Why You Should Avoid Facebook (Meta) And Instagram: It Seems That There’s An Illuminati After All

People want to read Cardi B and they want it uncensored.

So it’s said. And of course, in the United States, the land of the free, you can read or say anything, right?

Wrong. And I have never in my life seen a time when freedom of expression wasn’t on trial. In fact, it has never been worse, but between the war for independence from England and now, free speech was never a reality. I still cannot answer my high school history professor’s question, “What is the American Dream,” and I refuse to look for the answer on any website of encylopedic facts. Because whatever I find, I know it will be horseshit.

It’s not like I ever really believed it was real anyway. My answer got me a brutal rebuke and an insult as to my intelligence as well as an “F” grade.

My memory of whatever he defined it as has been lost to the passing of time. This is because I knew it was horseshit.

I saw the country as it was in 1978. I also read everything I could get my hands on because reading allowed me an escape from the abuse I still endured and the sexual abuse just ended, but which I have ever since been haunted by.

I’d read books both fictional and not. The nonfiction was usually about Nixon and his palace guard, and the implications of their action’s consequences were not lost on me.

Even Republicans told the president that he should resign. They were going to impeach him, and they said he would likely face a criminal case if that happened.

He took the advice and it broke his heart, but he resigned. It was a moment that has led us to Reagan, who sabotaged Carter’s campaign, which was hardly necessary considering that Americans would have sooner voted for Ronald McDonald than Carter.

What Reagan did was to negotiate release of the Iranian hostages through illegal action and then to ensure a guaranteed withholding of their release until after he was elected president. In this case on his inauguration.  It was all very theatrical and he entered office with rhetoric unlike anything I’ve seen since. Of course he did. He was an actor. A former governor. A hybrid Californian who appealed even to democrats. Iran-Contra didn’t matter; against Nixon’s advice to keep his mouth shut, Reagan came through it all by sort of telling the truth, emerging as one of the most beloved presidents of our age.

All would have worked out, the country healed, but then came Bill Clinton. Republicans were by then more slimy and hateful than ever. They had evolved into political weapons who had no intention of doing right by their country or their oaths of office. They used Monica Lewinsky as a weapon. A slimy, sleazy trick. They had never done anything so overtly creepy.

I’m not saying that politics had ever not been fueled by the lust for power. To the contrary, elections and campaigns were never in the least civil. Some should have served to teach us little people that only with awareness and vigilance could a voter properly and responsibly vote, whether for an alderman or a president. That we could not swallow rhetoric but instead needed to study what was available at the time about every candidate. If there was ever a vetting process, however crude, it has long since passed to the hands of irresponsible and politically motivated members of the press, and now, to social media groups and sites who have given themselves the power to muffle, censor and use platforms for the twisting or the silencing of the truth.

Facebook has a power that is unquestionably absolute. Items posted and even comments are arbitrarily pulled, marked as disinformation or hate speech. Several times I was censored, while people posting total bullshit went untouched. And I noticed others getting worse treatment. PJ, one of my followers here who no longer visits this site, was repeatedly suspended (a thing known as Facebook Jail) despite always posting reliable sources in links. Although her passion has always been driven by the demand for truth, she was censored and suspended so many times that I knew without doubt that she was being watched and singled out by someone in power. The evidence was overwhelming. But never once did she post anything she had not fact-checked first; she often provided the link to fact checking websites.

But in Arizona, a red state, a liberal with her political savvy is always a threat and threats of her kind cannot be handled except with raw power and prejudice.

And that’s only one example.

Hate groups and hate speech, and most certainly disinformation, have been allowed to do anything. For a small time, Facebook stifled them. Mostly it’s been following the January 6th sacking of the US Capitol Building, the claims of election fraud and the assertion that Trump won, and finally COVID-19 and vaccine lies by conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers.

But when Facebook took action, it was reversed fairly quickly.

In using contractors, any business takes risks. Big ones. Their contract has rules and procedures. But as a private company, they can’t always be counted upon to honor their contract. This is certainly the case with Facebook. Their fact check contractor’s actions include shortcuts which yield unfair, arbitrary results.

John Stossel is a conservative muckraker with a long career behind him. And while I have rarely agreed with him, I do in this case.

He is suing Facebook and its contractors. He posted a video which Facebook removed for containing partial misinformation. In it, he never said that climate change didn’t play a part in California wildfires. He said that mismanagement of fire fighters and infrastructure had directly led to the worsening of disasters. And that climate change had exacerbated the problem. They claimed something was wrong with that. But when he contacted individuals in the group, none of them had even seen the video.

Stossel’s suit is for defamation. They’re calling his character and words as unreliable and untrue. I believe he should add other charges to his suit; he clearly has a case.

Climate change, a weasel term for global warming, is not a debatable topic. It isn’t coming, it is here. Stossel, as much as he can bring himself to, acknowledges this.

And if he did not, he would be a liar.

A recent article caught my eye. Before I go any further, I attest that the truth is not something most people are capable of hearing, much less having to live with; it is overwhelming and terrifying.

The article dealt with deforestation in the Amazon basin and rain forest. It was not to my liking because it gave dire predictions but couched them in words and phrases to soften the political backlash it was sure to attract.

However, I translated as I read. First, deforestation was linked to “savannization”. You know what that means, right? Trees gone, arid land incapable of supporting any but the hardiest of species, low amounts of rainfall. Already happening. More to come. And as that land is further exploited, there will come desertification, huge tracts of hectares of nothing but sand. And no one will be able to stop it.

The author was preoccupied with the effects on humans and economy. As temperatures rise, more heat injuries are being reported and the obvious projection is worse to follow. Heat injuries are a nice way of saying that people will fucking die.

I know that many who follow my blog already have to deal with being in heat and having to labor. Or knowing someone else who does. I know they have seen what prolonged exposure to heat does to a person. First comes dehydration. That makes a person sick enough; heat exhaustion renders one incapacitated, but once the body’s cooling system begins to break down further, sweating will cease. Skin is dry and hot. It’s time for treatment. Anything that stops this patient from getting fluids and being cooled will result in heatstroke, and death.

Farm workers in the Amazon will endure even worse. Heat and less rain means crop failure. That means jobs lost. And that is the death of many people.

The global economy is already suffering from warming. Droughts and crop failures as well as wildfires are becoming all too common.

What I see here is that certain prophecies are coming true, slowly and not as dramatic as, say, the Book of Revelation may depict, but coming terrifyingly close to being fulfilled. Is the judgement of God closer and more real than we thought?

Stossel claims not to see an increase in hurricanes and their intensity. I say otherwise and with rising air and seawater temperatures, it is only a question of when, not if: a supercane, once derided as a doomsday scenario element, will make a believer out of the naysayers. These storms can only be described as hurricanes on crack cocaine. They will break the rules we hold as absolute and kill and destroy everything in their paths. They will be unlike any we have seen.

For all our bitter and hateful words on social media, we cannot stop what’s true. Hate distracts and drains us from things we shouldn’t even be arguing about but should be doing something about.

Social media is a metabolic toxin. It drains us of resolve and strength. It’s been described as addiction to gambling and cigarettes but that’s not proper context. Someone on Meet the Press likened it to the evolution of automobiles: over decades we’ve had to invent speed limits, seatbelts, and so on. That’s closer to what I’d liken to social media. Free speech is one thing.

Hate speech and lies are another. And there have been casualties.

Considering that celebrity influencers get away with incredible things, and little people get suspended, I’d say that we’re late in inventing the seatbelt and enforcing its use for everyone, without prejudice.

Why should a celebrity be able to get others to believe that the earth is flat, but us little people get suspended for debunking the stupid idea as sheer fantasy, possibly delusional and certainly stupid?

Not all influencers are so irresponsible. Plenty tell the truth and refuse to be swayed. Social media makes the line between the two blur for people who don’t know any better. Lots of folks are impressionable and a bit naive. Their education and neglectful parenting has led them to a crossroads without a map. Cults thrive on such people, but just as serious are the ones led astray by rhetoric, lies and appeals by design which make them emotionally vulnerable.

They do it with YouTube,  Facebook and Twitter.

Children are one way that the illuminati (not intended to mean the fictional conspiracy theories about the rich who run the world but instead those rich and powerful who do rule social media) get an early start on new believers.

Instagram has a new element for preadolescent kids. I don’t know the particulars, but one has to question, why?

In the past I have warned people that posting photographs of their children, then posting scholastic achievements which include the name of their school, is reckless and stupid; it places a target of opportunity smack on their faces. Once done, they are in peril, and their own parents did it. They did not intend to. They’ve misjudged social media’s true nature. Facebook and Instagram become ways to mine information and provide stalkers with too much of it. Child traffickers are real, folks, and they are notoriously difficult to catch. Once a child goes missing, the odds are against them ever returning home. Oh, sure, there’s a market for every race and age group; that’s not in dispute. But children are the most sought after and bring high prices. I’m not speaking of worst case scenarios here. It’s a big problem and it just gets worse all the time.

My simplest advice is to remove yourself from social media. If you are unwilling, refrain from sharing any and all personal information. Use Anti-Malware apps, a VPN, and restrict your comments on whatever you read or watch. Facebook is leaking documents by people who were previously silent. That means staff. That means an enforced silence by what looks for all the world like a cult.

Finally, I know that the COVID-19 pandemic has made many people feel cut off and lonely. And loneliness is every dirty thing they say it is. We are social creatures. Sooner or later we have to step outside of our comfort zone. It’s hazardous. I sympathize, I truly do. But be safe. Beware the snakes lying in the grass. Protect yourself.

Because liars and predators do lurk in your path.

Keep using politics as a guide. The liars will always be a reminder that real evil does exist. People with no mercy. No morals. No restraint.