Falling for the Dark Side - A Requiem to Reason
It's one thing for politicians and the mainstream media to lie to people. But, when people you care about fall for those lies and turn on you because you try to reason with them and show them the truth, it gets very personal.
What frustrates and upsets me:
Politicians who lie.
Mainstream media perpetuating the lie.
The fact that people fall for the lies. The fact that these people don't look any further for the truth. And, when they are shown the facts, they refuse to listen - they refuse the truth.
But, what frustrates me the most is seeing friends of mine, who I thought had the intelligence to not take things at face value, fall for the lies. I see them become bigoted like some of the lying politicians. And I see them lash out at others, including old friends, who have differing opinions - people who are only trying to raise the facts and expose the truth.
As a self-professed "left-winger" (NDP/social democrat) I care about people - I don't bash people (I do take liars and bullies to task with a vengeance though).
I care about people - family, friends, relatives, fellow Torontonians, Canadians, humans. I care about the environment. And I care about this planet.
I feel obligated to get the truth out there to everyone I can. I have to work hard at getting the truth out because I, and those like me, are up against the far more powerful and pervading mainstream media. People read, watch and listen to the views of the mainstream media daily, so, it is very easy for the mainstream media to manipulate people into believing what they are saying. People forget that the mainstream media are a bunch of large corporations with business interests at heart. They will put the weight of their word behind any political party or politician who is going to do things that benefit them as big businesses.
It saddens me to see old friends, one by one, fall to the lies, become bigots, and become enemies of reason.
Recently, 47% of the people of Toronto were duped into believing that the finances at city hall are being gravely mismanaged and that there is much wasteful spending. However, the facts show that things are indeed quite the opposite - the finances at city hall are being well-managed and in the past year the city ran a surplus. This 47% elected Rob Ford, who said he would fix this (non-existent) financial mismanagement.
Rob Ford has promised to reduce the city's income (cut taxes) and increase spending (proposals to hire more police officers (at a time when our crime rate has been dropping for years), and to scrap Transit City (scrapping it will cost millions of dollars in penalties) and to build more subways instead (which cost much more than the Transit City plan. And the Transit City plan was already budgeted for and would have brought more fast transit to the outlying regions of the city, including Etobicoke - the Rob Ford heartland - than Ford's new subway plans), among other proposals of spending). Now, it doesn't take much knowledge of basic math to know that if you reduce your income and spend more, then you will most likely end up with a deficit. But, isn't this what Rob was saying he was going to fix? His plans seem to be to do the opposite of what his main message was. Seems pretty fishy to me. Seems like maybe we should look more closely at this man behind the curtain.
And, if I care enough about my fellow Torontonians to say, hey, wait a minute, this sounds fishy, look at the facts, and, if me going to all the trouble of pointing all this out makes me a bad person, then I'm bad.
What frustrates and upsets me:
Politicians who lie.
Mainstream media perpetuating the lie.
The fact that people fall for the lies. The fact that these people don't look any further for the truth. And, when they are shown the facts, they refuse to listen - they refuse the truth.
But, what frustrates me the most is seeing friends of mine, who I thought had the intelligence to not take things at face value, fall for the lies. I see them become bigoted like some of the lying politicians. And I see them lash out at others, including old friends, who have differing opinions - people who are only trying to raise the facts and expose the truth.
As a self-professed "left-winger" (NDP/social democrat) I care about people - I don't bash people (I do take liars and bullies to task with a vengeance though).
I care about people - family, friends, relatives, fellow Torontonians, Canadians, humans. I care about the environment. And I care about this planet.
I feel obligated to get the truth out there to everyone I can. I have to work hard at getting the truth out because I, and those like me, are up against the far more powerful and pervading mainstream media. People read, watch and listen to the views of the mainstream media daily, so, it is very easy for the mainstream media to manipulate people into believing what they are saying. People forget that the mainstream media are a bunch of large corporations with business interests at heart. They will put the weight of their word behind any political party or politician who is going to do things that benefit them as big businesses.
It saddens me to see old friends, one by one, fall to the lies, become bigots, and become enemies of reason.
*****
Recently, 47% of the people of Toronto were duped into believing that the finances at city hall are being gravely mismanaged and that there is much wasteful spending. However, the facts show that things are indeed quite the opposite - the finances at city hall are being well-managed and in the past year the city ran a surplus. This 47% elected Rob Ford, who said he would fix this (non-existent) financial mismanagement.
Rob Ford has promised to reduce the city's income (cut taxes) and increase spending (proposals to hire more police officers (at a time when our crime rate has been dropping for years), and to scrap Transit City (scrapping it will cost millions of dollars in penalties) and to build more subways instead (which cost much more than the Transit City plan. And the Transit City plan was already budgeted for and would have brought more fast transit to the outlying regions of the city, including Etobicoke - the Rob Ford heartland - than Ford's new subway plans), among other proposals of spending). Now, it doesn't take much knowledge of basic math to know that if you reduce your income and spend more, then you will most likely end up with a deficit. But, isn't this what Rob was saying he was going to fix? His plans seem to be to do the opposite of what his main message was. Seems pretty fishy to me. Seems like maybe we should look more closely at this man behind the curtain.
And, if I care enough about my fellow Torontonians to say, hey, wait a minute, this sounds fishy, look at the facts, and, if me going to all the trouble of pointing all this out makes me a bad person, then I'm bad.
2 comments:
hi Thor...you're not a bad person, you seem to me to be a very good and idealistic person. You're right about those who would create an imaginary problem, and then propose "solutions" that will only make that problem REAL. Those who can't see that now will see that one day, and you can tell them "see fools I was right." I realize that's not much consolation right now, but it works for me... :)
Yes. The problem is after years you see the patterns while others can't. Getting to say "told you so" after suffering though a lot of crap for a few years, isn't much consolation. It's frustrating that others can't see what seems so obvious. It's more frustrating when friends stop looking at facts and won't listen to reason.
But, while blogging and talking to people over the years there will be people who do listen and do start digging into the reality and finding out things are not what they seem.
Win a few, lose a few I guess. It seems it is ever thus.
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