As IF Times

link:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14393987/usaid-programs-republicans-drag-queen-ecuador.html

Well whaddya know? The veil has been lifted and to the surprise of almost no one, it’s been revealed that practically the entirety of the US media, if not media globally, has been funded by only one source: USAID.

For those paying attention through the years, it wasn’t a complete shock since often, the narrative espoused by all media outlets was practically word for word exactly the same on any given issue.  It was Pravda on a global scale. At the very least, the workforce at USAID was certainly on a global scale, numbering over 10,000 workers.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, USAID supported 6,200 journalists, 707 news outlets and 279 media sector civil society organizations in 30 different countries. It’s revealed that USAID has been a major sponsor of fake news.

For perspective, USAID began as a humanitarian organization targeting humane causes.  It has grotesquely morphed into the main funding source for a pot pourri of bizarre causes and directed towards preposterous ends. As noted, it employs 10,000 workers to help spread American goodwill.

According to documents retrieved by Trump’s financial sleuth, Elon Musk via the DOGE initiative, a short list of beneficiaries include:

$7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”,  $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala, $1.1 million to an Armenian LGBT group, $1.5 million to promote LGBT advocacy in Jamaica, $2 million to promote LGBT equality through entrepreneurship in Latin America, $3.9 million for LGBT causes in the Western Balkans, $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda, $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in priority countries around the world, and $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa.

Apart from this, USAID has funded $25 million for Deloitte to promote “green transportation” in Georgia, $6 million to transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles, $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers, and $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”

It has also funded over $4.5 million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan. That one is amusingly ironic.  Here’s a good one: $520 million to teach people in Africa about climate change.  Why wouldn’t it have been cheaper to send Greta Thunberg for a whirlwind tour?

And yet, these are peanuts compared to the amounts distributed to media outlets.  As we can imagine, attributing an accurate figure on the amounts spent on media is difficult, but the number of at least $268 million dollars has been offered by the same Columbia Journalism Review.   The number is likely much higher since this has been going on for years if not decades.

Heretofore respected outlets such as the New York Times and Reuters were revealed to have been beneficiaries of large sums of USAID money.  Thus, people have been deluded about the veracity of a story if it was carried by these formerly venerable outlets.  The most recent example of propaganda as news was the universal support of vaccines and masks for the Covid campaign. It turns out that they were fronting for Big Pharma.

This is important because, despite all that’s happened, people still think the NY Times and Reuters are real news. It turns out, the reportage was essentially marketing scripts with the intent of shaping opinions, not providing news.

How do we know that news outlets such as Reuters were involved in large scale social deception?  Well, for one thing, the name of the USAID file of the 9 million dollar grant given to Reuters was named “Large Scale Social Deception”

As we know, people are maddeningly naïve and they will believe anything if it’s repeated often enough…and by enough media outlets.

Thus, the entire concept of a free and independent media has been a charade. Thankfully, technology has undermined their influence on people’s news consumption, because now, X is the de facto medium of record.  Though you must still navigate through a virtual firehose of opinions and facts, at the very least, there’s an unfiltered presentation of data for the discerning mind to assess. You are no longer a victim of the official narrative.  It gives people comfort that the reality that they observe is not the same as what they are told to believe.  Information is now bottom up rather than top down.

link: https://slaynews.com/news/elon-musk-tears-down-house-of-cards-if-this-isnt-a-violation-of-the-constitutions-first-amendment-what-is/

Back in the day, someone had the brilliant idea to create a vehicle by which news and information could be disseminated. This could only have come about when the inputs and opinions of the masses mattered, thus, the idea of having some kind of news vehicle came to fruition.

Before then, news, or more likely gossip, was spread by word of mouth, at drinking establishments, at churches or by travelers coming through a town.  Of course, before then, there was no news other than what the overlords decided that the peasants needed to know; and all  the peasants needed to know was to keep working to pay taxes to the rulers.  Thus, knowledge was either what the church or the rulers decided was knowledge.

As the phenomenon of education proliferated, so did the notion of critical thinking.  In order to think critically, you needed information, unbiased and provable. This made the imposition of news and information more problematic for those who were used to controlling knowledge to the masses.  As someone eloquently wrote, ‘knowledge is power’ and suddenly, the opinions of the masses mattered. Eventually, newspapers and journals became the default arbiters of legitimate news and their operators became very powerful.  It became a lot easier to determine when someone was untruthful, because the journals would be a credible check.

With the onset of the television age, the new unimpeachable source of information and knowledge became TV networks. I can still remember people stating that ‘if it was on TV, it must be true’. While a large swath of people still believe this, the credibility of heretofore unimpeachable sources has long since expired. The slogans of “The Paper Of Record” for the New York Times and “Democracy Dies In Darkness” for the Washington Post are comically ironic.  The days of Walter Cronkite invoking “ And that’s the way it is” as his sign off are also quaint relics of the past.  The currency of credibility of these outlets have long been spent.

Television was a very powerful medium because most people are easily manipulated by what they see as much as what they hear. It’s been widely accepted that if not for TV viewers watching a debate between a nervous looking Richard Nixon and a polished looking John Kennedy, that Nixon would have won the presidential election in 1960 on the issues alone.

Clearly some objective means of news and information was needed and in 2007, a new micro blogging site, Twitter was created.  The new social media phenomenon allowed anyone to post their thoughts and views with a 280 character maximum. As in all successful businesses in history, this service tapped into a monstrous pool of demand and soon, having a Twitter handle was as de rigueur as having a last name. Whether student or CEO, politician or dictator, famous or unknown, everyone wanted to have their say and most importantly, to hear what others thought.  Thus having ‘followers’ became the new currency of fame.  Unfortunately, Twitter is hardly the font of knowledge.  The most vapid attention whores can garner millions of acolytes and create financial empires for themselves.  Strangely, a platform which notionally allowed the democratization of news and information, became a receptacle for the most vapid in society whose opinions, not knowledge, were expressed.  Well, the first amendment also protects the stupid, so you get what you get.  What many don’t understand is that free speech allows people to say things that others may not want to hear….otherwise it ain’t free.

A great upheaval occurred recently as the platform was purchased by Elon Musk. Long regarded as a vehicle for left wing narratives and censoring of ‘unacceptable’ views, Musk revealed what many have known for years….Twitter was a corrupted platform which enabled propaganda favored by their operators.

It’s been great entertainment to watch ‘celebrities’ profess the validity of their views while at the same time wanting to censor those with views whom they oppose. Philosophically, this is like the monkey wanting to censor the organ grinder. We are treated to the deep intellectual insights of such as Alyssa Milano or of famous meathead Rob Reiner. Oddly, those that have always defended Twitter when it was their own platform are now condemning it for allowing just ‘anyone’ to speak on it and worst of all, with views opposing theirs.  Like a scene from the film Blazing Saddles, many have expressed threats to leave the platform and no longer treat the rest of us to their utterances.

Even more sinister however are the revelations by Musk of the collusion between Twitter and political operatives to sway elections and push detrimental policies. The light has been turned on in the kitchen at night and the cockroaches are scattering.

As in much earlier times, the opening up of Twitter to become a more truly free speech platform will hopefully enable real dialogue on real issues.  People will be more truthfully informed and those in power will need to pay attention.  The views of the dirty unwashed will matter. The time when certain overlords control the message may again be over.