All of you dear, astonished, and stunned, believers in everything that emanates from the NYT, WAPO and the like, and then resonates ceaselessly in the insulated and undemanding echo-chambers of your voluminous Facebook pages, . . . you were lied-to. How could this have happened? You were so sure of your victory. You still have not woken from the shock.
Your preferred fountains of information fed you regurgitated deceptions — deceits of centrally controlled propaganda. Every bit of it was agitprop, carefully weaved to manipulate your minds. Each of your so-called friends kept you in-tune with the latest assaults on facts and reality, and you, in-turn, forwarded-on the latest linked discoveries making sure all your Facebook friends were in tune with your own notions, feelings, and invented truths. All of your friends were up-to-the minute aware. After all, your President wouldn’t lie to you, would he? Your NYT wouldn’t lie to you, would it? Your Facebook friends wouldn’t lie to you, would they?
You swallowed it whole. The migraine inducing slurs that had originated from the White House and from the Clinton machine became your reality. You lost all sense of who you were and are, as your new truth became a series of insults. “Racist, xenophobe, misogynist, homophobe, crazy, deplorable, uneducated, populist, or the world will end,” bounced off the walls of your sheltered and insulated psyches. They became battle cries. They became retorts in lieu of valid and pondered assertions. And NO ONE dared to cross you.
Your retaliations were so violent, insulting, and demeaning, that fear permeated anyone who felt differently, or refused to believe the lies. Facts did not matter. Your echo-chamber drowned out all disagreeable realities.
– It did not matter that 11.5% of your fellow citizens were unemployed.
– It did not matter that you were being manipulated by the too-big-to-fail banks and corporations.
– It did not matter that new billionaires were being minted each day while the incomes of your fellow citizens had been flat for over a generation.
– It did not matter what 1% in economic growth really meant.
– It did not matter that Clinton was singularly responsible for the disintegration of Libya which resulted in tens of millions of refugees.
– It did not matter that the lords of the new world order had manipulated interest rates and were tempering with international trade to their own selfish advantage, and worst of all, they did not believe in sovereign nations with borders.
– It did not matter that the media you loved so much was still in denial about Brexit.
– It did not matter that the two leaders of your party had consistently told you major lies — you knew it, but your echo-chamber said, “ignore it, but look at THIS shiny object over here.” And ignore it, you did.
You were mesmerized by feckless swindlers, who charmed you to step into a parade, cheering for a corrupt, defective system, falsely preaching inclusiveness. You believed in the promise that you might share in the entitlement. You and they, were so convinced of victory, that the evening of the election, your favourite media was already applauding a Trump-sendoff into a dark sunset, retiring to golf clubs and chintzy penthouses that would decrease in value because your preferred media had so effectively and irremediably destroyed his “Brand.” That would show him, that upstart.
Your best applause and Facebook reposts were for those denigrating, vilifying headlines, maligning Donald Trump viciously, and defaming him worse than any candidate in recent memory.
Today and for many tomorrows, instead of demonstrating against your newly elected President, you should demonstrate against those who lied to you. You should manifest outrage against your media which deceived you and misrepresented facts with zero balance in reporting and zero objectivity. You should voice outrage against a media and talking heads who predicted mayhem in the streets if Trump won.
When you do, question what your favored media has done TO you. Quit depending on them. Step outside your comfort zone. Most of you are reasonably well educated, do yourselves a favor and wake yourself from slumber by quitting Facebook, or whatever serves as your cocoon. Just because the NYT articles you stake your life on are written in a prose reminiscent of your college days, doesn’t NOT mean those articles aren’t filled with lies.
You were “had” by your very own favored and your Facebook echo-chamber re-enforced your deception. Yah, you were had.
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.