Two of my least favorite people…Michael Bloomberg and Maureen Dowd…have published surprisingly clear views of the same Post-Truth problem about which I recently posted. It’s almost as if the Post-Truthers themselves have suddenly begun to recognize the error of their ways as they see the whole system coming unglued for lack of at least some amount of truth to hold it together.
Read on:
From the (!!!) NY Post.
Bloomberg warns of `endless barrage of lies’ in politics
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Saturday that the worst threat facing the country isn’t terrorism or communism – it’s “an epidemic of dishonesty.”
The billionaire – who has called President Trump a “con” and a “dangerous demagogue” – cautioned that “an endless barrage of lies” and “alternate realities” in national politics endanger U.S. democracy. The comments came during a commencement speech at Rice University in Texas.
“This is bigger than any one person. It’s bigger than any one party,” Bloomberg told The Associated Press in an interview before the speech, refusing to comment on Trump’s own relationship with the truth.
—snip—
The wealthy exec, who flirted with a 2016 presidential run, told graduates and their families in Houston that when elected officials talk as if they’re above the truth, they’ll act like they’re above the law.
“The greatest threat to American democracy isn’t communism, jihadism or any other external force or foreign power,” he said. “It’s our own willingness to tolerate dishonesty in service of party, and in pursuit of power.”
Yup.
And from And from the NY Times:
From Ice Cube to Black Cube by Maureen Dowd
Once I would have rolled my eyes at a “Homeland” season in which the Russians deftly maneuvered to control whether a Democratic woman, an increasingly paranoid former junior senator from New York, would occupy the Oval Office.
Last year, I shook my head at the “Billions” plotline showing a top New York law enforcement official fighting corruption by day and engaging in sadomasochism by night.
There was a time I would have considered it off the wall if Kanye West said he shared dragon energy with Donald Trump.
Now I don’t blink. Everything is plausible.
We have crossed into a surreal dimension where we are limited only by our imaginations. The American identity and American values are fungible at the moment. The guardrails are off.
Our brains are so scrambled that it’s starting to make sense that none of it makes sense.
—snip—
But in the Trump era, sure, why not? Everything is plausible.
Consider how the president lavished praise on Gina Haspel, the evidence-destroying torture queen, tweeting, “There is nobody even close to run the CIA!” At the same time, White House aide Kelly Sadler shrugged off qualms about Haspel from torture survivor John McCain, blithely noting, “He’s dying anyway.”
White House most foul. Everything is plausible — even the jackbooted Dick Cheney rearing his poisonous head to call for the reboot of Torture Inc.
—snip—
Everything is plausible — even Rudy Giuliani continuing his punch-drunk performance by referring to Avenatti as a “pimp.”
The rest of the world was shocked by the scoop by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker chronicling Eric Schneiderman’s depravity. But it may have been old news to the Page Six President.
A lawyer for two women who said they had been victims of Schneiderman’s sick proclivities told Judge Kimba Wood, who is overseeing a legal dispute about the raids on Cohen’s office and residences, that he had discussed the women’s allegations with the Trump fixer. Cohen may have passed on the dirt to Trump, who was then warring with the New York attorney general over Trump University.
In 2013, Trump presciently tweeted: “Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone — next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner.”
Everything is plausible.
Just when you thought the Trump family saga could not get more absurd, The New York Post, the premiere Trump divorce publication, served up an eye-popping tale about Don Jr.’s soon-to-be ex: Vanessa Trump’s high school romance on the Lower East Side with a Latin King gang member, Valentin Rivera.
And just when you thought the feuds between the Trump and Clinton camps had run out of juice, former Hillary capo and State Department adviser Philippe Reines weighed in with a jaw-dropping tweet to Don Jr.: “Vanessa being with a Latin King must’ve driven you insanely jealous. The machismo, the passion. Tough act to follow. Did you wonder if she fantasized about Valentin Rivera when intimate with you? She did. Every time.”
Every time, everything is plausible.
Also, the other day a Daily Mail headline screamed, “Steve Bannon Was Target of Bribery Plot by Top Qatari Who Invested in Ice Cube’s Basketball League to Get to Trump’s Strategist and Boasted `Mike Flynn Took Our Money’, Rapper Claims in Court.”
Everything is plausible, even a segue from Ice Cube to Black Cube.
The Observer, another British paper, broke the news that Trump aides hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to run a “dirty ops” campaign against Obama administration officials who had helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, including Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s national security adviser. The firm was Black Cube, the same one hired by Harvey Weinstein to spy on the women he attacked and the reporters working on the story.
Everything is plausible.
—snip—.
Yup twice.
When everything is plausible, nothing is true.
There it is…deal wid it.
How?
Damned if I know.
Look away is the only answer I have.
I personally dedicate only morning hours on slow days to examining the so-called “news” in all of its rotten glory, and I assiduously avoid any and all news that is presented in a potentially trance-inducing manner…like TV or online video.
Including advertisements.
Then I put it all away in a locked box in my head and go about my real business.
Survival in a truth-deprived world.
Find your own way.
Please!!!
Later…
AG
