[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 10 (Thursday, January 16, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   DISINFORMATION IS THE BIG MAMA OF ALL WEAPONS TARGETING OUR NATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, our Nation has gone through quite a 
tumultuous first 15 days of 2020. We marched right up to the brink of 
war after President Donald Trump authorized the assassination of 
Iranian General Soleimani. And even though the Iranians did launch a 
measured attack, it is like the argument that the husband believed he 
won with his wife. It ain't over yet.
  Long before the current crisis with Iran, our peerless intelligence 
agencies began warning us of robust cyberattacks from Russia, China, 
North Korea, and, of course, Iran. These nations are all hell-bent on 
doing damage to us and using bots, an online method of passing 
disinformation to unsuspecting Americans, with the ultimate goal of 
turning unsuspecting Americans against each other.
  If we do that, we are repeating or allowing the repetition of what 
the Russians did in 2016, which is to again meddle in our upcoming 
quadrennial election.
  Now, for me, it is difficult to blame our enemies for seeking to 
exploit the weaknesses in our society, because it is so crystal clear 
to me that we are doing to ourselves what our enemies have been unable 
to do in the last 150 years.
  Our current extreme political partisanship and reliance on social 
media--which is, by the way, littered with disinformation--but with 
that, we have allowed a well to be dug into the soul of American 
democracy. Our Nation is wounded and it is a wound that our enemies 
will seek to further infect.
  Sadly, I must give some frightening news to our Nation. This, I 
guess, is a matter of national security information. Russia has 
designed and advanced the most menacing, yet non-nuclear weapons on 
Earth. Every American should know that the blast from this bomb can do 
greater damage to our Nation than the combined marching armies of 
Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to my fellow Americans: We are now threatened by 
the big mama of all weapons. It is called disinformation and the 
delivery system is called Facebook and other forms of social media.
  In many ways, Congress has been complicit in this tribalistic way in 
which we conduct business in our Nation. We have opened wide the door 
to a brazen alien incursion into our elections. Some Members of this 
august body are actually pushing disinformation into the delivery 
system.

  In days gone by, kings and lords built their fortresses around deep 
wells to provide cool and clear water for those who lived inside the 
garrison. Strategically, these wells were inside the walls of forts so 
that at a time of an attack from the enemy, the water supply could 
never be blocked so that the lifesaving water, in a time of war, would 
be controlled by those inside the fort. Therefore, the inhabitants 
would not be at the mercy of invaders.
  Here is the point: If our great Republic could be led by our leaders 
into the babbling, cool waters of internal oneness and toleration, we 
will not be victims of the kind of vicious misinformation that has been 
flowing across this Nation now for a number of years. We would not be 
vulnerable to the whims of those who wish to do us harm.
  Mr. Speaker, I close with an ominous note: Most of the great empires 
throughout the history of the world fell into decline not because of 
some new military juggernaut, but because of internal fighting and the 
failure to appreciate the amazing ethnic and racial mosaic that is 
uniquely ours as Americans.
  Will that happen to us? Let me just say that we can only be saved by 
the well water of civility and decency inside our Nation. We control 
what is inside our Nation. What we need most is inside our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that we please accept and remember and meditate on 
this: Under the right conditions, even the most inspirational democracy 
in the history of the world can wane.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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