The White House released the official transcript and video from Trump’s Helsinki news conference with Putin. In the “official” transcript and video, Reuters’ reporter Jeff Mason’s question to Vladimir Putin asking if the Russian leader wanted Trump to win the 2016 election has edited out Putin’s answer, “Yes I did, yes I did.” Millions of people around the world saw it on live TV, myself included.
Altering the historical record was pioneered by the Soviet Union during its many purges. It was used to make people disappear from the historical record and typically involved air brushing them out of photos with Stalin or Lenin. If the state could control the past, they can then control the present.
As if to emphasize Trump’s descent into Stalinism, yesterday the President told the VFW’s National Convention in Kansas City yesterday, “What you are seeing and reading is not what’s happening.” Those words should scare the hell out of any decent American that believes in truth, freedom and the Constitution.
Given what you’ve just read, I’d like you to think about the power of historical negation combined with social media. Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and others have shared your data with Russia and China – all of it. Altering and negating your own history is simply an algorithm away.
Now you know why I stopped posting on Facebook and started this site.
White House edits official transcript of Helsinki press conference
Wes Clark Jr. 