Alternative Media Future and Risk

SARTRE
Activist Post

The seemingly futile plight of Western Civilization can best be explained that the inhabitants of European heritage are vastly unaware of their own history and have adopted an apathetic attitude to their own survival self-interest. The horrors of the last century go unnoticed as the offspring of the baby boom generation continue to experience life in a virtual world. The inadequacy of a government school education is evident, when the MTV culture is stripped away and the core foundations of deficient understanding are exposed. The rapid spread of a global police state relies upon the suppression of truth and factual reality.

In this electronic age, when reading a book is considered a sentence of torture, the hash tag in a tweet is held out as grand sophistication. If surveyed, how many working-age adults have ever read an Encyclopedia Britannica in a hardback edition? The point is that perception in images and sound bites is no substitute for thought, reflection and discernment.

The political messages and agenda for acceptable discourse are provided through filtered lenses presented as establishment news. The mainstream media, print, broadcast, televised, electronic and cultural all have in common a coordinated “Political Correctness” in content. The claims of diversity appear in every color, language and customs, while pushing the same reign of terror over the minds of critical thinking individuals.

The term alternative media is a pejorative slur to the power elites, and screams out as an independent source of honest reporting to intrepid truth seekers. That often suspect source, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia states: “Proponents of alternative media argue that the mainstream media often perpetuate traditional hegemonic power relations via their selection of content and their rhetorical and structural framing of news and information.”

As a reader of social and political commentary on BREAKING ALL THE RULES, it should be self-evident that the choice of that name has significance and purpose. The following list is a sample of sites that have supported our efforts and published BATR articles. If you are an avid and aware political observer, most of these publications should be regular sources of trusted information.

For economic insights, most subscribers to business news want predictions on stocks and portfolio performance. Placing emphasis on the political implications that affect business is often snubbed for latest trends in charts and money supply. This unfortunate disconnect that investment publications routinely ignore is seldom seen in the alternative business media. Primary importance of covering the forces and factions that stir political struggles is stressed in the economic reporting from non establishment media. There is no disconnection between money and politics. Independent news, investigative journalism and social commentary for it to be honest and reliable must be willing to confront and speak truth to power.

It is because this standard poses an existential and pragmatic threat to any established order, governments and institutions both fear and hate efforts to awake public awareness and stamp out any sign of any populist outrage.

Since the Internet has developed into a prime source of news for those who are electronically tuned in; the monopoly that the network TV, corporate radio news and conglomerate print gatekeepers once enjoyed has been breaking apart with a considerable loss of influence.

Before your elation that unorthodox and provocative reporting is becoming the new normal, the power elite strikes back. The virtual downright control over the legislative process, the Corporatist/State axis has the ability to pass laws that limit free speech. Add to this dilemma the power of the bureaucracy to regulate and executive orders to restrict effective political discourse and candid debate have a most formidable obstacle to overcome.

Not all activists are endowed with unbridled courage. Computerworld reports that 75% of writers in free countries self-censor due to fears of mass surveillance.

The situation is getting worse, not better according to the recent PEN America report “Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass Surveillance on International Writers” (pdf ).

After 772 writers from 50 countries completed an online survey, PEN found that the results demonstrate “the damaging impact of surveillance by the United States and other governments on free expression and creative freedom around the world.”

Now look at the account from ZDNet article, White House just endorsed CISPA measures, two years after veto threat.

“Given that the White House rightly criticized CISPA in 2013 for potentially facilitating the unnecessary transfer of personal information to the government or other private sector entities when sending cybersecurity threat data, we’re concerned that the Administration proposal will unintentionally legitimize the approach taken by these dangerous bills,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement.

“CISPA 2015 would provide for an even cozier relationship between Silicon Valley and the US government at the detriment of civil liberties and privacy for everyone else,” writer Rachael Tackett said on Tuesday.

A similarly-named bill Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) made it through one of the Senate’s committees, adding yet another legislative voice to the mix. Critics of the bill, however, called it an “even more toxic bill” than CISPA.

Both tech publications would not normally be considered part of the alternative media. Yet, from a perspective of imposing a climate of intimidation and implementing a data sucking collection system, the prospects of protecting a free exchange of ideas and news that is often critical of abusive authority is facing a real and present danger.

The future of an open and uncensored Internet is very much in doubt. The reemergence of the printing press may well become the refuge of political incorrectness.

If the richest 1% may own half of global wealth by 2016, surely the even smaller 1% of that ominous 1% controls electoral politics, filters acceptable content in the mainstream media, enforces government decrees and maintains governance over society’s institutions. The secular culture has no room for a counter voice of traditional values.

Allowing independent inquiry or social criticism to flourish online, risks the dominance of the establishment. However, the probability of public dissent to hit critical mass is far off. What now passes for critical thinking in universities is a shell of Aristotelian logic.

Since the average bottom feeder is so wrapped up in scraping out a meager existence, most have no time or inclination to ponder the social and political issues of the day. This fact is well known by the elites who own, edit and present the daily chapter of contrived history that sadly passes as broadcast network news.

No matter what ideological bent one has, gathering your news from MSNBC, CNN or Fox News, just means your source of viewpoints cater to a political value that actually has no authentic values. Truth is seldom discovered within the mass media or from government propagandists.

US Media Executive Includes Russia Today (RT) in the same “Challenge List” as ISIS and Boko Haram, is an example of official state absurdity.

Newly-appointed chief of US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, has named RT one of the agency’s main challenges alongside extremist groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram.

Lack, the first chief executive of the BBG, mentioned RT in an interview with The New York Times.

“We are facing a number of challenges from entities like Russia Today which is out there pushing a point of view, the Islamic State in the Middle East and groups like Boko Haram,” he said. “But I firmly believe that this agency has a role to play in facing those challenges.”

This kind of assault on a foreign news network that frequently counters NATO strategy and the U.S. Empire is hard to believe that any stable person would accept such nonsense. So when the response in the account, Ex-BBG member: News outlets should never be compared to terrorists, it should be obvious that power politics surely outweighs open expression.

Comparing news outlets to terror organizations is jeopardizing the very foundations of freedom of speech in the US, Blanquita Cullum, ex-Broadcasting Board of Governors member, said after BBG’s new boss placed RT on par with ISIS and Boko Haram.

RT is not part of the online alternative media per se but it certainly is outside the regurgitation of DC government press release reporting. Now if a major news network can be placed in the cross hairs for censoring, what chance do independent anti-establishment Internet sites have to remain online long term?

Even when a sincere and concerned citizen wants to become educated and discovers a sage of wisdom and veracity that provides accurate information, most people prefer their dazed existence.

So the quandary is inescapable. The more successful alternative media becomes, the more it will undergo the microscope of government tyrants. And achieving bigger victories for arousing the righteous anger of oppressed Americans, the more intense establishment attacks will become.

Will the sheeple grow up before the hammer hits the IP delete button?

Original article archived here

SARTRE is the pen name of James Hall, a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce.  SARTRE is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact [email protected]