MENU

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

By Edward Pozzuoli

February 3, 2025

SUBSCRIBE TO SAVVY STREET (It's Free)

 

During my preteen years in the early ‘60s, our entire universe was the streets of Brooklyn within a mile of our home. When we cut school or on holidays, we wanted to venture into the unknown, so with 15 cents, we’d jump on the subway for a ride into the City. Getting off at Times Square, we wandered underground and walked the glitzy streets for blocks, taking in the novelty shops, hot dog stands, burlesque theaters, and the local denizens. Amid the many lights, the streets were dirty, and the natives were always seedy. At 48th and 7th, in front of Tad’s Steaks, I would stretch to peek into the Metropole Café, catching a glimpse of Gene Krupa drumming in his failing years.

At that spot, a small crowd always gathered around a makeshift cardboard table with a man hawking, “Find the lady, find the red lady,” as he maneuvered three playing cards, one being the Queen of Hearts. Looking for a mark and working with a shill, they would entice the passerby to what appeared to be a sure bet, as the accomplice always found the queen. When a sucker would put down some cash, the dealer’s sleight of hand would disappear the queen from what seemed to be the obvious spot, with the dupe forking over his money. Shuffling the cards, the dealer would browbeat the sap to double down, as his partner in crime would urge the mark to continue betting. This “game” was the infamous “Three Card Monte,” and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to losing five or ten dollars before I caught onto the scam.

This “game” was the infamous “Three Card Monte,” and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to losing five or ten dollars before I caught onto the scam.

This deceitful sting has been used for centuries by sorcerers, snake oil salesmen, hustlers, magicians, false gods, and yes, the political ruling class from kings to despotic dictators to any elusive managerial bureaucracy. With the continual shifting headlines in recent years, “Now you see it, now you don’t” (NYSINYD) is a metaphorical reflection of this age-old shell game indicative with the ever-changing official narratives. The fluid reporting of storylines incessantly undermines credibility, creates emotional doubt, and fosters adversarial division. We have knowingly and unwittingly become both the “shill” and the “mark” participating in this deceptive swindle.

While this trickery knows no time restraints or geographical boundaries, there is no more obvious example than the many psychological and factual manipulations we have recently experienced. Without intending to be political while keeping it real, the most egregious illustration is compliments of Joe Biden. The entire administrative machinery of both parties engulfed a naïve populace and directed a scripted version to justify their predetermined ends.

When Trump’s cantankerous first term ended, his reelection was not an option.

When Trump’s cantankerous first term ended, his reelection was not an option. Voting began for the 2020 Democratic primaries, and eleven major candidates campaigned. As the process unfolded, many began to drop with no particular candidate, other than Sanders, rallying any impressive lead. Enter Jim Clyburn. Since a socialist could not be their party’s future face, he resuscitated the malleable Biden for the top spot. Directing the South Carolina primary and with a storyline of racism, he amassed strong support from the African American community and Biden was “selected” as the presumptive nominee. The inept, manageable Harris, who checked all the diversity boxes, rounded out the ticket.

With decades of baggage, categorical dishonesty, and untimely gaffes, Biden’s ability to lead the country was always questioned. While the entire Democratic Party rallied around his nomination, it wasn’t without criticism. As the vice president to Obama for two terms, Biden’s incompetence was long known. In the 2016 primary, he was passed over because Obama stated he didn’t think “Joe was a viable candidate.” That sentiment continued into the 2020 cycle as Obama did his best to persuade him not to run, expressing to another ranking Democrat, “You know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.” He was further quoted during that primary, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” Those are pretty disparaging comments from a former President on his number two guy. However, the move was already underway in this election cycle to recreate Biden’s image, hiding that “red queen” (NYSINYD).

Biden’s previous health issues and age began to raise concerns. His staff, overseen by Jill, went to great lengths to seclude him with his “basement campaign” assisted with Covid as a cover. Once in office, the White House adapted to his needs, avoiding long encounters that displayed his fatigue, less frequent meetings with Cabinet secretaries and senior advisors to avoid blunders or missteps, and nominal scripted news conferences. They controlled and suppressed any negative stories while bolstering contrived positive articles. Today, as the press reluctantly concedes, it appears that any cognitive decline gradually began many years before his 2024 run. This condition was undoubtedly known by his family and inner circle, the Democratic kingmakers, the majority of all the elected politicians, the intelligence agencies and Secret Service, together with many foreign leaders, and all hidden by the media shills (NYSINYD).

His deteriorating condition became painfully evident to a national audience on June 27th 2024, during the first presidential debate. The obvious could no longer be avoided, and the Democratic machine immediately went into overdrive to reshuffle the deck and “hide the queen.” Biden was quickly forced aside, and an avatar of Harris was crafted as the “chosen one,” bypassing the people’s will without receiving a single vote. The puppeteers of this “bait and switch” reassigned the production crew from their “Weekend at Bernie’s” task to promote a new script. These moviemakers went through nearly two billion dollars to quickly inculcate the populace with a redefined Harris image. They fashioned this new shiny object and her message of joy with slick productions, Hollywood elites, mega superstars, and contrived reporting. The show must go on, and the “mark” (the country’s populace) was deflected from seeing the reality behind the scenes. With the classic misdirection, Biden’s disappearing act was executed with the perfection of a Houdini illusion (NYSINYD).

This intentional malicious attempt to deceive the general voting population undermines the core principles of our democratic republic, and the media’s silence was deafening.

This intentional malicious attempt to deceive the general voting population undermines the core principles of our democratic republic, and the media’s silence was deafening. Ted Cruz noted, referencing the vast majority of the reporting news, “There are only two options: (1) the Dems and their media shills were so clueless that they had no idea that Biden is mentally incompetent, or (2) they knew and they deliberately lied about it. Both are damning. I vote #2.”

Every day, we increasingly hear from a growing list of reporters, media platforms, and CEOs about the pressure they received. Pressure and implied threats, from the bureaucratic agencies to suppress truthful negative stories and advance any mythical fairytales of Biden’s mental acuity, engagement, and energy, regardless of what one’s “lyin’ eyes” tell them (NYSINYD).

But this was just the last in a long list of Biden’s dishonest accounts that have been erroneously reported. From Hunter’s laptop to the family syndicate’s money trails, deceptive tales have been spun. The nefarious equivocation of the infamous “intelligence” memo signed by 51 actors to Twitter’s acknowledged censorship, began to unmask this charade. The sham of persistent lawfare and the discrediting of numerous whistleblowers dishonored our justice system. As time progresses, the “conspiracies” of yesteryear will reveal their truthfulness (NYSINYD).

Of course, the government’s dissemination of false narratives and suppression of truth are not new or uncommon. The uncertain start of the Spanish-American War, World War I, or the escalations in Vietnam and Ukraine reveal signs of our intelligence manipulation. The assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, my cousin Danny Casolaro, and others all have vicious underpinnings. The traitorous depiction of Snowden and Assange intentionally fashioned a counterfeit public opinion. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Iran-Contra, war crimes, 9/11, Russiagate, Covid, vaccines, Big Pharma, J6, Abbey Gate, and the LA fires all raise more questions than answers. And, in the final days of this administration, “Jack and Jill” are playing hide and seek (NYSINYD) with the mystery of who’s running the country. Pick any of the above and realize some elusive wizard is directing this performance while the hucksters keep the curtain closed, concealing the fact that “the emperor has no clothes” (NYSINYD). The lack of transparency and untruthful reporting of these events reveal the actual existential threat to individual freedoms, due process, privacy, and our democratic way of life.

 

Gaslighting vs. Reality

Collectively, the persistent misinformation, half-truths, and falsehoods are part of psychological manipulations known as gaslighting. This tactic makes one question their perception of reality and slowly undermines their self-reliance and confidence, ultimately leading to a “fallacious dependence on the perpetrator,” i.e., our government. Just this week, the credible journalist Matt Taibbi wrote:

If you’re in the growing population of Americans that is tired of being fed streams of sensational and inexplicable news stories, while authorities that appear to delight in public confusion sit back with buttoned lips, yesterday might have been the last straw. We are officially a Gaslit Nation.

He further stated:

I don’t know what officials are up to, when they leak like sieves about some issues (Russiagate, Luigi Mangione) and refuse to provide even basic answers about others (New Jersey drones, Thomas Crooks, Covid origins). All we know is there’s an elaborate media strategy at work, one that in the content moderation age extends to outright removal of certain materials, like Shamsud din Jabbar’s Facebook videos. Trying to unwind the logic of these decisions is tiring enough when it’s voluntary, but living in a country that won’t explain things flying over your house is absurd.

We can no longer ignore that our government is playing “mind games” with our naive nation.

The entirety of Taibbi’s article perfectly expresses the crazed frenzy over governmental overreach and its covert gaslighting. It exposes a regime comfortable in sidestepping its people while questionable mysteries remain unanswered or falsely explained. We can no longer ignore that our government is playing “mind games” with our naive nation. We only know what “they” want us to know. This methodical control of circulating storied information raises suspicion, fear, and paranoia that gradually undermine the psychological well-being of our gullible citizenry. The intelligence agencies have been effective in deflecting criticism by “pumping cosmopolitan audiences full of conspiratorial bosh about things like the Russian collusion.” They realized they could “paralyze skeptical audiences with ostentatious displays of incompetence or contradictory behavior.” Nothing is by accident or as it seems. Everything is connected, and history has shown that there are no coincidences in politics. Reality is often stranger than fiction, and the “powers that be” are more concerned with optics than facts (NYSINYD).

 

Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press

Upholding freedom of the press is the only process and retaliation to curb all this chicanery. It is an absolute fundamental right enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment. The most important within this Bill of Rights is the individual liberty to express one’s thoughts and ideas without governmental interference. This permits the general public to hold our politicians accountable and identify sanctioned wrongdoings with full disclosure and transparency. It allows individuals to freely express themselves and their grievances openly within a marketplace of ideas. As Walter Cronkite said, “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are inextricably woven together. It’s the most basic right that separates America from nearly every other nation. Many of the largest tech platforms, either through fear of reprisal or seeking favored status, have fallen prey to the heavy hand of this authoritative message control. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have finally realized the error of his ways with “content moderation” and the “persuasive suggestions” of the ingrained establishment. In a speech today, he revealed the company’s future commitment to preserving this precious liberty, stating:

After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S…The U.S. has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship, and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country. The only way we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the U.S. government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the U.S. government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies.

I guess you can say maybe he had his “bejesus” moment, and if so, better late than never. Hopefully, his motives are sincere, and he realized “they” transitioned him from a useful “shill” to a duped “mark.” Maybe he has finally recognized the grift perpetrated by the powerful political charlatans (NYSINYD).

 

How Freedom of Speech and its Defender (the Press?) Is Saved

One of the main tenets of media freedom is the ability to speak “truth to power,” keeping decision-makers and political leaders accountable. Longtime White House press member Helen Thomas once said, “We don’t go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.” I am not so sure today’s mainstream media adheres to this legitimacy, as they are paid handsomely to spew their biases. French philosopher Albert Camus astutely noted, “Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty….A free press can, of course, be both good and bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

It takes courage and conviction to speak truth to power, but to what end? For the last two decades, American activist Noam Chomsky was dismissive of this idiom, asserting, “Power knows the truth already, and is busy concealing it.” He argues that the “marks” need to hear the truth, not the “fraudsters,” believing we must speak “truth to the powerless.”

But both these propositions can be true, as truth is the proper identification of reality, unconcerned with who comprehends or appreciates it. “Reality is the ultimate arbiter.”

Recognize the Enemies of Freedom

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Plato said, “Those who tell the stories rule society,” and more recently, Nazi Joseph Goebbels advocated, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” and, “Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.” His Ministry of Propaganda utilized this potent combination to support Hitler’s suppression of freedom and control of the press. This implementation encapsulates the power of cunning dishonesty and calculated influence to sway public opinion.

In the 1992 feature film, “A Few Good Men,” the following scene produced one of the most iconic lines in movie history. The picture’s zealous uproar, attitude, and concern perfectly summate today’s conundrum.The courtroom is tense as two men linguistically spar in our nation’s capital. Honor and truth are at odds with a junior-grade defense attorney and a seasoned military colonel at a pivotal point of the trial. After an emotional rant by the young lawyer, the witness boldly responds, “You want answers?” The focus turns to the youthful solicitor as he brazenly replies, “I want the truth!!” The camera then frames the outraged senior officer as he instinctually and passionately shouts, “You can’t handle the truth!”

So what exactly is truth, and who should be its gatekeeper? Truth is absolute, and there is “no alternative regarding what is true.” It is the “non-contradictory identification of reality,” and reality should be its gatekeeper, not some subjective group of Philosopher Kings or Ministry of Truth. Liberty requires freedom of speech, expression, and thought. Its nemesis is power and control via censorship. As noted by Dr. Jerome Huyler, “Those who would impose their views on society—even if those views amount to lies—are up to no good. If they held truth in their hands, there would be no need to censor unwelcome opinions.” Freedom and censorship are incompatible. Censorship is an evasion of reality, either for the purpose of indoctrination or hoping the problem disappears (NYSINYD). Censorship and sanctioned suppression is the fundamental abstract of this entire essay.

Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from philosophy, so how can we bridge these two ends? It begins with a ground game of being attentive and observant, having civic “responsibility of how government ‘business’ is being conducted.” Noah Webster, a close confidant of Benjamin Franklin, once said:

…If the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.

And as Jefferson advised, “The watchword of liberty has to be eternal vigilance.” Unfortunately, today, the driver of our “vigilance” has fallen asleep at the wheel, creating a vacuum filled by a political class that acts in secrecy with impunity.

The most significant influence on our culture has been the philosophy of Postmodernism. As Professor Stephen Hicks critiques:

Postmodernism became the leading intellectual movement in the late twentieth century. It has replaced modernism, the philosophy of the Enlightenment…it has substituted its own precepts of relative feeling, social construction, and groupism. This substitution has now spread to major cultural institutions such as education, journalism, and the law, where it manifests itself as race and gender politics, advocacy journalism, political correctness, multiculturalism, and the rejection of science and technology.

Believing those in power have the moral high ground under the guise of national security and the greater good, any planned scheme is justified. Daily fake news, dogma, and politically correct con games are the media’s weapons in the war they are waging on Western Civilization. Power is their real motive with an arrogance of “might makes right.” These dishonest tactics have undermined the public’s loss of confidence in our country’s traditional institutions and values.

Advocate and Fight for Freedom

Over fifty years ago, Ayn Rand wrote,

If you are seriously interested in fighting for a better world, begin by identifying the nature of the problem. The battle is primarily intellectual (philosophical), not political. Politics is the last consequence, the practical implementation, of the fundamental (metaphysical-epistemological-ethical) ideas that dominate a given nation’s culture. You cannot fight or change the consequences without fighting and changing the cause; nor can you attempt any practical implementation without knowing what you want to implement.

Accomplishing this takes focus and critical thinking with a common sense of necessity, but it can be done. We must shed the shackles of our intellectual bondage, open our eyes to think freely and remove “prescribed” biases. As we move away from the dictum of “the ends justify the means,” we can begin to restore our basic essential principles. We have to untether from official narratives and mainstream programming, holding journalists accountable for any untruthful reporting.

Apropos, and as Rand said, “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident, which everybody had decided not to see.” We have been living in a world of smoke and mirrors. It’s time to clear the fog and clarify the reflections of misinformation that’s been deviously forced upon us. Once one sees the truth, one cannot unsee it. Magic is real until you know the trick. When you know the trick, you can then find that “Red Queen.” With that said, we need to correct the title of this piece slightly: Now You See It, Now You Don’t, Now You Get It.

 

 

(Visited 87 times, 87 visits today)