Foreword

Not too many years ago, there was an American comedian named George Carlin who probably understood his country better than anybody else. Carlin had little use for the media, whether in the United States or any other country. The media, he told his vast audience, were not independent, rather a public relations apparatus for the elite. The moguls decide what we see, hear and read. And at best, events that do not promote their agenda are relayed briefly in heavily slanted form and quickly forgotten.

Journalism might have long been seen as the profession of romantics who put their lives on the line to tell the truth. We have Hollywood to thank for that. But the ones who stand at the gate of information are powerful businessman linked to leaders of the state. The reporter in the field or the editor at the news desk plays no role in that decision. Uncomfortable stories are killed every day until self-censorship emerges. Throughout World War II, the New York Times, in complete cooperation with the State Department, ignored the German extermination of some six million Jews. From the comfort of their offices near Times Square, the publisher and editors agreed that Auschwitz, Treblinka and the other Nazi death camps were subjects not meant for the polite elite readership of the newspaper of record. Reporting the greatest mass murder in the history of mankind might have resulted in pressure on Washington to do something -- and from Franklin Delano Roosevelt down, the consensus was that nothing should be done to save the Jews. And when the death camps were liberated by the Allies, the Times pretended to be shocked.

The onset of the digital age has introduced a huge number of small media outlets with potentially the same reach as their mainstream rivals. But in many ways censorship has gotten tighter. The New York Post might have published a scoop on the corruption of the son of a president seeking reelection, but a flick of a switch at Facebook ensured that nobody outside the New York area would read it. Until 2025, the social media has brutally suppressed news and information that depart from U.S. government propaganda -- whether Covid-19, Ukraine, transsexuals, Israel or anti-Semitism. Those with the courage to even ask questions were labeled "conspiracy theorists," one of the new words formulated by the dictatorships in the West.

The cold reality is that writing the truth today -- the First Amendment notwithstanding -- can destroy your news outlet, reputation and livelihood. Mordechai Sones is one of the few journalists who have taken that chance. Sones has been hell-bent on the truth since he began reporting more than three decades ago. A key tool in Sones' box, and missing in the resume of most journalists, is that he began in government, a staffer of U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski. He also spent much of his time on research and analysis whereby he honed his instincts to separate fact from fiction. One of his biggest credits was that his work was quoted by Stratfor, long regarded as the most prominent private research company.

In his collection of articles for this book, Sones challenges the propaganda and tyranny of the powerful. The subjects are numerous but focus on protecting ordinary people -- whether the citizens of Israel from Hamas or the world from the Covid pandemic scare and the subsequent imposition of a hastily developed vaccine that simply did not work. What Sones has is something that most journalists dismiss -- memory. His use of the Internet allows him to research deep in the past and come up with pointed questions to politicians and their elite friends. Sones examines the case of an Israeli Knesset member prevented from entering the United States after warning of Hamas plans for a massive attack on Israeli communities. That finally took place on Oct. 7, 2023, the bloodiest day in Israel's history and still left unexplained by the government, military and intelligence community.

For years, Sones was one of the few journalists who fought the official narrative of Covid. He directed "Frontline News," a news service that countered the lies of the mainstream media and protected the integrity of physicians intent on remaining independent despite the mandates from Washington. Through his use of statistics, Sones exposed the link between the huge increase in reported Covid deaths and the start of the vaccination campaign. He demanded answers to questions suppressed by the Israeli government, particularly on the after-effects of the vaccine on pregnant women.

At a time when the vast majority of journalists and media outlets were either bribed or intimidated, Sones remained the gadfly for simple truth, clearly the enemy of Western governments and the huge pharmaceutical industry that forced vaccines on hundreds of millions who weren't even ill. Opposing the narrative meant risking becoming a pariah in a shrinking media market. It also risked prosecution by those eager to portray Sones and the few other courageous journalists as a danger to public health.

Here's something else Sones does -- he reads. One of his articles quotes a prestigious magazine that reported a decline in patient deaths when physicians strike hospitals. He bursts the bubble of social workers, who comprise a system that benefits from family violence. Society could also make do with a permanent strike by social workers who routinely lie in court and destroy the lives of their clients, particularly children. Politically correct, this is not. But it is research that gets to the truth.

The need for honest journalism is vital for any democracy. Every leadership -- including purported democracies -- knows that the most important tools to control the masses are the media and secret police. Dominate the media and you can deny atrocities, present mass murder as epidemics, turn civilians into enemies of the state and justify torture as national security. Disinformation is then funneled to schools and historians who don't dare to argue with the official narrative. Without Mordechai Sones and his ilk, a free society stands no chance. Even George Carlin would agree with that.