You might recognize this an undated version of our post from last Halloween. Last year, the really scary thing was that WBAI, New York's only truly listener supported public radio station, had been taken off the air by a rogue group of minority insiders. BUT it was Halloween, so, in the midst of that real scariness we got into the Halloween spirit to provide some fun listening made here available again, several recorded promo-carts that make the point of the value of WBAI as a bulwark to help avoid censorship. Links to listen to those fun-scary carts carts appear at the end of this post (if you dare listen).
More important, but related is to talk about what is truly scary this Halloween: It's an unfolding wave of censorship. We are on the eve of an election. Many are waiting with bated breath fro the results. But whether Trump assumes the office of president or Biden does, a wave of censorship is unfolding and it seems as if it will continue.
What do we mean? Democracy was recently restored to Bolvia by an the overwhelming vote (55%) of a national election. This was after it was finally admitted by most of the media that the previous popularly elected government of the country had been overthrown by a fascist coup that the United States unfortunately had too much to do with.
Restoration of democracy in Bolivia by an overwhelming popular vote; good news- Right? Then why are Instagram and Facebook censoring those who are now tweeting about it?
That's an example of the latest coming from the internet giants that are involved in "policing" free speech.
Thursday night, October 29th WBAI's Local Station Board Report to the Listeners Michael D. D. White a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries and a member of the WBAI Local station board made these points about the frightening wave of censorship that is unfolding (his remarks are near the beginning of the first hour). (BTW: You may detect that Mr. White may have had something to do with the Halloween carts linked to at the end of his post.).
Mr White said that WBAI as Free Speech alternative radio needs to be hyper-attuned to the following.
We are experiencing a new wave of increased censorship (while corporate media establishment propaganda narratives are being pushed to the fore).
Recent censorship pushes to be noted include:
• Zoom, Facebook and Twitter recently banned a San Francisco State University sponsored web-based conference (what other kinds are there these days?) titled "Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice and Resistance," because the conference included a Palestinian activist that it labeled as a terrorist. (Depending on whose narrative it is, the British might have called George Washington a "terrorist.")Mr. White noted how easy so much of this censorship was to effect through the internet. That’s one reason that WBAI’s terrestrial radio presence is so important. . . That’s so long as WBAI remains Free Speech alternative radio.
• The NY York Post’s story about Hunter Biden, which was not factually inaccurate and contained important information about the corruption of Biden and his father the presidential candidate (along with less relevant information tending to very the authenticity if the information) was censored with Twitter not allowing it to be tweeted about. In a related story, Glenn Greenwald resigned from the internet-based Intercept, which he helped found, the day of the WBAI broadcast, because the Intercept was censoring and refusing to publish his story about the Hunter Biden corruption and the way that the media was burying the story.
• Google will be involved in the roll out of the Covid vaccines. Google has announced that YouTube will censor any videos that raise questions about the vaccines being rolled out (with FDA staff excluded from the process).
• Google’s YouTube (Google owns YouTube) and Twitter have just started censoring and removed all of the videos of the Last American Vagabond, plus Whitney Webb reports her tweets about Google censorship are being selectively censored.
• Maybe Russian bots will be blamed and given as the excuse for censorship? Or will it be QANON? QANON is so absurdly ridiculous that everyone has to agree on that point. (However, without going down a rabbit hole to explain, QANON is probably not what it appears to be or is generally reported to be.) QANON is being used as a perfectly tailored excuse to start labeling as unacceptable “conspiracy theories” and engage in a major round of censoring theories that are critical and/or suspicious of government activity.
• The persecution and prosecution of journalist Julian Assange for publishing factually accurate information about US war crimes is a new level of shut down with incredible implications.
• Another level of shutdown is the way that Google search, Facebook, the internet, and corporate media, is shutting down all reporting about the Julian Assange extradition trial.
• CodePink- Just tweeted a story about Twitter’s removal of Palestinian Activists- “Blaming Bots.” ) CodePink has a program on WBAI. Jeremy Corbyn, the United Kingdom's counterpart to Bernie Sanders, was suspended by the Labour Party the day of the WBAI program. Sanders and Corbyn are similarly inclined when it comes to policies and speak admiringly of each other.
Mr. White admitted that sometimes he listened to shows that WBAI broadcasts via the internet, not through WBAI, and sometimes he even gave money to those shows directly, but he said he gave more money to WBAI because WBAI's terrestrial radios broadcasts are a backstop against more censorship of the internet.
(We hope you'll find this scary fun listening.)
WBAI October 31st Halloween No. 1
WBAI October 31st Halloween No. 2
WBAI October 31st Halloween No. 3
WBAI October 31st Halloween No. 4
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