American Pravda by James O'Keefe
American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News by Jame O'Keefe is an excellent book. It's fun too. Undercover journalism sounds both exciting and stressful.
American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News by Jame O'Keefe is an excellent book. It's fun too. Undercover journalism sounds both exciting and stressful, but I loved hearing the stories that O'Keefe tells right up until the 2016 election.
You'll have to forgive me, like my last book review (Andrew Breitbart's Righteous Indignation), this is a book I listened to and though a friend of mine has a photographic memory it is not a trait that I possess. When I read physical books I am constantly underlining which is why some of my other reviews on the site are filled with quotes. I love listening to books on my walks, but this is the downside. I am left with a general impression of the book's ideas and thoughts, but no quotes.
There was one passage in O'Keefe's book I really wanted to quote and now that I have the physical book—I can't find it. Basically O'Keefe said that one of the things the MSM media does not like about the alternative media is its unpredictability. One never knows what alternative article, meme or video may take the internet by storm. In my essay, "I'm Nobody. So Are You. Can We Save the World," I write a little about this idea in more hopeful tones. O'Keefe stated it (if I'm remembering correctly) far more dogmatically....nope, still can't find it. I really thought I'd remember the chapter. Yes, I'm frustrated. In my essay I wrote:
I’m not just suggesting some meme, essay or whatever that goes viral and that we all know about and share with our friends and get a good laugh or say, “Wow, that’s really good.” I mean something that causes real change. Maybe it is able to open the eyes of those blinded by “mass formation,” maybe it motivates people to action who would have never otherwise acted. Is this just the dream of a ridiculous man?
Boy, quoting yourself, that's heady stuff. The point is that in such a volatile environment, with all that is going on, with all that the governments of the world are trying to ram through at the moment, there is no way to know what types actions on our side may grow into something overwhelming for their side or what strategies on their side will backfire and backfire bigly.
We're not in a pendulum situation here just slowly moving back-and-forth between conservative and liberal. No, we are in a war between good and evil. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. OUR SIDE MUST WIN. Look, I realize that everything is not strictly black and white, but this is pretty fucking close. The vaccines are killing people, lots of people and they know it. The election was stolen and if you are paying attention and haven't been propagandized you know it as well as the elites who helped orchestrate it know it. Censorship is rampant. They want our guns. They want to control us. We're not in Kansas anymore.
If I had the quote, I could end this with O'Keefe at his best. But I don't. So read the book, you won't be disappointed.
And......I found it!
This is from the chapter "Recognizing Propaganda." The quoted section is from F. A. Hayek's seminal work, The Road to Serfdom, O'Keefe writes:
Authoritarians prefer that ordinary citizens, especially citizen journalists, not speak up or speak out. They fear, as Hayek warned, that unfiltered information, "might produce results which cannot be foreseen and for which the plan does not provide. It might produce something new, undreamt of in the philosophy of the planner."
Amen. Keep fighting, Friends. That last comma was important...
This article also appears on my website, The Asylum. The website also has several things that are not possible to do on Substack: The World Economic Forum Members Reference (thanks to Dr. Malone), Red State/Blue State reference showing Senate and House percentages by party affiliation, quotes, a large resources section, a robust search feature and some other things unique to the site: quizzes, word games and leaked communications. These latter three are satirical and funny, at least in my mind, but you'll have to be the ultimate judge on that.