Any time that an organization or a government attempts to censor the views of dissenting opinions, it’s hiding the truth and diffusing propaganda.
Socialist, communist or leftist regimes are adept at keeping inconvenient truths from their citizens. When advocating for censorship, what these people fear is the truth. So, they fall back on spreading lies. And by doing so, they follow the script of chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, Joseph Goebbels, who famously said: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
The United States does hold a monopoly of these purveyors of lies for political purposes. I’ll highlight two countries – Brazil and Red China – to illustrate the point, but there are many more who act in the same way. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia are but a few that come to mind.
Alexandre de Moraes, Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice, threatened an X’s legal representative with arrest and a hefty fine if the online platform did not “comply with his censorship orders.” These orders demanded an X staffer to censor more than 300 accounts – many belonging to former sympathizers of conservative Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro following the victory in the 2024 presidential election of leftist Lula da Silva. Rather than being bullied, X’s CEO Elon Musk closed his company’s operations in Brazil in August of 2024.
Microsoft decided to shut down its LinkedIn platform from Red China in 2021 after continued requests by Beijing to expand its online censorship. This comes as a result of President Xi Jinping’s aim to have greater influence over the news media by the Chinese Communist Party. Other social media online platforms left the China market in the past for the same reasons: Facebook and Twitter in 2009, and Google in 2010.
SPAIN’S VALLEY OF THE FALLEN
I came face-to-face with censorship during my 2024 trip to Spain. I insisted on visiting the Valley of the Fallen monument in the vicinity of Madrid. The ruler of Spain, Generalisimo Francisco Franco, ordered the construction of this memorial in 1940 as act of reconciliation for the over 33,000 victims of the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War – regardless of which side they fought for during the Civil War. Construction lasted from 1940-1958 and was funded through national lottery draws and private donations. The monument includes a basilica, a Benedictine abbey (which offer perpetual Masses for the fallen), a guest house, the Valley, and a 500-ft Christian cross (the tallest one in the world). The monument opened in 1959, and ranked as the third most visited monument of Spain in 2009.
After touring the Valley, I wanted to be more informed on its history and stopped by the gift shop to purchase a book. To my surprise, the clerk informed me that there were no books, flyers, or manuals on the Valley for sale. After arguing back and forth, the clerk suggested that if I had a problem with the status quo, I could write to the politicians. I indicated that I was a free man, that I did not have the time to write to the politicians as I was on vacation, but I promised her that upon my return to the United States, I would order a book on the Valley from Amazon. Of course, this incident increased my curiosity and raised my awareness that there was a devious propaganda ploy at play.
True to my promise, I ordered the book “Los Presos del Valle de los Caidos” (“The Prisoners of the Valley of the Fallen”) by Alberto Barcena Perez, 2015, which is published only in Spanish. The book provides a historical perspective on the construction of the monument and offers a factual rebuttal to all the false allegations raised by Franco’s leftist detractors on what the Valley represents.
Politicians whose hatred for Franco never subsided launched a campaign after his death to discredit his legacy – which of course, included defaming the redeeming intent for building the Valley. Among the charges made were the following:
- The monument was like a Nazi concentration camp. Nothing could be further from the truth. Prisoners volunteered to work in the Valley as a way to reduce their sentences. Moreover, prisoners worked side-by-side with freed workers, and both were supervised by managers from both camps. Who ever heard of managers at Nazi concentration camps selected from the prisoners’ cohorts?
- Slave laborers were used. This could not be true as prisoners were paid a salary, given health insurance, housing (for them and their immediate families), meals, schooling for their children, and religious services that included Masses, first communions, weddings, and baptisms.
- 20,000 prisoners were used. During the time that prisoners worked in the Valley from 1943-1950, only 3,500 worked in this project.
- Lots of Republican-prisoner workers and victims of Franco’s crimes were buried in the Valley. There were only 17 deaths as a result of multiple labor accidents during the 19-year period to build the monument, and only 7 were of prisoners. Only those who died during the Civil War are buried in the Valley.
Generalisimo Franco fought on the side of Nationalists which embraced nationalism, Catholicism, anti-freemasonry, and anti-communism. The Republicans were supported by communists, socialists, and anarchists – in addition to receiving aid from the Soviet Union and the International Brigades set up by the Communist International. Upon Franco’s death in 1975, the government of Prince Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Carlos Arias Navarra decided that the Valley was the proper place for his burial. This decision set Franco’s detractors on fire! It is noticeable that when Franco’s family were asked if they had an opinion on this decision, they responded that they had none. The government’s decision carried the day, and Franco was buried in the main altar of the basilica. Keep in mind that without Franco’s vision and political influence, there would have been no Valley of the Fallen.
But the socialist politicians who rose to power after Franco’s death lobbied for the removal of his remains from the Valley and for his reburial at site chosen by his family. The first socialist prime minister to start this ball rolling was Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in 2011. Through lengthy legal battles that delayed the process, the socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez ruled in 2019 that Franco would be exhumed and buried in the Mingorrubio Cemetery in El Pardo with his wife Carmen Polo. Socialists never give up when rewriting history – especially when that history honors conservative leaders and historical figures!
LIES TOLD BY TODAY’S DEMOCRATS
Candidates running for public office who stay away from talking to reporters about their policies also engage in censorship. A perfect example of this is the fact that Vice President and 2024 Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris – who has not held a formal news conference in 35 days as of August 23, 2024. In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Kamala based her candidacy on a frontal attack of Republican Candidate Donald J. Trump – as if the latter was the incumbent and ignoring the failures of the Biden/Harris administration. I predict that Kamala will succumb to the intense pressure to hold formal press conferences before November 5th, but my guess is that there will be very few.
Kamala steered away from discussing any of the policies that she would embrace if elected to the Oval Office. Believe it or not, the Democrats are asking voters to elect Kamala on November 5th based merely on her personality and her be-joyful mantra. And the liberal media outlets are willing to cooperate in this venture with a candidate who participated in a massive cover-up of President Biden’s cognitive decline for the last 3½ years.
Kamala tried to reach out to all voters – not just Democrats – to vote for her by claiming that they were, after all, Americans who loved their country and did not want to look back. But while trying to bring MAGA Republicans to her tent, she criticized their leader, Donald J. Trump. Words like “unity” to people like Kamala mean one thing: give me your vote no matter what! Her condescending manner in how she treats Americans is not only despicable but will prove counterproductive to her efforts. This is like First Lady Jill Biden trying to ingratiate herself to Hispanic voters and calling them “breakfast tacos” at a rally.
Democrats insist on making millionaires and billionaires the monsters of American society. To make this point, Michelle Obama said at the Democratic National Convention that her mother and father “didn’t aspire to be wealthy – in fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed.” It is safe to assume, then, that Michelle’s parents would be suspicious of Barack and her after learning that both hold a fortune valued between $70 to $135 million and Oprah Winfrey with a fortune worth $2.8 billion. But perhaps Michelle thinks that her parents’ suspicions apply only to Republican millionaires.
And Joe Biden is not far behind in the lies department. At the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Joe said that the sole reason for deciding to run for president in 2020 was what he saw at a Charlottesville rally in 2017. Joe said he felt outraged when President Trump was asked what he thought had happened, and he responded that “there are very fine people on both sides.” Joe insinuated that President Trump included in this “very fine people” group many demonstrators who were neo-Nazis and white supremacists. This allegation has been debunked by snopes, and the fact that Joe keeps using it means that he must be uninformed, misinformed, or maliciously biased. Here is what snopes clarified regarding what Trump said: “In a news conference after the rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters. He said in the same statement he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be “condemned totally.”
Similarly, many Democrats continue blaming Trump for supporting Project 2025 – a conservative plan put together by the Heritage Foundation – despite the fact that he has denied repeatedly any affiliation or support for it. Think back to Goebbel’s quote above about lies.
Kamala announced in a speech before the DNC one of the policies of her economic plan if she wins the election: “price-control” for food items. Not only did she mispronounce the targeted evil (“price gaging” rather than the correct “price gouging”), but she ignored a key tenet of basic economics: businesses are in the business of making profits. If the federal government controls the prices of food items to a level that business owners take a loss, they will close down their businesses and move to countries with more business-friendly policies. The results would be higher unemployment, rationed food, black markets, and long lines at supermarkets. Believe me, I saw this nightmare happen when I lived in Communist Cuba!
The Biden/Harris and the Harris/Walz teams have to acknowledge the basic fact that it’s their policies of higher government spending and free benefits to illegal aliens that have triggered the high inflation rate.
Obviously, Tim Walz ignores one basic fact: his belief that “”One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness” needs another extension to complete it: “until you run out of your neighbor’s money.”
While accusing Trump of being a dictator with fascist tendencies, it is today’s Democrats that aspire to embrace the late Il Duce Benito Mussolini’s famous quote: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Expanding the role of the executive branch by bypassing the U.S. Congress through executive orders is a clear sign that it’s the Democrats who aim for totalitarianism! Selecting a candidate for the highest job in the country by a bevy of Democratic party elites without the consent of “We the People” reminds me of how candidates are selected in communist regimes!
From telling Americans what cars to drive, to trying to grant illegal aliens the right to vote, to ordering online social platforms to censor information, to canceling all private health insurance policies, today’s Democrats vie for one thing only: power in perpetuity. To restore freedom to our Nation and to consider the voices of We the People, Americans have but one choice on November 5th: vote for Republicans who will “Save America Again!”
Jorge E. Ponce 