Sunday, January 29, 2017

Twitter is Samizdat

In living memory, half of Europe was under totalitarian communist regimes. Russia was the largest. Writers had to be very careful. Underground information networks were established, 'samizdat' means self-published; well it was distributed by typed copies, carbon copies. Technology has changed. To-day in America, a special 'advisor' to the current president, Steve Bannon has attacked and threatened the press. Orders have been given to certain government agencies not to speak. Another 'advisor' to the current president, Kellyanne Conway, has insisted that 'alternative facts' are necessary for the regime to get its message out. Bannon, Conway, and Trump are all vindictive. So we have government employees creating twitter accounts, that act as shadow government agencies to speak the truth. Trump does not believe in news conferences, he tweets his messages to the public, and the press relays them. So, twitter has become the new samizdat, Trump tweets ukazes (edicts), but it may be the case:  that, you live by the tweet, you die by the tweet.

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