Who Watches the Watchmen?

On "misinformation" and free speech

Note: This article was originally published at the Dissident Substack here.

Kamala Harris has recently announced her pick for Vice President, former Minnesota governor Tim Walz. His policy record has been mixed. On domestic politics, he has been far better than the average Democrat. As governor, he has supported policies like paid family leave, free college tuition, and free meals for school kids. On foreign policy, Walz’s record is more conventional for a Democrat with some exceptions. He supports funding the wars in Ukraine and Gaza but bucks neo-con orthodoxy on China where he favors diplomacy over a new cold war. However, the most overlooked and concerning aspect of his ideology is his view on free speech. In a recent interview on MSNBC Walz proclaimed that free speech does not include “hate speech” and “misinformation” and that he wants to censor those things. This statement on its face is contradictory, as Noam Chomsky famously said Joseph Goebbels and Stalin were in favor of free speech for views they liked, you are only in favor of free speech if you defend those who you despise from censorship. For example, I hate the views of neo-cons, warmongers, and Zionists but would never call for them to be censored and would defend their free speech rights. If Walz is not in favor of free speech for those he considers hateful or spreading misinformation, he is not for free speech at all. More importantly the term “misinformation” is used against anyone who dissidents from the establishment narrative on issues ranging from foreign policy to Russiagate to Covid-19. The problem is the mainstream narrative on these issues is more often than not false and those dissenting and expressing skepticism are often proven correct with time. By saying he wants to censor “misinformation” Walz is calling to censor those like myself, and I assume the majority of my readers who question the official narrative on all issues. In this article, I will discuss the issue with the Democrat’s support of censoring misinformation.

Misinformation over War and Peace

On foreign policy, the U.S. government endlessly lies to justify war and interventions and claims that anyone who is skeptical is spreading “misinformation”.

• In the first Iraq war, the U.S. claimed Saddam Hussien was throwing babies out of incubators which was proven to be a lie.

• In the second Iraq war, the U.S. claimed Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction which was also proven to be a lie.

• In Afghanistan, the U.S. government claimed they were making massive gains against the Taliban, a claim that was later debunked by leaked documents.

• In Libya, the U.S. government claims Gadaffi was committing mass rape and was about to commit a massacre against his own people, claims that were later debunked by human rights groups on the ground and a U.K. parliament report.

• In Syria the government claimed the CIA was arming “moderate rebels” but it came out that the arms were actually going to Jihadists including an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

• In Ukraine, the U.S. claimed the Russian invasion was unprovoked even though it was clearly provoked by the U.S.’s backing of the 2014 coup against Yanukovych and NATO expansion. The U.S. government also denied that neo-nazi paramilitaries make up part of the Ukrainian army despite the fact that this was well documented before the war started including by U.S. government-funded outlets like Atlantic Council and Bellingcat.

• In Gaza, the U.S. lied about what happened on October 7th including false claims of 40 beheaded babies and mass rape. The U.S. also dismissed any claims that Israel killed their own people on October 7th, a fact that has now been proven by one of Israel’s top newspapers.

In all of these instances the “official narrative” was false and those accused of spreading “misinformation” were correct. This is part of the danger of having someone with Walz's views in government. When the government, media, and intelligence agencies collude to manufacture consent for the next war or regime change operation, Walz will claim those going against the government narrative are spreading misinformation. This will be used to crack down on anti-war journalists and activists who are debunking the lies used to justify war.

Misinformation over Russiagate

Another example of the official narrative being dead wrong is the Russiagate psyop. In an attempt to force Trump to be more hawkish towards Russia, the intelligence agencies and mainstream media conducted an absurd narrative that Russia swung the 2016 election in collusion with the Trump campaign and that Trump was a secret Russian puppet being blackmailed by the Kremlin. This narrative led the government and media to repeat endless false claims.

• They claimed Russia hacked the DNC, and gave the emails to WikiLeaks, but it later came out that Shawn Henry the CEO of the firm behind this claim admitted they had no evidence to back it up.

• They used the discredited Steele Dossier to claim Trump was being blackmailed by the Kremlin with a “pee tape”.

• They claimed that Jullian Assange met with Paul Manafort and “Russians” in the Ecuadorian embassy, a claim which was later debunked.

• They claimed Russia was putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan, a claim that was later retracted by the CIA.

• They claimed Russians were giving American diplomats “Havana Syndrome” in Cuba with secret microwave weapons, another claim that was retracted by the CIA.

• They claimed the content of Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” even though they were later verified by mainstream media.

• They absurdly claimed that Trump had been a Russian intelligence agent since 1987.

• They spread a Clinton campaign-generated lie that Trump had a secret backchannel with Russia through Alpha Bank.

• They claimed Paul Manafort shared “sensitive polling data” with a Russian agent despite the fact that the data was mostly public and the supposed “Russian agent”, Konstantin Kilimnik was a CIA asset who worked for the CIA cutout International Republican Institute.

These are only a handful of claims that came out during Russiagate where the official sources were the ones spreading misinformation and those who were skeptical were proven correct. If people like Walz were implementing their “misinformation” policy during Russiagate, those who were correct about it would have been censored while those who were wrong would have been amplified. Psy-ops like Russiagate are also used to forward the “misinformation” narrative to censor dissident voices. For example, during Russiagate the Washington Post repeated the claims from a sketchy anonymous website called Prop or Not which accused independent alternative media outlets from across the spectrum such as Truthdig, Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Consortium News, Zero Hedge, The Drudge Report and even Wikileaks of being “Russian propaganda”. Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council, a military-industrial complex-funded outlet to censor supposed misinformation. This led to outlets like TELEsur and Venezuelanalysis that were going against the CIA line in South America being banned. The Twitter Files exposed that groups such as Hamilton 68 were claiming domestic Twitter accounts were Russian bots and calling for them to be censored. This shows why Walz and the Democrat’s view on misinformation is so dangerous, it allows people to accuse their domestic opponents of being foreign bots and leads to censorship.

Covid Misinformation

Covid is another great example of how the mainstream media and establishment figures got it wrong time and time again.

• Figures from media hosts like Rachel Maddow, to doctor Fauci to Klaus Shwab of the World Economic Forum, to Bill Gates, to the WHO, to Joe Biden lied that the COVID-19 vaccines would stop the spread of COVID-19 to justify authoritarian vaccine mandates.

• Anyone who questioned if COVID-19 came from a lab was accused of being a conspiracy theorist even though the current consensus is that it most likely came from a lab.

• Anyone who questioned harsh lockdowns was accused of endangering public safety despite the fact that they led to a rise in domestic abuse, suicide rates, and opioid overdoses.

• No one was allowed to question Mask Mandates despite current research showing they did nothing to stop the virus.

• Mainstream media claimed that the medicine Ivermectin was a “horse-dewormer” despite the fact that it has FDA approval for human use.

Similar to Russigate, Covid was used to push for more censorship over supposed misinformation. The Twitter files revealed that a U.S. government-funded think tank pressured Twitter to remove anyone dissenting from the mainstream media narrative around COVID-19, including true stories of vaccine side effects. They also revealed that Big Pharma-funded think tanks were pressuring Twitter to censor people pushing for a generic vaccine and people opposed to vaccine mandates. Even experts such as Stanford University’s Jay Bhattacharya faced government censorship for dissenting on the official COVID narrative. Covid is yet another example where the official narrative was oftentimes dead wrong and those expressing skepticism who have since been vindicated were accused of spreading misinformation and censored.

The Democrat’s Attack on Free Speech

As I recently argued both the Democrats and Republicans have very concerning pro-censorship views and policies. The Democrat’s creation of a “disinformation governance board”, support for intelligence agencies pushing censorship on tech platforms, and weaponizing of the IRS against journalist Matt Taibbi shows they are using fear mongering over “disinformation” to push censorship. Recently the democrats have gone even further in their attacks on free speech. Whistleblowers have recently revealed that former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was labeled a “domestic terrorist” and followed by air marshals and bomb dogs for her political views. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter recently had his house raided by the FBI most likely over his views on Russia. The fact that Tim Walz believes in censoring misinformation shows the Harris administration will go even further in censoring dissidents. Author Caleb Maupin had his 2020 book critical of Kamala Harris banned from Amazon the day she was announced as the Democratic nominee. This is a grave warning of the censorship coming if Kamla is elected in 2024. Trump’s supporters believe he is the antidote to this, but his prosecution of Assange and threats to crack down on pro-Palestine protestors show he is no better. Censorship is just another issue where it will be a problem no matter who is elected.

Who Watches the Watchmen

The main point I am trying to get across with this article is the danger of official sources deciding what is and isn’t misinformation. The official sources were wrong time and time again on foreign policy, Russiagate, COVID-19, and a whole host of other issues. When people like Tim Walz call for censoring “misinformation” they are saying people must defer to the mainstream narrative and those who dissident should be silenced. One of the reasons this is so dangerous is that the “watchmen” or official sources are themselves often guilty of spreading misinformation often intentionally. All issues should be publicly debated and people should be allowed to ask questions to express skepticism over mainstream narratives without fear of censorship. Walz and many other democrats’ views on censoring misinformation go against this fundamental principle of a free society.