Recently
by Jon Rappoport: The
Ruthless State of the Union: The Current Crime Boss Speaks

I became aware
of the block and censorship a few days ago, soon after I wrote and
published the article: “Ruthless
State of the Union: current crime boss speaks.”

That article
was about Obama, and it was also about every president as far back
as Nixon. It mainly described the absurdities implied by ObamaÂ’s
vague notion that “we all have to work together.”

Readers began
letting me know they couldnÂ’t Facebook-share my articles. This
became: no one could share any article that included: “jonrappoport.wordpress.com.”

As a reporter
for 30 years, I know a little about the 1st Amendment. Criticizing
the president, or the medical cartel, or any number of other institutions
IÂ’ve taken on is par for the course. If some Facebook readers
are marking these articles spam or abusive, they should think again.

Lots of people
these days believe itÂ’s part of the game to try to censor their
perceived opponents. “Why debate or even allow a different
voice? Let’s just block it out.”

Blocking the
FB posting of my article links could also be part of the Facebook
management purge of political activists, particularly those who
defend the 2nd Amendment and private gun ownership. This happened
to a number of people at infowars.com last December, and it also
happened at Natural News.

At the moment,
I have a workaround in place, and my site and blog are working just
fine, but the basic wider issue of blocking dissident opinion isnÂ’t
going away.

Some people
have pointed out that Facebook is a private company, and therefore
it has the right to define acceptable speech any way it wants to.
This may be true, but blocking and censoring political viewpoints
is a very bad policy. Claiming, for example, that Facebook is only
for making and communicating with friends is a cop-out. If friends
canÂ’t share information about political realities, itÂ’s
a hollow situation.

Many reporters,
including myself, came to the Internet because we were sick and
tired of trying to convince editors at newspapers and magazines
that our work should see the light of day. Editors routinely shot
down (and still do) article ideas that wandered too far off the
mainstream reservation.

That was the
censorship we were leaving in the dust. Now, here it is again.

Every day,
I read articles I donÂ’t like. The idea of somehow censoring
them would be absurd.

In this country
(and other countries), we have people who believe in and support
free speech. Then we have True Believers, whose cause in their minds
outdistances any considerations about liberty. They would trample
liberty at the drop of a hat to make the world over in their image.
Finally, we have organizations who enter into covert political alliances
to advance their own interests. These organizations also care nothing
about the 1st Amendment.

Where is Facebook
in all of this? Are they just a front for gathering personal information
on a billion people? Are they just another wing of the vast surveillance
apparatus that is operating from a playbook that wants androids
instead of thinking citizens?

ItÂ’s time
for the bosses at Facebook to step out into the light and explain,
in detail, exactly how they block information and on what grounds.
How are reports of spam and “abusive content” processed
by their algorithms? What is their position on the 1st Amendment?

Failure to
make this clear is evidence of purposeful concealment.

Perhaps an
article I wrote and published last August, “Facebook,
the CIA, DARPA, and the tanking IPO,” will help put this
situation into perspective:

The big infusion
of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise
on their way came from Accel Partners, in 2004.

Jim Breyer,
head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing
has ever been the same.

Earlier that
same year, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National
Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA?
Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important
CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.

In-Q-Tel was
founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that
could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”

ThatÂ’s
not the only connection between Jim Breyer and the CIAÂ’s man,
Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work for BBN Technologies,
headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined BBN at that time.
Jones had worked for In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to DARPA, the PentagonÂ’s
technology department that helped develop the Internet.

With these
CIA/Darpa connections, itÂ’s no surprise that Jim BreyerÂ’s
jackpot investment in Facebook is not part of the popular mythology
of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who could fail to realize
that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal data, and its
tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?

But now the
Facebook stock has tanked. On Friday, August 17, it weighed in at
half its initial IPO price. For the first time since the IPO, venture-capital
backers were legally permitted to sell off their shares, and some
did, at a loss.

Articles have
begun appearing that question ZuckerbergÂ’s ability to manage
his company. “Experts” are saying he should import a professional
team to run the business side of things and step away.

All this, despite
the fact that FacebookÂ’s first posted revenue as a public company
has exceeded analystsÂ’ predictions, according to the LA Times.

This has the
earmarks of classic shakeout and squeeze play. ItÂ’s how heavy
hitters gain control of a company. First, they drive down the price
of the stock, then they trade it at low levels that discourage and
demoralize the public and even semi-insiders. As the stock continues
to tank, they quietly buy up as much of it as they can. Finally,
when the price hits a designated rock bottom, they shoot it up all
the way to new highs and win big.

And they hold
enough shares to exert more control over the company itself.

That is how
Facebook will survive. ZuckerbergÂ’s grip on Facebook will loosen.

The company
is too important as a data-mining asset of the intelligence community
to let it fall into disrepair and chaos. The CIA and its cutouts
will save it and gain more power over it. ItÂ’s what theyÂ’ve
wanted all along.

From the time
Mark Zuckerberg was a child and attended the summer camp for “exceptional
children,” CTY (Center for Talented Youth), run by Johns Hopkins
University, he, like other CTY students, Sergey Brin (co-founder
of Google), and Lady Gaga, have been easy to track.

CTY and similar
camps filter applications and pick the best and brightest for their
accelerated learning programs. Tracing the later progress of these
children in school and life would be a standard operation for agencies
like the CIA.

When Zuckerberg
founded an interesting little social network at Harvard, and then
sought to turn it into a business, the data-mining possibilities
were obvious to CIA personnel. Through their cutouts, as described
above, they stepped in and lent a helping hand.

Now itÂ’s
time for Zuckerberg to pass the baton to his handlers, so they can
maximize the economics of Facebook and utilize it to spy even more
extensively.

The media will
play along, pretending the eventual upswing-recovery of Facebook
stock happens for fundamental reasons connected to the companyÂ’s
“better level of performance.” The media take this approach
to every stock and every company, to avoid letting the public know
how massive manipulation actually runs these trading markets.

End of the
August 2012 article.

People might
ask, “Then why, Rappoport, do you use Facebook at all?”

ThatÂ’s
a legitimate question. My answer is simple. Since I began working
as a reporter in 1982, IÂ’ve used every possible opportunity
and venue to put my information out there.

ThereÂ’s
a big difference between that and overtly supporting all those venues.

When I admire
a writer, broadcaster, or organization, I say so, and I have. Even
then, that doesnÂ’t mean I have to agree with everything they
say or stand for.

ThatÂ’s
a distinction with a meaning. ItÂ’s exactly the distinction
IÂ’m asking Facebook to clarify: what will they allow, whether
they agree with it or not?

Do I expect
them to spell it out in sufficient detail? No. But then that means
something, too.

None of this
will change one iota of what I write or say.

February
19, 2013

Jon
Rappoport runs No More
Fake News. The author of an explosive collection, The
Matrix Revealed, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional
seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer
Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years,
writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch,
LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other
newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.

Copyright
© 2013 Jon
Rappoport

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