US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC as she is popularly known, has said that the Congress is “looking into” ‘media literacy initiatives’ in order to “rein in” the media to combat the spread of ‘misinformation’. The revelation came in the wake of the riots at Capitol Hill in Washington DC where supporters of Donald Trump stormed the seat of the US Congress.
AOC suggests adding “media literacy” as a mandate for a congressional “truth and reconciliation” committee pic.twitter.com/sv7UXMwvaO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 13, 2021
AOC said during an Instagram session, “We are going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation. It’s one thing to have different opinions but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false. So that’s something we are looking into.”
The answer came in response to a question by a user regarding whether the Congress was considering any “truth and reconciliation or media literacy initiatives” to help in ‘healing’. AOC said, “I can say, there is absolutely a commission being discussed but it seems to be more investigatory, in style rather than truth and reconciliation, so I think that’s an interesting concept for us to explore, and I do think that several members of Congress, in some of my discussions, have brought up media literacy because that is a part of what happened here,” before speaking on the media.
From the Congresswoman’s record, it appears pretty clear that the media will not have to suffer any consequences for its dangerous rhetoric calling Americans Nazis and Donald Trump fascist. It does not appear likely that the media will have to be ‘reined in’ for calling violent protests by left-wing mobs ‘mostly peaceful protests’.
On the other hand, it appears certain that the media will have to ‘reined in’ for airing opinions which go against the leftist dogma. A crackdown is most likely to be expected against Fox News and alternative media such as Daily Caller that take a conservative editorial line. Thus, what the efforts will tantamount to is a crackdown on political journalism that Democrats find inconvenient.
It appears ridiculous almost but the United States of America might soon have its own Uddhav Thackeray and the Congress party. The Mumbai Police has launched a crusade against Republic TV and initiated state sanctioned persecution against Arnab Goswami for his journalism. As it is in India, the mainstream media are unlikely to bother in the United States as well as they are unlikely to be affected by the diktat.
Western media have largely been apathetic towards Julian Assange as well, the most consequential journalist in the world as of this moment. Therefore, for all of its talk of independence of the media, the western media is merely a puppet at the hands of its Democrat masters. Thus, it is much more likely that the likes of CNN, MSNBC and others will be cheering the inquisition against Fox News and other conservative media outlets.
If the measures proposed by AOC indeed become reality, then we will have what Orwell called the Ministry of Truth. Combined with the Big Tech which seeks to censor opinions that violate the Leftist dogma, the US Government, too, will have mechanisms to punish dissidents in the media. It is unlikely to become a reality in the immediate future but as the storming of Capitol Hill demonstrated, unlikely events are happening too frequent in the age we are living in.
Furthermore, leftists have always wanted to censor media critical of them. None of the Communist regimes was especially known for independence of the media. China, too, exerts complete control on the media and the media is akin to propaganda machineries for the Chinese Communist Party more than anything else.
The Capitol Hill riots are already being used by vested interests to enforce a regime of censorship. It is also being widely suspected that it will be used to unleash a new ‘War on Terror‘, this time on American citizens. Therefore, under such circumstances, the comments made by AOC certainly cannot be dismissed as whims of a deluded leftist. Especially since Democrats control the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency.
