Photo Credit: Matt Williams for NPR
Conspiracy theories aren’t a new phenomenon. Wild plots have been part of the human experience since the beginning of recorded history.
“But what was once dismissed as the amusing ravings of the tin-foil-hat crowd has in recent years crossed a threshold, with delusions, fictions and lunacy now strangling government policies,” says Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek.
They have been accelerated by social media, encouraged and weaponized like we have never experienced before in this country.
America has always "sold" itself as a country of innovation, freedom and reason. We have been the envy of the world as a culture that is living out the "American dream." Granted that dream was only for the selected few, mainly white and male.
So, was Obama born in Kenya? Does fluoride not prevent cavities and is secretly poisoning us? Was COVID-19 China’s revenge? Are microchips being planted in the vaccine to track our every movement, do windmills cause cancer and of course the grandfather of them all; was the 2020 election rigged?
What makes us so willing to believe in these intangibles? Are we a country of magical thinkers and is reason a thing of the past?
It’s almost the perfect dystopian plot. The conspiracy theorists and their warped idea of freedom against empirical evidence and logic. Which will prevail?
Information is power, who holds it controls the narrative.
With the advent of social media, it’s getting harder to know. The blurred lines between truth and fiction are fuzzier by the moment.
Some theories are so ludicrous they are often dismissed or they were until social media and the conservative press gave them a voice, an amplified voice.
Absolutely nothing has to be fact-checked. What information is distributed is entirely at the discretion of the corporate owners. Granted in America more than in other countries, money talks. But how did we get to a point in America where most of the public discourse is policed by two men named Jack and Mark?
It all goes back to people being valued as mere products for profit. America has always known the trappings of extreme capitalism. The advertisers of the “Mad Men” era knew they could create a story. People were commodities in exchange for capital goods.
The difference is back then we recognized it and created rules against it by using the Federal Trade Commission to monitor them. Rules still supposedly exist in advertising such as making false claims that are harmful or supporting them are punishable.
AND when it comes to the news media they can practically do as they wish since the de-regulation of the Fairness Doctrine. The press can claim they have credible sources, they can assert they provide balanced coverage. In reality, many are profiting from people’s fear.
Neither are strictly held to good practice standards any longer.
In an increasingly isolated society, we look to prophets or public figures to replace the communities we no longer have. There is no longer a shared purpose and everyone is prone to economic woes wreaking havoc on families and leaving an opening for conspiracy theorists to swoop in to tell people how to think and who to blame.
Most of these myths serve the interests of corporate America and in Trump's case his finances.
The "Big Lie" that drove people to storm the Capitol — about the 2020 election being "stolen" from Trump and the Republicans — was facilitated by right-wing fundraising groups and financiers.
After the terrorist attack, certain corporations were pulling their support of the Republicans that continued spreading the conspiracy falsehoods. It was discussed at length that it was allegedly orchestrated by Republicans who support Trump, QAnon and the proud boys.
That didn’t last long. With the exception of a few, many corporations remained silent.
This is dangerous and aiding in the lie.
Corporations must discipline and sanction the media who spread such clear, destabilizing falsehoods, or else the appalling and irresponsible spread of misinformation is unlikely to stop.
In the long term, no rational, democratic society can be sustained while being ripped apart by vast differences in reality, facts and the truth—where common ground is found only in feeling anger and distrust, says Patricia Duff and Tom Rogers, THE COMMON GOOD CEO; NEWSWEEK EDITOR-AT-LARGE.
For a democracy to work, everyone has to want it to. We have given license to those with the worst instincts amongst us to spin untruths and not suffer any consequences.
The world sees us for what we have become, we do not. We don’t want to know how far we have fallen.
The mainstream press continues to put ratings over country, corporations only concern is the bottom line, the GOP has become a money-making authoritarian machine who doesn't care if America burns and all the rest are obsessed with holding onto their impact in government or respective industries. They will do anything to keep power in the hands of the soon-to-be minority white.
James Baldwin was right in 1955 when he said “This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”
There is no way to stop this. The power structure must represent all, not just a few.
A percentage choose not to believe this truth and prefer absurd and baseless conspiracy theories.
It’s a license to be overtly racist or to some, it's the elusive golden ticket to wealth. Except that ride isn't going anywhere but straight to the demise of a nation that at one time was considered the jewel of democracy.
“It was doomed because it swallowed itself with lies and reckless conspiracy theories in a futile attempt for a small number of people to hold all the power.” That’s what historians will write about our downfall.
The most ironic part of this is IF we fail as an experiment in democracy, it will be by those who created it in the first place; white men.
They will die holding onto that power. At the cost of everything.
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Stay tuned for the next piece about what can be done to solve it. It’s not over yet.
Sona always delivers a well thought out article on some very sensitive topics. I thoroughly enjoy her work. ❤️❤️
Wow! Another very strong and powerful black on white wake-up-call by you. And another NEVESSARY pinch of salt into our wounds. Well done! ♥♥♥