propaganda,
does that make it any less true?
According to a
survey by Rasmussen Reports, 59% of likely voters in the United States view
the corporate news media as "truly the enemy of the people." This is a
majority view, held regardless of race: "58% of whites, 51% of black voters,
and 68% of other minorities" — all agree that the mainstream media has become
their "enemy."
This scorching indictment of the Fourth Estate piggybacks similar
polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold almost
diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news corporations
predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
Drawing attention to the divergence between the public's perceived reality
and the news media's prevailing "narratives," independent journalist Glenn
Greenwald
dissected the Harvard-Harris poll to highlight just how differently some of
the most important issues of the last few years have been understood. While
corporate news fixated on purported Trump-Russia collusion since 2016,
majorities of Americans now
see this story "as a hoax and a fraud."
While the news media hid behind the Intelligence Community's claims that
Hunter Biden's potentially incriminating laptop (allegedly containing evidence
of his family's influence-peddling) was a product of "Russian
disinformation" and consequently enforced an information blackout on the
explosive story during the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, strong
majorities of Americans currently believe the laptop's contents are "real." In
other words, Americans have correctly concluded that journalists and spies
advanced a "fraud" on voters as part of an effort to censor a damaging story and
"help
Biden win." Nevertheless, The New York Times and The Washington
Post have yet to return the Pulitzer Prizes they received for reporting
totally discredited "fake news."
Similarly, majorities of Americans suspect that President Joe Biden has used
the powers of his various offices to profit from
influence-peddling schemes and that the FBI has intentionally refrained from
investigating any possible Biden crimes. Huge majorities of Americans, in fact,
seem not at all surprised to learn that the FBI has been caught
abusing its own powers to influence elections, and are strongly convinced
that "sweeping reform" is needed. Likewise, large majorities of Americans
have "serious doubts about Biden's mental fitness to be president" and
suspect that others behind the scenes are "puppeteers"
running the nation.
Few, if any, of these poll results have been widely reported. In a
seemingly-authoritarian disconnect with the American people, corporate news
media continue to
ignore the public's majority opinion and instead "relentlessly advocate"
those viewpoints that Americans "reject." When journalists fail to investigate
facts and deliberately distort stories so that they fit snugly within
preconceived worldviews, reporters act as propagandists.
Constitutional law scholar
Jonathan Turley recently asked, "Do we have a de facto state media?"
In answering his own question, he notes that the news blackout surrounding
congressional investigations into Biden family members who have allegedly
received more than
ten million dollars in suspicious payments from foreign entities "fits the
past standards used to denounce
Russian propaganda patterns and practices." After Republican members of
Congress traced funds to nine Biden family members "from corrupt figures in
Romania, China, and other countries," Turley writes, "The New Republic quickly
ran a story
headlined 'Republicans Finally Admit They Have No Incriminating Evidence on
Joe Biden.'"
Excoriating the news media's penchant for mindlessly embracing stories that
hurt former President Donald Trump while simultaneously ignoring stories that
might damage President Biden, Turley
concludes:
"Under the current approach to journalism, it is the New York Times
that receives a Pulitzer for a now debunked Russian collusion story rather
than the New York Post for a now proven Hunter Biden laptop story."
Americans now evidently view the major sources for their news and information
as part of a larger political machine pushing particular points of view,
unconstrained by any ethical obligation to report facts objectively or
dispassionately seek truth. That Americans now see the news media in their
country as serving a similar role as Pravda did for the Soviet Union's
Communist Party is a significant departure from the country's historic embrace
of free speech and traditional fondness for a skeptical, adversarial press.
Rather than taking a step back to consider the implications such a shift in
public perception will have for America's future stability, some officials
appear even more committed to expanding government control over what can be said
and debated online. After the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in the wake
of public backlash over First Amendment concerns, halted its efforts to
construct an official "disinformation
governance board" last year, the question remained whether other government
attempts to silence or shape online information would rear their head. The wait
for that answer did not take long.
The government apparently took the public's censorship concerns so seriously
that it quietly moved on from the collapse of its plans for a "disinformation
governance board" within the DHS and proceeded
within the space of a month to create a new
"disinformation" office known as the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which
now operates from within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Although ostensibly geared toward countering information warfare arising from
"foreign" threats, one of its principal objectives is to monitor and control "public
opinion and behaviors."
As independent journalist Matt Taibbi
concludes of the government's resurrected Ministry of Truth:
"It's the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss
about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from
Congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and
surveillance. Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets."
If it were not jarring enough to learn that the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence has picked up the government's speech police baton right
where the DHS set it down, there is ample evidence to suggest that officials are
eager to go much further in the near future. Democrat Senator Michael Bennet has
already
proposed a bill that would create a
Federal Digital Platform Commission with "the authority to promulgate rules,
impose civil penalties, hold hearings, conduct investigations, and support
research."
Filled with "disinformation" specialists empowered to create "enforceable
behavioral codes" for online communication — and generously
paid for by the Biden Administration with taxpayers' money — the
special commission would also "designate 'systemically important digital
platforms' subject to extra oversight, reporting, and regulation" requirements.
Effectively, a small number of unelected commissioners would have de facto
power to monitor and police online communication. Should any particular website
or platform run afoul of the government's First Amendment Star Chamber, it would
immediately place itself within the commission's crosshairs for greater
oversight, regulation, and punishment.
Will this new creation become an American KGB, Stasi or CCP — empowered to
target half the population for disagreeing with current government policies,
promoting "wrongthink," or merely
going to church? Will a small secretive body decide which Americans are
actually "domestic terrorists" in the making? US Attorney General Merrick
Garland has gone after traditional Catholics who attend Latin mass, but why
would government suspicions end with the Latin language? When small commissions
exist to decide which Americans are the "enemy," there is no telling who will be
designated as a "threat" and punished next.
It is not difficult to see the dangers that lie ahead. Now that the
government has fully inserted itself into the news and information industry, the
criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. This has always been a
chief complaint against international institutions such as the
World Economic Forum that spend a great deal of time, power, and money
promoting the thoughts and opinions of an insular cabal of global leaders, while
showing negligible respect for the personal rights and liberties of the billions
of ordinary citizens they claim to represent.
WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab has gone so far as to hire hundreds of thousands of
"information
warriors" whose mission is to "control the Internet" by "policing social
media," eliminating dissent, disrupting the public square, and "covertly
seed[ing] support" for the WEF's "Great Reset." If Schwab's online army were not
execrable enough, advocates for free speech must also gird themselves for the
repercussions of Elon Musk's appointment of Linda Yaccarino, reportedly a "neo-liberal
wokeist" with strong WEF affiliations, as the new CEO of Twitter.
Throughout much of the West, unfortunately, free speech has been only weakly
protected when those with power find its defense inconvenient or messages a
nuisance. It is therefore of little surprise to learn that French authorities
are now prosecuting government protesters for "flipping-off"
President Emmanuel Macron. It does not seem particularly astonishing that a
German man has been sentenced to three years in prison for engaging in
"pro-Russian"
political speech regarding the war in Ukraine. It also no longer appears
shocking to read that UK Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan
reportedly seeks to imprison social media executives who
fail to censor online speech that the government might subjectively adjudge
"harmful." Sadly, as Ireland continues to find new ways to punish citizens for
expressing certain points of view, its movement toward criminalizing not just
speech but also
"hateful" thoughts should have been predictable.
From an American's perspective, these overseas encroachments against free
speech — especially within the borders of closely-allied lands — have seemed
sinister yet entirely foreign. Now, however, what was once observed from some
distance has made its way home; it feels as if a faraway communist enemy has
finally stormed America's beaches and come ashore in force.
Not a day seems to go by without some new battlefront opening up in the war
on free speech and free thought. The Richard Stengel of the Council on Foreign
Relations has been increasingly
vocal about the importance of journalists and think tanks to act as "primary
provocateurs" and "propagandists" who "have
to" manipulate the American population and shape the public's perception of
world events. Senator Rand Paul has alleged that the DHS uses at least
12 separate programs to "track what Americans say online," as well as to
engage in social media censorship.
As part of its efforts to silence dissenting arguments, the Biden
administration is pursuing a policy that would make it
unlawful to use data and datasets that reflect accurate information yet lead
to "discriminatory outcomes" for "protected classes." In other words, if the
data is perceived to be "racist," it must be expunged. At the same time, the
Department of Justice has indicted four radical black leftists for having
somehow "weaponized"
their free speech rights in support of Russian "disinformation." So, objective
datasets can be deemed "discriminatory" against minorities, while
actual discrimination against minorities' free speech is excused when that
speech contradicts official government policy.
Meanwhile, the DHS has been
exposed for paying tens of millions of dollars to third-party
"anti-terrorism" programs that have not so coincidentally equated Christians,
Republicans, and philosophical conservatives to Germany's
Nazi Party. Similarly, California Governor Gavin Newsom has set up a
Soviet-style "snitch
line" that encourages neighbors to report on each other's public or private
displays of "hate."
Finally, ABC News proudly
admits that it has censored parts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s interviews
because some of his answers include "false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines."
Essentially, the corporate news media have deemed Kennedy's viewpoints unworthy
of being transmitted and heard, even though the 2024 presidential candidate is
running a strong second behind Joe Biden in the Democrat primary, with around
20% support from the electorate.
Taken all together, it is clear that not only has the war on free speech come
to America, but also that it is clobbering Americans in a relentless campaign of
"shock and awe." And why not? In a
litigation battle presently being waged over the federal government's
extensive censorship programs, the Biden administration has
defended its inherent authority to control Americans' thoughts as an
instrumental component of "government infrastructure." What Americans think and
believe is openly referred to as part of the nation's "cognitive infrastructure"
— as if the Matrix movies were simply reflecting real life.
Today, America's mainstream news corporations are already viewed as
processing plants that manufacture political propaganda. That is an unbelievably
searing indictment of a once-vibrant free press in the United States. It is
also, unfortunately, only the first heavy shoe to drop in the war against free
speech. Many Chinese-Americans who survived the Cultural Revolution look around
the country today and
see similarities everywhere. During that totalitarian "reign of terror,"
everything a person did was monitored, including what was
said while asleep.
In an America now plagued with the stench of official "snitch lines,"
censorship of certain
presidential candidates, widespread online surveillance, a resurrected
"disinformation governance board," and increasingly frequent criminal
prosecutions targeting Americans who exercise their free speech, the question is
not whether what we inaudibly think or say in our sleep will someday be used
against us, but rather how soon that day will come unless we stop it. After all,
with smartphones, smart TVs, "smart" appliances, video-recording doorbells, and
the rise of artificial intelligence, somebody, somewhere is always listening.
JB Shurk writes about politics and society.