Oct 6, 2016

Correct the Record = Domestic Terrorism

By Michael Emero / filmsforaction.org
Correct the Record = Domestic Terrorism
On April 21st, 2016, The Daily Beast reported that a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC was spending $1 million on Correct the Record to “push back against” criticisms of Clinton on various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

You're probably saying, "Well, no- CTR may be immoral, evil censorship, but certainly not domestic terrorism." And in a relatively balanced environment, or if one looks only at the current details without any historical context, I would 100% agree.

But this is much more akin to legalized brainwashing, governmental hijacking, populace enslavement, and preventing guaranteed rights than a simple matter of "free speech". I'll clarify what I mean, if you will please forgive the length required for doing so...


Instead of focusing on the minutia of this moment, step back with me and regain perspective of the American mentality for the past few generations. This nation just grew up during an amazing technological revolution. In many ways, for better or for worse, the television and media nearly infiltrated and shaped our whole culture. As a relatively thriving country of industry, it was naturally very prevalent and influential here.

A lot of our parents and grandparents grew up trusting the reassuring adult voices and faces explaining what's going on, here's the facts, here's what we have to face as a nation. Their kids often ended up even more engrossed, and why not? TV made an excellent time-waster, babysitter, and everything about it just kept improving with each year. Eventually television eked out radio and print to become the number one medium of voters sourcing new information.

There's a worldwide stereotype that all Americans do is sit around watching idiot telly full of repetitive ads, eating junk food and getting fat and stupid. Stereotypes can indeed hurt, but according to medically documented fact, that's not too far off. The point often missed, though, is how we got to here- through consumerist apathy. By normalized acceptance of incrementally lowered expectations any time enough of us were asleep at the wheel. I'll give you one example:

We don't just pay more than everyone else, we're now nearly the only modern civilization without universal healthcare.

That's not coincidental or a random "free market" effect- we are the product now, being sold to others, even often sold back to ourselves. Not due to resources, or need, or according to a fair and equitable system. But because a handful of corporations started gobbling smaller ones, and the ethical civil servants responsible for preventing monopolies and protecting the populace got gerrymandered and lesser-evil'd out by posh political actors for hire.

Votes eventually became just another legalized channel for profit, and money got glorified priority over anything else- even our country's own founding principles, sanctity of law, and institutional integrity. In a society fueled mostly by capitalism, our three classes- with sponsored, intentional encouragement- increasingly became less Lower, Middle, and Upper, and more of a Desperation, Apathy, and Greed system. That's a certain death spiral for any democracy.

Through superficial pay-to-play politics and private power over public narrative, the constant check-and-balance machinery of democracy swung more and more to prioritize cash flows, no matter how or where it came from. Real representation broken, the greediest, often immoral wealthy few became the ones with most influence on policy. But this time, they potentially also had simultaneous engaged access into the receptive minds of millions of citizens.

When we got lazy and complacent, unethical capitalism pounced. See, also unlike just about every other civilized country, corporate influence got the networks here increasingly deregulated- to the point where you could lie about anything yet still be believed as though you were Walter Cronkite by some percentage of the indoctrinated population. The profit variable then changed from product merit, to controlling perception; a feedback loop began commercializing our very existence.


The resulting degradation of our democratic system is nearly complete, as we can see in this election cycle. While only fractional percentages of the (now mostly poor) population even identify as belonging to either controlling-yet-statistical-minority corporate party, and though the 'candidates' are two of the most hated and distrusted in modern record, their sponsors' money appears to circumvent all rationality, all accountability - to effectively, intentionally hold the American people hostage.

For the checks and balances of our system to correct this, we need to unite as a people. That's how our laws were written, and what logic dictates. But we're on our own- oligarchy has already killed journalistic integrity, replacing it with destructive ignorance and dehumanizing Fox News style rhetoric- our television is propaganda. Contrary to American principles and laws, public interests have been paywalled out of representation.

We're now stuck with two options. Either we accept being proxy ruled by those we can only trust to continue serving themselves at our expense, who employ dishonesty whenever profitable, and tax us for perpetual weapons and wars while giving only a transparent performance of superficial caring for the gullible, insulated, ignorant demographics... or we perform our civic duty to restore the system our founding fathers entrusted us to use, continually perfect, and defend as needed from subversion.

The internet is our last main outlet to universally absorb truth, perspective, and communicate with like-minded individuals. So when the same abused concentration of wealth and power we're trying to address democratically then invests infinitely more than any of us will see in our lifetimes to intentionally disrupt our communities and purposely thwart raising public awareness - all while railroading their puppets into power - why yes, I do classify that as domestic terrorism.

As each forward-thinking, rational, downright patriotic community I've been a member of gets systematically infiltrated, overwhelmed, closed or dispersed, I consider it a bit more than just "censorship". As more and more of their financier's corruption becomes evident, leaked, yet still not addressed, it's slightly more than a "free speech" issue. When those who benefit from this rigged, hijacked system fund online wars against restoring our democratic representation, that's called plain "tyranny".

In the end, I don't care what anyone wants to call it- as long as they recognize it, inform others, and pledge to fight it as I will- down to my last breath. Because frankly, doing anything else at this point isn't just blasphemous to our rights, duty and heritage, but basically amounts to suicide by aiding and abetting the true enemies of these falsely divided United States of America.

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