“FAKE NEWS”

You heard it here first, folks.

A couple of years ago I published my book, AM I IN YOUR PLAY OR ARE YOU IN MINE. Then about a year ago, I started this blog to further explore these same themes. Both of them anticipated this current explosion of “fake news”.

I was planning to draw this blog to a close, but events keep forcing me to write one more blog. In my book”see my book“, I have the following quotes in the intro:

“You are surrounded by authors who would script your life (and mind) to their liking.”

“Who you are, is being scripted by others.”

“Everyone is seeking to make you a character in their play.”

“Without the awareness of this, you will be the character in many, many plays, but never in your own.”

The loss of your own identity and authenticity is the risk in today’s voracious world of writing narratives they (your authors) want you to believe and live in.

“Fake news” is the current euphemism made now famous by Pres. Trump that encapsulates all of the above.  The media would have you believe what they say or show (in order to control the narrative) is the very truth.  Inside the narrative there is no there there.  It is merely a fabrication to control your thoughts and behavior.  You are the marionette and they are the strings and voice.

Putting ideas into a narrative is a much more persuasive form of indoctrinating than merely positing ideas and issues.  A news story that seems based in reality with a protagonist that lives out a piece of theater enacting a parable that reflects a political view is far more persuasive and invasive.

Washington is now the battleground of warring narratives.  It always has been.  But now the vehicles for narration abound.  Not just speeches, posters, interviews…but newspapers, magazines, network tv, cable tv, Facebook, blogs, texting, ads, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, endless outlets and spaces for fiction and fabrication.  Who can tell the truth of any of it?

You can know it’s phony; you may know it’s false, but it still gets in your head.  The merchants of lies have become so good at it, so pervasive, it is hard, perhaps futile to resist.  Perhaps only the outrageous anger and attacks of POTUS himself can take on and illuminate the onslaught of false narratives…. fake news.  I, for one, am thankful that he is using the bully pulpit to badger and defeat the poobahs who promote false narratives, false scripts that seek to forward their agendas. As Steve Bannon said,  “If you think these people are going to give up easily, think again.”  It will take all the effort and voices of the Trump administration to wrest the ink from fake news. And it will take all your clear vision as well.

But we have to guard that they too don’t answer fake news with other fake news.  Politicians and actors have great affinity. That’s why Hollywood and Washington have always had such an easy alliance. Politicians are actors and seek the stage that is Washington. Hollywood and DC both love drama more than facts. POTUS was an actor on television. Reagan was an actor in Hollywood. They love writing the play, being in the play. They all seek the limelight. When the facts get in the way of a good script…let the facts be damned.

So.. it is we who have to keep our sanity and clarity.  It is we who have to seek the facts. We have to be diligent in our wariness of scripts seeking to persuade us that they are reality. We have to learn to see the difference.

Reading this blog and my book is a start.