About Lying

“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Corporate Media – Working Hard to Keep You in the Dark on the Nashville Mass Murderer

The Nashville mass killings were a big national story covered by all major news outlets. A vicious person gunned down three children and three adults at a school in Nashville. Immediately after the shootings, all of us wanted to know why the shooter fired 152 rounds, murdering six people. Back on April 3, CNN reported that the police "have yet to determine a motive."

But then, oops, we learned that the shooter was a trans person, meaning that lots of special rules kick in. The main rule: Even though the shooter wrote a long manifesto, it's important that we keep the manifesto secret. Government officials and corporate media outlets have marched in lockstep ever since.

Thus, at at NPR or MSNBC, you won't learn anything about the fact that three pages of the shooter's manifesto have been leaked. Back near the time of the killings, however, on March 28, 2023, MSNBC wrote:

A day after Monday’s shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, we know much more about the shooter and the dead. But one question remains: “Why?” Why this school, why these victims, why was the shooter motivated to take these lives? The search for a motive is a logical one. There’s a deep desire to understand what pushed a person to carry out such a heinous crime, especially when three children are dead.

Now that three pages of the manifesto have been leaked, MSNBC no longer has any interest in sharing with us what the murderer wrote on those pages.

NYT, CNN and WaPo published stories reporting that several pages were leaked and that they are authentic, but none of these three outlets offer any specifics about what the three pages reveal. No quotes and no images of those pages.  The NYT focuses on how upset government officials are that three pages were leaked (without describing the content of the leaks).  CNN focuses on the alleged fears of some parents that release of the manifesto will harm people, including by "copycat attacks." CNN sanitizes the leaked pages, saying only:

The released pages use hate-filled language directed toward the school and children and include what appears to be a timeline of events seemingly leading up to the shooting.

And here's Google/YouTube, once again keeping us safe from knowing important things, such as the motives of mass killings, as Seth Dillon attempted to report:

What do we know from those three pages? To actually know the words the killer wrote, we need to turn to X (formerly Twitter): Steven Crowder writes:

BREAKING: Nashville School Covenant Shooter Audrey Hale’s “DEATH DAY” Manifesto Targeted “Cr*ckers” with “white privlages”

“wanna kill all you little cr*ckers”

“I hope I have a high death count”

"I'm ready...I hope my victims aren't."

"Ready to die."

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Massaging the News

"Palestinian" is a different category than "Hamas" (even though there is overlap). "Israeli" is a different category than "Jew" (even though there is overlap). The BBC is refusing to report what is happening. Instead, they are telling us what they want us to think. When someone tells you who they are, a good default is to believe them.

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The Newly Published Westminster Declaration Seeks to Dismantle the Censorship Industrial Complex

From Public, an introduction to the Westminster Declaration, an effort focused on "formal censorship by governments of online speech, not censorship at the level of the workplace or media." Several excerpts from this article:

A group of 138 scholars, public intellectuals, and journalists from across the political spectrum have issued a strong call warning the public of the Censorship Industrial Complex and urging governments to dismantle it in the name of the “first liberty,” freedom of speech. It’s called The Westminster Declaration ...

The signatory list includes scholars like Jonathan Haidt, Steven Pinker, and John McWhorter, actors like Tim Robbins and John Cleese, journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Bari Weiss, and Lee Fang, and scientists like Jay Bhattacharya. It includes prominent free speech advocates like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Nadine Strossen, Greg Lukianoff, and many more.

You may notice that the signatory list features thinkers from the Left, like Slavoj Žižek, as well as thinkers from the Right, like Jordan Peterson. People with very different political views have signed the declaration, and you may also notice that individuals with significant disagreements have signed it. That is precisely the point. It is only through free speech that robust political, ethical, and scientific debates can take place.

“Across the globe,” the Declaration reads, “government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. …the Censorship Industrial Complex operates through more subtle methods. These include visibility filtering, labelling, and manipulation of search engine results. Through deplatforming and flagging, social media censors have already silenced lawful opinions on topics of national and geopolitical importance.”

Those who claim they are simply “fighting misinformation” are, in truth, attempting to control the minds of the public. This is exceedingly dangerous since, ”time and time again, unpopular opinions and ideas have eventually become conventional wisdom. By labeling certain political or scientific positions as 'misinformation' or 'malinformation,' our societies risk getting stuck in false paradigms that will rob humanity of hard-earned knowledge and obliterate the possibility of gaining new knowledge. Free speech is our best defense against disinformation.”

While we do not intend to add any additional signatories to the Declaration, given the significant amount of time already invested, we welcome endorsements in the form of articles and social media posts by those who agree with it. We are happy to note that The New York Post, The Telegraph of London, The Times of London, Die Welt, France-Soir, La Veritá, and other newspapers have written about or will soon publish articles about the Declaration.

The opening passages to the Westminster Declaration:

We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.

Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms.

This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.

Such interference with the right to free speech suppresses valid discussion about matters of urgent public interest, and undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.

Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. These large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex.’

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