“We’re going to punish your ass.”
In recent years, the message sent by the Establishment’s conspirators hasn’t exactly been subtle ... Also, note my own 'Yes or No' questions at the end of this piece.
In my most recent article, I highlighted a vast, coordinated program (aka a “conspiracy”) to limit the reach of people and organizations who dissented from the authorized messages (aka “propaganda”).
A U.S. government agency known as USAID, working through a sub-organization network known as InterNews, helped achieve this result by censoring content and by providing a series of sticks and carrots to keep “disinformation” organizations from receiving advertising and subscription revenue.
While the alternative media trumpeted this WikiLeaks’ revelation as “blockbuster news” or a “bombshell,” I noted that this disclosure should NOT have come as a surprise to any clear-thinking American as this censorship and banning program has been on-going for at least five years.
For example, all anyone had to do was watch a few weeks of Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News to observe that no major advertiser placed commercials in Tucker’s show, a program that routinely did produce unauthorized or dissenting journalism and commentary.
As everyone who watched Tucker’s show will remember, the most prominent advertiser in his program was the company My Pillow (more about the sad saga of this company soon).
I always note things we didn’t see or that were not allowed …
What the public didn’t see on Tucker’s show was commercials placed by, say, Coca-Cola, GM, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, JP Morgan Chase, State Farm or any pharmaceutical company.
Discerning viewers might also remember that Tucker Carlson was later fired from Fox News, which struck a few people as bizarre since Carlson produced the most-watched TV news talk show in the world.
Why would executives at Fox News fire a popular employee who was “reaching” so many valuable cable subscribers?
It should also be noted that market research confirmed Tucker’s audience (often 5 million consumers every night) consisted of a cross-section of every-day Americans - people like truck drivers, hardware store owners, insurance agents, Rotarians, PTA members, church deacons and, yes, even mothers whose kids love soccer.
True, most of these viewers supported Donald Trump, but polls (and even elections) had proven that approximately half the country’s population likes Donald Trump.
In effect, the conspiracy to ban advertising on programs like “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was a conspiracy to prevent/outlaw advertisers from reaching approximately half of the country’s economic consumers.
The buy-in from key stakeholders was outstanding …
The important point to remember is that almost 100-percent of companies that have major advertising budgets agreed to go along with this program and participate in said conspiracy (aka “accomplices” or “co-conspirators.”)
One might conclude executives at these companies (and their advertising agencies) had decided they didn’t want to reach a “market” of 125 million adults with disposable incomes … but this would be the wrong take-away.
A marketing degree from Wharton is not necessary to know that all companies want to reach as many good potential customers as possible.
The alternative theory is these CEOs (and the advertising experts they hired to produce and place their ads) decided they were going to punish or send a message to “apostates” or “contrarians” like Tucker Carlson.
For some reason, it was more important for them to harm Tucker - or send Carlson and his bosses a message - than reach the vast and attractive market his show offered them.
This message seems to have been: “We’re going to run you out of business, buddy.”
Fox News said, “Okay, we’ll do our part …”
Even Rupert Murdoch and his children seemed to have decided it was smarter to fire the company’s most popular employee than allow him to keep producing his nightly contrarian monologues and continue to issue invitations to guests who routinely told Tucker’s viewers, “what we’ve all been told is not the truth.”
I don’t even need to consult Nielsen to know Fox News agreed to fire someone when its executives had to know millions of viewers were going to abandon their network in protest of this decision.
Executives clearly agreed that punishing Tucker (by firing him) was more important than rewarding such a person by allowing him to do what he wanted to do (produce five hours of contrarian content every week.)
The stick works better …
This thought exercise seems to confirm that, for most people and organizations, fear of being hit with a painful stick is a greater motivator than offering someone yummy and healthy carrots.
This thought also makes one ponder what organization(s) posses so much power that just about everybody is terrified of getting on the painful side of these stick-wielders.
It’s far better to avoid painful punishment/retribution than it is to, say, maintain impressive TV ratings … or sell more cereal or insurance policies via TV commercials that reach millions of people who actually buy Fruit Loops or want to bundle State Farm’s policies.
Quick take-away: Unlike in society’s Old Normal, in our New Normal, fear of retribution trumps the desire to grow market share.
What’s scary to contemplate is the number of society’s “best and brightest” who are quite content with punishing people the Establishment has deemed need punishing.
Somebody has to do the punishing and send these messages and it can’t always be bureaucrats in government. The government needs partners and those partners, who are quite willing to perform their assigned duties, can be found in the board rooms of Fortune 500 companies.
*** (“Senator, would you support banning the Substack Share Button?”) ***
He had it coming?
Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of My Pillow, found this out the painful way.
All Lindell wanted to do was give the world a better pillow so people might sleep better at night.
But, over time, Lindell got sideways with the protectors of the authorized narratives.
For example, Lindell publicly questioned the validity of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
He also tried to deliver a few truck-loads of pillows to the Canadian truckers who tried to organize the Boston Tea Party of our times - a protest not about taxes on tea, but about pandemic mandates.
For this unauthorized speech, the Establishment conspired to punish Mr. Lindell and his company.
First, they blocked him from selling his pillows (and other prosaic products) in Big Box retail box stores like Bed Bath and Beyond and Wal-Mart.
Then they de-monetized him when people tried to buy his products on-line.
About the only place Lindell could advertise his pillows was on Tucker Carlson’s Show - thus violating the unspoken commandment that “Thou shall not support Tucker Carlson with advertising spends” …
… but Lindell had no other choice, so every night he bought up five minutes of commercials … And then Rupert Murdoch took that show off the air.
Today, pun intended, My Pillow is hanging on by a thread and the greatest pillow company of my life is hoping for a miracle that it will once again be able to sell pillows - not unsafe “vaccines” - to a mass market.
“Okay, what do you want us to do?”
In thinking about the case study revealed by the My Pillow Message, one can identify numerous Big Company executives who happily participated in the project to lynch Mike Lindell.
Accomplices would include all the retail stores that no longer carry Mr. Lindell’s pillows, plus the Big Banks that are calling loans, plus the major media outlets who refuse to run My Pillow commercials.
One has to ask, “What did Mike Lindell ever do to you?”
Why are these companies so eager to inflict harm on this American entrepreneurial success story and his thousands of employees?
The answer is he didn’t do anything bad to them, but this group decided they had to do their part to hurt him anyway.
Apparently, because they were ordered to do this … or they got the message even if it wasn’t disseminated in a group memo.
My own ‘Yes or No’ questions ….
Like many of my readers, I just watched the RFK, Jr. Confirmation Hearings.
I was struck by the insistence of several Democratic senators who demanded Kennedy answer dozens of questions with a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
The fact Kennedy refused to comply with his inquisitors’ demands was cited as evidence Kennedy is one dangerous … Kennedy.
I’d like to finish this article with 15 or so of my own “Yes” or “No” questions, which I direct to these senators as well as every other member of the Establishment, including all the CEOs who have gone along with the Operation Punishment conspiracy.
Yes or No …
Do you support free speech and free enterprise?
Do you support the firing of Tucker Carlson from Fox News?
Do you support the decision of Big Box retailers to not carry My Pillow products?
Do you believe Robert Kennedy should be allowed to question the efficacy of various “vaccines,” including the Covid vaccines?
Do you support companies that discriminate against alternative media advertising outlets?
Do you think the First Amendment includes a Pandemic Exception?
Have you accepted more than $100,000 in political contributions from Big Pharma?
Can you name one Mainstream Media news organization that has run one major story questioning the Covid vaccines or the government’s Covid response?
Should people harmed by Covid vaccines be able to sue the government or Big Pharma?
Did Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and every member of the Trusted News Initiative censor the speech of people who disagree with Anthony Fauci’s Covid proclamations?
Is this okay with you?
Is the Censorship Industrial Complex real?
I could add 50 more “Yes or No” questions, but I’ll finish with just one more, which will serve as a tease to my next Substack metric story …
Do you think the reach of people like myself should be suppressed by people like you?
(My carrots are subscriptions and Ko-Fi donations.)
I was going to write a piece setting up my next (and most-thorough analysis yet) of my own Substack metrics. The only reason I spend so many hours doing this analysis is I've become convinced the Censorship Industrial Complex is continuing to work overtime to suppress the reach of "Contrarian" voices like my own (and, now (probably), on Substack).
I'm trying to figure out the best way to illustrate why this truth-suppression program is so important to the "Narrative Protectors."
And then I realized that this USAID "bombshell" story illustrates my point. The entire purpose of this program is to prevent dissident commentary or research from ever "going viral" and reaching enough people in the public to trigger a Great Purge.
Everything is a Fear Campaign and our rulers also feel fear. What they fear most of all is the public belatedly realizing they've been scammed and then coming after said "leaders" with their proverbial pitchforks in hand.
The Censorship Industrial Complex is simply a pro-active program to protect these leaders and allow them to finish the rest of their unfinished agendas and enjoy all their many perks while they still occupy this planet.
So this was a set-up piece for my next "Substack metrics" piece, which, I think, will definitively show that "something" has changed on Substack.
BTW, at that Mike Lindell speech I covered in Huntsville, Lindell told his audience he had been spending months coming up with a plan to block the efforts to steal the 2024 Presidential Election (aka "Too Big to Steal.")
Thanks to Lindell and many others, this program/project actually worked. So I'm sure that today Mr. Lindell's moved to an even higher place on the Deep State's Enemy List.
However, one would think Lindell's friend President Trump appreciates his efforts and, maybe My Pillow is going to make one of the Great Company Comebacks of my lifetime in the next four years.
If this column generates a couple of new paid subscriptions, I'm going to ask Carrie to order us a couple of his pillows. (We actually do need some new pillows).