Are You Colluding with Russia?

According to the main-stream media and federal prosecutors, discussing certain topics in social media could lead to being charged with a crime such as defrauding the United States by interfering in upcoming elections, sowing discord and divisiveness.

• The Guardian (US Edition) 10/18/2018: US charges Russian woman with interfering in 2018 midterms.
• Russian's literally only shared and promoted propaganda created by domestic U.S. Sources.
• NBC News: 10/19/2018: Russian woman charged with attempted meddling in upcoming U.S. midterms.
• To sow discord and divisiveness, the Russians used the following topics to "create and amplify divisive social media and political content."
• Gun Control
• Gay Rights
• Kneeling during the National Anthem
• The Women's March
• The Las Vegas Shooting
• The Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• The Washington Post: 10/19/2018: Justice Dept. charges Russian woman with interference in midterm elections.
• "The group attempted to sow conflict along racial lines and sometimes advocated positions that directly opposed each other, apparently agnostic to whom they supported as long as it turned Americans against one another, prosecutors said."
• CNN Politics: 10/19/2018: Russian national charged with attempting to interfere in 2018 midterms.
• Mentioned the following incidents:
• The shootings of church members in Charleston, South Carolina
• Concert attendees in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally, which left one counterprotester dead
• Police shootings of African-American men
• The video mentions that the federal government set aside only $380,000,000.00 to protect the election process.

This sets a new precedence for prosecuting social activists. Can these important issues ever be addressed again without fear of persecution? The whole point of protesting is to rally support for one's cause. Once it was the case that who has the most people show up wins. Now who ever shows up gets surveilled, photographed, documented then persecuted.

Talk Talk Talk gets Cheaper and Cheaper

I sit and watch PBS Newshour, BBC News, 60 Minutes, CNN MSNBC, Fox News, and I notice that the majority of time spent by the news anchors, hosts and their guests, is speculation and opinion, not actually reporting on policy.

There was a time when a person's word meant something. Even to go as far as legally binding. Back when everyone feared punishment by a deity for "bearing false witness," until the Fairness Doctrine was revoked under President Reagan in 1986. It was the end of ethics in broadcast media.

Print had been corrupted since before Edward Bernays published his book Propaganda in 1928, perhaps all the way back to when the railroad barons hired journalists to be their Public Relations operatives.

Now, old people still cling to what the talking-heads in the main-stream media say, and take their words as truth. It's an old habit that cannot be shaken off by the Baby Boomers, so they vote the way they are told to vote, instead of checking what was said, with what was actually done.

This may account for why more people try to resolve their differences through violence instead of discourse. The authority of language has been so diminished by cynicism, by deception, that physical violence seems to be the only compensation. The increase in mass-shootings are finally beginning to change people's minds, after decades of ignoring warnings from groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Young people gained the benefit of the Internet, to verify what's being said, with the behavior of those who say it. At least until Net Neutrality goes away, which may be this December (2017).

New generations in the age of the Internet peeled away the veneer of false propaganda, distortion of history, "alternative facts," and in so doing, like staring into the eyes of Medusa, became inflicted with stony irreverence.

What will become of our world after this? The Internet opened Pandora's box and gave us a taste of what it's like to be truly informed and able to hold deceivers accountable. What will we do when the powers that be, finally close the box?

Aldous Huxley on Technodictators

How state media became information warfare tool