Lies, Disinformation and Conspiracies
The many ways government and the corporate media have taught us to distrust them
At one time I, and maybe you too, believed what our government told us. I believed them when Tom Brokaw or Walter Cronkite reported stories. They had credibility. They had gravitas. They had my trust and probably yours too.
For me, that’s all gone.
The loss of trust started slowly and then all at once.
What happened? I believe the loss of dominance in the corporate media (TV networks, major U.S. newspapers), accelerated by the rise of social media and alternative media, have provided the public with hundreds or thousands of sources for information.
Up until the mid-1990s we got our news from ABC, CBS and NBC. Then we learned that the news we had been fed was biased. Previously we just didn’t have an easy way to make that determination. We also learned that Cronkite wasn’t the paragon of fairness we were led to believe.
For me, I think it was Covid that put the nail in the trust coffin.
When we first heard of Covid-19 we learned that it originated in China. But, any mention of China was “racist.” We were told that the origin of the virus was the Wuhan Wet Market, even though that flew in the face of logic. Even comedian Jon Stewart pointed out this absurdity. Now, in Congressional testimony, Rutgers University molecular biologist Dr. Richard Ebright said that the “large preponderance of evidence indicates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, entered humans through a research incident.” Well, duh!
We also got conflicting information about Covid masking. See The Mask.
They told us that we needed to stay six feet apart for social distancing. Now we find out that the six foot rule was just made up.
Disinformation and conspiracy theories are nothing new.
People still believe the moon landing was a hoax.
Even though 99% of the documents on the Kennedy assassination have been released, there are still thousands that are confidential. People naturally get suspicious when information is withheld.
Also, the age of people determines their belief in conspiracies:
I could cite numerous examples of government lying, boldly to our faces with the corporate media participating in the lie.
Amazingly, we actually just had an example of this deceit. The dishonesty of government was just proven this month and is on full display for all to see. But, depending on where you get your news, you may not know some of these facts – some media outlets don’t want you to know all this.
I try to not make this blog overtly political, so I’m just going to present a fully-attributed timeline of facts.
You can draw your own conclusions.
The Hunter Laptop
April 2019 – (Per Wikipedia) A damaged Apple MacBook Pro 13 laptop was dropped off at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware by a man claiming to be Hunter Biden.
October 2019 – (Per Congressional Testimony) “…the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.”
November, 2019 – (Per Congressional Testimony) “The FBI verified its authenticity…by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID…”
December, 2019 – (Per Snopes) “The computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Issac, said he was troubled by the contents of the laptop, and was therefore in contact with the FBI. The Post reported that before Mac Isaac gave the laptop and hard drive to the FBI, he ‘made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello’."
December 9, 2019 – (Per Congressional Testimony) “The FBI took possession of the device…they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes” and that a [redacted] special agent “drafted an affidavit for a Title 26 search warrant, which a magistrate judge approved that month.”
October 11, 2020 – (Per Snopes) Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, gave the New York Post a copy of Hunter Biden's laptop drive.
October 14, 2020 – (Per New York Times) The New York Post reports on the existence of the laptop in a story headline that read, "Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad."
October 14, 2020 – (Per Variety) “Facebook, Twitter Put Restrictions on New York Post’s Disputed Hunter Biden ‘Smoking Gun’ Story”
October 19, 2020 – (Per Politico) “…more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter claiming that the emails had ‘the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’.”
October 22, 2020 – (Per C-Span) https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5006807/user-clip-laptop-hell
March 16, 2022 – (Per New York Times) A New York Times story about a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Hunter Biden's tax affairs, the Times mentioned emails "from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation."
August 26, 2022 – (Per the BBC) Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook restricting a story about Joe Biden's son during the 2020 election was based on FBI misinformation warnings.
November 30, 2022 – (Per Business Insider) Twitter's former trust and safety chief said it was a mistake to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story: 'We didn't know what to believe'
February 8, 2023 – (Per CNN) “Former Twitter executives acknowledged to lawmakers Wednesday that the social media company erred when it temporarily suppressed a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020…”
June 4, 2024 – (Per the New York Times) The Hunter Biden MacBook Pro 13 laptop is introduced into evidence by federal prosecutors in the Hunter Biden felony gun trial.
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What do you think?