The Lies They Tell
On the American Election, Politicians and our Notorious Media Machine
Let’s remember ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ for a minute. In the fable a bored child cries ‘wolf’! as a prank. The concerned villagers run to save him, to find there is no wolf. After a few times of this ‘entertainment’ being offered, the villagers no longer respond to the boy’s games. So when an actual wolf emerges, the boy cries ‘wolf’ again, no one shows up and he gets eaten. ‘Truth will out’ as it were, or rather ‘lies will devour you ultimately’. It’s a classic story because it’s a classic problem, for humans. Sadly these ancient tales are no longer standard for children’s literature and more the shame, as they contain vital clues for personal and societal sustenance.
Lying is bad as it’s built on vapour, and a vapour that must be maintained for it to sustain itself. There is no security in it. Which is why so many of our current legal frames are nonsensical and creating more trouble than they are worth. The most obvious of course is laws related to ‘trans identities’. The very basis of this 'legal protection’ is that a person’s ‘pretend’ identity is held up as real. This is a terrible law. It’s more akin to a statement of faith, as there can be no concrete basis for its framework. I have previously written as to where this lie can lead to more problems as in the case of the ‘Trans Nursery Teacher’.
Yet this is the problem with the whole pantheon of identity politics and law making. It creates a strange value class around things that -in and of themselves- have no value. Gay, Straight, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Scottish, British, American, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, White, Black, brown-eyed, blue-eyed, left handed, garbage collector, tax collector, doctor, lawyer, joiner, student, teacher, Tory, Democrat, ad infinitum… none of these has value in and of themselves. There is no INTRINSIC value in any of these descriptors.
Yet we are being groomed to think as such. Step inside any school and you will see the divisive policies of Neo-racism held as fact wherein ‘white’ are distrusted and ‘black’ are told they are oppressed.
You will be told that ‘trans identities’ at the most special. And that one should ‘celebrate’ disability. I mean the whole thing is bonkers.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…’
Truth should be one of the most basic tenets of our living. Even Moses understood that. I mean after all #9 of those gosh darn commandments was….wait for it… Thou shalt not lie.
Yet here we are living in a world where lying seems to be the de facto position. No where is that more evident then in the current election cycle which comes to a close tomorrow… The levels of hyperbole, exaggeration and outright lying are no more evident then in the case of the media reporting of Donald Trump. Regardless of whether you want to vote for him or not, I would *hope* you’d want the media class to at least be honest.
Yet this past week saw just opposite. Donald Trump was interviewed by Tucker Carlson in which they spoke of American foreign policy. Trump relayed that the Cheney family were war hawks (this is no secret, Dick Cheney made buckets of cash off of the Iraq war) and that ‘perhaps if Liz Cheney (Dick’s daughter) had the barrel of the gun pointed at her, she would make different decisions’. This was in no way a threat, but once would have been considered a pretty standard left wing argument. Too often policies are made by people who will never face the consequences of their actions. Liz Cheney will never face the direct threat of armed combat, her family does, on the other hand profit from the death of many many young men.
And yet this was not how the story was reported.
I would like to say this is a one off, but I have to say how shocked I have been by the level of unhinged behaviour in this election cycle. We should ALL be concerned about this, regardless of where we sit of the political aisle. And yet it doesn’t surprise me anymore - the utter shamelessness of our ‘traditional’ media in ramping up hyperbole and obfuscating truth has become a feature not a bug. As
points out in his post this seems an election based more on feeling than thinking. And yet whilst the weaponising of emotion may get clicks, it is not, ultimately what is going to improve things for people.And so, understandably people are are resorting to ‘alternative sources’ for information. Do the media and our politicians understand this is their ‘cry wolf’ moment? That this will only spell their destruction? Is this deliberate? Will it become so much so that we cannot trust our media, our politicians, our schools so that when the actual wolf comes through the door we will ALL get eaten up, metaphorically or actually?
And there is the relentless process of dehumanising people who support Trump calling them ‘deplorables’ and ‘garbage’. I am starting to think we are a far less ‘inclusive’ society then we’d like to believe but it’s not along racial or sexuality lines but that old chestnut…. class.
Like the Labour Party here the Democrats have forgotten they are there to represent the electorate rather seeing themselves as saviours of the unwashed, the unenlightened, the unworthy. They are more concerned with pronouns than productivity, with Palestine than Pollok. And if the Democrats and the Labour Party create a vacuum ‘the ordinary’ person cannot hook into what do they expect?
As if on cue two days ago, Kemi Badenoch, born in Nigeria, a first generation immigrant, has been elected at the leader of the Conservative Party. Rather then celebrate her achievement - which she has worked very hard to achieve- her fellow MP Dawn Butler calls her ‘the black face of white supremacy’. She does not interrogate her policies, her productivity, her ideas nor challenge her democratically rather fall for playground bullying tactics.
What a woeful state of affairs for us all. But how predictable it’s become. I can only hope more people wake to their collective responsibility to speak truth. Or as they say, the wolf will be at your door soon enough.
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