MainStream Media is Freaking Out

The MSM has awakened to the reality that the monopoly they once held on a captive audience has eroded to the point of ineffectiveness. 

-- In 1964, the media could easily convince the American people that the Vietnam misadventure was "necessary."-- The media could still sell the American people that the Iraq misadventure was also "necessary" in 2002.-- In 2016, the media went "all-out" to sell the inevitability and rightness of a Hillary Clinton presidency. What should have been a slam dunk ended up in defeat.The fundamental dynamic here is the transition from a captive audience in thrall to a handful of media corporations to a radically democratized media. In 1964, Americans had essential zero alternatives to the three TV networks and the mainstream magazines and newspapers.

DYI:  When you are losing your viewers and readers - nothing short of a death spiral to your new competitors run to government [the boys with the guns] pass legislation denouncing the new comers as "fake or propaganda" and have them shut down!

A new era of government censorship is coming and it is going to get nasty.    

Senate Quietly Passes The "Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act"

While we wait to see if and when the Senate will pass (and president will sign) Bill  "H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017", which was passed by the House at the end of November with an overwhelming majority and which seeks to crack down on websites suspected of conducting Russian propaganda and calling for the US government to "counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence … carried out in  coordination with, or at the behest of, political leaders or the security services of the Russian Federation and the role of the Russian Federation has been hidden or not acknowledged publicly,” another, perhaps even more dangerous and limiting to civil rights and freedom of speech bill passed on December 8.

Recall that as we reported in early June, "a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth has been quietly introduced in Congress. As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information. 

Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.” 

In other words, the Act will i) greenlight the government to crack down with impunity against any media property it deems "propaganda", and ii) provide substantial amounts of money fund an army of "local journalist" counter propaganda, to make sure the government's own fake news drowns that of the still free "fringes." 

So while packaged politely in a veneer of "countering disinformation and propaganda", the bill, once signed by Obama, will effectively give the government a full mandate to punish, shut down or otherwise prosecute, any website it deems offensive and a source of "foreign government propaganda from Russia, China or other nations." And since there is no formal way of proving whether or not there is indeed a foreign propaganda sponsor, all that will be sufficient to eliminate any "dissenting" website, will be the government's word against that of the website. One can be confident that the US government will almost certainly prevail in every single time.

DYI