A week ago I wrote that I feared the Federal government is on the verge of waging a shooting war against American citizens. In the last few days, however, I’ve seen and read some things that have given me pause. Maybe I was being too pessimistic.
The key element in this has been the overwhelming response across America to the news reporting of the Bundy-BLM standoff, which the government did not expect. The feds thought they could impose a news blackout, and thereby operate with indifference to the law, then peddle a sanitized version of events through the mainstream media that told the version of events that showed themselves in the best possible light… in other words, propaganda. Instead, video of them sicing their dogs on unarmed and unaggressive people sparked a firestorm of outrage that swept across the nation and around the world. As I’ve followed the story in various internet news sources–and observed that the mainstream media is still largely silent on this story–I realize that the information revolution that has come about through the internet is quite possibly going to save America.
The Bundy-BLM story has shown that the mainstream media is becoming irrelevant. The fact that ALL the major networks agreed to a news blackout at the request of the feds and the White House is staggering… can you imagine Walter Cronkite refusing to cover this story because the president asked him to? I sure can’t! It just goes to show how much of a lapdog the MSM has become in the past quarter century. If the MSM had held a monopoly on information in the past few weeks as they did when Waco and Ruby Ridge went down, the public might never have known the truth about this story. But the facts came out, and the whole world watched as the BLM was forced, not by guns but by information, to back down.
The “viral” spread of real-time news from the Bundy-BLM standoff will quite possibly prove to be a watershed event in American history as singular as the battle at Concord in 1775. One journalist (Mike Adams, editor of Natural News.com) says that the Revolution of 1775 was made possible by technology that allowed every individual in the 13 Colonies to own a high-quality rifle. The British, like all other European powers, allowed firearms only grudgingly to their subjects, and concentrated their firepower in the Army. In effect, they had a monopoly on weapons back home that didn’t exist in America. They had never had to deal with an armed citizenry; they had never even considered the possibility. In 2014, the government had assumed that it “owned” the media but failed to grasp the fact that nearly every person in America has a portable video recorder on his person at all times in the form of cell phones, and that anyone can upload a video for the entire world to see seconds after the event has happened. The monopoly on information the feds thought they had proved to be an illusion.
So alternative media have had a field day, and anyone can see that the news networks are like the emperor with no clothes. The feds must be realizing that they can’t conduct paramilitary operations against citizens with impunity any more (one would hope, anyway), and the egg on the faces of the MSM for abrogating their sacred trust to inform the public is truly epic.
The central political issue today is the same as it was in 1775: the government exists and functions only as long as the governed give their consent, so when the arrogant overreach of the government becomes intolerable to the governed, that consent is withdrawn. At that point the government is in jeopardy and its power begins to crumble, whether individual politicians realize it or not.