Posted on 02/04/2021 6:46:17 AM PST by Kaslin
The American public deserves the truth -- from its politicians and from any and all media. This should be a noncontroversial statement. But it is controversial, apparently. Not only are we not being told the truth; we are being prevented from hearing the truth told to us by anyone who has it -- or is actively seeking it. We are increasingly unable to even access information we could use to form our own independent assessments of what is true and what is not. This is appalling, and we must demand that it stop.
Our national press has a long history of keeping the truth from us -- and even telling outright lies when doing so fits its preferred narrative (or helps its preferred political candidate). The press's manipulation of the flow of information has been exposed time and time again.
For decades, America had the politicians/press one-two punch: Politicians lie, and the left-wing media cover up for them -- at least if they're Democrats.
Until talk radio and the advent of the internet, the public had few sources outside of newspapers and major TV networks, which gave "journalists" (and their pet politicians) a de facto monopoly on the flow of information. But those newer media -- to which social media was added even more recently -- meant that anyone investigating stories traditional media chose to spin (or ignore altogether) had new platforms for reaching people who were unsatisfied with lies, half-truths and information blackouts.
Now that, too, has been throttled. In place of the old one-two punch, we now have the unholy trinity: Politicians lie; traditional media cover for them; and the Big Tech social media companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) demonetize, deplatform and otherwise censor any information they don't want the American public to have.
We're told these steps are necessary to protect the public from being hornswoggled by unreliable sources peddling "fake news" -- like concerns about election fraud.
Bunk.
First of all, as noted above, the traditional media has a lousy track record when it comes to deciding what's true and what isn't, and -- oddly -- those decisions seem to consistently coincide with the personal and professional interests of left-wing politicians.
Second, what's "unreliable" is a matter of some debate.
Take the National Enquirer, for example. Traditionally known as a gossip rag that peddles unsubstantiated stories from unidentified sources, it was nevertheless the Enquirer that, in the early 2000s, broke the story about Democratic presidential contender John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter. Edwards was a Democratic Party golden boy, and so -- unsurprisingly -- the "reliable" media had largely ignored rampant rumors about Edwards' extramarital liaisons -- and the child those liaisons had produced.
If the social media companies are going to follow in the legacy media's footsteps, there's no reason to think their decisions will be any better. Indeed, it's evident that those decisions are even worse.
Dennis Prager's organization, Prager University, or PragerU, publishes popular videos expounding on conservative policy positions. YouTube was sued for blocking and demonetizing PragerU's videos, effectively preventing it from reaching its intended audience and crippling its business model. PragerU lost; the judge held that YouTube is a private company that can publish whatever and whoever it likes.
YouTube has been emboldened by this decision and now routinely deplatforms or demonetizes videos with conservative content in ways that even some traditional liberals -- like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi -- warn is dangerous and destructive to a free society.
The Epoch Times just announced that it has been demonetized by YouTube. One may dislike the conservative editorial posture of the Epoch Times -- just as one may dislike the progressive bent of The New York Times -- but the Epoch Times is a legitimate newspaper with actual investigative journalists. Who are the social media companies to say that the Epoch Times cannot disseminate information it has for its readership?
Ah, but the Epoch Times' alleged crime is its ongoing reporting about election fraud. The powers that be have decided that there was no fraud, there can be no discussion about fraud and any attempt to provide information about fraud will be shut down.
The social media companies have no right to deprive Americans of information on this issue -- or any other. Contrary to what we are being told, litigation, investigations and legislative efforts are ongoing in states across the country:
-- In Virginia in October, a judge ruled that accepting mailed-in ballots that arrived without postmarks after Election Day was unconstitutional and banned the practice going forward.
-- Maricopa County, Arizona, has just begun a forensic audit of votes cast in the 2020 presidential election, and a resolution has been introduced in the Arizona Senate to hold the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt for its refusal to turn over information and equipment ordered by subpoena.
-- In Michigan, election officials have been ordered to turn over information to ongoing investigations into state election procedures.
-- And states across the country -- especially those with Republican-controlled legislatures -- are expected to push for election-integrity legislation in advance of the 2022 midterm elections.
Much of this is being driven by widespread concerns about vote fraud that preceded the 2020 election and were exacerbated by it. Americans have a right to get the information they want about this issue and others -- and a right to make their own determinations. We are not just going to accept what we're told to believe, especially when those who have the most to lose from truth seem hell-bent on preventing us from finding it.
Obviously we do not have the rights we thought we did or these events would not be continuing.
The only reference I found for "hornswoggled" was the midget wrestler Hornswoggle.
Did not know that Hornswoggle was taking down conservatives.
A friend only watches TV for the news.
She switched her vote to Joe Biden, using arguments first heard from 2016! The rise and fall of our Republic is linked to TV news!
The information power brokers don’t like the information age as much as they want you to believe.
The public has been on the internet since the 80s and some professionals have had access decades longer than that.
The web certainly made it much easier to share information quickly. Misinformation as well.
I never thought I would live to see the day when the regular media would be so bad that they would make the National Enquirer look like Walter Cronkite.
I stopped watching tv during the 2008 election.
I’d had enough messaging from corporate commercials, hype for left-perspective accounts of the evening news (even if you didn’t watch, there was the “headline snipe” in between segments of whatever you were watching), hype for agitprop movie ads, etc.
I was bombarded with leftist drivel in the media (radio too) in the 80s in the northeast. Listened to Larry King’s radio show and shook my head at the things he and his guests would say (Reagan was still president then).
I remember Larry King’s outrage when Rush Limbaugh guest hosted for a week at CBS on Pat Sajek’s late night talk show.
>>I never thought I would live to see the day when the regular media would be so bad that they would make the National Enquirer look like Walter Cronkite.
A look at the front page of Yahoo or MSN.com shows that they VERY MUCH are a exploitive “National Enquirer” type headline presentation of news. Catty in every way against Republicans and Conservatives.
There is a Facebook video of a woman that has horrible and uncontrollable palsy after, allegedly, get a Wuhan virus vaccine. Wouldn’t it be nice if a journalist would check it out? They won’t, so we’re left to speculate as to whether the vaccine is destroying lives, knowing the media would hide it from us if it was true. We not only cannot believe what we’re told, but have to guess about what’s being withheld. In guessing, we’ll sometimes be wrong. But the fact is that’s where we are. “Orange man bad, vaccine bad; orange man gone, vaccine good.” We will never know.
Not according to our “betters” in the DNC and GOP
” PragerU lost; the judge held that YouTube is a private company that can publish whatever and whoever it likes.”
Interesting, apparently a private company can refuse to serve someone for whatever reason — unless that person or group is black, a protected class or democrat. More blatant hypocrisy in our laws and judicial system.
Hornswoggle means getting cheated, basically.
horn·swog·gle
/ˈhôrnˌswäɡəl/
Learn to pronounce
verbINFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
get the better of (someone) by cheating or deception.
“you mean to say you were hornswoggled?”
Definitions from Oxford Language
I remember “B” Western movie movies “hornswoggle.”
Snake-Oil Salesmen. Modern day “Conolodine.”
... those who have the most to lose from truth seem hell-bent on preventing us from finding it.
Heh. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.
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