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Our analysis
of the implications of the US election result.
Anyway,
peep this poignant piece Ntheye wrote and also view few relevant links which we added at the end of this article, including - DW Griffith's classic 1915 silent film 'Birth of Nation' on the rise
of the Ku Klax Klan which also works as a brilliant study of the
American Psyche explaining why victories like Trump's are still possible in
America today.
We also
briefly discuss and add links on Trump's plan to increase US Military spending,
what it means for the US which has had a 'War Economy' since World War 2 and
the rest of the World...
*****
The triumph of Donald Trump has brought to
light an age old but tragic truth; the unquestioning nature of human beings
makes us astoundingly vulnerable to the affliction of "collective
stupidity."
It would be
funny if it wasn't so tragic!
During the
course of the US presidential campaign we have sheepishly consumed all manner
of propaganda spewed on 24 hour news cycles by a very dishonest mainstream
media. Incredibly, we have soaked it all in and made it our truth, our gospel!
We have certainly become the generation of "if I saw it on CNN or BBC,
read it in The Economist or Time Magazine, then it must be true!"
No questions
asked! We have allowed ourselves to place an inordinate -- and utterly
undeserved -- trust in a very dishonest mainstream media to shape our opinions,
thus rendering ourselves unwitting victims of a false narrative by which we
judge personalities and react to events.
As a matter
of fact, and until the advent of social media, we were mere consumers of a
storyline dictated and, tragically, successfully thrust upon from editorial
rooms. A few so-called journalists had the singular privilege of deciding on
our behalf on what is newsworthy; which personalities to adore or loath; what
catastrophes -- natural and man-made -- to pour our hearts towards or ignore...
All of it
has been decided on our behalf and we have readily and unquestioningly taken it
all in, arms and perhaps legs too, akimbo! The truth is, the only thing that
separated Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump -- and therefore the pervasive
opinions most people around the world have of either -- is the well-crafted
narrative the dishonest mainstream media has decided on our behalf.
The sound
bites of bigotry, racism, misogyny from Donald Trump have been on nonstop 24
hour news cycles, whilst equally deplorable sound bites from Hillary Clinton
have been well concealed ...deliberately buried and kept away from a complaint
consumer of propaganda.
Trump's
bigoted portrayal of Mexicans would have found a fair balance had they been
reported along with Clinton's description of African Americans as "super
predators who should be brought to heel..."
But no, not in this election
cycle.
While Donald
Trump was presented as a warmonger the world needs to be fearful of (and he may
well turn out to be), the truth about Hillary Clinton was never sufficiently
reported-- her legacy includes two unnecessary wars in Libya and Syria
triggered purely for her own political point scoring, and sadly both of these
wars persist to this day and continue to claim countless innocent victims.
Isn't it
intriguing that in the same news cycle, the carnage in Aleppo could be reported
back-to-back with the US presidential election campaign, yet the genesis of the
war in Syria was never quite explored and thus no connection made to Clinton's
possible culpability in it.
How mankind
continues to be so gullible in the 21st century -- the age of information --
should be a source of tremendous trepidation for us all. The age of
information, unfortunately, has not inoculated us from the nefarious
machinations of those who hold the levers of information -- and during this
election campaign, social media was no different in levels of dishonesty as
that exhibited by the mainstream media.
Google,
Twitter and Facebook were all demonstrably culpable in creating a false
narrative for either candidate. On one hand helping reinforce the dishonest
mainstream media narrative of a dangerous and bigoted Trump (incidentally a
Clinton campaign strategy), as much as presenting Hillary Clinton as the most
qualified and faultless candidate to ever contest an election since the advent
of elections themselves.
Twitter and
Facebook seemingly and deliberately buried positive trending topics that were
in favor of Trump, while promoting those in favor of Clinton. I happened to be
privy to the artificial tinkering of trends on both Twitter and Facebook given
the criticality of tracking these to mine for sentiment for my social media
engagement model (a pet project I have used to now correctly predict the
outcomes of both Brexit and the Trump victory).
Twitter
would go as far as nixing a trend and replacing it with another, even against
actual popularity, or changing spelling of a hashtag. It was an astounding yet
very disturbing realization for me. But the wind of change in both instances
was too strong to conceal.
I imagine
much to the chagrin of the proprietors of both the dishonest mainstream media
and the rigged social media platforms. What I find disturbing is how the
unquestioning populace readily accept one brand of propaganda, but express
displeasure at another form.
For example, when Paris was attacked by terrorists
last November, French flags to add to profile pics and the #prayForFrance hashtag were drummed into our
collective psyche to reinforce to depth of the tragedy.
Indeed we
changed our profile pics to French flags. By contrast, neither the deadly
floods in Ghana nor the devastation of hurricane Matthew in Haiti this year --
both extremely tragic events -- seemed worthy of elevation by both the
dishonest mainstream media and the rigged social media platforms.
Not to
compare tragedies, but surely the Paris terror attacks deserved as much
attention as the tragedies in both Ghana and Haiti. That the dishonest media
are purveyors of propaganda is an incontrovertible truth (as amply demonstrated
by the poverty of media coverage or interest on Ghana and Haiti).
Such visible
display, surely, should serve to engender our questioning spirits. Yet it
doesn't. How can we be suspicious and outraged -- rightly so -- of the
realities of skewed reporting on global events in one region versus in another,
yet be unquestioning as to how presidential candidates are presented to us by
these same very dishonest media platforms?
Why do we
never ask why certain personalities are presented for our adoration and others
for our loathe?
Why do we
not question the intent of the information we consume, electing instead to
readily believe what we are fed and treating it as gospel?
Why do we
hate Trump and love Clinton?
Why are we
sure the media has given us fair and balanced information on either of these
two -- not through sound bites -- to allow us to make our own informed
decisions?
Why are we
not suspicious of the intentions of editorial rooms in possibly making
decisions on our behalf on what or who to love or hate?
It is to
help humanity regain its consciousness and its innate questioning nature that
we should thank Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Hopefully, he has helped revive
investigative journalism that allows us to make up our own minds based on
unfiltered and unadulterated information.
What more
can you say? At the end of the day, Trump played on the average American's
fear...Fear of Immigrants, fear of instability post the 2008 Recession, fear of
losing America's 'prestige' in the global world order...etc...The list of
American 'fears' is endless as the American mainstream media continues to
bombard the average American with misleading and inflated opinions on almost
everything except consumer products.
It is this
collective fear and anxiety that characterized America at the end of its Civil
War and led to the rise of the KKK. The Film 'Birth of a Nation' is a classic,
and it really captures how the average American possesses a victim mentality
that the Ruling Right Wing elite deliberately conjures and sustains in order to
maintain power.
It was made
in 1915 so it’s a silent Black and White movie, but trust us, reading the
sub-titles which make up all the dialogue will be worth your while. It’s very
good at portraying how American's see themselves....As victims.
The other
issue of concern is that Trump has made it clear that he will ramp up US
Military spending thereby bolstering and continuing the same 'War Economy'
America has had since World War 2.
Briefly
stated a 'War Economy' is defined as the set of contingencies undertaken by a
modern state to mobilize its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon
describes a war economy as a "system of producing, mobilizing and
allocating resources to sustain the violence."...So Trump plans on
sustaining American violence...There you have it!
Nothing
could make it clearer that nothing's going to change in America with Trump's
election. We also included links on the history of America's post World War 2
'War Economy', Trump's plan to increase Military spending as well as what his
election means for the World Economic and Political Order.
- Birth of a Nation Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kmVgQHIEY
- American War Economy Article: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/macdonald/1941/04/war-economy.html
- Trump's Plan to increase Military spending: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/06/politics/donald-trump-defense-spending-sequester/
- Effect of Trump Election on International Order: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/world/donald-trumps-victory-promises-to-upend-the-international-order.html?_r=0JR
- Song Video: 'Make the Circle Bigger’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM_Ew6zsnDY
Credit:
Wikipedia.com
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