The Biggest Winners

The best thing that happened in this past election was that the mass media fully exposed themselves and revealed and destroyed their own credibility — and everybody from left to right knows that pretty clearly, so it’s not like they’re going to be able to fool anybody anymore with their protestations about their objectivity and fairness. That is probably the greatest outcome from the 20th century culture of dominance and control by the mass media — that it ultimately destroys itself.

It just sets the table for the emergence of the new media being created as we manifest it. It’s preposterous to think and hope that the mass media is going to wake up and say, “Oh, we were mistaken and biased and we shouldn’t have been, and from now, we’re going to be honest and fair and so you can believe and trust us again — just this one more time.”

It’s like with any con(fidence)-artist. They prey on one’s trust and confidence — and when we are disabused of that hope and realize they are just setting us up for another betrayal, one is freed from those illusions and delusions. So be grateful and rejoice that we’ve already won — in the unexpected ways that is larger than what we think was worth fighting for and about.

Already you’ll notice that some of the more visible critics of President Bush are being pushed aside and stepped over by the Obama operatives who used the mass media personalities to get to the top, and once that “usefulness” has been played out, they lose their relevance and are cast aside.

In every community and forum, you already see the shrinkage of importance of these millions of Obama operatives realizing they had been played like the dupes they are and have nothing of relevance and interest once they have served their purpose and are cast aside and trampled — rather than being invited to dine at the banquet table of their puppet masters.

So enjoy the show for a while until it runs its course and is out of energy and ideas — which it feeds on from those of positive energy. Negative energy can only feed off of positive energy — it has no power unto itself.

Already, the Obama presidency is looking like the “Truman Show,” in which everybody else but the “star” knows that it is just a television (mass media) program.

It’s All Right Not to Want to be the President

I used to meet a lot of people of a certain generation who would invariably tell me that they were educated like everybody else (they thought) to be the president of the United States, and since they obviously weren’t, regarded their lives as a tremendous failure, no matter what other successes they may have experienced in life -- that evidently were more important to them.

In seeing the first photo of John McCain sitting with Barack Obama for the first time since the recently concluded election, one couldn’t help but notice that McCain seemed to be happier not being the president than Obama was in being the next president -- which I think is a vey healthy picture and attitude.

It was an honor to run for the office, but would have dishonored him to have to win it -- and thus he could let it go so easily, and finally heal that bitter disappointment and rancor that has dogged the presidency since the beginning of this century. No office, no ambition is so great that it should destroy one so completely in not winning it -- which is every bit as great an achievement in public life -- losing graciously.

These contests are not as important as the person one becomes running for such offices. That’s what a lot of people never learn -- and stunts them from moving on to the next level of calling, which may be even greater than the highest they knew heretofore.

In almost every case, what a person went on to do after losing a contest, was what defined the actual limits of their growth as a person. It applies to elections as well as to anything else one does in life.

When one wins an election these days, one doesn’t become the boss, but actually the servant, to every person who thinks they have a right to use and abuse such “leaders.” It really got out of control with one of the finest leaders American history and politics will ever know -- in George W. Bush. It would have continued had John McCain won -- and so I’m glad, as a Republican, to see Barack Obama take over the presidency for a while, and let the Democrats be in charge of ensuring the defense for those living in those most populous and problem-plagued communities in this country, which are its likely targets.

That’s been a heavy responsibility for Republicans to carry -- against the efforts of the Democrats and the media harassments.

The Republicans, led by President Bush, have earned their right to let the Democrats worry about all these problems that President Bush made look so easy -- that any fool thought they could do as well.

Good luck.

It Doesn’t Look Good

I’ve always maintained that the stock market was an indicator of the confidence in society and its future -- and right now, it famously does not look good, let alone promising. A few newspapers and other news media are still trying to spin the economy to be not as bad it is -- because commencing January 20, 2009, President Obama is going to ride to the rescue, and the clouds and seas will part and a revived American economy can waltz on through to the Garden of Eden, where all the factories have been shuttered so as to preclude the possibility of pollution.

Obviously, Republicans have the advantage of preparing for the worst, rather than being blindsided with misguided optimism -- that shortly, real estate is going to resume their skyward trajectory to the moon, all the loans will become good, and Honolulu’s rail project will provide employment for the coming prosperity right around the bend.

But just in case those cheery scenarios don’t play out, one doesn’t necessarily need to load up on guns and bullets to bring down one’s own food. It is merely enough to move to where they grow the food, or to grow it oneself -- an art that seems to have been disconnected in the many ways modern life has specialized and fragmented so as to seem a world and life forgotten-- and one becomes hopelessly dependent on the other to provide for one.

That mentality is commonly expressed in the “demand” that that’s what others must do for oneself -- even at the expense of themselves, for our benefit -- naively thinking that’s what everyone else in the world exists for. Freedom and prosperity is not what everybody else owes us -- but is entirely possible if that is what we wish to make for ourselves.

That is a difficult lesson for many people to learn -- that peace does not come about because we wish to ignore violence, and the demand for food, shelter, choice, does not come about just in the demand for it. Somebody has to create it -- usually out of nothing but the realization that such a thing is possible.

We’re not used to thinking in that way -- but we had better learn it again, as every generation must, that begins to take these things for granted.

Mass Media Culture and the Selling of the Presidency

A lot of people woke up on November 5 wondering how it could have happened that a person with no experience governing, could become the president of the United States.

It was all about the mass media proving they could sell anything they wanted to, if one had enough money to pay for it. This year, there was somebody out there who had unlimited deep pockets who could pretty much single-handedly buy the mass media -- although the mass media will claim, it was not them who was used successfully, but the new media of grassroots internet fundraising. It was the worst of both.

Until this year, it was widely thought that although one could successfully market cigarettes, alcohol, cars, and credit using mass media, it was unthinkable that one could sell the presidency in that way -- but nobody ever had the massive amounts of money that could buy the media in the one-sided manner it was.

Although some will insist that they have clear firewalls between editorial content, news (information) and advertising, the fact is, money corrupts absolutely just in being a sponsor of certain programming. And this year, mass media knew it had to prove its viability and relevance in an age of shrinking advertising revenues and subscriptions. They had to prove they were still relevant, and still had the power to sell anything one could pay for.

Usually people draw the line pretty clearly about what they will do -- and what they won’t do, no matter how much money they are paid, but the new benchmark of desperation and ambition, is that one will do anything -- and there is no line to cross anymore. One either wants the money or not.

In the old days, they would write plays, stories and movies about such dilemmas. Now there are no such barriers, and everything can be justified by whether it sells, and what sells, is what one will pay the marketers to sell. In politics, a few still believe they serve a higher cause -- although those who concoct such campaigns, know they are just words meant to manipulate and deceive.

There has been this creeping ruthlessness and unscrupulousness willing to destroy whatever stands in their way of maximizing their wealth, power and fame.

And truly worthwhile, decent individuals of integrity, had no chance against this mass manipulation and deception.