I Hate to Be The One to Break the News:
But Free-Speech is a Non-Issue
What?
Because we haven't had "equal-speech" in over one hundred years. The 20th century marked the beginning of weaponized communication where the Powers That Be outflanked our forefathers 100,000 to 1 or perhaps even worse.
Sure, go ahead speak your mind, share your opinions including the ability to criticize your government as guaranteed by the first amendment. You'll be like a fly bumping repeatedly up against a plate glass window getting nowhere.
In the 20th century you could shout all you wanted, but access to the news, radio, publishing houses were all strictly controlled. You may recall from my book that lawyer and investigative reporter Mark Lane's only option to publicize his explosive revelations about JFK's assassination was with overseas publishers. It was like spitting into the wind.
George Marion, a journalist who was highly critical of the news industry had to create his own publishing company first just to get his books into circulation. He died early in life overworked and exhausted attempting to share this critical message with the public.
Alfred Crozier, self-funded his book US Currency vs Corporate Currency, in 1911 in a valiant effort to expose Wall street's plan to undermine the United States with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. I chronicle his battle against a well funded front group, The National Citizen's League for the Promotion of Sound Banking, in a PDF
And these are just a few who did their best to engage in fist-fights with Mohammad Ali.
These were not fair fights...not at all.
Reach, or the dissemination of ideas across large swaths of the population is the only way to shift public opinion. That piece of paper guaranteeing you "Free-speech" has effectively been made null and void since the early 1900's when technological advances and control of the media power centers, like news, publishers and even Hollywood made it possible to dominate, overwhelm, out-finance and censor any dangerous ideas put forth by the whistle-blowing public.
The right to Freedom of speech, amounts to a cheap door prize in the face of the enormous inequality of opportunities to be heard; the ideal of One Person-One Voice-One Vote utterly marginalized by the creation of the great propaganda machine.
The inability to actually speak truth to power, along with the abdication of this role by the press effectively disabled the security system on the constitutional “house of the republic.” No bugler alarm to signal maleficence, corruption, bribery.
Sure the news was there to carry stories about non-issues or some two-bit criticism of the US but of the real issues? Not a word.
And certainly there would be no real consequences for the high-level perpetrators, only show trials for low level hacks.
Is there anyone who'd like to criticize the government, they ask sardonically? Silence. Fearing no opposition, looters and squatters were scot free to carry on their nefarious operation of gutting and laying waste the house throughout the 20th century... so sure were they in their protection racket.
The Internet
I can sense that you've been waiting to interject...but what about the internet? Didn't that equalize speech?
The internet giveth and the internet taketh away. Remember, technology emerges from underground where it is birthed when the Powers That Be have a tactical use for it. One benefit of the internet among many, is the opportunity to engage the population in the creation of detailed dossiers on themselves for the deep state's use, it's like having the prisoners build their own gallows. Cheap labor is highly desirable.
So yes, we did get access to a broadcasting system of our own. Can you imagine the envy of our forefathers? And yes, like seeds released from a milkweed pod critical issues are disseminating out into the idea marketplace. Truth has had a small crack from which to emerge since the advent of the internet.
However, money still buys reach. Just ask anyone who has built a website or started up a podcast or launched a YOUTUBE channel. Any visitors yet?
Without traffic, you might as well have a storefront or communication system in the middle of the desert. Money determines reach; the permeation of your idea across the culture EVEN in the internet era.
One day we will be surprised to find that many of the trusted names "on our side"-which ever side that is, were launched into our awareness by hidden money and will serve a purpose then the time comes. You can already see that happening if your have eyes to see.
Does this sound pessimistic? Hang on because I'm about to rain even harder on the parade.
Remember the principle that The Powers That Be allow we the little people, access to "their" technology for a defined purpose. Pause for a minute and consider the recent launch of AI into the marketplace.
What's the benefit of dossiers on millions of people, a torrent of data sufficient enough to overwhelm even the brightest minds, without a way to sift it quickly and accurately, instantly putting your hand on sought after information? Enter AI.
In addition, AI can sift and sort a significant chunk of the repository of the world's digitized information and deliver that data instantly in grammatically correct English.
Beyond the mind boggling control issues presented by those with access to such data, I have a grave concern of a different sort.
Why now? Why are they giving us the keys to such a high-powered tool FREE of Charge, just as truth is finally making headway in the marketplace of ideas? A father giving the keys to the Maserati to his adolescent son is likely to end in disaster, so I fear a similar fate. Beware the trojan horse.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on the ease with which an auto-generating politically biased AI news site could be launched and maintained at low cost. How I Built an AI-Powered, Self-Running Propaganda Machine for $105 - WSJ
As if we did not already have an online authenticity problem, this launches the issue into the stratosphere; a trust verification nightmare.
How many so-called entrepreneurs/marketers can resist the lure of easy click bait and fast cash? How many others might have political chicanery and intrigue in mind? Cheap labor will jump in with reckless abandon to help contaminate the system.
Add in the utter confusion that deep fakes will cause, and it is readily apparent that there is an all out assault being launched to render the internet a house of mirrors, full of trap doors, dead ends and alley ways leading to nowhere. Imagine if false AI videos were made of your "trusted voices." How would you discern what they really believed and advocated? Could they set up an authentic influencer with fake videos in order to take them down? Of course they can and of course they will.
Finally after decades of imprisonment, truth has seemingly been offered a chance at a jail break through the internet. And just when it's greatest potential for realization seems at hand, we are forced to contend with a flood of contamination, a veritable sewer of AI produced images, and ideas unleashed to compete and overwhelm what is true and authentically offered to the world.
AI has the potential to release mass quantities of the demonic "false" created in a twinkle of the eye like a magician's trick conjuring up trillions of locusts whose purpose is to destroy every green leaf and swallow whole every living thing, plunging truth back into the darkness.
It is, no doubt, intended to cause absolute overwhelm to those seeking alternative answers, forcing them to rummage through trash heaps of the phony, the fake and the illusory. Even before the onslaught of AI, the glut of information, the narrowing of the search engines results and the bobbing and weaving through controlled opposition was making it harder and harder to find the gold of authentic voices sharing important prophetic messages for the world.
Big Tech has already girded up their loins to save the day. While you and I were napping, Google and YOUTUBE sponsored a $13.2 million grant to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the nonprofit Poynter Institute to launch a new Global Fact Check Fund to support their network of 135 fact-checking organizations from 65 countries covering over 80 languages.
You can be sure that the clamp down on internet expression is virtually around the corner.
Our master’s have had enough of the subversive “Truth!”
Truth, however can not be stopped.
Do you have money to buy a small in-house printing press or to recondition an old one? Don’t laugh, it could end up being more valuable then you can imagine.
Ideas are revolutionary no matter how they are spread and they know it.
Let’s anticipate that in the end their delivery system will NOT be working for us.
So, even though the first amendment guarantees freedom of speech, the reality is that money and reach render voices and ideas unequal. With each new technology, we delude ourselves into thinking we have a level playing field.
Let’s acknowledge the power differential and throw ourselves into creatively rising to this challenge.