Condemning RT for advancing a “pro-Putin” or “pro-Russian” narrative is hypocritical and morally indefensible. The UK's action banning RT from broadcasting in Great Britain is equally indefensible. Censorship is never a solution.
“We do not consider RT to be fit and proper to hold a UK license and cannot be satisfied that it can be a responsible broadcaster,” Ofcom said Friday in a statement on Twitter.
The antidote to “poisonous propaganda” never censorship but a free discussion of the facts. Free Speech and a Free Press demand that all voices be allowed to speak, that all perspectives be allowed to at least make their case. Free Speech must be enjoyed by everyone or it can be enjoyed by no one.
Our own country has successfully censored on mainstream media platforms anything that goes against the Covid “Vaccine” Narrative quite successfully! I think that was just the beginning of mass censorship in the West! It is very frightening!😣😖🥺
I do think many many people understand this, perhaps even a silent majority, but it's impossible to tell based on our media system. I would point to the numbers of joe rogan's podcast, as it's quite literally #1 and unwavering, despite the intense cancellation campaign railed against him and his show. it's because people do crave hearing the other side of the narrative, especially when that mainstream narrative is so overwhelming and toxic. I have to believe that most people are aware, it's just simply who has control over the megaphones. It's easy to portray dissenters as buffoons, lunatics, profiteers...and the average person doesn't want to fight against it, they just want to live their lives, and are willing to turn a blind eye to the suppression.
I've been struggling to see a way forward, especially when cyber disruptions seem right around the corner...perhaps a communication grid going down is what sends everyone back to the local watering hole to make sense of the world, face to face? It's a lovely dream...
Ultimately, it's why this substack is titled "All Facts Matter"--not because I have a monopoly on facts, or that I have a wealth of facts that others do not. Rather, it is because I take the position that narrative is merely the vehicle for presenting the facts, and the facts are always what are most important.
I am these days a man of peace, and so I am opposed to war. I count Putin's invasion of Ukraine as an act of naked aggression that should be condemned.
Yet that opinion is not what is important for people to consider. What is important are the deaths happening on both sides, civilian and military. What is important are the disruptions this war brings to an already distressed global food supply. What is important is the magnification of human suffering this war is causing.
And that suffering is not limited to Ukrainians, nor are Ukrainians all saints and angels.
The dissenting voice is especially important in a time such as this, because it is the dissenting voices who can convey the suffering and hurts of "the other side. " RT is a dissenting voice in this war. It must be heard.
My way forward is to remember what JFK said so eloquently:
"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
Our own country has successfully censored on mainstream media platforms anything that goes against the Covid “Vaccine” Narrative quite successfully! I think that was just the beginning of mass censorship in the West! It is very frightening!😣😖🥺
Sadly it was not the beginning.
Censorship and deplatforming have been the go-to tactics against dissenting voices for quite a while.
Long before Malone and Kirsch there was Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. And innumerable smaller voices before and since.
Even Daniel Ellsburg was hounded by the government for leaking the Pentagon Papers.
It is indeed terrifying. Not because it is recent, but because it is anything but.
I do think many many people understand this, perhaps even a silent majority, but it's impossible to tell based on our media system. I would point to the numbers of joe rogan's podcast, as it's quite literally #1 and unwavering, despite the intense cancellation campaign railed against him and his show. it's because people do crave hearing the other side of the narrative, especially when that mainstream narrative is so overwhelming and toxic. I have to believe that most people are aware, it's just simply who has control over the megaphones. It's easy to portray dissenters as buffoons, lunatics, profiteers...and the average person doesn't want to fight against it, they just want to live their lives, and are willing to turn a blind eye to the suppression.
I've been struggling to see a way forward, especially when cyber disruptions seem right around the corner...perhaps a communication grid going down is what sends everyone back to the local watering hole to make sense of the world, face to face? It's a lovely dream...
Ultimately, it's why this substack is titled "All Facts Matter"--not because I have a monopoly on facts, or that I have a wealth of facts that others do not. Rather, it is because I take the position that narrative is merely the vehicle for presenting the facts, and the facts are always what are most important.
I am these days a man of peace, and so I am opposed to war. I count Putin's invasion of Ukraine as an act of naked aggression that should be condemned.
Yet that opinion is not what is important for people to consider. What is important are the deaths happening on both sides, civilian and military. What is important are the disruptions this war brings to an already distressed global food supply. What is important is the magnification of human suffering this war is causing.
And that suffering is not limited to Ukrainians, nor are Ukrainians all saints and angels.
The dissenting voice is especially important in a time such as this, because it is the dissenting voices who can convey the suffering and hurts of "the other side. " RT is a dissenting voice in this war. It must be heard.
My way forward is to remember what JFK said so eloquently:
"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-university-19630610
If we can but remember that, I believe there is still hope.