I disappeared into one of those famous YouTube rabbit holes researching my grandfather’s role in engineering the Burma Road during WWII. I emerged thinking about Jan. 6 and the brazen political attempt to manipulate what happened that day.
If you search “Burma Road” you will find dozens of vintage war films, some of them narrated by Ronald Reagan. These films are interesting and contain some cool footage of the effort. In fact, I found a picture of my grandfather standing on the Burma Road with other engineers and brass in one of the military photo files.
The “forgotten” part of this WWII effort – thanks to infighting between American generals and FDR’s advisors – resulted in the building of the Burma Road in the short term, but in the long term the loss of China to communism. Chiang Kai‐shek retreated to Taiwan and Mao arose in the mainland. We’re paying the price for that today.
I’m skimming along the surface of WWII history, of course, but that’s how it played out.
Now fast forward to Jan. 6, 2020. According to government-controlled spin, deadly and armed “insurrectionists” fueled by White Supremacy ideology stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to pervert democracy and somehow try to prevent Joe Biden from being certified president of the United States.
The violent mob killed a guard and tried to hunt down Congress folk huddled in their offices. Thank God, the narrative goes, the insurrection failed and Joe Biden saved the world from Trump-era mistakes.
Quite the story.
But not the truth.
The powers that be on Jan. 6, 2020, – in this case Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party – hid full video footage of the “insurrection.” They then set up a committee to get to the bottom of it all, which turned out to be scripted propaganda with loaded words that few in the American media tried to independently pierce. Much of the key testimony to the committee was held secret on grounds of safety and privacy.
In 2023, the Democrats in Congress fell out of power. Newly minted Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy gave all the video from Jan. 6 to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson.
Carlson’s crew combed over the footage and came up with a different narrative, one more of chaos than some kind of ideological “insurrection.” They showed large chunks of the “insurrection.”
Now look, you can make your own mind up about which version of Jan. 6 rings more true to you. History will, I promise you, sort it out. But at least now we’re seeing more of the video of what happened that day.
The danger we face today comes from politicians who have fallen into a propagandist mindset, using censorship and privacy to limit the public’s access to release only the information that fits their ends. They are eager to tell you about the building of the Burma Road, but hiding the bigger picture of how the West lost China to communism.
There is now a terrible effort to sacrifice free speech and public information to maintain the initial Jan. 6 narrative.
We must always side with those who support unfettered flow of information. It’s the only way forward.
ONE MORE THING
– My 3-year-old grandson asked me how long he had to listen to me. I told him he’d have to listen to me for the rest of his life. He looked me dead in the eyes and said: “I’ll listen to you for the rest of your life.”
– I’m giving up eating chocolate for a month. Sorry, bad punctuation. I’m giving up. Eating chocolate for a month.
– Sometimes I shock myself with the smart stuff I say. Other times, I try to get out of the car with my seat belt still on.
Thanks for reading a Battle Born Media newspaper. We still highly recommend readers avoid soreheads, take time to laugh a little, and always question authority.
“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick, a Nevada Hall of Fame journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@ gmail. com.
John Sebastian says
Thank you for the “grown-up” and sober comments about the Jan 6 protest. Absolutely, there were some people there who’s goal was not to peacefully protest but to create as much havoc and mayhem as possible. Regardless of their intentions or reasons, the violence is unacceptable BUT they were a small minority AND we now know – because the FBI director refused to deny it – that there was a team of undercover Federal agents in the rowdy crowd that had a dubious and possibly dangerous reason for being there. We also know that there are still millions of Americans, like the protesters, who were suspicious and angry about how the election process was abruptly and, in some cases, illegally changed right before the vote. As a result, there still remains doubt about the election. No one wants to deny election results. No one wants to overturn anything. We just want the truth. Again, well said, thanks.
NVCondor says
Unbelievable and shameful editorial.
Apparently, you have not been following the news, which is odd, considering you run a newspaper. So, is your posting a result of ignorance or propaganda?
Fox News is being sued by Dominion for defamation in regards to the 2020 election. In discovery, Fox turned over emails and texts from the Fox muckety mucks, including Tucker Carlson. In those communications, as well as their depositions, they confirmed that their stories about the events of the election, as well as Jan. 6th were false. It appears that actually reporting the facts was detrimental to retaining their viewership. As you know, the MAGA minions can’t be bothered by facts or reality.
So, McCarthy turns over over 4000 hours of tapes to a probable russian asset and confessed liar. As expected, Carlson edited the video to show that what happened was a “orderly tour” of the Capitol. Never mind the hundreds of police officers who were seriously injured and traumatized by the hours of fighting.
You do your readers of a local newspaper an injustice by this kind of glib snark. Sparks deserves much better.