Read the beginning of the article Will you take a memory wa | Robert W Malone, MD

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Will you take a memory walk with me for a moment?

Until the time of COVID, I thought that free speech was a protected fundamental right guaranteed to all citizens of the United States of America by the Bill of Rights. Having been assigned core texts like “1984”, “Brave New World”, “Animal Farm”, “Lord of the Flies”, and “The Trial and Death of Socrates” in fourth and fifth grade as a “gifted and talented” student in the California school system of the time, I believed there was no way anything like that could happen here in the USA during the 21st century. Internet censorship and government-controlled propaganda were unfortunate things that happened to those who lived in the People’s Republic of China, but I had been born into a modern Western free society and had the luxury of watching this play out from afar. Social media was a tool that we used to chat with friends, sell horses (Facebook), write about the scientific issues of the day, and look for new clients (Linked In). I had been active on Twitter during the prior Presidential election but stopped using it because it just took up too much time and did not seem to be helping with my daily life or business. I thought that CNN, the Washington Post, The New York Times and Atlantic Monthly were balanced, professional sources of news and opinion, and Fox News was primarily preying on old people who were angry about how fast the world was changing. “Fact checking” consisted of an occasional article by a professional journalist or ombudsman assigned to review and comment on public relations statements from a professional spokesperson, some politician or (in really edgy cases) by some corporation. “Russian” disinformation operations were the major threat to social media, and internet trollery was an annoying fact of life that just had to be dealt with in a free society. I thought that the World Economic Forum was a group of trendy rich people who met annually in the mountains of Davos, Switzerland to hang out, see and be seen, drink expensive wine and watch TED talks. “Podcasts” were something like audio books, a mind candy alternative to AM chat radio when you wanted to distract yourself during a commute to work or a long haul drive to another state. I had never even heard of Joe Rogan, let alone Dr. Bret Weinstein. And I thought the songbirds that gave the world the Laurel Canyon LA sound in the 60s were champions of free speech and the right to protest government overreach, although currently frequently suffering the effects of advanced years combined with various chronic viral infections they picked up during an endless summer of love.

@RWMaloneMD
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