Showing posts with label Aaron Sorkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aaron Sorkin. Show all posts

May 2, 2022

Biden, Democrats Surpass Orwell's Imagination; Proclaim Power to Discern and Delete Harmful Speech

Facing political disaster in the mid-term elections this Nov, the Biden administration and its media acolytes want the American people to know something: Fear Elon Musk.

That's right, Elon Musk's buying Twitter is a dire threat, and we ought not worry about inflation, looming recession, supply chains, student loans, healthcare costs, household debt and corporate takeover of elected government.

Because you the American people have never had it so good, and you need to trust your betters, and stay away from disinformation.

Now, Musk 'threatens' to open up Twitter to dissident voices who are popular with the American people, but the wrong kind of people who voice the wrong kind of speech and think the wrong kind of thought.

It's obvious Democrats and liberal allies fear the mid-terms because they fear the American people. And when information and thought are presented that threatens Democrat rule, the medium that conveys this information must be policed, and the thought must be purged.

Notes Glenn Greenwald this morning: "The worst, most egregious and most nefarious official US disinformation campaign in years was the pre-election CIA lie that the authentic Biden emails were 'Russian disinformation.' It was led by liberal outlets: CNN, Politico/Natasha Bertrand, HuffPost, Mother Jones, Intercept."


Liberals have long besmirched social media because, they say, they fear platforms in which accredited "lies have unfettered access to the American electorate," in the words of corporatist Democrat, Aaron Sorkin, writing in the New York Times in 2019 in favor of censorship of Facebook.

Sorkin well represents the liberal mindset that reasons liberals and content managers are able to sift and winnow social media writing without being corrupted and misled, but most Americans are not equipped with liberals' powers of discernment.

I read about about Sorkin's call for heavy censorship in 2019, but now his narcissism and silly condescension have become Democrat orthodoxy, terrified of the American population.

Time again for a refresher on free speech.

Free speech need not be defended on grounds that consequences of liberty make for a healthy classical liberal society, ala New York Times v Sullivan (1964), an inspiring statement for liberty against those advocating for authoritative selection of published views.

However, the words of Justice William Brennan and other 20-century jurists speak forever to those who believe only they are immune from corruption of unorthodox thought, and their politcal rule must be protected against the vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks.

Writes Brennan in Sullivan:


The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand,

presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly, but we have staked upon it our all. United States v. Associated Press, 52 F.Supp. 362, 372 (D.C.S.D.N.Y. 1943).
Mr. Justice Brandeis, in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375-376, gave the principle its classic formulation:
Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. ... Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.
Thus, we consider this case [New York Times v. Sullivan] against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. (New York Times v. Sullivan).
Aaron Sorkin and Democrats ought consider the foundations of Sullivan today, because free speech protections may not be around forever.

Facebook and other social media well serve our national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited.

Consider the thoughts of Glenn Greenwald this morning, and don't worry, you won't be corrupted.

Oct 31, 2019

In Defense of Facebook Against the Narcissism of Aaron Sorkin

A voice from Hollywood is attacking free speech on social media as non-authoritative voices continue to cast dissent at variance with proper discourse as determined by one Aaron Sorkin.

Sorkin pens an open letter to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg this morning in an op-ed in the New York Times fretting that "lies have unfettered access to the American electorate."

After first extolling the virtues of free speech, Sorkin makes the point that what he regards as assaults on truth need to be better policed, lest lies infect the public consciousness (and children) to ill effect.

Writes Sorkin:

I get a lot of use out of the First Amendment. Most important, it’s a bedrock of our democracy and it needs to be kept strong.

But this [Facebook] can’t possibly be the outcome you and I want, to have crazy lies pumped into the water supply that corrupt the most important decisions we make together. Lies that have a very real and incredibly dangerous effect on our elections and our lives and our children’s lives.

Sorkin says he loves the First Amendment, but while Sorkin is able to sift and winnow the content posted on Facebook without being corrupted, others are not equipped with Sorkin's powers of discernment.

I wonder if Aaron Sorkin is able to discern his narcissism and silly condescension. Underneath Sorkin's self-adulation is the censor and wanna-be tyrant.

While Sorkin's regard for himself is laughable, his attacks on free speech are not.

Free speech need not be defended on grounds that consequences of liberty make for a healthy classical liberal society, ala New York Times v Sullivan (1964), an inspiring statement for liberty against those advocating for authoritative selection of published views.

However, the words of Justice William Brennan and other 20-century jurists speak forever to those who believe only they are immune from the corruption of unorthodox thoughts.

Writes Brennan in Sullivan:


The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand,

presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly, but we have staked upon it our all. United States v. Associated Press, 52 F.Supp. 362, 372 (D.C.S.D.N.Y. 1943).
Mr. Justice Brandeis, in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375-376, gave the principle its classic formulation:
Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. ... Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.
Thus, we consider this case [New York Times v. Sullivan] against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. (New York Times v. Sullivan).
Aaron Sorkin ought consider the foundations of Sullivan today, because free speech protections may not be around forever.

Facebook well serves our national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited.

Facebook recognizes that underlying discussion of public issues are the inalienable rights that define human beings in the American experiment.

Jul 22, 2012

Scott Walker Grabs Prominent Scenes in The Newsroom

Jeff Daniels stars in Aaron Sorkin's
HBO drama, "The Newsroom"
Scott Walker and his Tea Party-Koch brothers underground movement have an ongoing role in Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama, "The Newsroom."

A fascinating new television experience, Sorkin explores what would happen if the news product of a nightly cable news show were driven by facts, truth and logic as guiding journalistic principles, encouraging thought rather than controlling it.

The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the “engineering of consent" by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays. - Noam Chomsky in Destroying the Commons -How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta
Set in 2010-11, the dramatization takes direct aim at the Tea Party with the intelligence, insight and rigor that one would expect if Edward Murrow and Robert Jackson were alive as cable news journalists and covering a period of American history where elements of fascism, unorganized and incoherent as yet, have animated the rise of the Republican Party.

Scott Walker does not come off well in Sorkin's presentation of this news outlet reporting on the corporate-religious right coalition that has catapulted Walker to fame in GOP-Tea Party circles.

Sunday's, July 22 "Amen" episode opens with "news of unrest in Wisconsin in February 2011 in response to the governor's call for budget cuts bubbl(ing) up during coverage of the ousting of President Mubarak in Egypt."

As Walker even today still cannot appear anywhere in public in Wisconsin without protests, one of Sorkin's characters, a news producer, reports that as Walker is at a newspaper in Appleton, Wisconsin, 100s of teachers and demonstrators gathered to protest outside the newspaper, as dramatized in this March 2011 Appleton Post Crescent piece by J.E. Espino.

The coverage in the show's episode is a composite of real-life events, but the show's audience in Wisconsin recognizes the protests, if not the urgency of the protests reported by the zombie-like Wisconsin media.

Can local broadcast media in Wisconsin, and the giant media conglomerate, Gannett, which owns some 11 corporate newspapers in Wisconsin, make a news product driven by facts, truth and logic?

It doesn't today and certainly not during the Recall campaign burying coverage of the John Doe criminal probe of Walker's top aides in his 2010 campaign as well.

Rural Wisconsin which voted overwhelmingly and unusually high for Scott Walker, or perhaps not, is seen by many as Walker's base, though Walker's extremist positions are kept well-concealed by his flacks and criminal defense team.

The ideological and political effects of quasi-news broadcast media, Gannett newspapers and Party propaganda sheets like the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal are unclear.

Contra this propaganda product on the local and national media fronts, The Newsroom proposes dramatizing the product of a cable news show driven by a commitment to truth in the tradition of Murrow, Cronkite, Erwin Knoll and I.F. Stone.

I don't think Sorkin knows yet where he is going to go with the show after just five episodes but this Sunday night drama has so far stood towering over the crap that floods our airwaves.



- Full disclosure by MAL: I have written in a freelance capacity for the Gannett-owned Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune and the Fond du Lac Reporter.