You Want Fake News? Donald Trump didn’t
invent the concept. Americans have been deceived for over two hundred years and
humans have been deceived for millennia. Here is a small sampling of some big
items, not in chronological order:
Weapons
of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Promoted by inside neocons under Dubbya to swindle
half of the American People and a majority of Congress to support the invasion.
The
benefit of “The Surge” in Iraq: Marketed heavily by Dubbya to get Congressional
approval. In hindsight, the benefit was not so much. All deaths and injuries
were in vain; Iraq remains a mess. The United States lost that war.
The
necessity of the Viet Nam War to prevent domino-effect Communism. Anti-communism
in the west has always been more of a religion than a justified fear. False
news of American victories flooded television throughout the war. Reporting of U.S.
losses was suppressed. Lies from Nixon and LBJ were rampant. 58K Americans
dead. Well over a million Vietnamese killed. The United States lost that war,
big time.
The
War of 1812. Guess what? It wasn’t Britain that provoked that war as history
textbooks would like us to believe. It was the U.S. attempting a land grab of
Eastern Canada. But Canada, with the help of the English (and First Nations),
fought them off and no boundaries were changed. A total waste of effort and
life. In essence, another war lost by the U.S.
Slavery.
The self-righteous North weren’t as opposed to slavery as we have been led to
think. Unprecedented U.S. wealth from cotton export profits could never have
occurred without the strong support of Wall Street bankers and investors. The
Civil War came late to that party after much of the wealth had been made.
Lee
Harvey Oswald as the lone shooter. The Warren Commission was fake from the
start: created by LBJ to avoid a bona fide investigation that would have
uncovered dirt he needed to leave six feet underground. Much of the Warren Report
has been refuted, but much remains classified to continue to suppress the
truth.
Suppression
of real news is, in a sense, fake news. Bernie Sander’s momentum in the 2016 primaries
was largely suppressed by the ostensibly liberal Network News media. The
networks were all in the thrall of Hilary.
Suppression
by Trump of scientific evidence concerning the cause of climate change. Is this
the evil of greed (Koch bros come to mind) or merely Trump and his follower’s astonishingly
low intellect?
The
virgin birth of Jesus. This could be the mother of all fake news (along with Creationism)
and points to the fact that humans had a need to believe stuff that is made-up.
Does anyone still believe this nonsense? The idea of a virgin birth wasn’t even
thought of until one hundred years after Jesus’s crucifixion.
The
resurrection of Jesus. Like immaculate conception, the resurrection was totally
fake news to coerce commoners to follow Jesus’s requirements for admission into
a trumped-up afterlife. Woohoo! Afterlife with Jesus! Send in your money!
Miracles.
All miracles are products of abstract human thinking. No miracle has ever been proven.
But miracles still seem to enthrall the American people. Western Europe not so
much these days: They seem to have grown up somewhat.
Heaven
and Hell. Both entirely fake. Fanciful inventions designed to instill fear and to
control human behavior.
The
promise of sex with virgins in heaven as a reward for murdering infidels. That promise
probably takes the cake when it comes to fake. By the way, what do women who
blow themselves up get other than freedom from their oppressive husbands?
The
Bible, the Koran, the Torah. All fiction, all fake, though certainly invented and
edited by human beings who were considered clever and were respected in their
time.
The
concept of hating Jews because ‘Jews killed Jesus’. Ladies and gentlemen of
Christian faith: if Jesus hadn’t been crucified, you wouldn’t have your religion!
You should rejoice his being ‘killed by Jews’. Come up with another reason to
hate Jews. You can do it. I know you can. The rest of the world has hated Jews
for more than two thousand years and continues to do so. Since the Holocaust,
however, they have learned a thing or two about survival.
In
summary, fake news wasn’t born yesterday. It’s what humanity has been all about
from the beginning.
To learn more, go to these references:
1. Oliver Stone’s series: The Untold History of the United States.
It will open your eyes. (Netflix)
2. The
Half Has Never Been Told. Edward E. Baptist. The real history of slavery in
the United States.
3. The
Swerve: How The World Became Modern. Stephen Greenblatt. How Christianity nearly
squelched human pursuit of happiness.
4. Sapiens.
Yuval Noah Harari. A brief history of Humankind.
5. The
End of Faith. Sam Harris. The first book from the most articulate of modern
atheist thinkers.
