CommentsVIEW FROM HERE-Yahrzeit is Yiddish for the anniversary of someone’s death. For political purposes, truth is dead, but exactly when and how did it die?
When it comes to the death of truth, America is faced with a problem seen in many crime shows. The detective asks the medical examiner, “Can you tell me when and how she died.” Medical Examiner, “She’s so badly deposed that it’s hard to know.”
Donald Trump is not the only American for whom Truth is dead, nor is he the murderer. In fact, Trump may be the most famous victim of its death. Ironically, Trump not only spread the lie that Covid-19 was a hoax, he believed what he was saying. More dumfounding is that today, the talking heads on the Sunday morning TV shows are perpetuating another lie. Pundits exclaim, “The President is the most protected man in the world from the virus. If it can get him, the virus can get anyone.” Such an idiotic statement highlights that truth has ceased to play a role in our lives.
Donald Trump was one of the worst protected people. He was crazy enough to believe his own nonsense; he was recklessness enough to not wear a mask or practice social distancing. He encouraged others not to wear masks or social distance and he constantly pressed Governors to open businesses and schools when science said it was too dangerous. The entire world saw with their own eyes that Trump was highly vulnerable. The fact Trump did not contract Covid-19 sooner suggests that perhaps some on his staff had been taking surreptitious measures to protect him. Trump’s getting Covid-19 is a small example how the nation has departed from truth.
Truth Died Decades Ago in Los Angeles
Perhaps the most cruel example is LA’s homeless crisis and the official response. As CityWatch had noted for years, The Los Angeles operates on fatally flawed data and wishful thinking to the extent it subverts the law. In 2008 and afterwards, the city’s claim about its rapidly increasing population as if Los Angeles were experiencing a population boom was a lie. (Hollywood, for example, was losing people.) Based on this falsehood, LA embarked on Manhattanization, claiming that we had to build more housing units in the denser parts of town. We tore down tens of thousands of rent controlled units (which was the most affordable housing) and constructed luxury housing which was the most unaffordable. As a result, a fraudulent escalation in Los Angeles housing costs occurred. March 2, 2012, CityWatch, Hollywood Becomes Fraudywood, by Richard Lee Abrams
The Pernicious Role of the Los Angeles Times In the Destruction of Truth
The Los Angeles Times’ purpose has been to protect the interests of Los Angeles elite – not to the Truth. The LA Times did not warn Angelenos of the vast corruptionism of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA-LA) which would have bankrupted the city had the state not abolished it in 2011. That action only slowed down the corruptionism. The fraudulent hype of LA Housing prices harmed all renters and anyone who had taken out a recent mortgage. September 21, 2017, CityWatch, What if Angelenos Stopped Paying the Wall Street Tax?, by Richard Lee Abrams
Meanwhile, the LA Times supported every outrageous lie about the need to destroy rental controlled apartments while concealing the fact that Garcetti Manhattanization was giving Los Angeles a horrendous Homeless Crisis. While the LA Times was controlled from Chicago, the situation had been bad but a few truthful articles sneaked through. After Patrick Soon-shiong purchased the LA Times in 2018, vicious propaganda arose. Per the Times, homelessness was not caused by the city hall’s corrupt policies. The updated story line was that the homeless were degenerates, lazy, shiftless, drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals.
The Difference between Soft Porn and Hard Core Porn
The traditional prime time news media had been similar to soft porn. For decades, its deception was mostly by omission. It pushed policies like Affirmative Action and the denigrating philosophies of victimization that minorities lacked the ability to overcome obstacles and the solution was to blame Whites and to take educational slots and jobs from Whites. On the other hand, there were more than enough racist, anti-Black, and anti-Hispanic bigots in business and government to make it seems as if the mainstream media were 100% correct. The cover-up (the soft porn part) of the traditional media was ignore the Democrat agenda which was not to help minorities but to create a national patronage system where the minorities would always vote Dem.
With the rise of independent news channels, especially FOX News, the country’s polarization became greater. The Right-Wing media focused on atrocities real and imaginary of the Left, while the traditional media continued its black-out of the foibles of the liberal agenda (which was in reality a political agenda for control). We were becoming a divided nation. July 2, 2018, The New Yorker Magazine, The Rise of McPolitics, by Yascha Mounk
Conspiracy theories like Alex Jones and his Infowars not only spread absurd lies throughout Right of Center America, but it had legitimate stories such as the way the Dems like Nancy Pelosi planned to socially and financially attack Whites. Alex Jones did not have to invent White Entitlement or the demand for slavery reparations. Hillary called white blue-collar voters in the Rust Belt the D-word, “Deplorables.” Meanwhile, Alex Jones and his ilk peddled such extremist conspiracies that the Left Wing easily pointed out how deluded the Right Wing had become.
When it was only CBS, NBC, and ABC, no news organization could go too far right or left since the entire nation watched all three networks. After WWII there was no effective way for fringe groups to gain significant following. Cable, however, made it financially profitable to tailor the news to the listeners’ prejudices. Within a short time, Americans selected news by how it made them feel, e.g. Colbert’s term “truthiness.” We had moved from the soft porn style of the traditional media to the hard-core porn of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Alex Jones.
While the exact date of Truth’s death is unknown, it is clear that Americans only want feel good propaganda.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)
-cw
