TIME Magazine’s surprising exposition of how the 2020 Presidential election was “rigged” was both a major media story and an important contribution to the public’s understanding of how their liberties are being extracted from them in stages. Unfortunately, nobody reads TIME any more—for good reason—and the mainstream media, among the conspirators indicted by TIME, had no reason to treat this any differently from the other inconvenient and counter-narrative revelations they buried or failed to report during the campaign and before. Their other tactic, as we saw repeatedly, was to discredit such news as “conservative stories,” meaning that they were contrived and the product of fanatic right-wingers. TIME’s story was a special problem, because TIME has been a dependable source of progressive spin for decades.
The solution wasn’t a problem, however. The mainstream news media just ignored TIME’s story. Problem solved! They didn’t try to rebut it—that would trigger the Streisand Effect. It was so much more helpful to the effort to marginalize Republicans, the ex-President, and conservatives to make the silly conspiracy theory-obsessed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene the center of public attention. It was perfect, really; highlight a conspiracy theory wacko to discredit a genuine conspiracy the mainstream media participated in.
Of course, Fox News covered the TIME story, but you know...Fox. The New York Times took a clever counter-measure, publishing a three part series on “Trump’s efforts to subvert the election.” Whatever online discussion of TIME’s piece there was occurred on blogs like Ethics Alarms (See the PJ Media contribution, and Ann Althouse’s contribution.)
Here is Null Pointer’s Comment of the Day on the post, “You Know Why Real Conspiracies Are Always Discovered, Don’t You? It’s Because Someone Always Talks…Gee, Thanks, TIME!”
This is why people are embracing conspiracy theories. There are, in fact, conspiracies being planned and carried out by the elites. They now even admit it.
Once you know there are conspiracies being carried out, and you know that you are being lied to daily, nothing seems implausible anymore. How are you supposed to determine where the conspiracies end, and the conspiracy theories start? Lies and truth become impossible to distinguish.
If the government, media, and corporate elites are willing to conspire to rig an election by rigging the laws, rigging the news, censoring people who speak out about the rigging of the laws and the news…why should I believe they would balk at rigging the machines? Why? I cannot prove that they did, but they are unwilling to prove that they didn’t. Why are they unwilling to prove that they didn’t rig the counts and the machines?
Why did they throw out all the republican poll watchers? If they knew they were going to win, why did they muddy the waters even further by aggressively preventing transparency?Why have the elites militarized Washington D.C.? Why are the elites pushing legislation to remove the second amendment? Why are the elites shutting down Parler and talking about outlawing conservative news media? Why are the elites declaring that, due to coronavirus, we will never be able to leave our houses without masks or gather in large groups again, even with a vaccine?
Why are the elites destroying small businesses? Why are the elites destroying energy independence, killing tens of thousands of jobs in process, and flippantly telling those who lost their livelihoods that they can go dismantle land mines in foreign countries instead?
Once you look at everything going on in the country, conspiracy theories do not seem crazy anymore. When no one is a trustworthy source of information, then untrustworthy sources of information that cater to your personal set of fears and anxieties become your source of information. You listen to the people who tell you that the things you are worried about are real and important.
Not all of the above questions matter to everyone, and not everyone has the same reason for asking the question. Maybe you are a devout Christian who has been prevented from visiting your house of worship, so religious persecution is your main worry. Maybe you are a young adult who wants to party and have fun, so being locked down is your primary concern. Maybe you are a hypochondriac who is petrified of being exposed to germs and want everyone forced to walk around in hazmat suits. Maybe you are a conservative who thinks rigging elections leads to tyranny and totalitarianism.
Pick the things you fear, the issues that are important to you, and find a matching propaganda outlet. If there is no one trustworthy to believe, you go farther and farther down the propaganda rabbit hole until you hit a conspiracy theory. Peddling lies is profitable and effective for the elites, so ethics be damned. The elites couldn’t care less that they are destroying livelihoods, lives, and democracy. So what if the country is torn apart? If the peasants get too unruly, the elites can always take Rep. Swallwell’s suggestion and drop a couple nukes on the uppity citizens to shut them up. Seems implausible, but…
What aren’t the elites willing to do to get what they want?
Ethics Alarms 
It is about destroying trust. If everyone agrees the system is broken it is easier to sell them a new and improved system.
Null Pointer wrote, “There are, in fact, conspiracies being planned and carried out by the elites. They now even admit it.”, “Once you know there are conspiracies being carried out, and you know that you are being lied to daily, nothing seems implausible anymore. How are you supposed to determine where the conspiracies end, and the conspiracy theories start?”
Good points which lead me to repeat something I’ve written a couple of times.
Again; this brought back a memory of a comment I originally wrote in August 2019 and then shared it again in November 2019 and April 2020…
When I shared this again in April 2020 I concluded the comment with this…
Thinking…………..
Thinking……………………………………………….
Thinking………………………….
Null Pointer wrote, “Once you know there are conspiracies being carried out, and you know that you are being lied to daily, nothing seems implausible anymore.”
Naaaa, it couldn’t be. No one would actually resort to such an immoral tactic as releasing a virus into the public to create a pandemic and kill hundreds of thousands of people across the globe all for political gain in the USA. Right?
This ledge is getting all too familiar.
The following is to the tune Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
Sounds of Chaos
[Verse 1]
Hello ledge you are my friend
I’ve come to walk on you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sounds of chaos.
[Verse 2]
In restless dreams I walked alone
The public streets protesters roam
‘Neath the halo of a Lincoln bust
I turned my back to the approaching mob
When my eyes were stabbed by
The flash of a molotov cocktail
That split the night
And made the sounds of chaos
[Verse 3]
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People yelling into loud bullhorns
People screaming out their hate and scorn
Other people preaching calm that the mob all just ignored
And no one dared
Disturb the sounds of chaos
[Verse 4]
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Chaos like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops, fell
And echoed in the wells of chaos
[Verse 5]
And the people bowed and prayed
To the chaotic god they made
And the mob screamed out its demands
In the words that it was forming
And the mob said:
“The words of the justly are
Graffitti on the protesters walls
And city halls
And whispered in the sound of chaos.”
It’s not only possible, but I’m pretty sure that is exactly what California and New York did. They shut the states down, and kept them shut down, to kill the economy. I even wonder if New York didn’t put infected people into nursing homes on purpose in order to intentionally raise the death toll. That should be a crazy idea, but I’m not sure it is.
Except:
1. The stock market never did crash
2. Why deliberately wreck two states that Biden was going to win under any circumstances?
To drive up the unemployment numbers nationwide. California and New York have huge populations, so killing the job numbers in those two states kills the national unemployment rates. The media focuses on the national numbers, Trump cannot boast about his excellent job numbers anymore, and one Trump achievement is wiped out.
Jack asked, “Why deliberately wreck two states that Biden was going to win under any circumstances?”
I’m not saying the states literally did that but an answer might be…
It’s got nothing to do with Biden or the election, there is a lot more to political gain than a simple election.
As I’ve heard over and over again from the political, they are thinking about the “big picture” and the political right is just focused on now. Totalitarians strive to control the masses into complete subservience to the state, what better way to start brainwashing the masses than to disguise it behind the facade of “for the good of all”.
Totalitarians want to control the people but they can’t effectively do that as long as liberty is front and center in the minds of the masses and part of the core that makes the United States what it is.
Probably not the answer you were looking for, but it is a possible answer.
Think about this ~ Only 23 Americans Tested Positive for Flu Last Week Compared to 14,657 Cases Reported Last Year at Same Time. And how many of the Coronavirus cases reported during last week were actually the Flu? What’s the probability? I don’t believe anything anymore.
https://weather.com/health/cold-flu/news/2021-01-13-flu-cases-coronavirus
Same in Australia.
2019 – 78,000 lab confirmed flu cases.
2020 – 108 lab confirmed flu cases. (And only 27,000 Covid cases)
It’s almost as if the plan we had in place to combat a rerun of 1919, that is, lockdown , social distancing, washing hands, and masks actually worked, even if it was hastily executed and improvised to combat an entirely different virus.
90% of those 27,000 cases came from a breakout in the state of Victoria, due to the government initially trying the same half measures used in the US.
They then went the full monty, a very strict lockdown unlike anything the US tried even at the peak. Economically devastating, with both a blockade of Melbourne (5m pop) and state borders.
Results:
Active Covid19 Cases Victoria, Previous Mondays (announced Tuesday mornings):
10 Aug: 6951
17 Aug: 5283
24 Aug: 3535
31 Aug: 2326
7 Sep: 1566
14 Sep: 931
21 Sep: 577
28 Sep: 264
5 Oct: 154
12 Oct: 135
19 Oct: 76
26 Oct: 38
2 Nov: 15
9 Nov: 4
16 Nov: 3
23 Nov: 0
Yes, if they make you wear masks all the time and avoid people, 24/7, you’ll probably never get the flu. And if you never drive, you’ll never get in a car accident. And if you never have sex, you’ll never get a STD. Like will suck, but hey, what matters is quantity, not quality. Got it.
Null’s points are excellent . And now I ask, what is the legal and ethical responses to what appears to be a proven fact that our democratic processes were interfered with by an alliance of business and government interests to subvert the 2020 election. I suggest we start demanding answers from those implicated in Time’s story.
We should be demanding proof that President Xi and the WHO’s decisions regarding the virus were not part of an implicit scheme to interfere in US elections so that their preferred candidate and puppet would win. Where is the 30 million dollar crusade by government to exonerate Biden’; or would it be that the Justice Department cannot say they have exonerated him.
Every time they make an accusation about conspiracy theories or white supremacy terrorism we must start demanding they prove it or shut up. I am tired of the whining about what they did. It is time to act up or surrender your rights. They created the model, lets just use it.
I took the Time article to be the equivalent of Harry Reid’s saying, “We won, didn’t we?” It struck me as sort of a victory lap or spiking a football after scoring a touchdown. And why would the rest of the media need to react to the TIME article? I think their non-reaction could best be characterized as a big, “DUH”!
Null’s comment should be shared far and wide. She asks important questions that have significant bearing on the country. This past weekend, I watched a Democrat strategist on a news-talk show on Fox. Her smug, arrogant response to everything was, “we won, you didn’t – deal with it.”
jvb