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Last week, Project Veritas presented an interesting video that immediately caught my attention. A weird-looking guy confidently speaking on camera about the re-education of Nazis, burning American cities, shooting people, or sending them to Gulags. All of it – in the name of saving human civilization. Wait, what? You read that right. You just didn’t hear about it on TV. One could argue that people around the country say insane things all the time. What makes this case special is that the hero of the video, Kyle Jurek, is a field organizer in Iowa for Bernie Sanders, a leading Democratic candidate for the President of the United States.
Who am I to talk about these things, anyway? I’m a Russian immigrant, born the year the Soviet Union drew its last breath. Gulags, repressions, the free flow of propaganda, imprisonment of dissidents, and other “perks” of a communist revolution are all a part of the history of my native country. It’s a shameful period that cannot be erased and should serve as a reminder to the rest of the world about what follows empty promises for economic justice once the bourgeoisie class, the last obstacle to a fair future (in the eyes of socialists) is eliminated. Even if these socialists call themselves Democratic. The outcome doesn’t care about names. It doesn’t care about people, dreams, hopes, or freedoms. It doesn’t care about trying to build a new, just world. All it cares about is making everyone equal and satiating an everlasting hunger of envy that cannot be satisfied. You see, the majority are equal in their misery, and this beast stays hungry anyway.
I’m not trying to start another discussion on how blissfully ignorant the American youth is about the true realities of communist countries. This topic has been beaten to death by conservative pundits and those lucky to escape oppressive regimes, as flirtation of the left with socialism becomes more open. And, if their warnings about the danger of communism didn’t do the job, my take on it would sound like a cliché to those who choose to willingly close their eyes and ears. However, hear me out. I want to say something else today.
I want to talk about why liberal media has decided to largely ignore this video. As a journalist, I know their preference to 
ignore certain themes that can hurt the team they play for. I know about the sudden disappearance of the major topics that contradict the narrative. I also understand their hostility toward President Trump, given their mutual enmity. I don’t support it, because it often exposes biases that professional reporters cannot allow themselves to have, but I understand. It still doesn’t excuse the media’s silence on these types of stories. And no, it doesn’t fall under the explanation that the media has its own agenda. There is a difference between one-sided reporting, ignoring the true motives of those seeking power in this country and keeping it from American people in the midst of a fight for the Democratic nomination. This indifference might turn out ugly if ignored. Primarily – for the media itself.
“Walk into that MSNBC studios, drag those motherf**kers out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets,” says Kyle Jurek nonchalantly. He lays out the whole plan while munching on fries and drinking beer. This is a direct call for violence against the media that people like Jurek contemplate materializing should Sanders succeed in his presidential bid. Granted, it’s just one guy in Iowa that nobody even heard about before this video surfaced. But it’s naive to think he is alone out there. There are many more. These people are simply waiting in the wings. And if pundits from liberal media think that conservatives, or Trump, want to silence them, all they have to do is wait until people like Jurek take over to see real censorship. “Gulags. Liberals get the f**king wall first,” that’s the verdict for the dissenting voices. In the end, it will not matter that the ideas of Sanders weren’t scrutinized and criticized the way Trump’s every move was. A post-revolutionary world cannot exist without heavy censorship of the media. A brave new world doesn’t need these watchdogs anyway.
It’s eerily puzzling that major media outlets, especially those on the left side of the political spectrum, have not mentioned the Project Veritas video even once. There is no answer from MSNBC (who Jurek threatened in his speech). Journalists from these media organizations have been talking non-stop about Trump’s signature phrase about fake news media being “the enemy of the people.” They took great offense at this outrageous insult of those who speak truth to power. They feel they are attacked simply for doing an objective reporting job. And yet, they pass over this story as if there is nothing wrong with a campaign organizer of one of the Democratic frontrunners openly boasting about his plans to eliminate journalists – starting with those supporting Democrats. Jurek didn’t call them the enemy of the people. He explained, in no uncertain terms, what he and his ilk will do. And the media, except for a few conservative websites and Fox News, didn’t care.
Perhaps they didn’t feel it was important. Maybe it didn’t meet their journalistic standard. And certainly – they are not fully aware of the role the media plays in the regimes praised by Sanders. The communist regimes have little tolerance for those questioning their efficiency. They have even less patience for the ones openly criticizing authority than Trump has for Jim Acosta. Liberal media can’t grasp the idea that people like Jurek are radicals, and radicals have other means to deal with disagreement. Things like “freedom of the press” or “freedom of speech” mean nothing to them. You either support their ideas – sometimes with a gun to your head – or you hide your opinions in hopes that the government will never find out. Coincidentally, dissidents were called “the enemy of the people” by Joseph Stalin.
Several foreign reporters were expelled from the Soviet Union for the crimes of reporting the truth. You don’t come to Soviet Russia to write the truth. You come to write government-approved propaganda, or you get out. Less fortunate Russian writers were accused of thoughtcrimes, took a bullet for opposing the regime, or were sent to Gulags. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great Russian writer, spent some time in a forced-labor camp and recorded it in his book “The Gulag Archipelago,” where he described horrific conditions of Gulags incompatible with human decency. Jurek appeared to be very enthusiastic about these camps, watering the term down to a mere re-education camp: “Gulags are a lot better than what the CIA has told us they were.”
Jurek is absolutely clueless about the history of the Soviet Union. It is a separate question altogether what is to blame for his ignorance: education system, social media, or other radicals. The fact is that Sanders espouses ideas that are, to some degree, in line with what Jurek believes in. American people deserve to know about these things. The media does a great disservice not only to the voters, but to themselves, by not challenging ideas that led to the destruction of several countries and millions of deaths. Because a free press will not exist in a socialist paradise Jurek talked about.
