This is where we now are. The position of the Complex is that it's not necessary for you to be accurately informed. You need to trust elitist expert leaders to tell you what to believe and how to behave.
Staying vigilant about the information we consume is equally important as staying vigilant about the food we consume.
Wikipedia, once a great idea, is now officially radioactive.
For more on the fall of Wikipedia see here.
If government-aligned activists wanted to win all of the arguments of the day, one way would be to prevent those with opposing viewpoints from promulgating them. New disclosures show that NGOs aligned with the federal government are enthusiastically engaging in this cancel culture on a widespread basis. Ben Shapiro lays out this cancellation strategy in a series of tweets:
What part does the federal government play in this?
Matt Orfalea has created another excellent mashup, this one featuring the severe cognitive impairment of Joe Biden combined with eerily uniform corporate media commentary that Joe Biden is "sharp."
Youtube version:
How is it possible for all of these "news" outlets to chime in unison?
As George Carlin stated, "You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."
And oops! Axios says the quiet part out loud:
Finally, to the crowd that admits that the CIA has intensely meddled in domestic politics, including election integrity, in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80, 90s, 00s and 10s, but that they are now well behaved, here's yet another tantalizing possibility: Operation Mockingbird.
Operation Mockingbird is a real thing and it manipulated millions of Americans.
I'll end with a few disturbing modern-day stories by Tucker Carlson ...
Proven: The extent to which the corporate news is willing to lie about Biden's cognitive function (and lie about every other major issue).
Rarely are so many lies dispelled in a single moment. Rarely are so many people exposed as liars and sycophants. Last night’s debate was a watershed on both counts.The debate was not just a catastrophe for President Biden. And boy—oy—was it ever.
But it was more than that. It was a catastrophe for an entire class of experts, journalists, and pundits, who have, since 2020, insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack, on top of his game, basically doing handstands while peppering his staff with tough questions about care for migrant children and aid to Ukraine.
Anyone who committed the sin of using their own eyes on the 46th president was accused, variously, of being Trumpers; MAGA cult members who don’t want American democracy to survive; ageists; or just dummies easily duped by “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “fake news,” and, most recently, “cheapfakes.”
This is how intensely they have been gaslighting us. From 3 months ago . . .
From Matt Taibbi's article today, The Democratic Coup:
When the most deranged and disturbing presidential debate in our history was over, the event’s cable hosts, CNN, tossed to mild-mannered John King for instant reaction. The silver-haired anchor, whose normal specialty is fussing over the “Magic Wall” electoral map on election nights, performed a grimmer duty last night:There is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party… It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal… They’re having conversations as to what they should do about it. Some of those conversations include, “Should we go to the White House, and ask the president to step aside?”
Whoa. Murder on the CNN Express continued around a table of analysts who’ve been telling us for years that Joe Biden is a fit president. Each now echoed King. “The panic that I am hearing from Democrats is not like anything that I have heard,” concurred Abby Phillip. “They are now seeing a President… they do not necessarily believe can do this for another four years.” Barack Obama’s right hand David Axelrod said: “I can’t argue with either of them about how Democratic leaders are reacting.”
Biden's incompetence has been plain to see for years, but corporate media and Biden's cheerleaders have been denying it . . . until last night. Perhaps one might like to spin this this process by invoking Thomas Kuhn's anodyne phrase, "paradigm shift."
Thomas Kuhn argued that science does not evolve gradually toward truth. Science has a paradigm that remains constant before going through a paradigm shift when current theories can’t explain some phenomenon, and someone proposes a new theory. A scientific revolution occurs when: (i) the new paradigm better explains the observations and offers a model that is closer to the objective, external reality; and (ii) the new paradigm is incommensurate with the old. For example, Lamarckian evolution was replaced with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
Because the process has been intentional and manipulative all along, I prefer to use the term "gaslighting"
Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, a gaslighter’s manipulations can grow more complex and potent, making it increasingly difficult for the victim to see the truth.