Disclaimer: I don't know what the truth is.
However, I feel like I know what the truth is. I trust my instincts. I trust the sense of right and wrong that was taught to me during my childhood years. It may have been a protective type of fairy tale truth but it is a truth that actually should be the truth.
There is a purity in truth. Truth is like clear, clean, crisp, fresh water. It washes away the dirt of life and renews the body and the soul. This is the symbolism that really defines baptism and holy water. The truth cleanses the soul even if it is often difficult to face. Nothing gets better until the truth is told.
If truth is so valuable why is it so hard to know and find in today's world?
There are several forces at work in the world today that act against the true value of truth. These are: Power: Greed: Influence: Shame: Last but not least Pure Evil. Add to those very subversive influences is the desire for common people to find significance for themselves in following a masquerade of facts which are designed to inject adrenaline into these ordinary lives and you get a volatile cocktail of brainwashing and passion brewing. The winner in the age of misinformation is no longer the majority but rather an impassioned minority that becomes so seduced by this adrenaline based drug to follow insanity willingingly and passionately. This is an inherintly dangerous situation.
Since the 1980s I have been wondering what has been the driving force behind the brainwashing that has been going on in America. I have wondered how it is possible for a gossiping lie monger like Rush Limbaugh could actually thrive and exist in a country where the truth has long been valued. Now after these 40 years of this constant drip of misinformation we have a situation in America and certainly around the world where conspiracy theories are no longer seen as weirdo fairytales but are followed like a pseudo religion by an alarminly growing minority of people who willingly, desperately, and ravenously consume the wildest conspiracy ideas that one could possibly conjure.
The rise of Fox News has powered this alarming trend and it has shaped the way news is delivered in the United States. What was once seen as responsible journalism aka Walter Cronkite and responsible reporting in detail through excellent journalism has long since been replaced with the eye candy of USA Today and Fox News model delivered sensationalism. Even responsible journalism has had to use the same attention getting tactics in order to compete for air time and publishing power. People are all too willing to cheapen their minds by consuming the luring images of color and sex delivered "entertainment news."
I have been reading, well listening to, Prince Harry's book "Spare". Much of the book is really about the tabloid press in Great Britain and the misinformation it pours into people's minds which is obviously untrue and that they don't care how much damage it does. The book shows how such meaningless drivel can destroy lives and intimidate the powerful. Chaos and confusion is the goal of this type of 'journalism' and the result is that it creates an adrenaline rush because it makes people react to its stimulus like a drug. They can't get enough of it and the need for it just grows and grows. What it has proven about society is that loves to admire 'celebrities and famous people' not quite as much as it loves to hate them.
"Mickey and Minney Mouse are a dream couple." But, did you hear that Minney has been seen running around with Donald Duck. Fantasyland is aghast!" The misinformation media only builds up people so it can tear them down, no, burn them down, all for the purpose of money.
This is a tip of the iceberg. Today, politicians and movements are adopting this style of intrigue to get power by seducing the masses with their fear mongering techiniques. The ground has been plowed, the seeds have been planted, and now it is just a matter of adding fertilizer and cultivating the misinformation to continue to turn people into addicts. Now they will follow and believe anything you tell them. They not only have been brainwashed, but trained to believe in something that doesn't even actually exist.
I don't know the long list of people who have influenced this widespread destruction but there are several names that come to mind. Murdoch is probably one of the big names that comes to mind. The media mogul who owns Fox News and also now owns The Wall Street Journal has possibly done more to pervert news than any other factor and the why is all about money, and power. No care is given to the truth and the only merit a story has is the ability to turn them into money makers. The long slow drip of misinformation has hypnotized a large portion of the American population into adopting a world view that is both alarming and disturbing. Even the most intelligent and discerning people have fallen victim to this perversion and they don't even know it.
If you tell a lie long enough, beautifully enough, and with no sign of remorse, then people will come to believe it and want more of it, they will become addicted to it, and then they will do the bidding of anyone who is willing to use them for their own profit.
There are other things that are destructive about these tactics and that is the fact that real issues neither get reported nor are they given any depth. The only depth given to issues is to find more reasons to support the lies, with more altered logic than any child could ever dream up to hold up their misbehavior. So, not only are only the topics created that mean actually nothing, but then it is used to manipulate people to believing in false facts about them.
The things that don't matter get supported by ridiculous misinformation designed to dominate the newsdays and off we go into the Wild Wild West of truth, where there is no control or order at all. We have chaos.
To me the news, just as the Supreme Court, should not be politicized or opinionated in one direction or the other. The institutions should be unallied with any doctrine, but rather only interested in truth, no matter what that truth is, and not based on any ideology at all. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Maybe it never was. But, I grew up thinking Justice is Blind, and that the news was unopionated. Boy, is that NOT the case today.
So, what is the danger in all of this? For Americans? For the world?
The danger is that people lose the ability to discern between truth and untruth. We lose our vital gut senses. We allow our thinking to be taken over by those who could care less about things like democracy, or want to protect the idea of Freedom of Speech, and have no compunction about libel and slander.
Good people are reluctant to go into the public eye now because if they do get any kind of notoriety their lives will be destroyed by the misinformation machine. They are afraid that their insignificant life mistakes will be blown way out of proportion and the people around them will be hurt. Prince Harry had to take his family and leave his country because of it.
What can we do about it?
Stop watching these outlets. Don't fall into the trap of disinformation on Social Media. The only way to kill it is to starve it. To be honest, I don't even know where to go these days for reliable information. It is all done in such a sensationalist way.
I'm not at all optimistic about the future. However, I believe that at some point people will slowly snap out of this hypnotic trance somehow and realize that they have been lied to for years and have been trained to accept anything the outlet says.
The good news is, that maybe, just maybe, all of this will at some point have the effect of people becoming allergic to the same things that has addicted them to it for so long.