The Information Age! A world of the Internet of Things, a smartphone society that lets you track down whatever you want to know, wherever you are, at any time, by Googling facts or asking Alexa.
Under this high-tech formula, it is assumed that by tapping into the 21st century Alexandrian Library, society would seek out facts to raise public consciousness. Society would demand more from governments and the media that inform them and influence their thinking.
High tech has created the Information Reality. But how it is used by masses and what the media sell as “news you can use” is a different reality.
As a nation, Americans have become dumbed-down by stupidity, hate, propaganda and lies spread by corporate media that pay presstitute reporters to drive corporate and political agendas.
Is this the breaking “news you can use” sold and packaged by ABC, CBS, CNBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and all the major US media?
• Did you hear about the Moore or less guy running for Senate in Alabama who had the hots for a 16-year-old girl 40 years ago, and hit on her?
• Did you hear about the masturbating comic clown who brags about it in his comedy sketches that millions of Americans love, and was accused of frequently jerking off in front of women?
• Did you hear about the slob movie producer with lots of money and power who liked massages and forced sex on wannabe starlets?
• Did you hear about the executive producer described by women who worked for him as being “manipulated psychologically and emotionally,” and “put in uncomfortable positions” that “felt physically unsafe” while on the show?
• Did you hear about the Pulp Fiction star who, in 2000, allegedly groped the bare buttocks of a masseur and exposed himself during a private late-night deep-tissue massage?
• Did you see the photo of the grinning comic clown who became a US senator who got off grabbing a woman’s breasts while she was sleeping?
Surely you know Hollywood has a “rampant” and “pervasive” problem of sexual abuse by men, according to actors and lawyers speaking up about misconduct and harassment in the wake of recent allegations. For several decades, the victims had lockjaw.
NO HARD NEWS
Do a Google search. Besides the non-stop “Let’s Hate Russia” propaganda promulgated by the US media (Trends Journal, Summer 2017), sick sex is the daily diet of news consumed by the citizens of Dumfukistan.
What dumbed-down Americans do not read or hear are current events that are forming future trends. The Fourth Estate, the so-called voice of the people, has been slaughtered by staffing cutbacks and corporate mergers and acquisitions. It’s virtually dead and buried, as are the minds of the public.
• Did you hear about the 12,000 Yemenis slaughtered by Saudi Arabians? Americans provide the bombs, bullets, intelligence, reconnaissance and air-refueling for planes that drop the bombs.
• Did you know about the 1 million Yemenis suffering from an epidemic of cholera and the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today?
• Do you care that 400,000 children are on the verge of starvation in Yemen and that more than 50,000 children are expected to die this year as a result of the war launched by Saudi Arabia?
• Did you read about the 27,000 US troops in Africa supporting dictatorial governments and fighting against “Islamist, militant, insurgent terrorists?” The US, France, UK and the Arab League previously armed these “moderate rebels” to overthrow the Libyan and Syrian governments, but now they’ve gone “radical,” wreaking havoc across the continent.
• A US airstrike killed dozens near the Somali capital. Do you care? Does it make sense? Will it change anything for the positive?
• Are you keeping track of the 16,000 US troops fighting the 16-year, ever-losing rape-pillage-and-plunder war in Afghanistan that has killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?
If you’re the average American, or a bit above, you know none of these facts. How many Hollywood and political child molesters and sexual predators can you name vs. world leaders who lied their nations into murderous, endless wars?
TRENDPOST: The Fourth Estate, the traditional newspaper and broadcast media and unofficial fourth branch of government designed to hold powerful people and institutions accountable, is dead. We live in a world of hand-held news. Society lives off information fragments like sound bites on broadcast news or Twitter firestorms. The masses are headline-strong and knowledge-empty (see Trends Journal, Summer 2017).
Real news is ignored, overpowered and obscured by “likes,” “tweets” and “clicks” delivered to individuals based on their personal biases and preferences. That spoon-feeding reinforces current belief systems rather than providing information that challenges fixed, automated, dumbed-down ways of thinking.