TOC Ready Room 16 December 2022: Censorship, gas lights, and Russia-Iran missile/drone adventure

A phenomenon has been developing in recent weeks that should raise our level of concern about the nature of public discourse, especially as brokered by the media.

It’s more than what the media, per se, are doing, however.  It has to do with “news” that purports to be coming from government, but is backed by no actual evidence, and is unverifiable in terms of whether it came from government at all, much less could be held accountable in any way.

We’ll have some examples below that clarify what I’m talking about.  To start with, however, a tweet exchange for orientation to the topic:

TOC Ready Room 8 Feb 2022: Domestic terror alert results “changing quickly,” says Google

Just a short update for Tuesday, as sites across the Web take note of a new National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin published on 7 February 2022.

The bulletin is not hard to interpret.  It says the following in the first paragraph:  “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

The bulletin goes on to say,

What really happened in the Colorado Springs shooting?

Emergency responders escort bystanders away from the active-shooter threat at the Centennial medical park on Friday, 27 Nov 2015. (Image: Colorado Springs Gazette)

Will we eventually know what really happened in Colorado Springs this past week?

That’s a good question, now that the city’s mayor has already pronounced the shooting incident to be an act of “domestic terrorism.”  (For some reason, our authorities don’t seem able to jump to conclusions quite as quickly when a suspect shouts “Allahu akbar!” while attacking American servicemen.)

The drumbeat of a narrative emerged almost instantly, about Planned Parenthood being attacked because Colorado Springs is a “hub for conservative Christians” (whatever that is) who are implicitly slavering to shoot up abortion clinics.

A counter-narrative is also circulating, with some reports suggesting that the shooting attack on Friday had nothing to do – at least nothing that goes to motive – with the Planned Parenthood location on which subsequent news coverage has centered.