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Some commentators have referred to the current clime as a post-truth world. Influential leaders like Putin and Trump have spent years casting gazillions of fake news aspersions and stories into the mix to undermine the credibility of any concepts of truth. The importance of truth has, indeed, never been greater. In an age of convenience, many people are, it seems, happy to believe whatever fits in with their world view and political persuasion. The facts don’t matter when you have a swirling mass of contradictory stuff deflecting the importance of truth.
Truth Telling In A Sea Of Lies
Here at Midas Word, Speaktruth is our motto. You will always find truth at the core of every piece we write and publish. You may not agree with it, but the intention is always to present the truth as we see it. Russians have been living in a post-truth world for many decades. Their Orwellian universe has meant that public and private realities have never matched up. Official announcements about the world from on high mostly stood in strange relief to what things looked like on the ground. Putin has purposely inundated his people with conflicting world stories to sew doubt and distrust wherever possible as a stratagem. His counterintelligence service has employed Russian bots to infect the social media platforms globally with the same wave of dissenting voices.
Truth is much harder to find in a sea of lies, exaggerations, and red herrings.
American Truth In Short Supply
American democracy has fallen victim to this strategy and it has been picked up by Trumpian forces. MAGA GOP politicians and supporters have ramped up attacks on Biden Democrats painting them as the devil incarnate. Everything is blown out of proportion and outlandish claims are par for the course. There is no middle ground left for any bi-partisanship behaviour in the current political climate. Extremism is the order of the day. Trump’s autocratic bid to hold onto power, despite losing the 2020 election, broke every rule in the book. Only now is justice catching up with the blow-hard ex-President. Trump has been indicted multiple times in both state and federal jurisdictions. Despite this his supporters remain rusted on to his campaign for re-election in 2024.
In America today, the laws of the land play second fiddle to the politics of the nation. It is a race to put Trump behind bars before the next Presidential election.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/17/politics/trump-election-results-decision/index.html
Racist Truths In Australia
Reactionary conservative forces around the world have taken heart from the actions of Trump and Putin. Even in the backwater of Australia there is a spring in the step of the more hardline right wingers in their appeals to the self-interest of the dominant white cohort. Louder voices are piping up demanding more for their members and less for those minority interests. Power to the right kind of people with the right beliefs is their raison d’etre. How dare you propose a voice to parliament for those darkies! What is the world coming to if God fearing folk like us are forced to share with the likes of them. Our forefathers beat them into submission and we will never give up that dominance willingly. No has become their call to arms. No is the secret password on their lips. No, they hope, will deliver them power once again.
Voicing Lies & Disinformation
Truth has gone missing in the voice referendum debate, perhaps it has gone walkabout?
Peter Dutton has been promising a second referendum if you will only vote No on this one we are actually having on the 14th October 2023. Warren Mundine is promising a treaty if you will only vote No. Jacinta Price assures all Australians that colonialism has only been a force for good in the lives of all Aborigines. Lies and distortions are being peddled to persuade voters to their intentions. Truth telling has been missing from Australia in relation to First Nations people for a very long time. Peter van Onselen writes in that racist rag The Australian – that not everyone voting no is racist, but every racist is voting No. Tainted by association! The No campaign has been desperate to claim every prominent Indigenous Australian to their side wherever possible.
“Much has already been said about Peta Credlin’s ridiculous claims that the Uluru Statement from the Heart has over 20 secret pages. Credlin continues to use this misinformation on Sky News and in News Corp newspapers as part of a politically inspired scare campaign about the Voice. Credlin says these pages prove the Albanese Government is misleading voters about the true intentions and consequences of the constitutional change.”
Truth In The Mirror World
Our world has reached a tipping point, where like children who do not want to hear a word against themselves – we now refuse to believe anything that may prove us wrong.
In Naomi Klein’s new book – Doppelganger: A Trip Into The Mirror World- she posits that many of us inhabit these mirror worlds where conspiracies abound to explain things. The polarising nature of the current clime, especially in a post-Covid world, has seen many folk fall down rabbit holes into mirror worlds. Social media platforms play a large part in these alternate universes, where like-minded individuals can massage each other’s egos. Extremist behaviours lie in wait for them, particularly so in gun toting realms like America. Although, even in Australia with the Train brothers and wife mass murder of young police officers and a neighbour in Queensland – we have seen what can happen with ‘so called’ sovereign citizens bearing arms.
The importance of truth has never been greater. The media is like the ancient conception of the Greek chorus, as it amplifies and repeats everything ad nauseum. The mirror world, meanwhile, reflects a distorted conception of things back at us. Some truths, some lies, and some gross exaggerations.
People look to their leaders for guidance and many of them are in the grip of strange ego trips and the machinations of hidden interests. We go online in search of the truth or, perhaps, in search of consolation and companionship. The truth is not always an easy friend. Its searing light sometimes frightens us. We cling to our beliefs and attitudes. We take comfort in what we were told as small children. This is where religious beliefs can take strong hold on us, especially during times of stress and crisis in our lives.
There are no easy answers and solutions to this current dilemma. We cannot force others to hear the truth. Although, at times we wish we could. People must find their own way to the truth. However, we can ensure that individuals and entities peddling lies can be identified and called out wherever possible. We must protect and nurture those who SpeakTruth – for they are holding the line in this post-truth world.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.
©MidasWord
