Tea at Trianon: Social-ist Media

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Social-ist Media

From Devin Nunes at The American Mind:

Americans do not have to wait in line to buy bread yet, but make no mistake: In America today, the socialist propaganda network is already in place.

The mainstream media has proven that Americans can no longer rely on them for unbiased news. Having always leaned left, reporters abandoned all pretense of objectivity following President Trump’s election, turning their outlets into unabashed organs of the anti-Trump movement and every associated leftwing cause. This was amply demonstrated by the years-long Russia collusion hoax, in which every mainstream outlet scrapped journalistic norms on sourcing, anonymity, fact-checking, and other longstanding practices in order to advance the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russians to hack the 2016 election.

Increasingly, however, Americans are no longer accessing news reports through physical newspapers and magazines but through social media. In theory, social media is a democratizing force—people no longer need to own a media company or write for the New York Times in order to reach a potential audience of millions. But it’s now clear that the tech giants who control the digital infrastructure are not providing a neutral platform for all points of view. Instead, they have weaponized their platforms to help the Democrats.

Many people suddenly understood this following the censorship of the New York Post’s recent Hunter Biden stories. The articles were suppressed on Facebook and banned even from direct messages on Twitter, while links and press releases about the stories by congressional committee Republicans were throttled. The Post’s entire Twitter feed was frozen, as were those of the Trump Campaign and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany.

These moves follow a long series of damaging actions our tech overlords have taken since Trump’s election. Twitter has claimed these moves are meant to improve “conversational health” on the platform, and that their concern is with “content obtained without authorization.” But given that no such standard has been applied to the Steele Dossier or the innumerable anonymous, leaked, and flatly unsourced attacks on President Trump, Twitter’s policies end up merely suppressing conservative speech—which is clearly their intent. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: Yes, what someone says in a bar after a few drinks evolves into facts and becomes the impetus for a year long Impeachment trial. Freedom of the Press has turned into the right to lie and manipulate public thought and withhold the truth.; October 20, 2020 at 2:33:00 PM EDT