American Travesty

For the most part, I try to maintain an apolitical online presence.  Not that I, myself, am apolitical - on the contrary, I have some very strong political views*.  There are several reasons** why I have deliberately chosen to be apolitical online, but primarily it is because I am right, and you are wrong (hehehe).

Joking aside, I feel the extremely rare need to speak out about the travesty that occurred/is occurring during the 2020 General Election in the USA.  Now, before you all get in a huff and start settling in to your inevitable knee-jerk reactions, this has absolutely nothing to do with who may have "won" or "lost" - so read on, if you dare.

So why do I feel the need to put an extremely rare political post up on this blog (which is primarily used for some type of gaming-related news)?  Because what happened/is happening should shake every American voter - regardless of party affiliation (or lack thereof) - to their very core.  Except, perhaps, "Marxists" who absolutely love what occurred/is occurring.

As long as I can remember, the American mainstream media has had a liberal bias†.  However, they still managed to provide coverage of "news-worthy" events, more-or-less "fairly" providing verified information (or at least openly stating unverified material was, indeed, unverified) without additional commentary††.  They would present what they currently knew to the public so they would have the information.

A "free press" (one free of censorship and not controlled by any government agency) is essential to a free and democratic society.  And up until about 7-years ago (or so) we did have one - more-or-less.

BUT - since then, all the "pretense" about being "unbiased" is gone.  And anyone who still claims the mainstream American media is "unbiased" is delusional.

For the first time in recorded American history (at least, as far as I know), we had a mainstream media that was actively "campaigning" for one presidential candidate.  I'm not talking about "endorsements" by a news outlet company - I'm talking full-blown, "we want this candidate to win, no matter what and we'll say/do or not say/do whatever it takes to get it done."

You don't have to believe me - in fact, I encourage you to NOT believe me and go do your own research.  Watch old news programs from the last 6-months (or so); read old news articles; see what types of questions were asked of each major candidate whether in press conferences, interviews, or what have you.

The voting populace has the right to know where a candidate stands on issues; allowing one campaign to stonewall and say "we're not going to answer that until after the election" is unacceptable.  And yet, the mainstream media did not push for an answer, of those few who did dare were laughed at and scoffed by the other mainstream media "journalists".

And since when do true journalists simply take the word of one candidate or party without "fact-checking"?  (If you've been reading, then you know the answer is about 7-years ago, or so.)

There is a major news story regarding one of the candidates that went nearly completely ignored by the press.  This is unprecedented.  And you can believe that if the story were regarding the other candidate, it would have been blasted all over TV, radio, and print.  So why wasn't it covered?  Well, in truth it was - by one well-known newspaper, but they were instantly and totally ridiculed for it.

And their story was censored - not by the government, but by social media and other "big tech" companies.

Censorship of a major news outlet should have been in-and-of itself a HUGE story.  Yet, it was all but ignored.  Why?  Because it was a damaging story to the favored candidate of the mainstream media.

And that, folks, is but one element that should scare the living crap out of you (especially if you believe in freedom).

The mainstream media has willingly become the propaganda machine for a single political party.  And you should not question it and just shut-up about it.  Or else.

But besides the mainstream media being a political party's lapdog, another element that should scare the crap out of you is how "big tech" has so easily (and with impunity) been allowed to censor one side of the political debate.

When that unfavorable news story broke, Twitter locked-out the entire reporting newspaper's Twitter account (for days) and deleted re-tweets of it; Facebook deleted posts and blocked access to virtually every link to the article; Google's famous search engine mysteriously could not find anything on it (at least, not for several pages in).

Social media site (such as Twitter and Facebook) currently enjoy immunity to lawsuits.  Originally, this was granted with the understanding that they were merely a "re-host" of what people wanted to say and were not acting as an editor or publisher.  But now they are acting as editors/publishers.  Instead of allowing people to post whatever they want (it's called "freedom of speech"), the social media giants have taken it upon themselves to decide what you should be allowed to see - or say.

Which is something else that should scare the living crap out of you.

Now, I can hear some of you say, "But the election is over, so-and-so won.  Just let things go."  But there are a couple of problems with that assertion.

First of all, while, yes, election day is over, the actual election process is not.  As of this post's date, there are still ballots being counted for the first time (i.e. not a re-count).  Second, just because the media says so-and-so is "President-Elect" and just because so-and-so has claimed victory, doesn't make it so.  Third, once the initial count is over, the law allows for all candidates to have a re-count, should they want one.  Fourth, there are wide-spread allegations of illegal activity, suspicious behaviour, and outright fraud that was committed not only on election day, vut several days later, as well.

And by the way - you all do know that there is no such thing as "The Office of the President-Elect", right?  Just because you see it printed on the back-drop with an official-looking seal doesn't make it real‡.  The truth is that until the votes are certified, there is no "official" president-elect, yet.  But hey, if you want to call so-and-so "President-Elect" that's cool - just remember it's not official, yet.

With respect to charges of "fraud" (being used loosely to cover all 'suspicious' activity at polling sites), there is fraud in every election; it's pretty much a given.  Whether or not it may affect the apparent outcome is the question.  It's quite possible it won't.

But while the outcome may not change (and honestly, the outcome is irrelevant to what I'm trying to say here), every single American voter - regardless of party-affiliation - should be demanding accountability of those who run our election system.

In any given election, I can live with the fact that "my candidate" (whomever it is, be it Presidential candidate, Senatorial candidate, Congressional candidate, even down to the local dog-catcher candidate [should there be one]) lost, provided I can believe the process was above board.  But if we as a nation cannot trust the results of our elections (for whatever reason), then our way of life is in serious jeopardy.

And that should also scare the living crap out of you.

Assuming, of course, you still love our country, regardless of what flaws it may have.

{No signature smiley, this time.}

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* If you'd like to know more, you are free to ask, though we'd have to come up with a more private way of having those discussions, as it is not my intention to turn this blog into a political zone.

** It used to be that opposing viewpoints could be discussed with civility - and they still can be.  Unfortunately, though, it seems the "norm" these days is that invariably one side or another not only won't listen to what the other side is saying, but end up resorting to name calling, or worse.  So, with it being more divisive than informative, I'd rather avoid the conflict, whenever possible.

† This was often denied by many in the past, but any honest, neutral observer could see it was true.  These days, however, it's pretty much undisputed.

†† I'm talking about actual "news" outlets (whether print, radio, or TV), not "news talk-shows" or the Op-Ed section.  Those are "opinion pieces" which are free to discuss anything and don't necessarily have any type of verification process.

‡ I would actually encourage everyone who reads this blog to go and read the US Constitution, including all its amendments.  See if you can find "Office of the President-Elect" in there - or in any Federal law, statue, or rule, for that matter.  And if you do, let me know where.