2 Minutes of Hate, 24/7

I read 1984 around the time the Iraq war kicked off in earnest. I think a lot of liberals did (yes, I was a liberal then) around that time. It was an eye opening read but very grim and depressing. Looking around now at our Democrat rulers, it's clear that they took a look at the contents and full on decided "let's try that!". The fact that all of the liberals who were so quick to (eventually) denounce the Bush administration (when it became socially acceptable to do so) are ignoring their own political tribe's descent into rampant authoritarianism is a constant source of mordant amusement to me. I could, and indeed would, enjoy calling out the cowardice and hypocrisy of my so-called liberal pals all day, but there are only so many hours and I have other business to be about, so I'll get on with my post.

Of course, like all writers, Orwell was writing about his own times and the things he saw around him, just exaggerated to make it more overt for his novel. Still, the man was well nigh prescient. He foresaw the surveillance state (although, who would have guessed how enthusiastically people would have signed up and even purchased devices designed to spy on them?). He also introduced the idea of two minutes of hate.

Two minutes of hate, if you haven't read the book lately, are mandatory periods where the citizens of Oceania are shown images of the enemies of the state, and they all yell and scream hatred at them. If you've watched a network morning show lately, or checked out one of our cable propaganda networks, this should be very familiar to you.

There has always been some acrimony between political parties and between social classes, but the current level of vitriol didn't really hit its stride until the rise of populism and Donald Trump. Granted, the man didn't do much to inspire civil discourse, but the amount of hate directed at him by the media was fairly astounding (I did see some clips of Fox talking heads fawning over him for the first year or so, but most mainstream media outlets are unabashedly liberal). I think this was the rise of our American two minutes of hate, but with 24/7 news broadcasting, you can tune in as much as you want.

I'm convinced that this conditioning is what led to the rise of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". Just mentioning the guy still get a rise out of some people (when I want to heckle my dear 'ol mum, I'll ask her if she misses the Trump economy, and she still shudders with loathing at the very thought of his presidency, even though I know for a fact that her life was objectively better under his administration). Now that he's gone, what are the ruling classes gonna do with that big old head of hate they brewed up?

Since they no longer want it turned against the executive branch, they are turning it on the unvaccinated instead, and just like they continuously lied about, distorted, and presented everything Donald Trump said and did in a negative light, they are now demonizing us for refusing their ineffective nostrums and treatments. As for their good liberal audiences, they get the joy of hating and looking down on someone. Feeling like you are better than someone, innately smarter and superior, is a hell of a drug, and racism is out of fashion so they get to hate us instead. Apparently they haven't realized just yet that Big Pharma is just the latest iteration of the medicine shows and quack doctoring of the early 1900's, with a lot bigger advertising budget (the fact that these people consider themselves the smart ones when they're getting conned is funny but not shocking; ask any con artist and they'll tell you it's the smart ones who are easiest to take for a ride).

If a liberal perchance stumbled on this, doubtless all they would see is some positive reference to Donald Trump and they would instantly disregard everything else I wrote... but Trump was just a convenient example of weaponized propaganda being deployed by Americans against Americans. Of course, if you go looking deeper into who signs all of those pundits' paychecks, who owns the news networks, who sponsors all of these shows that "inform" us, and what corporations own which politicians who get airtime or sympathetic coverage on them, the waters get really murky really fast, and there are sharks swimming around in the depths.

Take a peek at how many news shows are sponsored by Pfizer sometime, for example. Really, take a look, and then think about how likely it is that the "jounalists" on those programs are going to tell the truth about the products they are pushing. Or look at how much Big Pharma pumps into political campaigns, and ask yourself if the people riding that gravy train can be trusted to tell the truth about ANY of it.

I probably seem a bit bitter, and, upon reflection, I may have fallen into the same trap as many of the liberal people who despise me... after all, I am equally convinced I am smarter than they are, and perhaps this is mine own two minutes of hate for the day. But then, I'm not threatening their livelihoods, demonizing them, and all but trying to drive them out of civilized society, either. I'm also not insisting they are stupid and evil for obediently taking an untested and, as is becoming more obvious every day, ineffective experimental medical treatment. As I noted at the beginning of this post, I used to be a Democrat and liberal. If I'm bitter and angry about the direction the party has taken, it's because they have abandoned all of things I thought they stood for. But perhaps I never understood what they stood for at all.