Earth-2 News

Picture if you will an alternate Earth, one very much like our own yet with subtle differences. If readers of comic books and pulp sci-fi can do it, it shouldn’t be all that hard for you. Imagine a United States much like we know it, only one that was able to transition to the metric system sometime in the late 70’s. Maybe that will give you an idea of the fine distinctions we are talking about. Let us play out recent events on their planet in order to imagine our reality, not as it is, but as it might be.

Turn on the television and you will see the same stations, and yet there is something different. You turn to CNN and you gasp to realize you didn’t hit them during a commercial break. How often does that happen? You are shocked to find that they are ankles deep in a discussion about climate change, and their guests are neither Hollywood celebrities nor employees of the oil industry. The mere fact they are discussing global warming blows you away, the fact that they are doing so intelligently, listening to expert scientists in the field, leaves you uncomprehending.

You are amazed. You take it all in for a moment, feeling suddenly hopeful about the human race. And then…

You become bored. Oh, it’s not your fault, you have been conditioned that way. You have been trained to react emotionally rather than intellectually to important and even not so very important issues. You are trained to direct your anger towards someone and here the discussion is scientific and factual. Worse than that, you are not used to being given information in such dense packets. You keep waiting for a commercial so you can get back to your physiological routine of checking your cell phone or reaching for the remote. You find yourself brought out of your routine and feeling physically uncomfortable.

So you change the channel. Out of habit, out of conditioning. Without any conscious decision-making guiding you, you switch to FOX. And again you are surprised to find something different than what you expected. You had prepared yourself to feel a sick feeling in your stomach. Indeed, you notice it there now, even though there was nothing to trigger it other than the FOX logo, to which, you realize, you have been conditioned like one of Pavlov’s dogs. But you notice there is not the usual attacks coming from the hosts, but instead they are asking their guests to explain themselves more fully. Yes, the host still leans right, but he is respectful and thoughtful. Again, the cognitive dissonance becomes too great and your hand works the remote without the slightest conscious awareness of it doing so.

You are on MSNBC. At least you think it is. But there’s something wrong, something very, very wrong. It has been all of twenty seconds now and you haven’t heard them say Russia. You get the feeling you would get if someone opened their mouth to say something but never did, only stood there with their mouth open, awkwardly. It’s like trying to dance to a song in 5/4 rhythm, it just throws you off entirely. But soon they switch to a story you are familiar with, and it gives you something to hold on to. You relax as you see Mark Zuckerberg sitting in front of a congressional committee, and you realize this world isn’t so very different from your own.

But it is. You see, when the congressmen ask Mr. Facebook what he is doing to keep fake news off his platform, he does not acquiesce but instead rises to his feet in protest. “It is not my job to limit what my fellow citizens can and cannot read,” he says. “God knows I am no authority figure, nor am I aware of any person or entity which should be entrusted with such a great responsibility. You ask me to censor what the average person wishes to share with his friends and family, and I consider that a betrayal of their trust. I have invented, or rather, taken credit for inventing, an incredible tool of communication for the average person, so that they need not rely on media that is concentrated in the hands of a few. I consider my responsibility to my users’ freedom greater than any obligation I owe to you.”

And thus you spend your morning, flipping out of habit from one channel to another. You quickly notice there is no mention of President Trump because the media on this Earth never made Capitalist Trump into a hero and role model. Indeed, the entire 2016 presidential campaign was covered with a focus on issues rather than ratings.

Yes, Earth-2 is in many ways similar to our own. One important distinction, however, is that the tremendous tools for propaganda are in the hands of those who wish to use them for good rather than evil.

Can you imagine that? Those who now control the propaganda machine can, which is why they are doing everything they can to silence those voices that would weave a narrative other than the one they have been busy spinning since the dawn of television. The arrival of the internet and social media has given unprecedented opportunity for ordinary citizens to share information and research issues and this has the giant media interests scared. And because the giant media’s role is to support the interests of undemocratic forces (corporations and the Military Industrial Complex), it has them worried too. They are doing all they can right now to ensure that they control the narrative, but it is a struggle exactly because the internet provides alternate voices. But if they have their way, dissenting voices will soon be silenced and the powerful opponents of democracy and freedom will sleep more soundly. We must do everything possible to make sure this does not happen.