I stopped writing my weekly blogs because, quite frankly, I felt as though I was talking to a brick wall. To put it another way it was as though I was shoveling shit against the tide.
So why am I writing now? Because, believe it or not, people have asked me why I ever stopped and that they missed my no nonsense, no bullshit way of getting to the bottom of things.
So where do I begin?
THE FIFTH ESTATE
The press likes to put themselves above everyone and everything, as though they were on some lofty pedestal, beating their chests and proclaiming to all who would listen that a free country is possible only when you have a free press. Yes. It is true that a free country is contingent upon a free press.
Over a hundred years ago William Randolph Hearst was the acknowledged master of “yellow journalism”, wherein if you told a lie or offered a distorted point of view long enough, people will begin to believe it. Where else in the history of the world has this ever happened?
The press no longer reports. The press comments. Are we, the American people, so stupid that we cannot decide anything for ourselves and must have the press do our thinking for us?
The movies of the thirties and the forties glamorized the press wherein the reporters, not commentators, always sought out the truth so as to get a “scoop” over their competitors. And of course to sell more papers.
I am old enough to remember the vitriol and hatred generated by the insanity of the Hollywood Blacklist and the unsubstantiated accusations attributed to the McCarthy era. Even then the press joined in what was expected of them. In the case of the Blacklist, the alleged perpetrators were hounded incessantly and eventually could not work at their craft unless they flipped on their friends or associates or were able to work under an assumed name. In the case of McCarthy, it took a courageous person, namely Edward R. Murrow, a reporter, to call him out. The point I am trying to make, is that the press, even if it violently hates someone or something, it must present the facts without any bias and more importantly, independently verify what it prints and not simply repeat the headlines of its competitors because it fits the moment of the time.
Case in point. Just recently a minor player on a TV series apparently decided to cook up a fake attack upon himself in order garner attention and perhaps help his career. Without any of the facts of the alleged attack being investigated, the media ran wild with the story and before you could say, “Jack Robinson”, it was plastered all over the TV networks with the various commentators, not news reporters, blaming President Trump for the attack, calling him just about every name under the sun.
When I was a kid and lived in Baltimore, MD, a young girl about my age asked me where I was from. When I said, “New York”, she automatically assumed that I was Jewish and said, without having any facts or evidence, “You killed Christ”. Needless to say, I was completely dumbfounded and my response was, “I didn’t even know him”. Duh.
Lo and behold, the Chicago PD is now filing charges against this actor, apparently for having concocted the entire story and causing them to waste vital resources that could be put to better use. Yet those who were so quick to rush to judgement when the story first broke are now saying that, “We should first wait until all of the facts are in before rushing to judgement”. Duh. Double duh.
THE PARTY OF MY PARENTS
I remember when I was about ten years old asking my mother about the two political parties, the Democratic and the Republican. Her answer was that the Democratic Party was for the people and the Republican Party represented the rich. I believed this for a long time. Over the years I learned, to my surprise, that with the exception of Harry Truman, all of the Democratic Presidents in my lifetime were rich. So much for representation.
Once upon a time political violence was something that was applied by the rich in order to break strikes and employee representation. Today, almost all of the violence in the political arena originates from the side of the Democratic Party and is directed towards anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Whatever happened to free speech which was once a hallmark of the Democratic Party? Whatever happened to our colleges and universities where free speech was once a virtue and differences of opinion were to be debated without resorting to violence? For this new curriculum in our colleges and universities where violence replaces thought and reason I blame the instructors and the officials who employ them. Their job, as I see it, is to teach young minds how to think and not how to hate.
POPULATION CONTROL BY ANY OTHER NAME
It is true that runaway population growth, when combined with advances in health care, new ways of farming and agriculture and the absence of wars and plagues, provided that comet with our name on it never reaches us, we will at some point in the not too far off future be faced with simply having too many people on this planet.
It is true, at least I think so, that organized religion promoted unfettered propagation of our species, not merely on religious grounds or the sanctity of life, but primarily to swell their ranks. When I was a kid the population of our planet was a little over two billion. In eighty years this number has increased by three and one half times so that it is now over seven and one half billion. Where are we headed? You do the math.
It is true that there are a number of people on this planet who, until such time when genetic engineering is more than a textbook phrase, should voluntarily refrain from procreating.
I have always believed that abortion is not something to be decided on by politicians and is the prerogative of the mother. What I don’t understand is how certain politicians now actually condone and promote abortions up until the time of birth. Talk about the swinging of the pendulum. Have these parents of unwanted children never heard of contraception? What the fuck were they ever thinking?