On November 7, 2016 Hillary Clinton lost the unlosable election.
I remember listening on the radio, the way all the smug reporters just sort of fell into an awkward stupor, as they collectively realised the magnitude of the colossal failure they had brought down on the American people (and the world).
Personally, I felt vindicated and not that upset. I tried to warn you the lines were getting blurred. I tried to warn you that Hillary would lose. Our world simply doesn’t have much time to get it right and the leaders of the free world simply aren’t doing what is required to address the threat to our existence.
The world needs Donald Trump. The world needs all of his racism, sexism and xenophobia. The world needed that shock to the system, so we actually might care again.
For too long the public has been in a mass state of collective denial over the institutions of ‘freedom and democracy’ that have been falling down around them before their eyes.
I really thought this was the time where true liberal intellectuals (not the Obama bourgeoisie type), would stand up, take a look at what had happened, and be accountable. I thought we might realise that collectively, we dropped our standards to such a low level, we created an environment where a man like Trump could rise to power. I thought we would address our hypocrisy and cast it away, seeing it’s insidious workings in the light of a totally exposed rogue, plutocratic state.
Instead, we opted for blame, a strawman, a sucked thumb and a blanket.
The Mainstream Media usual suspects gave us the ‘Fake News’ excuse and we made no pretences of not needing it intensely. The MSM gave us the Russian hacks excuse and we wanted it to be so. Anything but Trump being in America’s history as president. They are rewriting history as we speak.
Yes. Truth, at times, can be defeated through nefarious means. But what of the combination of the Truth, Power, and the moral high ground? The defeat of this combination is simply not possible.
The only conclusion we can draw is that perhaps the truth won against all odds and we found out who America really was.
From Wikipedia:
In philosophy, a formal fallacy (also called deductive fallacy) is a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in its logical structure that can neatly be expressed in a standard logic system, for example, propositional logic. An argument that is formally fallacious is always considered wrong.
The fake news argument is a logical fallacy.
Until 1983 the mainstream media had nearly a total monopoly and total control of the public’s perception. They have always held the power there.
Then the internet came in and independent journalists without huge power and huge budgets could also have a voice. This was a victory for human beings everywhere.
However, the mainstream media are obviously still the most colossal of machines. The power over public perception they wield is still tremendous. They still have the ear and trust of the majority of the available audience almost by default.
And they have the truth and the moral high ground (apparently).
So if the mainstream media, the reliable, critical, truthful, accountable, and ethical mainstream media – the ones that have the majority of the audience on side, along with the truth, and power to wield it did their jobs as stated below:
Enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news and information. Producing content of the highest quality and integrity is the basis for our reputation and the means by which we fulfill the public trust and our customers’ expectations.
-New York Times
Then the logical conclusion is that it would be simply impossible for the American election to be influenced by RT (as explained in the official report), or an anonymous list of ‘Fake News’ outlets (not in the report but spread hysterically in unison by nearly every notable mainstream news organisation on the planet).
Although the honest among us know that the ‘fake news’ argument and the Russian hacks argument is a total cover for the failure of American hypocrisy and the blurred lines between good and bad based on ‘intent’, sometimes you have to argue using the accusing illegitimate institutions’ own logic to prove what a fallacy it is.
A mainstream media blaming ‘fake news’ for the Trump’s success is effectively blaming themselves for failing in their one major responsibility, educating the public enough to be able to critique ‘fake news’ and see through it.
I’ll leave you with a famous quote from America’s second president:
Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country, nor suffer yourselves to be wheeled out of your library by any pretense of politeness, delicacy or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.”
John Adams From an Essay for the Boston Gazette *1765
Obama put an end to that idea with The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, just before the end of his presidency.
But who’s counting right? I mean who cares if the state now controls what is real or fake news anymore right? What could possibly go wrong?
Who heard about that? Trying to find a mainstream article here.
No luck so far.