Posted on by mikecronin2013

Eclipse of Reality


How many times did you hear that last Monday’s solar eclipse was a “once in a lifetime” event?

While solar eclipses may be “rare” in any given place, and while it may be rare to be in the path of totality, solar eclipses are not “rare” overall. As astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil Degrasse Tyson has pointed out, solar eclipses happen about every two years or so. They are more common than presidential elections!

Overall rarity notwithstanding, the eclipse on Monday was unique in at least two ways.  It was the first solar eclipse since the late seventies to cross nearly the entire US, and thus it was the first one in the US to be covered by millions of cell-phone and Go-Pro toting Americans in the age of social media.

This led to an amazing phenomena the news media have largely ignored: Far more Americans, of all colors, creeds, and classes, voluntarily gathered in peace across the country to observe the spectacle of nature than ever willingly gather together to hate and destroy, a la Charlottesville or Phoenix.

So we have at least two cases of the media presenting an alternate reality: One is in perpetuating an inaccurate understanding of astronomical phenomena in order to increase excitement…so that they can be seen to be reporting on the excitement of the “once in a lifetime” event, in the hopes that if you weren’t out looking at the eclipse yourself, you’d be tuning in to catch it on live TV.

The second case is more insidious. The mass media, so jaded by their constant purveyance of crises, largely neglected to report on, or even notice, the good news that Americans can be far more united in common cause than we are supposed to believe.  No, it might even be worse than that.  The second case may be an example that the media actively ignores, or even tries to “reverse engineer”  facts and events that run counter to the lie narrative that America is being destroyed by greedy, right-wing, white, trans-, homo-, and Islamo-phobic, Christian middle-class men, as alluded to in several political cartoons about the eclipse:

Instead, too many media personalities have been indoctrinated to believe, and worse, promote, the idea that the solution to all our ills is to let the anointed class do our thinking for us and lead us to more “diversity” (of grievance groups), more “rights” to the time and/or property of others, and more restrictions on freedom and liberty. That idea has proven to be destructive in every time and place it’s been tried.

All news is fake; some news is useful.

Posted on by mikecronin2013

Virginizuela

Q: What is an idiotic thing to do to a country?

A: Drag it down from being one of the strongest economies in Latin America to being on the verge of failed state status, all under the banner of “Bolivarian” Socialism. Hugo Chavez started the process in Venezuela (with plenty of help from the Castro brothers from Cuba); now Nicolas Maduro is overseeing it. How can these men destroy their own countries? What tools do they use? Hatred and envy. It is human nature to lay blame on others for one’s own failings; charismatic leaders like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez master the art of convincing the masses that their troubles are the result of the machinations of the rich and powerful, then ride the wave of popular support to positions of…wealth and power, while their countries burn around them.

Q: What is an idiotic thing to do “for” a news audience?

A: Provide them convenient (but not necessarily accurate) labels for the apparent factions involved in the Charlottesville, VA riot. Attendees of a “Unite the Right” rally were protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Because some part of that crowd contained white supremacists, KKK members, and “neo-Nazis,” the mass media took an accuracy short cut and simply branded the entire crowd as “white nationalists.” Another crowd was protesting the first crowd. This second crowd contained “antifas” (anti-fascists) and “Black Lives Matter” supporters; yet the  media neglected to apply a hot-button label to this crowd, simply referring to them as “activists” and  “counter-protesters.”  The facts are that one crowd containing some people hanging on to irrational hatred clashed with another crowd containing some people clinging to their own hatreds. Because drama and conflict get better ratings than cold facts, the media turned the riots into the Battle of Charlottesville in a nascent Civil War II, with the heroic leftist crowd battling the evil right-wing crowd. There’s nothing quite like fanning the flames so one can report on the fire, eh?  It’s almost arson.

Q: What is an idiotic thing to do with your time?

A:  Indulge in hatred or envy; especially in hatred or envy that others tell you to indulge in.  Think for yourself when charismatic leaders peddling vitriol try to attract you into their orbit, and think for yourself when the media shows you burning conflicts in-camera, while what is left unreported may be the more important (if less sexy) part of the story.