Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “You know, I do think that several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy, because that is a part of what happened here. And we’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation. It’s one thing to have differing opinions, but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false. And so that’s something that we’re looking into.”
“It’s another thing entirely…” Is it really, though? Remember that the government-permitted, medical-community-approved, corporate advertising about tobacco used to be this:
Keep this in mind while you ponder the past 40 years of messaging from the incestuous government-corporate relationship about what our diet should consist of, and the products that fill our grocery store shelves. Think about how the tide is turning against highly-processed foods and seed oils as more and more data about how harmful they are escapes the clutches of the 7 “food” companies that make up 95% of our supply chain, and the FDA. In another 10 or 20 years, we will be looking back on what they have collectively done to the US and the epidemic of chronic disease that has happened as the result, and wonder why we let them get away with it. Again.
Jillian Michaels: People are being “sacrificed on the altar of unchecked corporate greed.”
And what about examples of other kinds of corporate harm? The movies Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, and Dark Waters all document cases where huge companies knowingly caused harm to people, their communities, and even their own workers. When cornered by inescapable evidence, they deny, deny, deny, and have the press write favorable articles. When finally convicted in court, they either declare bankruptcy or continue to fight the ordered payments. All the while, the board and the executives continue to get paid extravagantly as the legal proceedings drag on for decades. And every time we find a public-safety atrocity being knowingly committed in the name of corporate profits, we discover that it was a collusion between the senior officials of the company and the governmental departments that were supposed to be regulating them. It’s not the exception. It’s the rule. Our corporations are literally killing us in the name of profit, and the government and the media are all in on the grift.
So now, because of the “dangers” of “misinformation,” we’re supposed to ignore this history of “science” and “safety”-based “standards” from the government and the media and corporations, hand over the keys of our national public discourse to the likes of AOC — or, rather, some faceless, unaccountable, unelected governmental agency she intends to create — and trust that they are going to correctly separate fact from fiction, and keep everyone honest? Really? After all of this? That’s the plan? And there are actual, living people who are in favor of this? People smart enough to tie their shoes believe this is a good thing?
The government has been wrong about so, so many things, and more are coming to light all the time: tobacco, a new “ice age,” “peak oil,” weapons of mass destruction, vaccines, climate “change,” COVID, seed-oils… the list goes on. I’m not trying to go full conspiracy theorist here. These are complicated topics that defy one-line answers about how we should deal with them. But it’s been shown very clearly over the past few years that our government doesn’t have a special dispensation of understanding. They’re bureaucrats who hire experts, and experts are all over the place. The only way to get to the truth is to talk about it, even if that includes people saying things that are wrong. And, yes, even if it includes people saying things they know are wrong.
Besides the realm of pure conspiracy theory (9/11? Las Vegas shooter? Trump assassin(s)?), the government has been telling us things that have been proven they knew were wrong since WWII. Given all we know now, why should we grant them a monopoly on purposely saying wrong things? What could it possibly take for you to be distrustful of the government, if you’re not already? I’m not saying you have to completely disbelieve anyone in government ever says, but at this point, how could anyone believe that the truth isn’t at least somewhere between the three-headed government/corporations/media monster, and knowledgable people in the public? Besides the complete abrogation of the First Amendment, this alone precludes any notion of creating a governmental bureaucracy to police information.