Confrontation: The Meaning of Freedom

Corporate media has not been spared from public alienation in this populist age of discontent toward and disillusionment of America’s social and political institutions. This is evident from the fact that in the year 2021, the American people’s trust in the accuracy of reporting from corporate press reached its second lowest score on record- with only 36 percent of people placing their confidence in mass media. In effect, the majority of the American public do not trust their own corporate media. This has sparked a debate on whether the corporate press is fair and balanced in its coverage of issues of public concern and whether much of the criticism can be dismissed as coming from a malicious place. A recent policy change announced on October 13th by Facebook, a social media platform, that they will count political activists and journalists as “involuntary” public figures, entitling these figures to increased protections from bullying and harassment, touches a chord within this greater discussion. While bullying and harassment are obviously terrible things, such a policy could be abused to flag criticism of any kind as bullying and harassment. Under the current wording of how Facebook will purport to remove posts that they deem to be harassment, calling someone “a dirty ugly smear-merchant” could technically qualify as being removable due to using what could be negative physical descriptors (dirty or ugly) to attack someone as being dishonest. While one may find that such metaphors in this description are colorful or crude, supposing whether the person who is attacked engaged in unsavory or dishonest practices may give weight to such an accusation. Regardless of the particulars of the policy itself, the hypocritical notion that journalists themselves are immune from being effectively counted as public figure while they play a part in determining who is a public figure can be seen as problematic given the avenues of misuse and abuse that this policy invites.

That certain journalists have been caught doxing obscure private citizens on alternative social media outlets for posting what these journalists deem to be hateful memes and for using bad words while decrying that these social media spaces are not policed enough is concerning. After all, could not this breed of journalism, which is that of policing online discussions, be qualified as punching downward and as acts of bullying and malice themselves? Even the accusations by these journalists of the wrong think of the people they doxed have not always panned out. For instance, Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for the New York Times, doxed a Silicon Valley investor claiming that he once used the word “retarded” in an online discussion when it turned out he never did use that word. This reporter nevertheless claimed to be the victim of the situation and complained that she had faced online harassment for doing her job. The demand for de-platforming and censorship by this industry of journalists, who claim to be combatting misinformation and hate, even include preventing cash strapped criminal defendants, who fall on the wrong side of the political spectrum, from raising money from online donors for their own legal defense.

The attempt to smear or otherwise denigrate a person by journalists has therefore gone beyond the belief that others are saying bad words or sharing (what they deem to be) inappropriate memes. When the popular podcaster Joe Rogan shared that he was taking several drugs under the prescription of his doctor to combat the coronavirus, many news agencies singled out one of those medications, ivermectin, a renowned anti-parasitic drug that has application for both humans and animals, for ridicule. These news outlets loudly proclaimed that Joe Rogan was taking a discredited animal de-wormer to cure his illness. Such coverage led to ridicule by individuals who had ties to these same news outlets as being dishonest to the public. Indeed, when Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, was confronted by Joe Rogan about CNN’s coverage of the whole affair, he eventually admitted that CNN should not have said that Rogan was taking horse de-wormer.

Yet, those who advocate a greater degree of censorship over the internet seem to be gaining traction in politics. Francis Haugen, a former Facebook data engineer turned whistleblower, went so far as to say that her former company weakens democracy because it allows for misinformation to spread and charges that Facebook’s safeguards against misinformation were, in her view, prematurely turned off after the 2020 election. It is now known that Haugen herself sat on Facebook’s civil integrity unit, the body tasked with dealing with misinformation for the 2020 election, that was disbanded after the election. This unit was involved in Facebook’s decision to censor the New York Post's expose of the corruption of the Biden family as it was labelled misinformation. To be sure, Facebook was hardly unique in deciding to censor the story as other platforms pursued the same policy. National Public Radio, a publicly funded media organization, went so far as to release a statement to explain their non-coverage of the story stating that they regarded the story as a distraction.

While some might argue that this banning of the story was warranted due to a letter written by ex-members of the intelligence community, including a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who warned that the story might be Russian disinformation, there are problems with such a view. Firstly, even the signatories of this letter admitted that they did not know if the story was true or not and they did not have any evidence of Russian involvement. Secondly, the Director of National Intelligence at the time of the story’s release, as well as other intelligence and government officials, rejected such a claim of Russian interference. Finally, other news outlets like POLITCO have been able to verify elements of Joe Biden’s pay-to-play scandal and there is now evidence that suggest the current President shared a bank account with his scandal-ridden son. Indeed, in the case of Joe Biden, such allegations of inappropriate familial financial dealings had surfaced even before the New York Post’s story.

Nor is this the only time that something that was initially labelled as misinformation and censored by journalists turned out to be plausible. The Wuhan lab leak theory, where the coronavirus was theorized to have originated from a lab (and was possibly man-made) instead of a wet market, was similarly censored and proclaimed by the press as disinformation before being accepted as a possible explanation of the virus’s origin. Now corporate news outlets state that this theory should be taken seriously. At the same time, there have been claims that social media sites were involving in censoring sources that purport to debunk the Wuhan lab theory.

The notion that these journalists who have engaged in the censoring and shaming of others would now benefit from Facebook’s increased protections should give one pause. As noted by the cases cited in this article, this atmosphere of censorship, which was encouraged by said journalists who work for corporate media sites, does not guarantee the flow of accurate information, and has actually promoted disinformation of its own. Such practices of curation of information are often a source of outrage by the press when authoritarian states engage in it. That many in Western corporate media now push same policies of control of information that they would decry in dictatorial states underscores the damage that they are doing to the freedom of the press to report information that may conflict with their curated narrative. Furthermore, such an immunization of journalists from public criticism on account that some may refer to these journalists in colorful and/or crude terms, will only serve to deepen the popular distrust of mass media and give greater impetus for people to search elsewhere for uncensored news.

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.” - General Miley, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs

In late July and early August, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) successfully tested a next generation munitions payload delivery system known as a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), which can carry a nuclear warhead and features a combination of speed, flight path, and maneuverability that make it nearly impossible to detect with ground based radar, and even harder to shoot down with existing missile defense systems. So, are hypersonic missiles a game changer? The top brass within the U.S. military are certainly concerned, but they aren't worried that these HGVs will cause a fundamental change in the balance of power. Just like the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, this serves as a wake up call to the rising technological parity between Beijing and Washington.

HGVs revolutionize the lethality of kinetic weapons, but given the dual use capabilities of the Chinese DF-21 and DF-26 medium and long range ballistic missiles, the threat of nuclear strikes evading existing missile defense systems was already a real possibility. The realization of hypersonics simply removes the perceived safety blanket provided by National Missile Defense systems (henceforth referred to as NMD’s). Even one of the world’s most advanced and actively tested NMDs - the Arrow Defense System colloquially known as the “Iron Dome” - can be partially overcome by decades old soviet rockets if used in large enough numbers. Likewise, during the Bush and Clinton presidencies, the American NMD system reoriented its purpose to a more limited goal of protection against a rogue nuclear state and non-peer militaries attempting nuclear blackmail or a strike on the U.S. homeland. In the event of a conflict against Russia or China, the only nations that have successfully tested hypersonic missiles, our NMD systems are already incapable of thwarting a determined adversary intent on a nuclear strike.

With that being said, an important but often overlooked role of an effective NMD is to reduce the likelihood of an overreaction by the “targeted” nation. In the hypothetical event of a war with near peer adversaries (or the hair trigger era of the Cold War), if the U.S. feared that an incoming missile strike on an American City was from a nuclear armed missile, but was confident in its ability to prevent the attack with a salvo of kinetic kill vehicles (KKVs), then Washington would be far less inclined to launch a retaliatory strike. However in the event of a conflict, if the U.S. has no way to prevent an HGV from delivering its payload, Washington would be more likely to launch a retaliatory strike - especially if it cannot determine the nature of the payload. thereby carrying grave implications for the possibility of unintended and disastrous escalations between warring states. Essentially, having no effective defense could make the U.S. more trigger happy during a conflict with regards to ordering a retaliatory nuclear strike.

As a policy brief by the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network notes: Any discussion at present must recognize that reliable details of what China actually tested remain scant in the public domain. However, we can make some guesses. Here’s a quick rundown of what we do know happened on July 27th, and August 13th: a spacecraft was launched into a very low orbit, engaged reverse thrust to reenter the atmosphere, and screamed down at over 1.7 miles per second before crashing into the pacific ocean 24 miles from its intended target. This stands in marked contrast to the malfunctions during recent testing of both Navy and Air Force hypersonic systems, which both failed to Launch in mid October.

Publicly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed that “this test was a routine spacecraft experiment to verify the reusable technology of spacecraft” and “what separated from the spacecraft before returning was the supporting equipment of the spacecraft, which was burned and disintegrated in the process of falling into the atmosphere”. However there is evidence to the contrary. Namely, the public test of a reusable space plane by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, or CASC, occurred on July 16th, yet there was no public statement regarding either of the other launches until publicized by the investigative report by the Financial times over two months later.

Likewise, the launch and reentry carried all the hallmarks of a “fractional orbital bombardment system” (FOBS), which were conceived of by the Soviets as far back as the 1960s to evade northward facing U.S. ground radar systems without contravening the principles of the Outer Space Treaty, which expressly bans the placement of WMDs in orbit around the earth. The idea being to dodge detection by launching a nuclear attack over the south pole, and deorbiting them over the target locations before they complete a full “orbit” of the Earth, thus achieving a decisive surprise strike on the U.S. without violating international law.

As you may have realized yourself, a number of things have changed since the 60’s. And you may not have heard much about FOBS because the U.S.S.R. abandoned the concept by the 80s in the face of the American nuclear triad and the lack of an effective U.S. anti-missile system to circumvent at such heavy costs. Similar limitations apply to the risk posed by Chinese HGVs - namely, both nations still possess the capacity to annihilate each other's cities but cannot prevent an unacceptable retaliatory strike. Additionally, the U.S. no longer relies on ground based systems to detect missile launches. The U.S. Space Command operates the world's most advanced Space Domain Awareness (SDA) system through a comprehensive array of detection satellites, air radar systems, and international commercial partnerships that augment the old school ground based platforms.

Much of the strategic calculus remains the same. For context, the DARPA Glide Breaker interceptor program was funded a mere $27 million over the last 3 fiscal years, with expectations of initial operability in the late 2020’s. Whereas congress appropriated $543.3 million for SDA programs in the 2022 fiscal year alone - amounting to over a billion dollars in the same duration as Glide Breaker, and expects implementation by 2024. These allocations clearly illustrate the priorities within the Department of Defense - resilience of detection over robust interception. The U.S. considers the rest of its arsenal to be a far greater deterrent than its ability to stop an attack. Which ultimately is the very same reason that the advent of HGVs is in no way a strategic game changer.

Following a series of heavy losses this past month for the Ethiopian army, Ethiopia's prime minister Ahmed Abiy appealed for Ethiopian citizens to join the military in its fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) saying, “Now is the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the defence forces, special forces and militias and show your patriotism.” Prime Minister Abiy's personal appeal came after the recent announcement by Tigrayan fighters that they had captured the key towns of Dessie and Kombolcha in the neighboring Amhara region which are of strategic importance for further southern advances towards Addis Ababa. Ethiopia’s Government has also declared a nationwide state of emergency effective in Addis Ababa for six-months, which will include the establishment of roadblocks, the disruption of transportation services, a strictly enforced curfew and the takeover of certain areas by the military. Anyone suspected of collaboration with the TPLF could be detained without a court warrant and those found to have violated the emergency could face 10 years in prison.

War erupted last year between the Ethiopian army and the TPLF, (the political party that controls the northern Ethiopian Tigray region) when forces loyal to TPLF, seized a military base in Tigray, igniting a conflict that has since killed thousands and forced more than two million to flee the region. The TPLF was created as a small guerrilla force in 1972. Although the primary base of support for the TPLF was and remains the Tigray tribe from the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray the TPLF has grown from its inception as an insignificant political organization to a mainstream fixture in Ethiopian politics. In 1994 the TPLF spearheaded the defeat of Ethiopia’s military dictatorship (called the Derg) and ruled as part of a political party called the EPRDF which as a conglomerate of 3 other smaller parties called ADP (Amhara Democratic Party), the ODP (Oromo Democratic Party) and the SEPDM (Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement) until 2018 when the 3 smaller political parties within the EPRDF came to an agreement to nominate Abiy as Prime Minister and form a new party called the Prosperity Party. This new alliance effectively ended the party known as the EPRDF leading to the sidelining of the TPLF from the government. After Abiy took power in 2018, he replaced the most powerful TPLF figures in Ethiopia, the army chief of staff Samora Yunis and the chief of intelligence, Getachew Assefa. Sensing the reduction in its power the TPLF refused to join Mr. Abiy’s Prosperity party, and tensions finally broke out into conflict between the federal government and the TPLF, which had withdrawn to its regional stronghold of Tigray.

Since June, the Ethiopian government has blocked the entrance to the Tigray region, including humanitarian assistance. Health facilities in Tigray have been destroyed, and widespread reports of sexual violence have emerged from areas controlled by the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, including rape and sexual slavery. More than an estimated 400,000 people are famished, and the U.N. has appealed for humanitarian access and food assistance to avoid a catastrophe.

African and Western leaders called for an immediate ceasefire on November 4th after the Tigrayan advances towards the capital. Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S special envoy for the horn of Africa, arrived in Addis Ababa on November 4th, to urge the two parties to halt military operations and start ceasefire talks. Ethiopia has long been seen as a reliable ally to the USA, especially during its war on terror, with the two nations cooperating in the US fight against terrorist groups in Somalia. The US has backed this vital relation up financially, handing over $4.2bn in aid between 2016 and 2020.

Despite calls from world leaders for a national ceasefire a newly formed alliance of different factions of Ethiopian opposition parties (called the United Front of Ethiopian Federalism and Confederalism Force) was announced in Washington. The goal of this new organization is “to organize and totally dismantle the existing government, either by force or by negotiation … then insert a transitional government,” said Mahamud Ugas Muhumed, of the Somali State Resistance, one of nine paramilitary member groups who have crossed the border and joined with the Tigrayan’s in their struggle against the Abiy-led government. Although here are no easy solutions to halt the civil war in the near future, there are hundreds of thousands that on the brink of famine, and World leaders must show their willingness to rescue those citizens that starving because of Abiy’s siege and at the very least demand humanitarian access for the Ethiopian citizens suffering in that region, to avoid a humanitarian disaster of catastrophic proportions.

The recent controversy over comments made by Dave Chapelle regarding transgender people, thrust the phenomenoa of cancel culture into the spotlight once again. A small group of protesters (primarily Netflix employees) staged a protest outside Netflix headquarters in late October demanding that Netflix fund more transgender talent in entertainment in response to Chapelle’s Netflix special where he stated “gender is a fact”. Chapelle is the latest public figure to symbolize the phenomena that has become known as "cancel culture", but what is cancel culture and what is driving its emergence?

The term cancel culture is ambiguous and its definition can vary depending who is asked. Marriem Webster defines cancel culture as "the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure". Wikipedia's definition for cancel culture is a "modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles, whether it be online, on social media or in person". Regardless of which definition is chosen, “cancel culture” has come to represent the societal backlash/punishment for a figure who has engaged in taboo speech and/or beliefs. Interestingly there are religious parallels that can be found within Jewish and Christian religious practices, in the form of “Herem” and Excommunication. Essentially those who are declared to be in “Herem” or “excommunicated” are considered persona non grata and a public threat, with these punishments having an economic and social facet to them. Similar to cancel culture, one placed on a list of those who are “Herem/excommunicated”, may find themselves out of a job or their business boycotted, cast out and rejected from their social networks and publicly shamed online or in person.

The use of cancel culture as a tool to pressure and combat taboo political speech and ideologies isn't only applied to those individuals deemed to be offensive, but also to unfavorable political legislation. North Carolina's 2016 bill called HB2, (which mandated transgender people to use the bathrooms for their biological gender) faced tremendous pressure from a swath of companies, economic losses and business organizations on account of the bill. Bruce Sprinsteen cancelled a planned show in the state, Deutsche bank pulled a planned project that would produce 250 jobs, Paypal cancelled one that would create 400 jobs and the NBA cancelled plans for Charlotte to host the 2017 All-Star game. In 2017, North Carolina gave into the surge of economic pressure and repealed the bill, showing progressives the effectiveness of this political measure in deleting/ canceling disagreeable legislation. Then there was the case of Georgia’s voting law earlier this year that provoked the MLB to move the location of the All-Star game from Atlanta.

In addition to the economic penalizing of states because of specific legislation that was passed, Corporate pressure has also been applied to political figures such as former President Donald Trump. Once a dominant figure on the 24/7 news cycle, his voice has mysteriously been silenced and de-platformed in countless social media networks and news organizations. In early January, shortly after the Capitol Hill Riots, Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Snapchat suspended President Trump's accounts and they are still offline today. Although the majority of American saw the January 6th Capitol Hill saga as a “threat to democracy” (62% see it as a threat 32% don’t), a majority of Americans (albeit by a smaller margin) also think Twitter and other Social media companies should end the ban on Trump’s accounts (54% think the ban should end 46% don’t). This move to suspend Trump’s accounts isn’t only a suspension of Donald Trump, but a patronizing de-platforming of the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him and his policies. It may seem logical that Trump's Jan 6th speech (which his critics claim should be seen as encouraging/inciting the Capitol Hill riots) is another poignant example of how his administration polarized and divided Americans. Certainly many of Trump’s moves have fanned the flames of political division, but his presidency was also a symptom of a growing political divide that preceded his nomination as the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee.

So what can Republicans do to fight back against the economic pressure that is used by corporations and social groups to enforce a progressive agenda? The first answer ‘fighting fire with fire’ is perhaps the most unprincipled solution, but one with some precedence. After Colin Kaepernick set off a firestorm of controversy over his decision to kneel when the National Anthem was played before an NFL game and later opted out of his contract (because he was told by the 49ers he would get cut anyway) in March 2017, he remained unsigned till the end of his career (sparking accusations that he was being punished for the kneeling). In other words, Conservatives would strengthen measures to boycott particularly disagreeable progressive personalities due to speech or belief, or perhaps even target states with newly created progressive legislation. This measure would be taken with the hope that it would create deterrence for reducing progressive measures against conservatives, although its unlikely.

The second potential measure conservatives can take is actually similar to the first, boycott the boycotters. Instead of boycotting people (or corporations or states) on the basis of something especially Progressive that someone said, boycotting would boycott the boycotters. For example, if the MLB boycotted the MLB All-Star game, all conservatives would skip watching that All-Star game (or perhaps all MLB for that year, etc) to cause an economic loss to the MLB and hopefully deter them from using their institution to apply political pressure. In a case with many companies enacting a boycott against Conservative people, figures or causes, Conservatives would target the first 3 companies or people that engaged or advocated for the canceling, to deter companies and people from beginning these kinds of canceling movements against conservatives.

Finally another solution that presents itself can be found with the example of Goya. After Goya’s CEO Robert Unanue came out in support of Donald Trump, Progressives began calling for a boycott of all Goya products. In response, conservatives began buying Goya products to show their support of Goya’s CEO. Anytime a corporation, social group or person would call for a punitive measure until its political demands are met, conservatives would employ this strategy of trying to undo this measure.

Although each strategic approach mentioned here has its pros and cons, one thing is certain. Conservatives are losing ground to progressives by refusing to engage in these tactics (with rare exceptions) and then being held blackmail until the Progressive demands are met. Progressives are pushing their agenda through economic warfare and Conservatives must wake up and take countermeasures before it is too late. Although it may be easy to ignore the random person or public figure being canceled today as having any personal relevance to your life, don't sleep too long, because it may not be so easy tomorrow, when the next person being canceled is you.