Menu
Paynal © 2008
The Worst 2024 Election Interference Will Not Come From Russia Or China by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2023-07-12 at 21:13:51 )
The Worst 2024 Election Interference Will Not Come From Russia Or China by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
The New York Times has been churning out an amazing number of hit pieces on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lately.
On Tuesday the Times published an audio essay titled "Why I Regret Debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr." by opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo. Manjoo debated Kennedy in 2006 about the legitimacy of George W Bushs 2004 win against John Kerry, believing that Mr. Kennedys skepticism of the election results was dangerous.
"Disputing elections is just not good for democracy," Manjoo says, joining the rest of the United States of American liberal political-media class in rewriting history to pretend they did not just spend the entire Donald Trump administration doing exactly that.
Mr. Manjoo cites his experience debating Mr. Kennedy (whom he repeatedly refers to as a "conspiracy theorist") to argue that nobody should debate the presidential candidate on the topic of Covid vaccines, adding yet another entry to the countless articles and news segments which were published in the mass media last month saying that vaccine scientist Peter Hotez should reject Joe Rogans offer of $100,000 to a charity of his choice if he would debate Mr. Kennedy on the subject.
Last week The New York Times published an article titled "5 Noteworthy Falsehoods Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has Promoted," along with a Paul Krugman article which opens with the line "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a crank" and an opinion piece titled "Pro-Vaccine Views Are Winning. Do Not Fear the Skeptics." which opens with a stab at Mr. Kennedy. The week before that there was a standard hit piece by Gail Collins. The week before that there was another piece by Farhad Manjoo about how nobody should debate Mr. Kennedy about vaccines.
Sometimes they are presented as opinion pieces, sometimes they are presented as hard news stories despite brazenly biased language and overt editorializing, and all are slanted against Mr. Kennedy in some way. The New York Times plainly dislikes RFK Jr, and makes no secret of working to make sure its audience dislikes him too.
And this is pretty much what we can expect from United States of American mass media until Mr. Kennedy has either lost his presidential race or had his reputation so thoroughly destroyed among the electorate that he can be safely ignored. The message will be hammered and hammered and hammered home until the illusory truth effect causes readers to mistake rote repetition for truth, and Mr. Kennedys campaign will fizzle.
And Silicon Valley is playing, too. Last month YouTube took down multiple videos featuring two different interviews with Mr. Kennedy on the grounds that they violated the platforms policies against "vaccine misinformation". Youtube is owned by Google, which has had ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency since its inception and is now a full-fledged Pentagon contractor.
Mr. Kennedy tweeted some interesting comments about YouTubes removal of his interviews.
"People made a big deal about Russia supposedly manipulating internet information to influence a Presidential election. Should we not be worried when giant tech corporations do the same?" asked Mr. Kennedy, adding, "When industry and government are so closely linked, there is little difference between "private" and "government" censorship. Suppression of free speech is not suddenly OK when it is contracted out to the private corporations that control the public square."
This is a point I have been emphasizing for years: in a corporatist system of government, where there is no real separation between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship.
And it really is interesting how almost everyone seems to be pretty much okay with corporations in the media and Silicon Valley interfering in a United States election like this. Everyone shrieked their lungs out about the (now wholly discredited) narrative that Russian bots had influenced the United States election with tweets and Facebook memes, but immensely wealthy corporations with universes more influence manipulating the way people think and vote is perfectly fine?
That does seem to be the way of it, though. This past April the Obama administrations acting CIA director Mike Morell admitted to using his intelligence connections to circulate a false story in the press during the 2020 presidential race that the Hunter Biden laptop leak was a Russian disinfo op, because he wanted to ensure that Joe Biden would win the election. And absolutely nothing happened to him; Mr. Morell just went on with his day.
It has just taken as a given that it is fine for United States oligarchs and empire managers to interfere in an election with brazen psyops and mass media propaganda, even as more and more internet censorship gets put in place on the grounds of protecting election security.
If an ordinary United States of American circulated disinformation to manipulate the election, imperial spinmeisters would cite that as evidence that online communication needs to be more aggressively controlled. But when Obamas acting CIA director does it, it is cool. Election interference for me but not for thee!!
This is where the most election interference will come from in this presidential race: not from Russia, not from China, but from the rich and powerful drivers of the United States-centralized empire. The operation of a globe-spanning power structure is simply too important to be left in the hands of the electorate.
I do not have any strong opinions about RFK Jr. and will not be supporting any presidential candidate in the United States of Americas pretend election. But these presidential races do often provide opportunities to highlight the ways our rulers have got everything locked down!!
"This Ms Caitlin Johnstone article, its pictures, and its links are here:"
Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".
Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky