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A rifle-toting veteran who once spent time in the National Guard was arrested Tuesday morning in Los Angeles after he reportedly dressed up in a uniform resembling those worn by California National Guard troops and attempted to fall into formation during the citys anti-racism demonstrations.

Gregory Wong, 31, allegedly arrived equipped with multiple weapons after taking an Uber to the scene of the protests that have surged in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, CBS Los Angeles reported.

Once downtown, Wong reportedly joined a formation of guardsmen who had recently arrived to monitor select sites and aggressive crowd behavior part of a 4,500-person force mobilized throughout California by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the report said.

But Wongs time in formation didnt last, as puzzled troops began to question the authenticity of the unfamiliar service member in the mismatching uniform.

The skeptical troops subsequently alerted officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, the report said, who took Wong into custody at approximately 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.

According to the report, police classified Wongs M-4 rifle as a ghost gun or, a custom-built weapon that contains no serial number. The veteran was also armed with a pistol, the report said.

For brandishing the rifle Wong was charged with the transportation of an assault weapon, LAPD officer Drake Madison told CBS.

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Madison added that Wong claimed to have come to the area only to provide security for a friends business.

While investigators are still looking into the incident, at this time it does not appear that Mr. Wong intended to harm anyone, Madison said.

The veteran is currently being held on $50,000 bond.

A search of Wongs recent activity, meanwhile, reveals a foray into numerous endeavors under his personal brand, Spartan117GW, under which Wong claims to currently manage social media for several companies and the fan club Jurassic Park Motorpool, according to his bio on the brand website.

Recently I also picked up World War 2 reennacting, cosplay, and background acting when I have free time. ... Lately I have been fortunate to provide military technical consulting in the film and TV world helping make projects more realistic and fun for military audiances (sic).

Twitter and Facebook accounts for Spartan117GW appear to have been disabled since Wongs arrest.

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Rifle-toting vet arrested after dressing up, trying to join National Guard crowd control formation - Military Times

Willingboro High School senior Tamia Welch talks about organizing a George Floyd march on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. Cherry Hill Courier-Post

Moorestown's Ronald McCoy, top, controls Highland's Emidio Mariani during the 145 lb. bout of the South Jersey Group 4 semifinal wrestling match held at Highland High School on Wednesday, February 12, 2020. McCoy defeated Mariani, 12-2.(Photo: Chris LaChall/Courier-Post)

When practice finally starts, theres one thing that every coach can and probably will say, in every sport:

No opponent that you face is going to test you like this summer has.

That was true when time missed because of the coronavirus pandemic was the only concern a young athlete had. It became even more true on May 25, and in the time since, in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Athletes are reaching out to coaches and to each other for guidance, and taking a hard look in some cases, a first-hard look in the world beyond the arenas they compete in.

A lot have reached out, Pemberton football coach Kareem Johnson said. I reached out to them, first, actually, and it was tough, trying to control my emotions and my thoughts, and trying to tread lightly. I wanted to let them know its OK if theyre feeling a certain way. Its OK to have whatever questions they have. Its OK that theyre thinking about this and troubled by it.

Thats how dialogue starts.

The truth is, the coaches and players whove worked and played locally feel theyve been fortunate, to compete in an area where there is so much diversity and race is virtually a non-issue. The question that raises, though, is whether that environment has made them nave to the bigger picture.

I really think it did, said Max Smyth, a former Palmyra High School quarterback now playing at Monmouth University. At Palmyra, youd see little things; a kid would say something that was out of line and other kids would get on him right away. Everybody was so close. Now in college, everyone is older and theyre all individuals. You dont jump on people in person.

More: Senior spotlight: Avery Jaffe embraced Moorestown lacrosse culture and excelled

More: H.S. wrestling: District tourneys will have more local feel after realignment

They dont have that community bond to start with. You might see something later on social media, but its rare that anybody takes it on himself to confront it.

Maybe by that point, those people arent viewed as saveable.

It really does start in every household, Smyth said. Kids arent born racist. Thats taught.

Fear is taught too, either directly or as a conditioned response.

We got pulled over when I was little, on the way home from church, Moorestown wrestler Ronald McCoy said. I remember being told, stay still, dont make any noise, dont say anything. It was just strange to me at the time, but looking back, I understand how terrified she was.

The lesson he learned was that presentation is important. How you carry yourself, how you dress, how you speak its all going to be judged by someone in a position of power, with no notice given.

Be aware. Be very aware. Be conscious, Burlington City coach Ray Robinson said. If you give a situation an opportunity to go left, it can go left in a heartbeat. You have to present yourself in a non-threatening manner.

Its always in the back of your mind.

Its the same, in every black persons life, McCoy said. The way you carry yourself is always going to matter.

Smyth, who is white, is aware of that too, and its maddening to him.

Its crazy that when I talk to teammates on the phone, I have to remind them; be careful. Be safe, he said. It sucks. You shouldnt have to think about it.

More: Moore: Matt Correnti looks forward to wrestling final year at Rider

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Burlington Township coach Tom Maderia has created a Google classroom for his players, and recently he sent them a YouTube link, to The Huddle; a video made by Bill Curry, an NFL veteran and former college football coach. The gist of it is very simple, and it jibes with what Maderia has always taught.

It doesnt matter what color you are, what religion you are, or what your sexual preference is; when you get in that huddle, youre a band of brothers, Maderia said. I sent that out to them.

We dont have that issue. Where they have an issue is once they leave the locker room. On the field, everything is based on ability. When they leave white, black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, whatever they all have to fit into society.

But the larger society views them as white, black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and doesnt have that experience of brotherhood to draw on.

Everett Wormley, who played for Maderia at Burlington Township and now plays for Greg Schiano at Rutgers University, learned that first hand.

I got pulled over for a tail light and ended up getting my car searched, Wormley said. Growing up in this area, people knew who I was. I became a familiar face because of football, but I still have to face that issue. With some people, race is all they see.

Fortunately, Wormley wasnt nave to it.

My dad prepared me, he said. He told me about it growing up. In Burlington Township, we had a diverse community and up until I was a teenager, I didnt even see race. But I was blessed to have parents who were able to expose me to the truth of it. When I was 13- or 14-years old, we had conversations about it. Im glad I had elders to educate me.

Wormley spoke at a demonstration in Burlington Township last week and spoke to everyone about the need for action.

Its not enough to say youre not racist, Wormley said. You need to be anti-racist. I think all the others around us are starting to realize the every day problems that were exposed to.

It can be numbing. Wormley said when he saw news of Floyds death trending on social media, his first thought was another guy got killed, and he continued without watching the video.

But it turns out hes blessed again.

I went about my day until Coach Schiano called us, Wormley said. We had a team meeting to address the issue. The coach put out a statement that he wrote himself. A lot of coaches put statements out that looked like they were written by the PR department, but he wanted to put something out that was genuine.

The University produced a video that included several players, discussing their feelings about Floyds killing. Schianos face is the last in the video and he adds its time for us to come together and chop for change invoking the keep chopping that wood motto that the recently-rehired coach made famous in his first tenure at Rutgers.

I said I appreciate you coach, Wormley said. I already respected him as a coach, but now I give him my utmost respect.

Johnson would like to join him at the vanguard, in the time to come, and he hopes others will join; to assist with the healing and continue the dialogue.

Its on us, he said. 30, 40, 50-years old. We look at the older generation, and theyve done their fighting. They fought, they voted, they did their marches. Now we need to hold up our end and do what were supposed to do. Be active. Run for the school board. Be a counselor. Teach, if youre certified. Try to position yourself to help other societal injustice from happening.

Its on us now.

Read more here:
George Floyd killing heavy on the minds of local coaches, athletes - Courier Post

Noam Chomsky is one of the most highly respected intellectuals in the world.The New York Timessaid hes the most important thinker of our current era. One of the major things hes done is calling out and analyzing the different strategies of media control being used today in the world.

Noam Chomsky first got attention for his work as a linguist, but hes also a philosopher and political scientist.Hes also become a majorvoice in the world of political activism.People share his writing all over the globe, and hes always gaining new readers.

How it is we havesomuch information, butknow so little?

-Noam Chomsky-

Chomsky wrote an educational piece summarizing the strategies of media control.While his thoughts on it are deep and complex, he summed it up in simple, accessible terms with the aim of educating people.

According to Chomsky, the most common of all the strategies of media control is distraction.It basically involves shifting public attention to meaningless or irrelevant things. Thats how they keep our minds occupied.

They also overload people with information oremphasize sporting events, celebrities, and trivia. The aim is to make people lose sight of the real problems.

Sometimes the powers that be purposefully neglect, or at least dont really address, certain realities.They make their citizens think its a problem that needs an outside solution.And they themselves put forth the solution.

This is one strategy of media control used with unpopular decisions.For example, they might intentionally portray a public industry to be worse than it is because they want to privatize it. The idea is to justify selling it off.

The goal here is to get the public to allow things that they wouldnt normally accept. How?By introducing them very gradually so the people wont even notice.

For example, its what has happened with the reduction in workers rights.In some societies theyve implemented rules, or kinds of work, that make people eventually think its normal for a worker not to have any guarantees of social security.

This strategymakes citizens think that theyre taking steps that might be bad in the short-term,but could pay off for the whole society in the future. The ends justify the means.

The goal is for people to get used to the bad things and not reject them. How? To get them to think about how good it will be later on.When the time comes, the normalization effect has already done its job. The people dont protest not getting what they were promised.

A lot of televised messages, especially in advertisements,talk to people like theyre children.They use very strategic expressions, words, and attitudes topped with a halo of innocence.

The point is to get through peoples defenses.Its a form of media control that tries to kills peoples critical thinking abilities.Politicians use these tactics too, impersonating fatherly figures.

The puppet-masters dont want to activate peoples thoughtful sides.They want to stir up emotions and reach peoples unconscious.Thats why so many of these messages are full of emotional content.

The point is to cause a kind of short circuit in rational thinking processes.They use emotions to capture the overall meaning of the message, but not the specifics. This is another way they kill peoples critical thinking abilities.

Keeping people ignorant is one of the main goals of those in charge.Ignorance means not giving people the tools they need to analyze things themselves. It means telling them the interesting parts, but never revealing the behind-the-scenes of what goes on.

Keeping people ignorant also means taking the focus away from education. It results in a huge gap between the quality of private and public education.They put quiet peoples thirst for knowledge and make intelligence unimportant.

Most trends and fashions dont just come out of nowhere.There is almost always someone setting them in motion and promoting them. They do it to create homogenized tastes, interests, and opinions.

The media constantlypromotes certain fashions and trends. Most of them have to do with frivolous,unnecessary, even ridiculous lifestyles. They convince people that acting this way is just whats in style.

Another strategy of media control is making people think its them, and only them, to blame for their problems. Any bad thing that happens is entirely because of them. Thats how they get people to think their environment is perfect and if theres anything wrong its their own fault.

Thus, people end up trying to fit into their environment and then feel guilty for not pulling it off perfectly.They misplace all the anger the system causes, endlessly blaming themselves instead.

Over the last few decades, science has given us access to such knowledge about human biology and psychology.But this information still isnt available to most people.

Only a tiny bit of information ever reaches the public.Meanwhile the elites have all this information and use it as they please. Once again we can see how ignorance makes it easier for the powers that be to control society.

The goal of these strategies of media control is to make the world into whatever the most powerful people want it to be.They block everyones critical thinking abilities and freedom. But its our responsibility to stop passively letting them control us. We must put up as much of a fight as we can.

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10 Strategies of Media Control According to Noam Chomsky ...

President Trump wants to create a panel that would look into complaints of bias against conservatives on social media and other online platforms, The Wall Street Journal reported.

What authority the panel would have, and under what department it would be based were not clear. But the Journals sources said the plans may include establishing a White House-created commission that would work in conjunction with agencies like the Federal Elections Commission and Federal Communications Commission to examine bias and censorship online. A White House official told the WSJ that left wing bias in the tech world is a concern that definitely needs to be addressed.

Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly alleged anti-conservative bias on social media platforms, with some Congressional committees holding hearings last year to question officials from tech firms. The president has accused Twitter of playing political games, and Trump complained to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a White House meeting last April that he was losing followers on his most-used social platform.

Last May, the White House launched a tool for Americans to share their stories of suspected political bias with the president (as of this writing, the tool was no longer accepting new entries). That was followed in July by a social media summit with several conservative figures who complained that they were being censored online and subjected to shadow-banning.

A Twitter spokesperson said in an email to The Verge on Saturday that the company enforces the Twitter Rules impartially for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation, adding that it is in regular communication with elected officials in efforts to improve the platform.

Requests for comment to the White House, Facebook, and Google were not immediately returned Saturday morning.

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President Trump reportedly considering a panel to examine bias on social media - The Verge

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As coronavirus lockdowns enter their third month, social media giants are tightening censorship against people who protest lockdowns and raise evidence the virus may be less risky than initially thought.

YouTube has pulled videos from scientists and physicians, even those with top-tier credentials. Meanwhile, Facebook has blocked efforts to organize protests against lockdowns.

Facebooks stance is particularly problematic because as the largest social media network, it may gain from lockdowns, which force friends or community groups to rely on virtual gatherings instead of real-life meetings.

ALEX BERENSON: CORONAVIRUS TRUTH AND WHY THE MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT HATES ME SO MUCH

Investors certainly seem to believe the lockdowns have not hurt Facebook. Its stock rose 5 percent to an all-time high on Wednesday. Shares in Googles parent company, which also owns YouTube, also are near an all-time high.

Twitter, the third major social media company, is taking a more open and pro-free speech stance.Twitter allows debate about whether the societal risks of lockdowns might be worse than the dangers of coronavirus. (My own Twitter following @alexberenson has grown 15-fold since March, and Twitter does not appear to be censoring me.)

As private corporations, social media outlets are not bound by the First Amendment and can remove speech that violates their guidelines. However, given their reach and the growing political battle over lockdowns amid questions about their efficacy, their censorship actions leave them at risk of backlash.

Further, combined with the conventional medias reluctance to question lockdowns and the failure of predictive models from public health experts, social media censorship may actually backfire, leading many people to believe they cannot trust the media at all and encouraging them to consider outright conspiracy theories.

Facebook, which more than half of all Americans use, has repeatedly censored groups trying to organize anti-lockdown protests. Events that defy governments guidance on social distancing arent allowed on Facebook, a Facebook spokesman said on April 20.

Coronavirus censorship first became an issue when Susan Wojcicki, the chief executive of YouTube, told CNN on April 19 that YouTube would ban videos contradicting World Health Organization guidelines about coronavirus. Instead, YouTube had focused on the stay at home messages and would be raising authoritative information, Wojcicki said.

Of course, the WHO has repeatedly changed its own statements on coronavirus for example, tweeting that antibodies to coronavirus do not confer immunity to the virus, then hours later deleting that message and reporting antibodies likely provide some level of protection. Wojcicki didnt mention how YouTube might treat changes in WHO messaging.

On April 27, YouTube followed through on Wojcickis threats, removing video of a press conference from two California physicians. The physicians argued COVID fatality rates were lower than commonly reported and that forcing people to stay inside for prolonged periods of time might actually damage their immune systems.

At the time YouTube removed it, the press conference had been viewed more than 5 million times.

In a statement, YouTube said it censored content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing a stance that if repeated on other issues could lead YouTube to block content that disputes any government statement.

Since then, YouTubes censorship has continued. Less than a week ago, the site removed a video from Knut Wittkowski, the former head of epidemiology at Rockefeller Universitys Center for Clinical and Translational Science, criticizing lockdowns.

Wittkowskis video had been viewed about 1.5 million times before YouTube removed it.

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Meanwhile, Facebook, which more than half of all Americans use, has repeatedly censored groups trying to organize anti-lockdown protests. Events that defy governments guidance on social distancing arent allowed on Facebook, a Facebook spokesman said on April 20.

On May 13, Facebook took its most aggressive action yet, removing the 380,000-member group Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, one of the original anti-lockdown groups. It then quickly removed a replacement group called Stand Up Michigan.

Ironically, the censorship efforts may be backfiring, by leading people to conclude that they cannot trust media outlets to give them honest information about the coronavirus and driving them to conspiracy theorists such as Judy Mikovits whose short film Plandemic contains several bizarre theories, including that a flu vaccine may be responsible for the high death toll in Italy. Though YouTube and Facebook have removed Plandemic repeatedly, it has been viewed millions of times.

In contrast, Twitter is avoiding outright bans on content. We are trying to nuanced approach to this that recognizes there is a huge amount of emotion and vitriol and all sides of the issue, a Twitter executive wrote me last week. Were trying to make sure that factual debate finds a way through.

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Twitter prefers to label posts that it views as potentially problematic rather than remove them, he wrote. We think it (labeling) will allow the conversation to continue.

Unfortunately, YouTube and Facebook seem to prefer to stop the conversation.

This op-ed first appeared on the author's websitehttp://www.alexberenson.com/.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ALEX BERENSON

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Alex Berenson: Coronavirus crisis -- How Facebook and YouTube are trying to control information about COVID - Fox News