Infowars are so powerful, and we're so ill-prepared to meet them.
Yesterday, I was struck by how much media illiteracy reigns. How gullible we still are in every news cycle.
Is it genuine?
Or do people know full well what they're weaponizing?
That's the kind of despair infowars breed.
One no longer knows if one's neighbours are being honestly manipulated or eager participants in their own manipulation.
All one knows is that propaganda reigns, and has made the world unsafer yet again.
@MLClark I watched over the weekend a documentary about William Randolph Hearst. I don't think most people realize that the "fake news" from Fox and similar ilk are nothing new. Hearst was doing it 125 years ago.
As does Rupert Murdoch, Hearst didn't care who he hurt or what war he started, so long as he made money from it. Like #Trump, he was a sociopathic narcissist.
For those with an interest:
As of late, there's been pushback on a myth around Hearst that also reflects the problem today. In modern histories, Hearst is set up as a singular purveyor of misinfo, because having one big puppet master absolves us of personal responsibility.
Unfortunately, the truth is that many journalists of the era were *very eager* to embellish to further their careers.
That there was ever an era of "good" journalism is a bit of a myth. Most of the time, we've been sifting through lies.
The veneration of Murrow and Cronkite also allows us to forget the environment that made them atypical - when that's really what we need to remember.
It's a bit like Western myths of resistance fighters during WWII: They did exist! But in small numbers, because most Westerners in occupied regions weren't willing to give up what comforts they had.
Meanwhile, in Eastern countries, there are fewer myths of plucky resistance groups, because resistance was a more overarching affair.
The funny/sad part about Red Dawn is that it was remade in 2012, in a context *completely* distinct from the Cold War pressures that informed the original. The original reflects a great deal of anxiety of its moment, and a proper remake would have had the wherewithal to reflect on how that moment has changed.
(Also cute/sad is realizing that a film like WarGames [1983] could never be made today - although I vaguely recall it being parodied in a recent TV show.)
@MLClark I always laugh when the U.S. militia types think they're training for some sort of guerrilla resistance when the FEMA helicopters come for their guns or whatever. 99% of them are going to meekly surrender rather than give up their smart TVs and phones.
There was a 1984 movie, "Red Dawn," that posited a group of teenagers defending their town from a Soviet occupation. It would never happen, but even if it did they'd quickly give up rather than sacrifice their lives.