Month: January 2021

It starts with the truth. 

What we know.  What we think we know.  What we believe to be true.  What we believe to be untrue.  What our gut instinct tells us.  Truth can be an individual matter or a mass reasoning. 

Now to all that intellectual understanding necessary to determine the truth, add the terms misinformation and disinformation, both purposeful untruths, a manipulation of facts or a set of ‘alternative facts.’ 

Then play on human emotions—our knee-jerk reactions and unreasonable notions and inclinations based on how, when and where we were raised coupled with religious teachings and culture—and ta-da!  Today we have dozens of truths from which to choose … instead of just the one and only truth. 

The truth used to be called the news.  But even the mass media is suspect today, as it always has been centuries prior to the internet.  Just not so blatantly disbelieved, ignored, doubted and questioned by every kind of person as it is today.   

Where do we as U.S. citizens go for news each morning when we awake and at night before bed—that is the question. 

And that’s the way it was 

The news used to be unquestioned especially by Mr. and Mrs. America.  In the days of Walter Cronkite and Harry Reasoner and early network TV, old-school newspaper reporters were the logical hires to sit in front of a camera at 6 p.m. Eastern Time and recite the most important events of the day albeit succinctly.  The weathered face of newsmen, most who were involved in World War II, were as trusting as our fathers and honest in their reporting.  They got their facts straight.  The public had no reason to doubt the news.  

The proof was it was true. 

But after the Kennedy assassination, the turbulent 1960s, the Vietnam War, assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and another Kennedy, FBI investigations, then Watergate—most Americans grew up in a post-truth era.  We learned then to not trust our government and even the news whether network or local, big city or small town. 

Yet through the decades, the news has rarely been inaccurate. 

Why is that?  First, journalism is the search for truth.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  The worst thing that could happen to a news business is to publicize untruth.  There are laws, too, that news institutions must adhere, one being libel, the other slander.  And any false or misleading or even an accidental oversight of facts requires a retraction.  How many of those have we seen lately, in the past 20 or 30 years?  There are corrections, and even those are rare, but not retractions which must follow untruth printed or broadcasted in and by a news business. 

Fake news comes from the mix of entertainment with news.  Since the advent of the Worldwide Web, there are so many ‘news’ sources.  Some websites are the legitimate news business such as The News York Times, CNN and The Washington Post.  The majority of online news sources are not intended to be any more than entertainment.  They cannot be relied upon as providers of truth. 

The consumer must decide what so-called news source is providing truth from the many providing entertainment and therefore can play fast and loose with the facts—and if online are not penalized for libel or slander let alone lies and half-truths that can incite and enrage the public and as we clearly see can cause harm and murder.  

Will the real news please stand up? 

A real news business will be a member of the Associated Press.  The AP, which began in the 1840s by several newspapers, is a nonprofit organization.  A news organization’s membership in the AP means several things, the most important being: The media organization is first a serious provider of news and adheres to journalism integrity.  And if a news organization does not adhere to news integrity, it cannot be a member of the AP. 

Real news stories for print and broadcast will include the who, what, when, where, why, which and how.  Facts must be substantiated from at least three different sources, preferably more, but not just one source.  Those sources when human, as opposed to a document or report, must be verifiable.  Rumor and hearsay are not news.  A professional journalist will check the background of anyone providing information which will be used in a news report. 

So now we can see why so many consumers of news are essentially bored.  The news is news, usually reported the exact same way by cable, network, radio and print.   

When news presentations started mixing opinion and political or social angles, that’s when the public lost trust.  The news was supposed to be just the facts.  Newspapers carried opinion from columnists to editorial boards and letters to the editor.  The ‘full package’ or full spectrum of covering and presenting the news from all angles was a tradition in a newspaper.  But broadcast news, especially radio, had more time to fill.  And cable news had practically 23 hours to do something.  Cable news’ national beat reporters were brought in to talk about the news and maybe dish.  In the public’s mind, the career of journalist morphed into a celebrity role. 

And Americans love celebrities, trust ’em as good for their word. 

Our press is free, which means the government does not control the news.  But freedom of the press never meant the news could be untrue, half-true or exaggerated.  No, the daily news when presented accurately is just the simple facts.  That can be quite boring for today’s Americans so in need of escaping mundane lives—or a misperceived pointless existence. 

With all that has gone wrong in online media, Americans must avoid the glitz and wowness of news-as-entertainment.  Anyone who cares about the truth in news must first seek and ensure news organizations that are bona fide, the ones that do not play fast and loose with the facts but instead verify information and substantiate sources and facts.  The truth has always been out there. 

Child of Satan, Child of God is the self-titled auto biography of Susan Atkins, AKA Sadie Mae Glutz, infamous member of the Manson Family.  From a California women’s prison in the 1970s where she would spend the rest of her life for the Tate-La Bianca murders, she tells her story of growing up middle class post WWII in a suburb.  Her father was the bread winner.  She had siblings.  But her mother was terminally ill, dying when Susan was a teen-ager.  Her father took to drinking to numb his sorrow.  He wasn’t interested in being a strong loving father and guiding his offspring through a difficult and unfair situation.  Her family disintegrated.

Susan left home early to become a secretary, experimented with drugs, worked as a stripper—a dancing job she enjoyed as the center of attention.  In the late 1960s, she met Charlie one day at a hippie party.  He was playing a mesmerizing folk-jazz guitar and singing his soft version of a beautiful pop ballad of the day.  Susan was enthralled, allowing herself to become seduced by this man, a decade older and a dangerous manipulative ex-con.  She didn’t see that or even think of it, being barely out of high school.  With groovy clothes, long hair, beard and moustache, he made a solid impression on Susan—and the looks and talent turned out to work on numerous girls the same age with similar back stories of uptight middle-class boredom and ’60s rebellion.  Charlie was cool when parents were not.  He got it.  He had all the answers. He spoke the language of youth.  In prison he had studied the Beatles, Eastern religion and mysticism, and the Dale Carnegie program of winning friends and influencing people.

Timing more than anything else brought Manson and the flower children together.  Living with Manson meant lots of LSD trips.  Drugs were more important than sustenance.  Sex also was part of the deal.  This was a commune that would not tolerate squares.  But like all cults, the Manson Family had their charismatic leader, succumbed to total mind control, cut ties to family and former friends, literally had no money, and eventually lost track of time as was the intention by Manson who controlled the kids like puppets on a string.  He broke down their will.  They allowed him to break down their will.  And like so many modern American cults, death and murder would be the ultimate sacrifice and offering to show total allegiance to Manson—no questions asked.

Society in the early 1970s got a daily televised dose of the girls on trial for murder and how they acted when arriving to court and even in the court room.  They laughed, sang songs, did whatever Charlie wanted.  They stood up one day and in unison proclaimed: “The judge is the lady.”  When Charlie shaved his head and burnt an X on his forehead, so did the girls and all his followers outside the courthouse.  Toward the end of the trial, as Charlie spoke in his defense about how he took in the kids nobody wanted (?), fed ’em (he taught them to steal and dumpster dive for food), he outstretched his arms as in the manner of Christ on the cross.  The girls wept and cried and then went into hysterics shouting devotions of everlasting love to Charlie. 

In her book, Susan pins the Tate murders on Tex Watson and doesn’t go into detail about her antics during the trial.  However, sober and mature, she wondered why no one saw how sick they were.  They were young people fed a steady diet of mind-altering drugs with little food, no vitamins, pale, thin, VD infected … Instead, society took them for the glaring angry counterculture image the Manson Family portrayed and judged them harshly.

The Family did commit murder—the most gruesome senseless brutal butchery in Hollywood history.  The beautiful young actress Sharon Tate was eight months pregnant.  What they did was unspeakable—unthinkable, until the Manson Family brought the scenario into our minds.  They scared everybody to death.

Susan looked back at her wasted youth and wondered why no adults came to their aid or noticed these were sick kids, mentally and physically and spiritually.  In prison Susan takes the teachings of Christ to heart and becomes Born Again.

If it looks like a cult and acts like a cult

What is it about Americans and cults?  We’re both fascinated and repulsed by them: the idea of a single man controlling a number of people, usually idealistic youth.  We all know the game: the charismatic man claims to have an ‘in’ with God or the ‘Truth’ which includes an end time or end game of sorts when the world will see the cult leader is right and everyone else foolishly ignorant and damned, more and more people start listening to his long-winded yet seemingly passionate speeches, donate to his cause, start hanging out with followers while dropping former friends and family unless they all get involved as well.

And always, always, cults end in death and murder.  Jim Jones portrayed all of the characteristics of cult leader right down to the trademark shades to hide constant drug abuse necessary to stay ‘on’ all the time.  When the world was closing in on breaking up his family of 900+ in Jonestown, he directed a shocking mass suicide, something followers had rehearsed often and certainly expected.  Finally it was for real.

Cults are such a fascination in this country that there are TV series dedicated to the subject, profiling the leader and surviving followers, all the juicy sexy goings on, brutality in ‘other’ thought or action, and then murder.  The difference in cults today is they are even easier to get into with the internet and most recently the economic downturn and human isolation.

Do you know that the rest of the world, countries much older and having survived centuries of wars, think Americans are the eternal optimists?  America is about moving forward.  It’s about living in the future not the past.  It’s about making something of yourself.  It’s rarely about hanging onto a proud thousand-year history that binds us together.  That is because half of Americans are relatively newcomers, have no family heritage in this land dating back to the 17^th century.

Cults provide a deep bond with a leader who ‘gets through’ to people whether a large or small group.  Manson knew how to manipulate his followers and picked the few who would kill for him.  After all, he was the only one who had an axe to grind with Terry Melcher, the record producer who snubbed Manson’s rock star dreams and who owned the house where the Tate murders occurred.

The DC Capitol mob attack was bound to happen.  Like the Manson Family and the People’s Temple, timing brought all the elements together for a cult who would be groomed to murder for their leader.  Tens of thousands of Americans today have allowed themselves to replace religion with politics.  Along with the towering popularity of Fox News and their brand of fast & loose journalism and a slogan that boasted “you decide,” we’ve become a splintered society even more so with a plethora of alternative news internet sites promoting a revolution (another Manson/Jones/Trump spiel) and then there’s QAnon created by God only knows.  [My guess is the Russians.]  For thousands of disenfranchised, distrusting, disillusioned Americans, all the alt-right conspiracy theories just make sense.  Please read the attached link below on the political cult that has definitely evolved in 21st century America.  Susan Atkins was right: Cult members are sick.  And society must intervene somehow some way … because cults always think alike and culminate in disaster.            

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-evolving/202011/can-trumps-followers-be-called-cult

Don’t get me wrong.  I am excited about the prospect of Joe Biden serving as the next U.S. President, and even more so for Kamala Harris as our first woman VP.  But … since the DC Trumper mob, I was thinking maybe if the greatest position in the land, formerly called the Leader of the Free World, was replaced or retooled, some of the anger would die down.

Anybody?  Thoughts?

Seemed worth pondering considering Trumpers have shown themselves as killers and cultists.  Their insurrection drew thousands of Americans who selfied their way into the U.S. Capitol and, violating police orders, absolutely took over.  Didn’t look like they had any plans to seriously declare themselves the New America.  By their own videos, they mostly roamed around, having no idea where to go to ‘stop the steal.’  Looked like the only real plan they had was to hang U.S. legislators, VP Pence and especially their favorite punching bag Speaker Pelosi. 

Look, it seemed after four exhausting years of chaotic Trumpian rule, whereby we didn’t have a President no how, and if his devotees are willing to kill to keep him in office—well, the U.S. Presidency no longer serves a useful purpose.  Trump did everything in his ‘power’ to destroy democracy.  Our country was not made great or better but has ended up bad and worse, the worst we’ve been in our lifetime.  One of the first things Biden will have to do is repair our nation’s image and standing in the world, leading us out of the pandemic in which we all find ourselves suffering through so very slowly, hardly reassured by our leader.

And with all those Trumpers ensuring Biden won’t be inaugurated President, plus their sexist-racist hatred toward Kamala Harris ever gaining the title, seems like maybe we should think along the same lines as baby Trump, no doubt holding his breath and fuming: “If I can’t be President, no one will!”

Grow up

Guess it would take an act of Congress to change the Constitution and do away with the Executive branch—or maybe tweak it a bit to be held collectively by the longest serving senators and representatives, perhaps five or nine.  That might rearrange the Speaker, majority and minority leaders.  Not sure how the whip would fit in.

After ransacking the Capitol, one Trumper said pitifully, “Guess we could form a new government now.”  They realized there’d be no hangings and were bored at the thought of reading mounds of bureaucratic paperwork.  It does take a special person to perform the duties of a U.S. legislator, someone who doesn’t mind reading thick legislation for comprehension.

This kind of stupid attempt at violently overthrowing the government, just to re-install a preferred leader, is why our nation’s Framers debated allowing every American the right to vote.  In that era, many of the Constitutional Framers believed only the educated deserved, and fully understood, the ramifications of such a sobering privilege.  But the debate ended with the Framers allowing all men the right to vote and in so doing determine our country’s fate and future.  Our world’s young democratic government of the United States of America has had a mighty good run.  Looks like modern Americans cannot even make it last 250 years.

Trumpers are made up of a wide array of miserable snots.  There are the white supremacists and meth gangs, alt right media consumers, Q-anons, self-proclaimed conservative Christians, anti-immigrants, anti-government, anti-authority, anti-taxes, racists, bigots, anti-Semites, anti-education, anti-media, anti-Hollywood, anti-abortion, anti-civil rights, Fox-only viewers, internet addicts.  And some, I assume, are good Republicans.  They all have one thing in common: Everyone should believe just exactly like they do.  Wonder when a group this enormous—half the country—will ever realize they don’t agree among themselves?  In fact, each sect probably hates the others.

Yet they allowed themselves to see a ‘leader’ in Donald Trump just because he talked tough, bullied Republican contenders for President, announced himself a Nationalist (white supremacist), merchandized his name all over the world, said he was a very wealthy man, plus had his own major network TV show and was a show biz celebrity.

The largest chunk of Trumpers reside far outside of cities and major metropolitan areas.  The right-wing orchestrated misinformation and disinformation against the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election was more about America’s small town-big city residential divide.  No doubt folks in rural communities talked to everyone around about who they voted for.  And since everyone they knew said “Why, Trump, of course!” that was it.  The election was stolen.  Trump had to have won.  There just ain’t no other way when you see all the pro-Trump counties in red across the U.S. map.  Look at it!

Simmer down, here now.  There is a way Trump did not win.  Comparing America’s major city populations to all the mid-size, small town and rural communities across the country is like comparing … a billion dollars in debt to a trillion dollars in debt.  The latter rivals the number of stars in the sky.  The vote showed Biden won only by seven million.  It was a very tight contest between Republicans and Democrats.  And we don’t have to remind Republicans how the Presidential winner is the one with the most Electoral College votes, just like their wins in 2016 and in 2000, neither a landslide.

America’s divide is much more than Trump and his lies about election fraud and childish inability to concede the election.  Americans are not going to agree on religion, politics, abortion, race, immigration, taxes, the news media and even social media.  We NEVER have come together on these issues.  But Trumpers believed he won so intently they’d storm the U.S. Capitol and search to kill.  Participants committed serious federal crimes with long prison sentences if convicted.

Being American, as I understood it, is to be a little skeptical—not a downright mean cynical pessimistic hard-headed irrational spoiled brat.  Americans should question our government, never blindly believe anything or anyone who is elected to lead our government.  What happened to my America?  Half the nation believes in Trumpism and a convoluted rigged U.S. Presidential election.

Perhaps 21^st century Americans don’t deserve a President anymore.  Trump was the first one who was more arrogant than humbled, more reckless than responsible, indifferent than caring, unfeeling than empathetic, unkind than kind.  He prefers Louis XIV furniture to low-key American.  My point is Trump was never a United States President to begin with.  He ruled like a king.  He never cared to understand the purpose of the modern American Presidency.  Along with his die-hard supporters, perhaps most Americans by now have forgotten the necessary purpose of calm, rational, intelligent wise leadership.

A drive along the backroads of rural Oklahoma and northeast Texas came to mind when watching the insurrection last week.  Planted throughout the landscape were enormous Trump banners and flags boldly waving in the wind.  The election has been over for a few months.  Even so, whether country estate or wood-frame home along the highway, properties maintained 2020 presidential banners and flags, each as large as a van.  These were the same super-sized Trump flags, some with his smiling face, carried by legions of enraged supporters mad as hell about the election and willing to storm our nation’s Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the election won by Joe Biden.  The mob carried a variety of Trump political ad flags, some proclaiming “Trump Nation,” these alongside the Old South’s Confederate Stars & Bars, and a smattering of U.S. flags.

Thousands who showed up to Washington, D.C., midweek represent half the country.  Like all those elected officials diving under their desks then snatched by police to avoid being dragged to the gallows set up with a noose on the front lawn, I was frightened by the murderous intent to overthrow the government.  We who are not like them should be.

This is what democracy looks like

American ignorance has contributed to our current state of fuming division, that and a fat-mouth know-nothing lying braggart.  The 2020 presidential election was not stolen.  Trump did not win; he did not win by a landslide.  Biden won.  What makes me so sure?  The only reason I understand and therefore have faith in American elections is from covering them as a government reporter.  What I learned while doing the job was elections are local.  They are locally controlled, from city to county, state and federal.  On election night I always had a seat in the county clerk’s office.  Alongside me in the office, where votes eventually come in, were both chairs of the county’s Republican and Democrat Parties.  They were there eyeing the process and results for the very reason Trumpers revolted: to ensure no funny business and that their guy or gal wins or loses fair and square.  Across the nation, there must be thousands of party chairs who oversee every county, state and federal election but especially presidential ones and more than ever this last one. 

Typically older Americans operate the polls, and in large cities perhaps there are more minorities than white people are used to seeing in rural areas and small towns.  They are paid a little bit for what they do, often working late into the evening election night.  When the ballot boxes, locked and made of steel back in the day, are brought into the county clerk’s office, the staff checks and verifies figures.  In all good time, winning candidates are announced.

With the evolution to computer voting machines, still it is the job of our nation’s county clerks—all locally elected officials—to validate the vote tallies, check for inaccuracies, ensure accuracy, and announce winners.  Because of the pandemic, before the election many communities and states quickly switched to mail-in ballots to prevent long lines and avoid health risks.  Nothing suspicious in the sudden move to do so, just an arrangement county clerks and all the other local officials assumed the public would understand, support and appreciate.

Fake news

Along with America’s near total ignorance about our own election process, there is the multiverse of news sources, with little distinction between news and views, what is called the mainstream media and what used to be called the alternative media.  There is no secret about the animosity between CNN/ MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC and Fox News.  The palpable rivalry is not just about Fox News’ viewer figures that far outrank competitors but really for serious journalists with integrity the way Fox News plays fast and loose with the facts.  That said, throughout Trump’s presidency, national TV news reporters clearly opined negatively about him.  Verbally Trump and the mainstream national media constantly punched each other in the face.  But the same thing went on during Obama’s two terms as President when every action he took was scrutinized by Fox News and Republican guests like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and even conservative Christian leaders.

Americans were left in the middle—to think for ourselves.  We had to decide what we wanted to watch, which reporters we agreed with, and where we wanted to get our news and hope for the facts. The most loyal viewers of Fox News have been adamant fans of President Trump.  And vice versa for non-Trumpers who stuck with MSM.  The same American divide continued with online mainstream news sources, many often rebuked by Trump either by name or lumped together as “fake news.”    

But social media was and remains far and away from the old timey 20^th century news format of network and cable TV.  Throughout the Trump presidency, the heads of Twitter and Facebook maintained every time Trump told an outlandish lie on social media, he had a constitutional right to free speech.  Irresponsible speech is what caused last week’s deadly insurrection.  For weeks social media posts from Trump and his supporters bragged of a planned violent attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 to stop the U.S. Congress from certifying the 2020 Presidential election.  That day thousands of Americans—egged on by Trump, donning black leather gloves and wool coat—arrived in Washington, D.C., intent on stringing up elected officials as traitors.  Their mission was to ‘take back our country!’—like all of us wanted Trump to continue as President.  Like none of us is capable of thinking for ourselves.

Imagine their dream for our country: life in a Republican regime.  No free speech.  No free thought.  Keep your mouth shut and maybe stay out of prison or a concentration camp.  That’s how citizens live in Russia, China, North Korea, now Hong Kong, some African nations, the Middle East and our neighboring banana republics.  But as we live and breathe this moment, not yet in the U.S.

Epiphany

Exactly what do Trumpers want?  Trump to be President four more years?  Empowerment?  Money?  Tax evasion?  Democrats dead?  No more immigrants?  No more American cities burned and looted?  What are they so mad about that their lives are so awful?  Are they starving, living on the streets, dying, unemployed, falsely imprisoned?  No, from the looks of them at the capitol, they are typically healthy white Americans with good jobs, clothes, cars, money, security and guns.  One rioter yelled at a reporter who asked the cause for violence at the capitol: “You drove me to this!!!!”

No, Trumpers, in their hopped-up fake media-induced need to be cynical, argumentative, overbearing, suspicious, intimidating and violent, chose to believe lies about a rigged American presidential election plus assorted convoluted conspiracy theories.  It is enough to drive a person insane.

Democracy needs two things—besides intelligent citizens—to keep it going: calm rational thought and the truth.  Trump was none of that.  Same for his fans.

The epiphany is Trumpers are a cult.  They believe like a cult.  Now they act like a cult, ready to ‘blow up the system’ as ordered by their leader.  For people like me who want and need to live in reality, truth matters.  Truth is worth dying for, not fakery and phony balogny Trump or any elected official.  We both have something in common, the Trumpers and the rest of us: We understand democracy is an ideal.  Ideals are worth fighting for but not lies, and believing the election was rigged and stolen from Trump, of all people, is a big fat lie.