Everywhere I go, and I do it to, people are staring at their phones. Maybe, like me they’re playing a game, especially when waiting or riding. In the past, I could not hold my entertainment in my hand and entertainment wasn’t instantly accessible. Now, it seems, people do not want to engage with reality and require more and more outrageous scenarios in order to be entertained by playing games with no other purpose than to provide a dopamine or endorphin fix. (A dopamine or endorphin fix can be addictive and keep one playing a senseless game and not engaging in more productive activities.) (Another purpose of the games on one’s phone is to provide an avenue for advertising which feeds the capitalistic system by lulling one into believing that a product or service is needful for one’s continued happiness.) It’s a shame that future historians will determine that a young republic failed because of the people’s stupidity and their insatiable need for entertainment.
Napoleon said something to the effect that history is just agreed upon lies. He should have added that the lies were agreed upon by the people in power. The United States is going through that now–the rewriting of history to escape accountability and to memorialize a false narrative. I don’t know if they will succeed because we the people who are not in power have the means to keep a counter narrative alive.
Keep us ignorant is the mantra of the people in charge. If the stupid people don’t see the effects of the tariffs on their receipts, they won’t question the higher prices and hold us responsible.
Nothing new under the sun–the U.S. has placed front and center a melanated mouthpiece to trumpet its white supremacist agenda against a Black African leader. The U.S. is currently not a country of the people, by the people, for the people. It is a country with leaders who only want to cater to billionaires at the expense of the people. In Burkina Faso, its leader is creating a country of, for, and by the people. The West cannot have that for it means that the West can no longer exploit Burkina Faso’s resources. So it uses a melanated face to spread lies about Burkina Faso’s leader as it funds attempts to assassinate him. May the West not succeed.
Still watching Perry Mason. I know this is television, but isn’t it far-fetched that all the witnesses are in the courtroom listening to the testimony of the other witnesses. Even if what is portrayed is preliminary hearing, it doesn’t seem logical or in the best interests of truth or justice to have all the witnesses in the courtroom. I know this is television and one needs dramatic effects to hold an audience’s attention–did anyone believe that this scenario was realistic?
In Season 3 of Perry Mason, so, he has represented a Japanese defendant. And in that same show, there was a Black male night watchman. Also, in this season there was some sequestration of witnesses. Kind of amusing, hearing the prosecution and the defense making the same motion in most of the shows. It’s like a tit for tat exchange sometimes.
Further, the police as portrayed–the police had no concept of privacy or that a person whom they suspected of a crime had any rights. They do not knock or announce themselves. They lie, hoping for a response. I know that the reading of the Miranda rights was not required until circa 1966, but knock and announce has always been the law. If the television portrayal of the police in the 1950s is any indication of reality, then the subterfuge, which appeared to be the norm of the police, needed some check. (The police are doing better at knocking before entering in the second season. Maybe the show consulted with some real police.)
I wonder why the sites like YouTube do not require posts that deal in satire to be labeled as such. Or a chyron/news ticker on the screen that says “This story is a lie…This story has no basis in reality…I just wanted your clicks so I could make some money.” But I’m old school…new school says lies don’t matter as long as they are profitable. Even Machiavelli knew that a society based on lies is one of short duration. People who are lied to can be some of the most vicious people you encounter. But, unfortunately, we live in a time when a number of the citizens are too stupid to recognize a lie and satire is too subtle for them to comprehend.
I have written about this before. I have never understood the people who want government run like a business. A government for, by, and of the people is not meant to make a profit nor is it meant to be the piggy bank for oligarchs and criminals. When a business cuts costs, what first does a business do? It lays off/fires employees. A business, a western business (mostly), has no loyalty to its employees. Employees are seen as a drain on profits and a cost center that can always be manipulated. Employees are not seen as human beings, but as fungible tools easily replaced. That is what a businessman does to cut costs and it looks good in the short term, but, in the long term, if a business is to be successful it needs employees. So, what happens…the business ends up hiring even more employees who will be cut in the next purge to increase profits. Note, the top management’s salaries are never impacted by the need to increase profits. Many of the top management will even get exorbitant bonuses for increasing profits–all at the expense of employees who are real human beings. And the short term savings have no real meaning except to short-sighted people who only read the current quarter’s figures.
As the legend goes, after a teenage Robert Johnson was booed off the stage in Robinsonville, he went to a Mississippi crossroad at midnight and summoned the devil. The devil promised to endow him with supernatural musical abilities — as long as the musician gave up his soul in return. Excerpt from–https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-johnson
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