
For a moment there, it looked like class consciousness was starting to arise in America. That those on both the Left and Right of the so-called political divide had woken up to the fact that they are all in the same boat. For myself, as someone from a working-class background who has been a proud overachiever, it has been frustrating to go into my fifties knowing that even though I have amassed a substantial nest egg, I still can’t ever feel completely secure—because in this country, one major medical ailment could totally wipe me out financially. [Thought experiment: what if I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, therefore less prone to the distracting aspirational bullshit of the hustle and more able to see what it would take to effect real change? Hmm…]
Now, whatever the merits you may judge in the actions of the alleged assassin of the UHC CEO, it needs to be more known how active the suppression tactics are right now within U.S. social media platforms and legacy media. All search terms related to the suspect’s name, including hashtags to “free” him are being censored by TikTok, X, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr and Reddit. To make it less obvious, they have kept up some old content (of course, the thirst traps not the more overtly political content regarding the three “D’s” of his slogan). Thirst traps also help dismiss the whole phenomenon of his popularity as simply stupid women going gaga over a hot man.
Those who aren’t in the know can then be easily convinced that this is just the natural shift of attention within our fast-paced world. Propaganda within legacy media gives this an extra push with articles mocking his fall from the news cycle, quoting social media posts which sneer at the drop in reposts related to him (even though attempts to do just that are getting folks’ accounts deactivated). The New York Times even published an article the other day about how “America always falls in love with a killer.” Notice how this pivots focus away from the point that was trying to be made about the abject, life-ruining unfairness of the American healthcare system. Social media posts by medical doctors have substantiated this constant battle for life-saving coverage with insurance companies, and the misery that it brings to everyday citizens’ lives.
Now this is not my first time at the rodeo. Unfortunately, I have seen this play out before in the U.S. Journalism was actually my first career choice. So in high school in the late 1980s, I had already joined a community newspaper and began to write stories about police brutality in Los Angeles. But even back then, we were seeing a downshift in circulation as folks continued to switch to screens as their primary source of information (and newspapers had yet to have a web presence back then). I wasn’t sure that I wanted to enter what seemed to be a dying profession and I let those aspirations go as I focused on studying history in undergrad. Then in 1996, Gary Webb came out with an investigative series for the San Jose Mercury News which exposed the CIA’s funding of Nicaraguan anti-government Contra rebels through expansion of the cocaine drug trade, which directly led to the crack epidemic which decimated African-American communities in the ‘80s. I intuitively sensed that this story was accurate. Years later, through the Freedom of Information Act, the details of the story were largely proven to be true. Yet immediately after the release of Webb’s story, every other major news outlet closed ranks to dismiss his claims as exaggerated. They all ran stories excoriating his journalism. The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Washington Post. The Merc News published a column stating that Webb’s series had not meet their journalistic standards (though it did NOT dispute evidence that the drug ring described had indeed sold substantial quantities of cocaine within inner-city LA!). Webb was transferred to a dead end outpost, his journalistic reputation smeared beyond repair. He was mostly forgotten until his death at age 49 in 2004. An apparent suicide, with TWO gunshot wounds to the head. But I personally never forgot about Gary Webb. When the fall out from his story was happening in real time in 1996, I remember feeling so heavy as I began to understand the true grip of the entrenched Establishment. And every few years until his death, the story of what happened to him would hit me, a stark reminder of the price of being the first to tear down a big lie.

My second taste of media manipulation was during the Bush years as we prepared to invade Iraq in 2003. You could just see the sound bites being circulated across the news networks as government built the case for an unprovoked war. When even NPR got on board, I knew all bets were off. Of course, there were no “weapons of mass destruction.” Rather, it was a son’s vendetta against a man who had threatened his father (Bush Sr, when he was the head of the CIA). I happened to be backpacking through Guatemala at the time. Most of the other travelers were Europeans. It was pretty isolating as both the locals and the other backpackers were rightly pissed off at our country, and I was a convenient scapegoat. But again, it was so wrenching to watch in real time the wheels of this machine inexorably spin. You had this feeling of utter dissociation, like is this really happening?
So here we are now. A new chapter in America, but with the same problem of media manipulation. Honestly, I do have more hope this time around—that we will not be condemned to a singular narrative which serves only a very few. My two examples from the past both happened before our current era of technology. The game changer has been our pervasive and global interconnectedness, unprecedented in its salient power. I think back to when the Rodney King beating took place in 1991. Unfortunately such an incident was nothing new for African American men. The thing that was relatively new were handheld video cameras like the one used to record King’s brutal beating by the police, a video which was then sent in to a local TV news station. Today, even if that channel refused to air the footage, it would still be nigh impossible to stop its dissemination.
Thankfully, the way the Internet has evolved nationally will make it hard for any one power to ultimately control the message here. Not unless they are able to convince the majority to just not go there; a tactic that has been effective in the past via fear, othering and social pressure. Truly, the cat’s out of the bag in our contemporary society, and folks are used to mining for their own perspective within the multitude. Those sick of shadowbans on their favored topics can find other platforms e.g., Blue Sky or Red Note, to satisfy their needs. Sure, those may get banned themselves or choose to self-censor. But the Internet is this beautiful Hydra: you cut off one head, more grow back in its place. Hence, this is why the manipulation has not been limited to simple information control. It’s also about shaping your attention towards the superficial, on “keeping up with the joneses,” on identity divisions and other ways to dumb down the conversation. Let’s not let them get away with it this time.
There is power and there is hidden power. The realm of women is often the latter. The past decades has seen a lot of wrestling for more of the former. As for me, I would be perfectly happy if most of my readers are femmes and the like. I am certainly not interested in getting into the typical polemics that many men mistake for communication (oh the downvotes I got on the Mandela Effect subreddit for quoting a channeler’s assertion that such effects are evidence of one’s base frequency shifting; I have to laugh at anyone on that sub who thinks my comment is somehow less rational than what? I mean, they are on the Mandela Effect sub! Judging mysteries with the prejudice of scientific zealotry, smh).
I don’t think Jesus became known because of men. I am sure it was women that were there first, and then the men followed the women into the movement (because that’s what men tend to do). We have lost the thread with modern Christianity, but it did start as an elevating paradigm shift into greater charitability, fellowship and compassion in the world. What will be our new movement, our new wayshower? I believe that we all are participating in this evolution, even on unconscious levels. That our individual consciousness has a huge impact on the collective; as fractals of the whole, we each contribute to a sea change. Like the belief in an expansion of who we could envision as president that powered Obama into office. All this reminds me, I need to watch Coppola’s Megapolis, apparently a film about the fall of the Roman Empire set in New York. Feels like a timely metaphor.
Just because this world does not acknowledge certain kinds of power, does not diminish said power’s impact. Remember, camouflage serves a purpose. May we all find our ways to bring more lovingkindness, unity and true justice into our shared reality.