....The Fact CHEKA.
Posted on 05/14/2022 1:19:06 PM PDT by Lazamataz
In the former Soviet Union, one of the first Secret Police organizations was called the CHEKA (In Cyrillic: Чека). This organization, formed in 1917, was an unaccountable ‘police’ force intended to repress any of the opponents of Communism. They ran the Soviet GULAG; they conducted mass arrests; they put down rebellions of the citizenry against the new Communist rulers.
America, in the last decade or so, has drifted slowly to a society more in line with what the Soviet Union implemented, then a society based on the personal freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. I even have a quip, authored in 2007, that expresses the change succinctly: “First, we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.” The Ed Snowden revelation that we were being universally monitored by certain three-letter Federal agencies was one of the first confirmations of our slide.
Over and over, we are seeing the government encroach on and ignore personal liberties. We all see the many attempts to infringe on the Second Amendment, but we never thought that they would wholeheartedly attack the First Amendment of free speech. The argument I remember growing up was, “The answer to objectionable free speech, is more free speech.” This argument seems to have fallen by the wayside, in favor of censorship.
The Supreme Court has ruled that private companies generally do not fall under the Constitutional protection of free speech, and would likely rule in that fashion as regards censorship on Facebook and Twitter… but there would be important exceptions to these rulings. If the Federal government conspires too closely with private industry to violate Constitutionally enumerated rights, that the Federal government is in violation of the Constitution, even when they act indirectly. Also, there is the maxim that these Social Media companies have become the "Public Commons", and censoring free speech in the Public Commons is unacceptable to the intent of the First Amendment. Imagine if the Bell Telephone company, in the 1960’s, censored private conversations based on political content. The uproar would be universal, coming both from liberals and conservatives.
This current Administration worked with Facebook and Twitter, encouraging them to censor ‘Hate Speech’ or “Mis- and Disinformation”. Forget for a moment that many of these so-called violations were completely legitimate political opinion and facts (such as the ever-mounting evidence that there was a stolen presidential election in 2020). The fact that the Federal government was encouraging these violations was completely unconstitutional, especially since Facebook and Twitter (with their broad adoption and reach) are, indeed, the “Public Commons”.
Then Elon Musk began the acquisition of Twitter, with the stated intent of reversing the trend of banning, shadow-banning, and suspending people who expressed opinions counter to the Federal government and News Misleadia narrative. Within days, the Biden administration announced the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board”. This is unacceptable. They do not get to decide what is Disinformation, and in fact, their titular Department Head, one Nina Jankowicz (a hyper-partisan flunky) was engaged in the promulgation of lies related to the Hunter Biden laptop, among many other things.
Propaganda created and distributed by the Federal government has long been an off-limits activity. Even the CIA was not permitted to domestically circulate propaganda meant for foreign lands, until Obama, at the end of his last term, rescinded this rule. Domestic propaganda, and domestic censorship, are at cross purposes with the maintenance of a free society. Open discourse is the furnace that burns away falsehoods – NOT the creation of an agency that most mirrors “MiniTrue” of the novel 1984. It can be observed that repressing the free flow of opinions and information is less serious than the physical repression of political opponents, but, without free speech, what follows over time is likely to be physical oppression. Violence against speech has historically been followed by violence against the people.
To create a Federal government agency, Orwellian in purpose, to define and manage what ‘truth’ is, is as significant as the creation of the CHEKA in the Soviet Union. They hold themselves to be the Federal Fact Checkers… I hold, instead, that they are the Fact CHEKA.
....The Fact CHEKA.
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We see what you did there.
See my tagline.
“The Fact CHEKA”
Excellent.
They are not Fact Checkers.
They are the Fact CHEKA.
I realize it’s fictional, but I think the Ministry of Truth has a ring to it. I think more people are aware of ‘1984’ rather than the history of the USSR. And it is in English as a bonus.
But I do get your point. When consuming what passes for ‘news’ in this country I feel more and more like a reader of Pravda/Izvestia having to balance what they say and paying particular attention to what they don’t say.
The Cheka were pure party hacks. In the early days their ranks were made up by what we would know today as baristas, cashiers, waiters, retail clerks, bartenders, union workers...a bit like the TSA but far more incompetent and evil with virtually no accountability for their brutal actions.
You need to send that to the conservative news websites, if you haven't already. 🙂
You mean, kinda like....
....Nina Jankowicz!
What about National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)? Americans are paying dearly to listen or view them despite their fake news and slanted views on almost everything from politics to the environment.
Yes, I like “Ministry of Truth” too. And just as the Bolsheviks’ chrezvychaynaya komissiya was shortened to Cheka, ours should be abbreviated MiniTru.
Sounds gangsta.
“We the Fact CHEKA, fo shizzle.”
(Disclaimer: I have no idea what that might mean)
Russia, China, USA all seem to be converging towards a general statist government/societal model. Not exactly the same, of course - but all with the same important pillars of state-sponsored and state-directed crony-capitalism, central-planning, social-media monitoring and propaganda, state-controlled major media, elitist one-party rule.
Good commentary Laz, and great turn of a phrase.
Russia, China, USA all seem to be converging towards a general statist government/societal model. Not exactly the same, of course - but all with the same important pillars of state-sponsored and state-directed crony-capitalism, central-planning, social-media monitoring and propaganda, state-controlled major media, elitist one-party rule.
***Yup, predicted in Revelation 13, the system of the beast, one world guvmint.
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