Monday, October 31, 2016

Don't Let the Propaganda Machine Eat You

I came of age in the 1960's. In my twelfth year on earth, I experienced what it was like to be a minority when I represented the local teen chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. at their National Convention - the sole white face in a sea of dark-skinned people. My parents took me to the march on Washington at the age of fourteen to hear Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech; at the time, no one dreamed that it would become the quintessential speech of the 20th century. In college, I marched on the Pentagon to protest the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and felt noxious tear gas burn the lungs and blind the eyes. And the night Nixon was elected, I was rounded up at a demonstration in Times Square and felt the boot of a policeman connect with my backside, turning my body into a blue-jeaned projectile hurtling into the paddy wagon.

Then and now, lobbying for progressive change meets with serious headwinds from those who lack empathy for "the other," not realizing that the viability of the parts effect the efficacy of the whole. However, this election season presents an ominous vein threading through the national psyche and my heart is heavy with fear - could it happen here? Could this unbalanced demagogue with an unbridled propaganda machine possibly lure the American people into his insanity?

A good many millions of the electorate support Donald Trump, a man who has shown himself to be a propagandist of extraordinary magnitude. No untruth is too bold to propagate, no idea too outlandish to declare as fact.

Whether one be a conservative or a liberal, unleashing this man on the world stage would be a serious setback for humanity. With a new wrinkle in the election season - an unprecedented bid by the Republican F.B.I. chief to derail Hillary Clinton at the eleventh hour, what was obvious has become painfully underscored.

There is indeed "a vast right-wing conspiracy" to take down the Democratic party and cement an agenda that turns back our human rights. For those who object to Hillary Clinton, just image the alternative. To invoke several platitudes, life does not exist in black and white and the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. To ignore the obvious at this juncture in history would be a grave error. As for me, I can only pray the sanity prevails.

2 comments:

  1. ...what an well thought through flow of facts!!! Sanity shall preveil...Mother Nature watches everything.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love your wisdom. It gives hope. Xoxoxo

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