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In this mailing:
* J.B. Shurk: 'The Official Truth': The End of Free Speech That Will End America
* Amir Taheri: Turkey: What Would Father Say?


** 'The Official Truth': The End of Free Speech That Will End America ([link removed])
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by J.B. Shurk • May 28, 2023 at 5:00 am
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* [M]edia polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold almost diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news corporations predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."
* Americans have correctly concluded that [with the "Russia Hoax" and suppressing reported influence peddling in Hunter Biden's laptop ] journalists and spies advanced a "fraud" on voters as part of an effort to censor a damaging story and "help Biden win." Nevertheless, The New York Times and The Washington Post have yet to return the Pulitzer Prizes they received for reporting totally discredited "fake news."
* "Under the current approach to journalism, it is the New York Times that receives a Pulitzer for a now debunked Russian collusion story rather than the New York Post for a now proven Hunter Biden laptop story." — Professor Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School, Twitter, May 15, 2023.
* The government apparently took the public's censorship concerns so seriously that it quietly moved on from the collapse of its plans for a "disinformation governance board" within the DHS and proceeded within the space of a month to create a new "disinformation" office known as the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which now operates from within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Although ostensibly geared toward countering information warfare arising from "foreign" threats, one of its principal objectives is to monitor and control "public opinion and behaviors."
* As independent journalist Matt Taibbi concludes of the government's resurrected Ministry of Truth: "It's the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from Congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance. Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets."
* Democrat Senator Michael Bennet has already proposed a bill that would create a Federal Digital Platform Commission with "the authority to promulgate rules, impose civil penalties, hold hearings, conduct investigations, and support research."
* Effectively, a small number of unelected commissioners would have de facto power to monitor and police online communication. Should any particular website or platform run afoul of the government's First Amendment Star Chamber, it would immediately place itself within the commission's crosshairs for greater oversight, regulation, and punishment.
* Will this new creation become an American KGB, Stasi or CCP — empowered to target half the population for disagreeing with current government policies, promoting "wrongthink," or merely going to church? Will a small secretive body decide which Americans are actually "domestic terrorists" in the making? US Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone after traditional Catholics who attend Latin mass, but why would government suspicions end with the Latin language? When small commissions exist to decide which Americans are the "enemy," there is no telling who will be designated as a "threat" and punished next.
* It is not difficult to see the dangers that lie ahead. Now that the government has fully inserted itself into the news and information industry, the criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. This has always been a chief complaint against international institutions such as the World Economic Forum that spend a great deal of time, power, and money promoting the thoughts and opinions of an insular cabal of global leaders, while showing negligible respect for the personal rights and liberties of the billions of ordinary citizens they claim to represent.
* If Schwab's online army were not execrable enough, advocates for free speech must also gird themselves for the repercussions of Elon Musk's appointment of Linda Yaccarino, reportedly a "neo-liberal wokeist" with strong WEF affiliations, as the new CEO of Twitter.
* In an America now plagued with the stench of official "snitch lines," censorship of certain presidential candidates, widespread online surveillance, a resurrected "disinformation governance board," and increasingly frequent criminal prosecutions targeting Americans who exercise their free speech, the question is not whether what we inaudibly think or say in our sleep will someday be used against us, but rather how soon that day will come unless we stop it.

Now that the government has fully inserted itself into the news and information industry, the criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. (Image source: iStock)

If legacy news corporations fail to report that large majorities of the American public now view their journalistic product as straight-up propaganda, does that make it any less true?

According to a survey by Rasmussen Reports, 59% of likely voters in the United States view the corporate news media as "truly the enemy of the people." This is a majority view, held regardless of race: "58% of whites, 51% of black voters, and 68% of other minorities" — all agree that the mainstream media has become their "enemy."

This scorching indictment of the Fourth Estate piggybacks similar polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold almost diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news corporations predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."

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** Turkey: What Would Father Say? ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • May 28, 2023 at 4:00 am
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ay%3F [link removed]
* Atatürkism... tried to reinvent Turkey's identity as a modern state claiming Hittite and Celtic roots, distancing itself from the "decadent Orient" and hoping to regain its proper place in the family of European nations.
* More importantly, Atatürk introduced the concept of secularism, using the French term laïcité, to end the centuries' long mixture of religion and politics under the Ottoman caliphs.
* The new identity that Atatürk tried to create has also been subverted by Erdoğan's reforms. Erdoğan has tried to re-inject a large dose of Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood type, into the Turkish identity. At the same time he has encouraged the expression of sub-identities, some of them to justify his peddling of Turkish-Islam as the broad tent under which all citizens of Turkey could gather under one flag.
* Thus the Kurds, around 15 percent of the population, have been able to discard the identity that Atatürk imposed on them as "Mountain Turks," and claim a bigger role in Turkish politics and culture in their own name.
* Atatürk's laïcité has also been upturned. In 1923, it was the state that controlled the mosque through a Ministry of Religion. Today, at times, the demarcation line between the state and the mosque is too pale to be seen by all.
* As far as aspirations to be European are concerned, Turkey is now farther away from securing a place in the European family of nations than ever. Even under the Ottomans, Turkey saw itself as a European power, even if lonely as "the sick man of Europe."
* Atatürk may also be dismayed by the return of pan-Turkist and pan-Turanist elements with a chauvinistic discourse that he regarded as repulsive.
* Would Atatürk be surprised if Erdoğan wins today's election? I don't think so. Erdoğan has a solid support base with some 30 percent of the electorate and has been able to co-opt or bribe a number of smaller constituencies into voting for him. Since the alleged coup attempt in 2016, he has been working to ensure his domination of Turkish politics by removing as many potential opposition bases as possible.
* Erdoğan has defanged the military's top brass and dismantled the network of Islamist clubs and businesses associated with exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. He has sent 77,000 real or imagined opponents to prison for varying lengths of time. He has organized trials for 13,500 prominent figures from all walks of life, purged 2,745 judges and public prosecutors, imposed early retirement on 36,000 schoolteachers and 1,755 university professors, deans and chancellors. Overall, Erdoğan has fired 100,000 civil servants, including 9,000 from the Ministry of Interior, which organizes elections.
* More importantly, Erdoğan has tightened his party's control over the media by shutting down 45 daily newspapers, 25 weeklies, 23 radio stations, 16 television channels and 29 book publishing companies. His crackdown has also seen the cancellation of 50,000 passports, preventing the holders from leaving the country.
* Atatürk served for 15 years as president of the republic he had created, during which Turkey was one of the few countries to escape the tsunami of inflation that had hit Europe, leading to the emergence of Mussolini as ruler of Italy, the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the advent of Hitler.
* Today Atatürk will watch the election results as the Turks face economic meltdown, with inflation setting records never known in their history.
* The "Father" won't be happy. However, his sole consolation would be that 100 years later, a majority of Turks still see him as a unifying figure at a time the leadership elites of all ideological colors try to divide them.

Atatürkism tried to reinvent Turkey's identity as a modern state claiming Hittite and Celtic roots, distancing itself from the "decadent Orient" and hoping to regain its proper place in the family of European nations. Pictured: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk talks with his advisors, circa 1919. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Today, Turkish voters go to the polls to elect their president while a special task force works on ceremonies to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923.

But what would the man who founded the republic think of Turkey today?

The man in question is Mustafa Kemal Pasha, alias Atatürk ("Father of the Turks"), the charismatic military commander who transformed the truncated remains of the Ottoman Empire into a nation-state aspiring to modernize itself.

At first glance Atatürk would be proud of what he did. The republic he founded is the oldest in the Muslim world and one of the few that were founded by strongmen outside the West in the 1920s to be still in place. More importantly, Atatürk remains the only iconic figure of his time to be still respected, if no longer revered, by all his compatriots across the political spectrum.

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