Remember not long ago when we were inundated with “alternative” news adherents spreading warnings that there was a cabal, a backroom bunch, who were planning to take over the world? They said there were devious planners who were using covert strategies like COVID and vaccinations to manipulate the population. They were forming their own military. They were corralling power—judicial, military, government—ready for a wholesale take-down. They were buying up the media and controlling the messaging. They had organizations that stole young people and molested kids. They were infiltrating the west with foreigners and foreign ideas. They controlled world finance and were funneling all the riches to themselves. They were messing with elections. They were planning to take away individual freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom to protest, freedom to have guns, etc. They were using the education system to brainwash young people.
You are being duped, was the message. If you want to be in the know, look under your bed and over your shoulder, there is a plan to get you. There is a monster lurking. Soon it will all be revealed. In Canada the monster was Trudeau. He was in on the plan to take over the world. Their proof: he shut down the protest in Ottawa. He squelched freedom of speech. He didn’t let those good people in their trucks occupy the parliament buildings. The same news feeds and media influencers targeted Biden in the States. And his son. They targeted woke people. The liberal world order, meaning people who believed in equality, climate action and that white people did not have a divine right to rule brown people—the radical left.
The messaging said that Trump was the answer. He was going to drain the swamp of the elites…those nasty people who are in charge of everything. He was going to be the guy for common folks. He was going to put Americans first and be the first president not to invade another country. I can’t even remember his promises. I think something about the price of eggs was big.
So here we are. I am not going to talk about what Trump is doing. Writers who are much better than me have written a gazillion words about him. It’s enough for me to say that everything the “alternative press” warned me was lurking under my bed is here. They were right. It doesn’t matter which news you watch, what is happening in the States is obvious to everyone. Oh, we are arguing about whether or not the ICEMAN was so scared for his life that he had to shoot that woman three times in her face and call her Bitch in self defence. We seem to think there is some nuance that should be part of that conversation that many of us are missing. Like, did he walk himself to the hospital because he was so badly injured? There’s that. And now we are arguing about whether the fact that the young male nurse had a gun, is reason enough to be shot. (I can’t get my head around that. Isn’t that what they are fighting for…to be able to carry a gun?)
There’s no mistaking Trump’s threats to Canada, Venezuela, Greenland, Iceland, Denmark, NATO, the European Union. Everyone knows his plans to take over the world. Both sides. Everyone.
We don’t even have to look under our beds or over our shoulders. The monster came out and is so unhinged that he forgot it was all supposed to be a subversive take over. He can’t help himself. There is so much attention to be had.
I’m tired of Trump. But what I am interested in right now is where are all the people who were warning us about a conspiracy to take over the world. Where are these people? How are they accounting for the swift manifestation of their warnings? Because the rest of us are now believers. There really was a conspiracy to take over the world. And now we are living the take-down.
But didn’t the alternative news say that Trump and his boys and girls were the answer? Not the problem?
I am not being facetious. I am actually confused. Are the alternative media adherents celebrating? Is this the solution they were looking for? Are we better now?
One of my friends who is an obsessive adherent to what she calls alternative messaging told me a few weeks ago, “I don’t always like Trump. He’s kind of crass. But he is doing what needs to be done.”
Really? I haven’t seen her since. But. Really? Is this what needs to be done? And to what end?
And why do I sit here, at 4 in the morning, writing this useless blog? Why don’t I phone her up and challenge her? Why aren’t we all challenging the “alternative news” crowd with the same enthusiasm we use to challenge mainstream media?
Why are we not calling it what it is? A scam. The American people got duped by a giant scam. The scammers had everyone looking under their beds and over their shoulders for foreign threats and the horrors of the radical left. And. In the end. It was them. They got sold a fix and the fix was the problem.
My head is spinning. Is your’s?
p.s.
The trouble with this post is that it makes it appear that I think the “radical left” has all the answers. I don’t. It makes it appear that I think the system as it was, was good. I don’t. But I think that I think that what we’ve got now is the outcome of a total scam. I think when historians like me look back from the future they may call this the Era of the Great Muddle. Or the Era of the Great Deception.
Very good Sylvia, well written and thought provoking. Thanks 💕
Sylvia, Your blog “Scam” raises many challenges of modern life that could spin the heads of millennials. The antidote is that young Indigenous leaders must update and promote a vision first proposed by past generations of Indigenous leaders. It will be a realistic plan based on Indigenous philosophies, knowledge and traditions, one that will have broad appeal. Statistics show most young North Americans reject much of what older leaders offer them, including that being promulgated by the current USA administration. It won’t be easy to reach a broad audience, what with new AI scamming tools and the youths’ distrust of large institutions.
I have hope as expressed by Miguel van der Velden who wrote in 2018 in Philosophy Now magazine, @ https://philosophynow.org/issues/127/Indigenous_Philosophies.
“Indigenous philosophies can help Indigenous people regain their cultural integrity, can help steer humanity off a path of destruction, and can end the spiritual estrangement that so many people feel today. But for this to happen Indigenous people, and most importantly the younger generation among them, must take the lead. It is we Indigenous millennials who must reconnect with our ancestral cultures, band together across the world, and then reach out to the wider society. We must invite that wider society to stand on the same platform as us, so that they may learn from us as we have learned from them, and so that together we can propel the world into a new era, the true post-colonial era.”
Now, what can I do to help that happen?
Thanks Dan. I read the piece on Indigenous philosophy. It’s time. It has so much to offer. There is so much to learn. Young Indigenous folks out this way are opening up to their knowledge, traditions, worldview in a significant way. They are the leaders of the future. How I can help make this happen is by supporting them. Donating to their efforts. Showing up for them. I am really impressed by how the Indigenous people are gathering to support the people in Minneapolis. It shows an impressive openness if spirit.