by Mary W Maxwell, LLB
I’d like to prevent the mainstream media from determining which things I will think about, and in what order.
Maybe some persons assume that all current events are worth about the same weight – Covid deaths, business failures thanks to Lockdown, whether my kid’s school will be open next week, a Biden or Trump win, the matter of election fraud, withdrawal from Afghanistan, possible war with Iran, etc.
Actually, for me, a very big issue is that very determining, by media, of which issues come front and center. It screws people’s brains up and is leaving us in a hopeless state.
When I was young (1950s, ‘60s), in Boston, we had a sense of the two local papers – the Globe and the Herald — vying to get a news scoop and vying to present insightful editorials. Nobody would dream of that today. Insightful editorials are anathema, and all major newspapers receive their “scoops” that is, their talking points, from the same hander-outer of scoops.
One could imagine, in the old days, that a Herald employee might go on a spy mission, to see what’s happening in the Globe’s building; to hear what they’re whispering about. No need for that now. The Globes and Heralds of this world, and CNN — and even PBS — all have the same mindset.
It really is astonishing when you think of it. The re-presenting of reality to the readership is not a competitive intellectual fight. It does not strive for improvement. None of its writers – as far as I can tell – get a thrill from discovering something out there in the world to report.
Nor are they likely to sort through the headlines on their desk and have a Eureka moment when the connection between two events suddenly strikes them as suspicious. If a “newsman” did see a connection, and shouted it aloud, the guy in the next cubicle would probably remind him that suspicion is a sign of conspiracy theory — a total no-no.
Suspicious Connections Today
I am suspicious of the connection between the Covid pandemic and the Great economic Reset. I am suspicious that the pandemic has occurred in an election year. I am suspicious of editorials suggesting that the controversy about ballot-counting may lead to civil unrest. I am suspicious that a threat of war with Iran is being raised at this particular time.
In fact, I am suspicious that the media’s “worries” about civil unrest and/or an Iran war are deliberately placed before us as a way to make us nervously unable to think clearly about those other two issues – the pandemic and the disputed election results.
Hmm. I suppose it could be the other way around — that they have given us a pandemic and a controversial election to take our attention off of impending military action with Iran.
You never know.
Prioritizing
The title of this article is “sorting the news that matters to me.” I love to prioritize things. Just for the heck of it. So here is my list of priorities at this moment. Well, two lists — the Big One, and the Practicality One.
The Big List starts with the health of the planet, our species’ habitat. Gotta stop messing up the oceans with plastic bottles, and gotta stop interfering electronically with Nature, such as when our wi-fi transmissions prevent bees traveling around to pollinate flowers.
The Big List also has on it the coming tragedy of economic collapse. It may be hastened by the Lockdown but it was on the cards anyway, thanks to our unrealistic system of “finance.”
There’s also a coming tragedy of 5G technology, which is capable of being used as a weapon simply by causing pain. Recall the “pain trucks” that are euphemized as “space denial weapons”? Very funny. It means you are standing in a space on the street to protest something and the emitting of radiation makes you run away from the pain – thus “denying” you that space.
(Oh, a note to Globe and Herald journalists: when the name of something is a blatant euphemism, that itself is cause for suspicion. Don’t tell the guy in the next cubicle, but the term “covered countermeasure” in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, is but a synonym for “vaccination.” Hmm. Why didn’t the legislators simply say “vaccination”?)
The Practicality List
Each day, when I start my work — which is some combination of legal research, social criticism, and too-tepid activism — I have to make a conscious effort to distinguish between things on the Big List and things on the Practicality list.
You might say I have to push down the looming presence of the Big List, as I have no way, as an individual, to deal with it. Nothing I can do is going to fix Covid, end the Lockdown, get all states to secure their voting-machine’s software, or steer our diplomats handling of the Iran situation.
(In any case, I don’t have good knowledge of the Iran situation. How could I? The government of my country, never mind that of perhaps all other countries, spews out lies all day. One lie after another. Nonstop. Lie, lie, lie. Who can find the truth?)
The Practicality List for me, in, say, the last two weeks, has focused on:
*Legal efforts that are being made refute incorrect vote-counts, especially the stance taken by Sidney Powell;
*Class action lawsuits in Australia and Germany to sue for damages done by the Lockdown;
*The Off-Guardian.org’s review of a book Klaus Schwab wrote in 2018 on the Reset (not his 2020 book that I reviewed here);
*James Perloff’s Eureka as to the possible setting-up of Kamala Harris as president so she can usher in a new VP, which I have reviewed here.
Practicality advises me to concentrate on deploying any peculiar talent I happen to have. For instance, I happen to know of Sidney Powell’s merciless attacks on the DoJ, as they run parallel to my own merciless attacks on the DoJ. Thus, I am well placed to explain to others that her attention to the vote-count problem is one we should support.
Also, I am happy to spread the word about the two Lockdown lawsuits, as I think it will animate citizens to catch on to the wrongness of the Lockdown when they see a court case. I do realize that the judge may find a way to dismiss either case without “going to the merits” but even so, it helps.
Punishment a Fave
Here is my great peculiarity — one that was mundane years ago but which diminished in popularity to such an extent that I startle people when I mention it. I argue for the principle that wrongdoers should be brought to book. They should do the time if they did the crime.
“Wait!” I hear you say “That is not unusual!” Ah, but I don’t mean your basic house robbers and drunk drivers. Not even your embezzling accountants. I mean government officials. Many citizens have the misapprehension (aided by the silence of the media) that government officials are immune from prosecution.
What a horrible joke. Think of it – a president, a governor, or a head of a bureaucratic agency, being able to do as she damn well pleases, with all the public’s property at her disposal! Note: I don’t mean such persons can’t claim immunity for acts they properly perform on the job – they can. I am talking about crime.
Any person at federal or state level who participated in voter fraud is indictable on various criminal charges. Maybe they themselves don’t even know it. Maybe when they were new on the job, their mentor assured them that no one would ever lower the boom. Indeed, no one would be able to find evidence as “we’ve got that whole area covered, too.”
The Sherman Is Still Around
Back to the Big List for a moment. The Big List has on it the fact that our shared mental life, our culture, is hugely influenced by a monopolistic media. In fact, whilst I was writing the above paragraph, an email came to me from The New Yorker (a once high-class magazine) offering an article entitled “What Does Trump Get Out of Contesting Biden’s Win?”
Admittedly, I have not stopped to read it, but even the title tells me it will be along the lines of every MSM piece on Trump. It will examine “the phenomenon” of his not conceding the election. There will be no chatter – as there would have been, say, 30 years ago — about the nation’s need to pursue the controversy as a way of safeguarding democracy. The coverage will be hostile and personal. It will be puerile.
But did God assign monopoly privilege to the media? Nope. The “news industry” (what a thought!) snuck past the provisions of the Sherman Anti-trust Act pf 1890. That very short concise piece of legislation was a response to the new development of the 1880s in which some businesses were becoming monopolized thanks to new inventions such as railroads and oil drilling, and sugar.
Congressmen saw that if someone owned all the railroads, he could control the price of a rail ticket to a ridiculous degree, and we can’t allow that. The Sherman Act says:
“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.” [Emphasis added]
Gosh. How would you, as an officer of a media “trust,” like to be fined personally for a million bucks and wear the orange jump suit for ten years? Well, that law is still in force. But guess which part of the US government is tasked with enforcing it?
The DoJ.
Getting the CIA
Sidney Powell says Gina Haspel, Director of the CIA, should be fired for ignoring the warning about Dominion software. Surely Gina would know about such software as the United States is famous for interfering (sometimes lethally) in the elections of foreign nations.
I think making Haspel lose her job would not suffice. It is well within her knowledge to be aware of actual vote tampering in the US, even if her CIA is not responsible for – is not even supposed to take interest in – domestic politics. I would look into the possibility of indicting her as an abettor of the crime, if it did in fact occur.
Normally I like to see if any government person can be indicted for treason. That is my fave, and the penalty for it is death. See my 2011 book, Prosecution for Treason.
A proper investigation of the election is needed. Please note that I would like to start a citizen-led Grand Jury (which is perfectly constitutional in the US). I am calling it the Committee of 23, as a first step.
All of these things are doable. It is the belief that they are not doable that is preventing anyone from doing them.
