Paul Revere and the Paywall
Someone is coming, someone is coming… Become a paid subscriber to learn more!
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1
Over the last few years, I like many others, have been looking for our modern-day Paul Revere. We have been looking for the one who can tell us what enemies are approaching, and the means by which we can anticipate their arrival.
It turns out that our modern-day Paul Revere isn’t so easy to find. There are those who appear to bring forth warnings about the enemy, but they are often operating on hearsay. Others who appear to offer information about how to prepare for the enemy’s arrival provide contrived information, information that has been put together for monetary gain.
And then there are the apparent Paul Revere’s who are, in fact, agents of the enemy. They have made their way into society and are putting out propaganda rather than useful information related to the pending revolution.
What would a modern-day Paul Revere do?
The real Paul Revere, the Paul Revere of legend, came up with a way to warn the colonists about the British Army as it approached. He devised a system of lanterns as signal lights, with the lanterns to be displayed in a manner such that they warned the colonists not only of the enemy approaching, but also the means by which they would arrive.
“One if by land” meant that by lighting one lantern, it would indicate that the enemy would arrive by land, “two if by sea” would mean that by lighting two lanterns, it would indicate that the enemy would arrive by sea. This signaling would give the patriots time to prepare for the arrival of the enemy, safeguard their military stores, and prepare to defend themselves.
We would expect a modern-day Paul Revere to do something similar: warn us that the enemy is approaching, tell us who the enemy is, and then provide information as to the means by which the enemy would arrive. In modern-times, with technology at our fingertips, the modern-day Paul Revere might also provide additional research about the enemy, such as the enemy’s objectives, anticipated strategy, tactics, weapons, tools, resources, allies, other enemies, etc.
Who are some possible modern-day Paul Revere’s?
As one surveys the information available on the Internet related to the cultural revolution underway in the United States and around the world today, it quickly becomes apparent that the amount of information is overwhelming. In order to locate the modern-day Paul Revere, one must sort through many sources, such as:
Traditional media
Social media
Aggregator news sites
Opinion sites
Journalist sites
Dedicated sites
Traditional Media: Anyone paying attention today has probably already written off Traditional Media sites like The New York Times, CNN, or even Fox News. They recognize that the traditional media today more often than not reflects the opinions and biases of the owners of the sites or those responsible for programming. You’ll not likely find the modern-day Paul Revere there.
Social Media: Like Traditional Media, the information available is often shaped by the opinions and biases of the owners of the site, and also those of the employees who handle issues related to content. The ability of a modern-day Paul Revere to get his message out on Social Media is likely to be severely restricted by censorship of one form or another. You’ll almost certainly not find Paul there…
Aggregator News Sites: While Conservative Aggregator News Sites are a valuable source of information, they tend to re-post links to what information is available, regardless of who the author is. Sites like Revolver2, Citizen Free Press3, or ZeroHedge4 are very valuable in the search for a modern-day Paul Revere however, as they will often pick up those articles from obscure sites where Paul may post.
Opinion Sites: For lack of another term, I call the category of sites that not only provide links to other articles but also provide commentary and opinions on those articles, “Opinion Sites”. There is probably a more accepted term for these kinds of sites, but I don’t know it, and it is beyond the scope of what I am trying to convey in this article. Sites that I would group into this category are sites like The Conservative Treehouse5, The Gateway Pundit6, Breitbart7, or others. Not only do these sites offer the opinions of the authors of the articles presented, but they often allow readers to comment on the articles, as well. These sites are very important to the ongoing discourse, and it is possible that you might find a modern-day Paul Revere writing for the site, or providing a Comment in the Comments section.
Journalist Sites: With the shift of traditional media away from true journalism, many true journalists have been forced to pursue other options for their livelihood. A good example of this is the success of Substack. Many writers like Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi now use Substack as the medium to offer their work to the public. They will often write articles that are free to the public, sometimes will provide a preview to an article that is only available to subscribers, or at other times, only write for paid subscribers. There are probably some modern-day Paul Revere’s at Substack, but it will take some effort to differentiate them from journalists trying to make a living.
Dedicated Sites: In addition to Substack, many authors host their own websites, as well. In fact, some of the most in-depth and most informative information that I find these days comes from sites like Whitney Webb at Unlimited Hangout8, or Matt Ehret at Canadian Patriot9. There are many other good, independent sites, far too many to list here.
So that brings me to the reason for writing this article:
“Someone is coming, someone is coming!
Click on the Link to Subscribe!
The full article is available to paid subscribers only!”
I get it. I really do. Many publishers on Substack rely on the income from subscribers to pay their bills. It is a necessary evil, I suppose.
The problem, to me, is that having a paywall to access information that is required to Save Western Civilization is a road to failure. As I read through the headlines in my Inbox on Substack each day, I tend to skip over the articles that are tagged as a “PREVIEW”, knowing that no matter the content, the good stuff will be behind a paywall.
While I might find some reasonable ideas in a PREVIEW that I can explore via searching the Internet, I generally don’t spend a lot of time on these articles if I am in a deep dive on a particular topic. It is the PREVIEW that, at least in my mind, may be the differentiator, the way to decide which journalists are a potential Paul Revere, and who is not.
Paul Revere wasn’t selling subscriptions.
Again, I understand it. I also understand the idea that requiring someone to subscribe and then pay for access to an article might cut down on the volume of bots or trolls corrupting the discussion in the COMMENTS section. It may very well do that, but it is certain to come at a potentially huge cost: the loss of the contributions from those that are not paid subscribers, but who have valuable insights and recommendations related to the topics being discussed.
There are a number of sites that require a person to be a paid subscriber in order to comment on content provided on the site. From what I have seen, it is not likely that you will find a modern-day Paul Revere among those paid subscribers who are providing comments – it is far more likely that he or she will be among those restricted from joining the discourse.
With that statement, I will close with an example. It is this very example that prompted me to write this article. Before I share the article, I want to point out that this entire article, and my reason for writing it, is not so much an indictment of a particular author as it is an indictment of our modern media, our means of communicating, of sharing information, of gaining knowledge. That system is broken. Badly broken.
What makes this example disheartening to me is that the author is someone I have viewed as a Paul Revere of the day. He has put significant effort into research, into gathering data, into warning people about what is happening. He has been quite prolific over the last few years, and I have read a lot of his work.
I’m disappointed.
When it comes to Saving Western Civilization, I am not an optimist. I know that we are too far gone to return to the Western Civilization of just a few years ago. The wheels that have brought it here were set in motion decades ago, the debt is too high and being pushed higher by the day, and the balkanization of society continues. All according to plan. Occasionally, I see glimmers of hope that we can delay what’s coming, but more often I find things that only confirm my sense of pessimism.
On April 10, 2023, Robert W. Malone MD, MS published an article on Substack titled “The World Economic Forum: Please Share”. I read every word of that article. I am familiar with his work, along with that of Pharos Media in Sweden to compile a list of all of the attendees of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program over the last 30-or so years. That alone has been a monumental task.
Dr. Malone presented information about the Young Global Leaders, those tasked with carrying out the “Great Reset”, and when followed up with questions “Why should you care?” and “What can you do about it?” He gave numerous suggestions:
Do not support politicians that have graduated from the Young Global Leaders Program and expose their affiliations through the use of social media.
Work to elect constitutionalists and small government advocates. That may include volunteering.
Fight any efforts by state and federal governments to create a “stakeholder” economy.
Support efforts to stymie public-private partnerships.
Bring awareness to the cause though social media.
Learn to be self-sufficient. Do not fall into the trap of being dependent on technology.
Do not allow yourself to fall deeply into debt.
Have redundant systems to survive.
Then he asked his subscribers more questions:
I ask you, my subscribers - what other things do you do, what can we do, to prepare and exist as free people in a world increasingly dominated by globalist totalitarianism? How do we help save this country from falling under the control of the UN and the WEF? How do we, as a nation survive this onslaught?
At the end of the post, it read “Thank you for reading Who is Robert Malone. This post is public so feel free to share it.” just above a brightly colored button labeled “Share”.
I scrolled down to the comments section, thinking to myself about some of the specific questions he had asked earlier in the post: “what other things do you do, what can we do…”, “How do we help save this country from falling under the control of the UN and the WEF? How do we, as a nation survive this onslaught? These are questions that I have been asking for the last 3-years, that I have been researching, that I have been compiling information on, that I have ideas about…
After gathering up my thoughts and was ready to provide my comments, I clicked into the section where it said “Write a comment…” Immediately, a message appeared on my screen saying “Hi tomfunchess@pm.me. Only paid subscribers can comment on this post. Upgrade to paid.”
Perhaps it was an oversight. Perhaps Dr. Malone didn’t intend for that post to restrict other Paul Revere’s from joining in on the conversation.
Or perhaps there are no modern-day Paul Revere’s. Or the enemy is already here. Or the West is already lost. Or maybe we have more modern-day Patrick Henry’s than we have modern-day Paul Revere’s:
“Give me subscriptions or give me death.” ~ Patrick Henry, 2023
Although I cannot comment on Dr. Malone’s post about the World Economic Forum, I will Share it as requested. I hope it was an oversight…
Paul Revere’s Ride. https://poets.org/poem/paul-reveres-ride
https://www.revolver.news/
https://citizenfreepress.com/
https://www.zerohedge.com/
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/
https://www.breitbart.com/
https://unlimitedhangout.com/
https://canadianpatriot.org/