It Just Feels Different.
When talking to older generations about politics, and the economy, almost all give the same answer..
When I asked her opinion on the amount of change in politics and in the economy, the then 103 year old Mildred “Midge” Hoke told me “It's quite similar to the headlines before WW2, but… It just Feels Different.” She had started a spark of curiosity in me. This woman who had seen WW2, The Korean War, Vietnam, and the conflicts from the Gulf War, to current day, and that for 40+ years only watched ABC news, was right. Something was off, but what was it ?
This started with me investigating the feeling of the something “Different” that Midge, and so many others have been sensing. I started with News Archives from the 1930’s, and started noticing almost immediately, that there was quite a few differences between the Archived World News Footage, and National News footage, from that of today's news, but one thing stood out above the rest. The Division, most news agencies from that Era reported the facts, and they inserted very little opinion, if any at all. Politics had its place, and it was almost always kept separate from other news topics. You didn't hear the Sports Reporter talking about Identity Politics all through the games, and the opinion pieces weren't the Leading Stories. Most of all, the networks did not let personalities of any type promote, or encite violence on Air against other American Citizens.
When did this change happen you ask ? That question has a very complicated answer. To begin explaining this, I must reference the Frogs in a slow boiling pot analogy. This change did not happen over a single war, or election cycle. It didn't change rapidly with a new set of laws. What seems to have happened, is during the Vietnam war the News started to take an obvious turn into being “for” supporting the war. When before this conflict they had a lot less opinion on weather it was morally correct or not, they just reported on the wars. This conflict has resistance, and needed more support, and the news stations began running their war time propaganda campaigns. They were moving against a very large portion of the American population at the time. A portion that felt very strongly, that America had no reason to fight a ground war there. It was a big change from the Majority of Americans standing against the Nazi uprising in Germany. This time the State needed help making Americans believe it was a conflict we should be a part of. It appears, that this is the Era that was the beginning of the Fork. There then became signs that many news agencies, and even local broadcasts had some form of Government voice within them. As time progresses we can see only a very few highly publicized over seas conflicts, but there were many that simply went unreported. Probably for the reason that most Americans would have protested them also.
This continued behind the scenes, and what I mean by that, is. Instead of dominating the headlines, these topics started getting a small blurb article on a back page of the Tuesday paper, rather than having 60 minutes, or 20/20, along with it being the Leading story on all the Networks. Instead they just barely covered them. Out of sight, out of mind. But a new problem arose for the war mongers, this… internet.
With the birth of the Internet, we have shared information at the global level, as fast as the snap of the fingers. This is a very big problem for all of the bureaucrats trying to hide their war Machine. It changed the way news had to be run again, but this time they had to bring back the Propaganda to make people want a war. The back page Articles, wouldn't hide the conflict now. Especially if Bob from Just Another Yahoo news, or even just some random People began sharing Emails of war footage from country to country, it could expose their actions and could disprove the entire Narrative that they build these wars around. If the wrong piece went public, the public trust would shatter.
They now needed some new tools, so they intensify the Propaganda, and the pro war rhetoric in the early 90’s with a fiery passion. They hired State reporters that would show the Evil of the other side, while carefully framing it to not show the same evils committed by their side. It became a balancing act for about a decade, and they almost had it perfected. Then something else came along, and once again threw the Government News Media's balancing act off of it's feet. That was when social media came into the picture.
This double edged sword of hive mind inducing capabilities, was just what they had been looking for. But in order for it to work, they only needed to be able to make people believe that their desired view on any particular topic, seemed like the majority opinion. Even if people believe strongly against something, they wouldn't want to speak out against the majority. Or at the very least they would feel far less empowered in doing so, because then they assumed they were the minority voice, so democratically it was just wasted energy. This propaganda plus censorship, has continued working for quite a while, and is still occurring today, as we can see with the entire bot farms of fake social media accounts. All of which are being used to make a minority opinion seem like the majority opinion.
The light at the end of the tunnel though, is the fact that we now know this to be true. The Fringe 5% on either end of the political spectrum are just that, fringe. It's the moderate 90% in the middle that need to take back our voice. The Voice of the Moderate Majority. This goes against most of our very nature as moderates. Being left alone to just live our lives, without harming others, or fearing harm from them, is all we want. Unfortunately though, we need to speak up. We need to Vote, and we need more than anything to rebuild our Cultural, and community values. Acting like normal moderates will not help now. To rebuild our communities we must go out and speak to our neighbors, invite them over for dinner, talk about everything except for politics. I bet you when you do, you will find that they want the same opportunities, freedoms, and rights that you do. Along with learning each other's shared community values, and wants for safety, and peaceful neighborhoods, and cities, you will find you have many other things in common.
People are inside looking for human connections, and validation all over social media, and the internet. When all the while it's been right next door, or just up the street. The whole time we were looking to the sky for answers, we missed the opportunities sitting right at our feet.
That different feeling, the internet and social media started it, and then smart phones iced the cake. Digitally obtained dopamine is rewriting the human experience, and not for the better.
#LoveYourNeighbor to #SaveTheWorld