Censorship Always Backfires, Save Jesse
By Bob Small
Sometime in 2000, I received a t-Shirt from my daughter, then and now in Minneapolis (she said Philadelphia was too warm for her). This t- Shirt had the map of Minnesota with the message “My Governor can beat your Governor”. This was my introduction to then Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler, and, prior to that, a member of the US Navy Underwater Demolition Team.
Years later, I discovered he had a podcast on ITunes entitled “The World According to Jesse”.
I learned how to “burn” podcasts to CD’s. This became one of the few political podcasts we both enjoy listening to together in the car.
However, there’s always a however in life, this podcast was one of the ones on RT aka Russia Today, which is sponsored by Russia, as VOA (Voice of America) is sponsored by the US government. Recently, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta aka Facebook aka big media Google. etc, has banned RT from all it’s platforms, including ITunes.
However, RT can now be accessed via Rumble, soon to be the home of Truth Social.
In a way, then, Vladmir Putin and Donald Trump will be, at least electronically, neighbors.
There are a number of reasons why this may not be as good an idea as it seems, leaving aside the first amendment rights of Jesse Ventura and other American presenters on RT.
“The act of censorship can have a totally counterproductive effect on the citizens who follow the banned media,” said Ricardo Gutierrez, who is general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists. “In our opinion, it is always better to counteract the disinformation of propagandist or allegedly propagandist media by exposing their factual errors or bad journalism.”
Secondly, neither BBC, Deutsche Welle (Germany), NPR or VOA make any pretense at objectivity. All have their subjectivities.
Third, if both Mein Kampf and The 1915 film Birth of a Nation are available at the click of a mouse, why not RT?
Also see podcast by TimcastIRL: https://rumble.com/vwe6o5-rt-rt-america-just-shut-down-lays-off-all-staff-leftists-gloat.html
And then today, my natal day, I discovered RT was again on all the online sites though without any reason for it’s resumption! The internet seemed to be acting as if the banishment never happened! That happens a lot on the internet.
Bob, great article and I whole-heartedly agree.
One suggestion: in the paragraph that starts with the word “Secondly”, take out the words “do not”. They actually imply the opposite of what you are trying to say.
Or we could have taken out neither 🙂
Good catch, Carol. It is done.