Truth or What?

I’m puzzled by how gullible Americans have become.  That is, the seemingly complete acceptance of the emotional manipulations being used on us every single day.  I know I’m not alone.  I’ve heard from many of my friends.  They see the same thing; people buying the political theatre as though it is real.  Some of my friends, the smarter ones, have just stopped watching and listening.

We’re arrived at a time when simple-minded sloganeering has replaced thoughtful analysis.  I’ve heard it called “bumper sticker” politics.  This trend has produced slogans like, “take our country back” and “change you can believe in”.  Although these slogans can be easily remembered, they have no particular meaning.  The only thing that does is a constructive idea – a thoughtful answer to a persistent problem – a workable solution that meets everyone’s needs.  These seem to be as scarce as our slogans are prolific.

So why do they persist, particularly at election time?  There are several reasons.  The first being, that us ordinary folks are confused by the purposeful chaos that politicians call campaigning.  We are bombarded with such emotional arguments that we can’t see the issues clearly.  We just don’t know enough about how our economic and government systems work.  We are so busy trying to solve our own problems that we don’t have time to think about all the other reasons.   

We can’t connect the actions of our politicians to the reality of our daily lives.  We don’t know what causes what.  And because of that we are very open to any argument that arouses our emotions.

Here’s the most despicable aspect to this problem; we have certain people who are profiting from the destruction of a rational American discourse.  These are the people who made outrageous claims about this or that politician without regard for the facts.  They assume, that we, the public, won’t have the means, mechanisms or the time to check them out.  They know that they can create great emotional waves of support or resistance by telling half-truths.  They deal in innuendo.  And by doing so create connections that don’t exist. 

One of the more egregious perpetrators is Fox News.  I watched a segment where a panel of Fox personalities accused the “Manhattan Imam” of taking money from the Kingdom foundation, a Mideast organization; and of course being one, it is to be treated with suspicion.  They used innuendo to create implied connections to terrorism. 

What they didn’t tell the public was that the alleged funding organization that makes the “Manhattan Mosque” a suspicious entity is chaired by the second largest stockholder of Fox News.  And that this person of suspicion is, His Royal Highness Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.  I’m not drawing any conclusions about this man.  I’m not drawing any conclusions about the Manhattan mosque.  I am saying that Fox News hid the fact that the person behind the alleged, terrorist-tinged Kingdom Foundation owns the second largest share of their company while misleading people to believe that this organization was one to be suspected.

To me, misleading by innuendo is a dishonest thing for anyone to do.  But when the largest and “most trusted news” source does it, they are purposely exploiting the public’s gullibility.

This is what the American narrative has become and it’s very sad indeed.  It is full of accusations of “guilt by association”.  How can we ever solve our current problems if we are constantly mislead by people who should have the public’s trust.  How can we elect effective government when you can’t believe anything the candidate or the press says? 

Are the days of an even-handed press and a dedicated public servant gone forever?  Well, that’s up to us.  Do we want those things or do we want feel better by insisting that they keep telling us what we already believe?  You decide.

Robert DeFilippis