by Travis Mateer
It is entirely possible you think the title of this post is hyperbolic. Or unnecessarily sensational. Or just not true. If so, let’s take a few trips around the info-landscape to see what we can see.
While I was shouting the names of two dead black men into a megaphone on the streets of Missoula Friday evening to a mostly oblivious public, Joe Rogan was issuing his SECOND apology as the sustained attack on his podcast escalates with old audio sliced and diced and assembled for maximum impact.
Happy Black History month!
Moving on, Bloomberg “accidentally” reported that Russia invaded Ukraine a few days ago. Oops!
Bloomberg made a blunder.
The financial news site accidentally reported that Russia had invaded Ukraine Friday afternoon with a headline on its homepage.
“Live: Russia invades Ukraine,” read a jarring headline on Bloomberg’s homepage at around 4 p.m.
How does an entity explain such a “blunder”? Here’s the mea culpa:
“We prepare headlines for many scenarios and one of those headlines was inadvertently published at around 4 PM ET today on our website,” a Bloomberg News spokesperson wrote in an email. “We deeply regret the error.”
Stating information deemed to be inaccurate by an elected official was enough to silence Missoula citizen, Matt Larson, in the waning days of 2021.
In a post titled with the question A NEW METRIC FOR MAKING PUBLIC COMMENT? I included a portion of an email J. Kevin Hunt (former Council candidate) sent to local officials sounding the alarm regarding our Mayor’s enhanced powers to silence speakers of inaccuracy with technology.
Here’s the quote:
At the December 13, 2021 City Council meeting, Zoom attendee Matt Larson (with whom I have neither a personal acquaintance nor any shared political/ideological organizational affiliation of which I’m aware), had his microphone cut off by the Mayor a few seconds into Mr. Larson’s Citizen Comment (the first of three comments by Mr. Larson at this meeting). Mr. Larson was respectful and was not using profanity. Nor was he yelling. Nor was he making offensive personal comments about the Mayor or any member of the Council (although doing so would be fully protected speech and expression under both the Montana and United States Constitutions). Nor was he disruptive. Nor did he expressly or impliedly threaten violence of violation of any law. Nor did he engage in any conduct constituting breach of the peace. Nor did he utter anything akin to “shouting ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater”or otherwise posing a clear and present danger to anyone.
The reason given by the Mayor for abruptly censoring Mr. Larson in mid-sentence was that Mr. Larson had said two things about city policy that were historically inaccurate. This authoritarian action by the Mayor, which evoked no objection, opposition or disapproving remark from any member of the Council, violated the following provisions of the Declaration of Rights proclaimed in Article II of the Montana Constitution.
Going back to the possibility a senile, hair-sniffing American President could trigger a kinetic war with Russia over pipeline posturing in Ukraine, a handful of adorable protestors showed up on a renamed, virtue-gleaming bridge in Missoula to register their displeasure.
Despite any reasonable, sane quotes these protestors may have slipped into our shit newspaper, they can’t stop the fucked framing at the beginning with this second paragraph of the piece:
While promising no direct action in Ukraine, President Biden has ordered 3,000 troops to easter European NATO countries, while Russia has built up 100,000 in the region, raising fears of a potential invasion.
What obvious, one-sided propaganda. I hope the paycheck is worth it, Cory Walsh. Is this what you had in mind for your career when we were both attend the University of Montana?
If you’re gonna make propaganda, at least make it a little more enjoyable. Like a Mad Max homeless cart billboard machine with a megaphone, or the videos I made during the Trump days to have a laugh.
Like this one.
JC
You forgot to include that GoFundMe shutdown the Canadian Freedom Convoy funding page shortly after it hi $10 million, and attempted to give all the money to some charity. The protestors/funders then raised up and started “charging back” the funds, which causes a disputed fee to GoFundMe of ~$15 per charge back, with the idea of bankrupting GoFundMe. GoFundMe immediately realized they were in danger, and promised to refund the money directly, without using a refund form they had setup. GoFundMe also deleted all D.C. Convoy fund me pages.
In response, protestors and there funders moved to givesendgo, a christian funding site, and is already nearly at $2 million within 1 day.
All the while the Freedom Convoy is mostly ignored by the mainstream media. When they don’t ignore it, they attempt to claim its violent, or racist, or anything else that will scare other people from rising up and joining them. Sound familiar? It’s exactly what they did to my Sun Valley, Idaho protest against Allen & Co.
They mainstream media, and there billionaire puppet masters only have one playbook, and it’s censorship, defamation/discrediting, and anything that will scare people into submission.
Don’t fall for it.
In closing, I’d like to end with the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt: The only thing to fear is fear itself.
Amen, thanks for adding another pertinent example of the information war.
Forgive this possibly dumb question, but what is the point of saying the names of two dead guys on your megaphone?
The stories about the dead are for the living, Eric. And the stories of what happened to these two men has yet to be satisfactorily told.
Congratulations – you got me interested enough to start reading back –
So Perry / Stevenson get into an altercation, or maybe better described as Stevenson got attacked at Poverro, and he dies.
The genuinely nutty Perry isn’t charged, or even slapped on the wrists – he was turned loose and it was hushed up.
Then, Perry got killed by the Missoula PD, and the question is was his death because of his actions that day, or was the Missoula PD getting rid of a problem.
Now I personally hate cover-ups, and in this case I think a tall tree with a short rope at the City Park would have been better justice.
I’m not sure you will get the story told on the corner, why not write up about 1000 words and make a short story out of what you have found? IMO it’d be more effective.