Don's Tuesday Column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   4/19/2022

         Ignorance=strength; censorship=free speech

Most normal folks—the 90+ percent who don’t obsess over Twitter—have, nonetheless, found the dustup over Elon Musk’s monetary attention and involvement with Twitter to be curiously revealing. Musk is the world’s richest man; he got that way by basically acquiring undervalued assets or companies with potential for upward growth, building their services or product’s worth, and selling them for a sizable “return on investment”. He calls himself a “libertarian”; seems problematic for the left.

Their “concerns” morphed into frightened hysteria upon finding out that his views on free speech and censorship targeted one of the most formidable entities of enforcement of said censorship: Twitter. He has seriously, financially capable intent on forcing conformity with the free speech side of the equation. Twitter devotees: it threatens “World War 3” and “the end of democracy” (Musk derangement syndrome?).

Fake righty Max Boot: “I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter…For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.” Boot’s a Washington Post writer; the Post’s banner: “Democracy dies in darkness.” Translation: For democracy to survive, we need Silicon Valley elites “cancelling” the unacceptable.

All the “right (elite) people” hailed rich guy Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post; now they’re apoplectic over rich guy Elon Musk buying Twitter. They support Twitter flooding the market with cheap shares of Twitter stock, destroying existing shareholders’ value, in a vain, futile attempt to stop Musk. Me: Bring on the social media earthquake, the creative destruction/reconstruction of free speech Twitter.

“In George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.” To Robert Reich, Clinton’s Labor chief, Musk’s vision for uncontrolled Internet and Twitter is not only “dangerous nonsense,” but also “the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogue.” Reich’s sentiments are mock-worthy nonsense, summed up: “Censorship is free speech.” Despots invariably seek to silence critics.

Left-leaners probably give a “thumbs up” for the transparent reason that you think it benefits your side. That’s intellectual honesty, at least, but to deny the reality of partisan censorship fools no one.

Examples abound: “Just last month, Issues & Insights reported a poll it conducted with TIPP, the most accurate predictor of the last five presidential elections, regarding people’s feelings about COVID. The survey found 65% of Americans think COVID policy in the United States is ‘driven by politics,’ with only 21% believing it’s ‘driven by science’…

“Google AdSense responded by labeling it ‘dangerous and derogatory content’ and stripped its ads…In March I&I released a poll showing that 67% of Republicans wanted President Donald Trump on the 2024 ballot while only 37% of Democrats wanted President Joe Biden on the ticket. Google called this ‘unreliable and harmful.’” (Glenn Reynolds, Nypost.com) It proves the power of Big Tech, serving “regime” narratives.

A Supreme Court case decided that if something is illegal or unconstitutional for the government to do, it’s likewise disallowed for the government to impose that policy via the private sector doing the government’s bidding. Think of Biden’s mouthpiece Psaki saying that social media companies should exercise more censorship of content opposing Biden’s narratives or policies.

What greater example of public/private narrative censorship than what was on display at The Atlantic’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference at the University of Chicago. Conservative students asked polite, well-prepared questions of elite mavens of news media, Ann Applebaum, Brian Stelter and others.

Mr. Stelter was confronted with a calm recitation of major news stories heavily promoted on CNN that were not only ultimately proven incorrect but could have easily been debunked initially (conservatives did just that): Trump-Russia collusion, Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, the Nick Sandman and Catholic school kids confronted by a rude Native American activist to whom was shown no disrespect, fake rape allegations lobbed at Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

Stelter disingenuously deflected, saying he would speak to the student privately, while hypocritically refusing to utter any response to the student’s litany of “fake news.” Ann Applebaum’s arrogant dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop story—as “not interesting” to her and “irrelevant” to the presidential election—was an egregious “gaslighting” message to the gathered acolytes on the proper attitude.

Not to be outdone, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg played the corporate media’s trump card by calling reporting by the student paper, the Chicago Thinker, on the evasiveness of those questioned, a “disinformation campaign.” Says it all. Must of hit close to home to have their little “disinformation” seminar compared to a “fire prevention speech from an arsonist, or a child safety seminar led by a pedophile.

Especially so after the dissembler-in-chief, Barack Obama, “had the nerve to help open the event, although his administration famously spied on the Donald Trump campaign with a secret court warrant backed by the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Christopher Steele dossier which, in an ironic twist, was the product of Russian disinformation. Democrats used this disinformation to repeatedly smear President Trump and undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.

“Former chief advisor to the Obama administration David Axelrod moderated two of Wednesday’s discussions…Axelrod still has the gall to repeat [on Wednesday] the debunked Russian collusion hoax.”

The NYTimes and the Washington Post confirmed the contents of the Hunter’s laptop, while laboring to absolve Joe Biden of any suspicion. Only a more official, definitive examination will force Americans to accept that they were hoodwinked by a media/political/intelligence cabal into voting for the most corrupt politician to aspire to the presidency in America’s history, Joe Biden.