Lonely at the Top
It’s Getting Out of Hand
Down the memory hole goes my recollection of accepting a blind date with the idea that information is power. The hot night out was a double date. I was sat in back with Miss-information. Facebook and Google were in the driver’s seat.
Nothing to worry about. Don’t worry. We’ve got it— You mean the ad revenue? All of it? We’ve got it— Every Red Cent—Relax—
Digitally literate experts and influential faux-libertarian nerds were for self-enrichment motives ready to tinker with the connected-internet-revolution. And so we played-and the result? Down goes most of what we know as media, dog food and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The advertising revenue has been hoovered up by the Big Two at the expense all known cultural and economic life on earth and it turns out that it matters ‘not-so-much’ to a spiraling out of control smartphone ensconced populace.
Kicking the bad actors off Twitter evidently diminishes stocks value and so there is a lot less kicking and a lot more kissing instead. Paid ads on Facebook by those pesky Rooskie’s? You don’t get the subterfuge gringo now do you? We don’t leave no stinking money on the table.
Bat crap crazy has always been a thing but then add wingnut conspiracy theory, resurgent Caucasian counterinsurgency and a dollop of bot driven Twitter induced smear campaigns and brothers and sisters ain’t nobody going to tell me that they know ‘in the name of all the good golly almighties’ what is going on in this fight for the survival of Democracy and Freedom. Chaos replaced Elvis as King.
Somewhere in the laying of the rails for this new high speed internet we forgot that our highway to good intentions might be hijacked by and for the Panamanian hide the money in an offshore bank account sanctuary for the global elite. Ditching money crosses all ideologies- hell it is a theological certainty Christ died so we might be able to fleece one another until the end of time.
We don’t even know what we are up against since much of what we seem to be trying to push back against is not neatly aligned on one side of the demilitarized zone or the other. We are all blended together into one petri dish mixture of crapified health-care mayhem.
Removing madness from office might be a place to start. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Amazon all have grown too big for their britches. I recommend voting for anyone who isn’t talking to Russians, pretending to act as if they don’t know anyone who has been talking to Russians, or mixing up in their minds the difference between a Putin sympathizer and a Russian immigrant fleeing a totalitarian police state immigrating to the USA in the hope of living free having escaped true tyranny. If you were in the Moscow Circus and nobody in your family worked with the FSB— you’re good to come on in.
Here’s a recommendation. We put a functioning democracy above a gangbusters capitalism and a record stock market close. We harden our media distribution system. Recognize that my blog is an opinion piece and not news, and that I’m a native born Californian worried about the future of the Left Coast.
We are all on our butts watching this careening out of control climate disrupted, overpopulated global village groaning at the strain of humanity thinking there is a short cut, cheap meal or simple way out of the mess and corner technology and private equity has put us in. Friends it is always a bit precarious and tentative but when you go flirting with no-mans-land this is the inevitable peaceful queasy feeling you’ve been warned about and hoped to avoid. Well highway to hell is here. Let’s get out and march soon. Say hello. You’ll recognize me, I’m one of you. You know me. We are the peeps who can make a difference.
Like a Bat out of Hell on a Slow Train to a Better Ending
Sit Back Relax, We are Almost Done Here
Great poost thank you