Keith Milne
By Keith C. Milne
What? More big government!? It shouldn’t have to be this way, at all. While growing up, I was taught from the start that TRUTH TELLING WAS THE ONLY WAY. Lying resulted in all sorts of punishments, ranging from loss of television, being grounded with no television, or a fast and furious washing out of my mouth with old fashioned, inexpensive, harsh as hell bar soap! Needless to say, I very quickly learned that telling the truth was going to be in my best interest. Back then, all those decades ago, it seemed that most of my friends and acquaintances also told the truth and, therefore, I naively thought that this same ratio applied universally to the whole world.
Having to mandate truth telling and fact checking by the media at the federal level would seem by most folks largely unnecessary, or even just simply way over the top. I find it tragic that America has come to needing it in the first place, but when lying becomes more normalized with each passing month, while the alternate reality created by the false narrative continues unabated, then I embrace legislation that results in the greater good, with morality and integrity being upheld and protected as national values. Already, republican controlled states are engaging in historical gerrymandering, and a full third of the country believes, after almost a year and a half, that former President Trump had the election stolen from him,
I certainly would like less government in total, but only when that system actually works and is mostly fair, equitable, and inclusive. No “one way” will ever work, nor will leaving things alone, nor will letting our country slide into the abyss of having a Darwinian model of “survival of the fittest, let the weak die” become our way of life.
Federal legislation is protective of the body of this country, the core of it. Like a protective envelope wrapped around the nation, ensuring that far right and far left factions of the population cannot distort the national existence of millions simply to suit their whim or narrow desires. My former criminology professor at UMass Amherst once lectured us that crime always informs society, at any given point in its history, what is and isn’t acceptable. We have come to the point where new technologies have enabled common people, like me, to have their own soap box and speak their mind. I could, for example, spend all of my time writing nothing but falsehoods about any number of topics and put out all manner of toxic information for people to ponder. That needs regulating! What I say here are my OPINIONS and what I think about this or that. I am not passing anything untrue off as a fact like so many other venues do these days.
I think, like me, many Americans are fed up with lies, and lying in general. Once upon a time, about 40 or 50 years ago, lying like they do on Fox News every single day would NEVER have been allowed. I’m not completely certain why it is now, but profit certainly underlies most of it.
Reality is subjective only to a certain point, beyond which the facts, i.e., what actually happened, and by whom, when, where, and why, are the only things that people really want or need to know. The facts, nothing but the naked facts. No embellishment, no omissions of information that might cast an unfavorable light on our guy or issue, no creative presentation in an attempt to sway people to seeing things your way.
People need to hear THE TRUTH and they need to hear it ALL OF THE TIME, not just when it suits some group or party and their constituents, or when it will favor one particular agenda over another. It is not the journalists responsibility to sell people on their way of seeing the world–leave that to people like me, here to shout and scream and call out the bullshit when it reaches a crescendo with an OpEd or commentary! The mass media should only be disseminating facts so that all people have an equal playing field when it comes to what they are being told about who is doing what, or what is going on out there in the world.
Unbiased, factual information which can be verified is the foundation of accurate decision making and business strategizing. The stability of the United States of America, as well as the rest of the world truly depends on factual information flow and unbiased analysis so that proper decisions can be made to keep the global wheels of commerce turning. The cleaner the information, the better the decisions are about the things that impact us in our everyday lives, like the prices we pay for the goods and services that we consume. Better decisions in turn affect global confidence as well, fostering a sense of hope of a better tomorrow and a brighter future ahead.
Misinformation does just the opposite, expeditiously working hard to undermine global stability and unity. We are all connected, therefore EVERYTHING WE KNOW AND LOVE ARE AT STAKE WHEN THINGS GO AWRY like they are right now in Ukraine. That conflict isn’t going to live in isolation. The whole world is on edge now and everyone will be negatively impacted in some way by this unnecessary aggression by Russia.
When disinformation can sway thousands to take up arms, and then storm the Capitol of the United States in an attempt to overturn the peaceful transfer of power from the outgoing President to the incoming one, or turn vaccination against Covid 19 into a partisan issue and convince millions to not take a life saving vaccine just to prove their misguided allegiance to a failed President and his failed party, the time for additional protective legislation has come!
The new legislation should not only be enacted, but should also come with strong enforcement mechanisms and oversight until the wound that misinformation has opened in our democracy can scab over and heal itself once and for all. America cannot afford to continue letting any mass media outlets spew lies any longer. We have no choice but to do what is necessary in order to protect ourselves, the greater good, our democracy. This system of democracy cannot function on lies! No healthy system can function on lies. The citizenry of any country need to know where they stand together as a country. The only way to have that happen is for all of us to know the same reality by knowing only the facts and the truth.
By continuing to allow Fox News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other venues of mass media to spew falsehoods and distortions and flat out lies, we are continuing to divide ourselves to the point of being on the precipice of a second civil war! Are we this stupid now?!? What the hell?!
It’s up to us, not others, US! Are we all really going to sit by and let it all unravel and do what we are told?! We keep hearing about how divided we are and, like good little sheep we are allowing ourselves to become divided because we buy into this crap. We disagree! So what! But for some, the end of the world needs to happen now! We’re all just sheep sitting in front of our screens of mass disinformation buying into and believing in every little tidbit that the talking heads spew! After all, if they said it on the news, then it must be true, right?
ONLY INFORMATION THAT IS ACTUALLY TRUE SHOULD BE WHAT IS ALLOWED TO BE POSTED FOR READING OR SPOKEN TO THE PUBLIC SO THIS TOXIC SELF DEFEATING DIVISION CANNOT CONTINUE TO DO HARM TO OUR DEMOCRACY AND DISTORT HOW WE VIEW ONE ANOTHER. Just check out what is being said in general about all of the different news topics on, e.g., PBS, then MSNBC. Now switch over to the BBC, or CBC, then Fox News and compare. I have numerous times. Often discussions around recent gun shootings, or about Donald Trump were being discussed critically on MSNBC and not being talked about at all on Fox News, or Fox would take a riot by right wing protesters marching with nazi flags and tell their viewers that it appeared that many of the rioters were actually Antifa plants, not what was being reported “elsewhere.”
Division is profitable for the corporate media because the conflicts that naturally manifest out of disinformation dissemination cause many to want to keep coming back for “the latest” on a regular basis, all the while viewing, listening to, and clicking on profitable advertisements. How much profit will there be for these media moguls if their regular injections of disinformation into our media stream results in deep division (already here now), war, and, ultimately, the loss of the United States of America to the likes of either Russia or China when we are so weak and destroyed that it will be child’s play to overtake us and turn us into an extension of an authoritarian regime from either of those countries.
Think this cannot happen? Once upon a time, no one dreamed the internet could ever be real, people thought the earth was flat, and the idea of ever going to the moon was a pipe dream conjured up by a good science fiction writer. Further, did you ever in you wildest dreams ever think someone who chronically lies through his teeth would someday become the President of the United States?
Well anything really can happen now that the internet is reality, the earth is a globe, we’ve been to the moon more than once, and Donald Trump was our worst ever president and lost the election in 2020, but a solid third or more of this country still believe the liar when he says things like the election was stolen, and everything bad we hear about him in “the media” (except favorable Fox News that is), is “a hoax” and “a witch hunt.” Allowing mis/disinformation to remain prolific and ubiquitous for mass consumption is irresponsible at best, and amounts to engaging in reckless endangerment while taking this amazing democracy completely for granted at worst.
I am shocked and astonished that we have allowed ourselves to run faster than I thought possible towards our own demise. Please join with me in letting your vote do the talking for you in the long run, and please, at every turn use your voice to let your state representatives, and your representatives in Washington D.C. know that you want to see action and new rules that no longer allow this reckless practice to continue in the United States of America.
Once again, those on the far right are attacking your liberties and your freedoms while attempting to convince you that they have just the opposite and your best interest in mind when they build walls to keep oppressed people from coming to America, tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies, engage in gerrymandering of voting districts, change voting laws to make it harder for people to vote–knowing that poor, mostly minority people will just give up trying or not bother to vote, and BAN BOOKS that have content that makes them uncomfortable or that uncovers the whole–beautiful and ugly–truth about America’s history.
Tell them you want new laws making TRUTH TELLING THE LAW OF THE LAND!
