No. of Recommendations: 9
Noam Chomsky discusses here what free speech really means:
https://youtu.be/4-oV42OMQoE?si=fYW4G-jgozd7Pl1YFree speech is no longer possible in the USA and Europe because of the new argument method used about calling anything that the establishment wants to hear as okay, and eveything doesn’t want to hear as “disinformation”.
You can say what you want in a bedroom, or in private discussion over dinner, but you can’t say what you want in the public discourse at large, such as an opinion column that guarantees publication prior the paper reading the column.
But this board will obviously be a safe haven.
In the video above, Chomsky had to make what should be an obvious distinction:
1. Supporting the right to express an idea.
2. Being in support of the idea.
1 and 2 have no relation.
But because information is so heavily censored today, many today are beginning to make the mistake of thinking that 1 as even partially implies 2. So that is the first thing to really understand about free speech. They have no relation.
The second key point he makes, in my opinion, is at 6:30. I would watch the whole video, but 6:30 is useful as it covers the real basics. He asked “Are you in favour of free speech for views
that you like? I mean, Gobels was in favour of free speech for views he liked .. if you are in favour of free speech, then that means you are in favour of free speech precisely for views you
despise.. otherwise you are not in favour of free speech. There are only two positions on free speech, you can decide which position you want”
Russia doesn’t have the highest standards of free speech, but if we in Europe and USA could just reach their meagre level, then we would be making important progress. There was a BRICS summit 4 days ago in Kazan, and they answered questions by, from their perspective, a hostile CNN reporter. Note my three observations:
1. They welcomed the CNN reporter to ask questions and answered him in full, in detail and directly, despite the reporter holding views that were provocative.
2. By contrast we don’t just evade questions but ban all the RT reporters at our G7 summits. Even if the RT reporters were making false statements it would be our chance to debunk them, so now instead we just ban them. Contrast that with the CNN reporter.
3. The questions by the CNN reporter were answered by Putin in full, but because our media didn’t like the answers, they were not published by our media (other than re-framed sound bytes).
To be precise, this is how we report.
In the CNN reported their journalist’s visit with Putins’s actual response to the CNN questions simply censored, and just reinterpretations reported by Americans - Putin’s actual answer wasn’t even discussed:
https://youtu.be/UF2QzkCxdB0?si=XlThGpyse23L0rvuIn the BBC version they cut out the question, edit out the main part of the answer and leave only a side point and frame that as the key answer:
https://youtu.be/PSGj_cqjJcg?si=52jp44ZMDr-5OSgGAs a challenge, try to find the actual full question from the CNN reporter and the full answer, not a cropped version, that was given. I found it, but don’t want to give it away, in order to demonstrate how effectively we censor our nformarion that we don’t want to hear.
When we censor, we cite disinformation as the reason, it the real reason is that we just don’t like the view. We want to assume our public is
so weak that they are unable to make up their own minds what is true or not. So we just serve the views that our administration wants them to hear. And strictly nothing further.
Several years ago I tried to read news from Iran, and at that time we were not even subtle. The domain name for their mainstream news had a re-direct to a US Government website directly admitting censorship.
That was a bit careless, and honest, so now instead you don’t see the domain anywhere in the search results unless you already know and then type the operation’s name directly (which almost no-one does) such as “Iran Daily”. Most of the US and European traffic will inpractice type “Iran News” and that leads to NGO propaganda websites, such as “Iran International” (the operation established in 2017 and headquartered in London aimed at political influence in Iran) or results from BBC, NBC and Reuters being the ‘Top Stories’).
For Russian news it is worse - you can no longer find RT news on Youtube at all. It is strictly censored. Now we are trying to coerce India to banning RT in India also. Our administration’s public relations shouldn’t be allowed to define what it’s own public can discuss, but definitely should not be permitted to limit what discussed in other counties for which we don’t even have representation.
It is really important that we give our own public the credit to be able to make their own decisions about what is true and what isn’t, rather than our governments in Europe and USA deciding for us. That is just the first necessary step.
Our public are then able to ask more serious questions, rather than stating trapped within the narrow confines of what we are allowed to discuss.
- Manlobbi
