Some form of the proverb – excesses lead to their own demise – can be found in
texts ranging from Plato’s Republic to the Old Testament. Our overarching fear is
that it will prove true in today’s America, in which an apt translation of that proverb
would be: money for the sake of money will lead to no money. In today’s
America money rules and those with money – and we mean big money – big
enough to control the media, big enough to control how elected officials vote, big
enough to convince us that all wars are good wars, want more than anything else,
more money.
But that terrible game is almost over. As we have pointed out before, as a nation we
have spent so much money on defense and wars that we forgot that technology has
completely changed and continued to advance, transforming the world, while we
remained focused on outdated models of power and control. As a result, we now sit
on a precipice. It is critical for our own survival and the survival of our country that
we see through the harmful propaganda that big money uses to reinforce a ‘money
for the sake of money’ agenda.
Propaganda comes in two forms. The first is outright lies; lies such as the ones that
lead us to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The second is more
insidious. Rather than lying about the truth, it involves hiding the truth by omitting
critical information altogether – call it lies by omission. While outright falsehoods are
usually exposed, much more difficult is exposing threats to the big money agenda
that you never knew existed. Intentional omissions in the news cycle direct our
attention away from the truth with a purpose of controlling narratives. The next few
blogs we publish will focus on what we call “propaganda by omission.” Outing these
omissions is utterly necessary for the wellbeing of nearly every American and we will
shed light on a few of the most dangerous examples.
The Message in the Cloud
If you type into a google search “major Microsoft outage in early July,” the response,
an AI summary across the web reads: “A significant Microsoft outage occurred in
early July due to a faulty update from CrowdStrike that impacted Windows systems,
including those running on Azure. The update caused widespread issues, leading to
reboots, crashes, and disruptions across various services. The incident highlighted
the interconnectedness of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and the potential for
cascading failures.” We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the response. Yet,
there is a caveat. The response actually refers to an outage that occurred in July
2024, not the more recent one in July 2025. This makes one thing clear; attention is
being intentionally directed away from the most recent and more threatening outage.
This is a major example of what we mean by propaganda by omission. Consistent
with the google response when we searched the New York Times and Wall Street
Journal for breaches there was not a single mention of the July 2025 outage, while
other breaches including July 2024 were broadly covered. No doubt the July 2024
attack was serious and created a great deal of inconvenience; comparing it to the
more recent one is like comparing a simple cold to anti-biotic resistant pneumonia.
For one you take a couple of aspirins and for the other you pray.
Unlike the first outage, the July 2025 attack aimed directly at Microsoft’s cloud
architecture. The only information we could find on this subsequent attack came
from companies who specialize in internet security issues; in other words it was not
easily accessible. For example, Messageware, a company that has worked with
Microsoft on security for over 30 years, stated on July 17th:
“The second week of July 2025 marked a significant disruption in Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem, with a cascading series of outages that affected millions of users worldwide. What began as isolated reports of service issues on July 9th quickly escalated into one of the most prolonged and impactful outages in Microsoft 365’s history, lasting over 19
hours and highlighting critical vulnerabilities in modern cloud infrastructure.”
CRN magazine, one of the most respected information outlets on internet security, had
similar comments.
The question quickly becomes: Why the omission? There are many possibilities. For
one, Microsoft’s Azure, its cloud division, was at the center of the attack, meaning
the effects were felt worldwide and included applications with no direct relation to
Azure. This time there were even examples of Zoom users experiencing a situation
in which parties (while connected visually) lost all audio contact. In the July 2024
outage on the other hand, the effects were centered on e-mail. Speculation on a
major economic crisis because of internet vulnerabilities (even if never realized)
could have a dramatic impact on consumer sentiment. How can consumers and
users trust anything when a system that has become so central in our lives can just
fail?
Another possibility is that the outage may have been linked to a Chinese hack and
pointed to the enormous leverage China has over America by virtue of its superior
technologies we mentioned earlier. Connecting to what we stated at the beginning of
this article: American technologies have not kept up with that of China or Russia, as
our country has sacrificed innovation and new advancements in an effort to ensure a
money-first agenda prevails.
At the beginning of 2025, after the election but before Trump had assumed the
presidency, a curious front page article appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled:
“China’s New Hacking Prowess Poses Geopolitical Threats.” First off, the title of the
article makes the point about omissions all by itself. As we pointed out in a previous
blog, in 2021, four years before the article was written, the first chief software officer
of the Pentagon resigned because he viewed China’s ascendancy in cyberspace as
unstoppable. America’s money first, profit first agenda had already begun to
significantly impact our national security capabilities – a trend he saw accelerating.
In our next article to be posted later this week, we will continue to deep dive on this topic.
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