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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDan Rather: "How can people not see the truth when it is everywhere?"
Dan Rather
https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather
Graphs show spikes, but spikes are tallied in lives wiped off our fragile Earth, lives often vibrant and full just weeks earlier. At first no one saw the tsunami coming. And when warning sirens rang, from China, and Europe, and even from within our country, they went largely unheeded. A force of unrelenting death dismissed as a hoax or discounted as a flu.
Why has this death cult persisted? It is the question of our time, echoing a moment in our history that summons general disbelief. How can people not see the truth when it is everywhere? We try for benchmarkers to measure the present carnage, so many 9/11's or even the death toll of Vietnam. But this seems to have less impact than hurricanes and other "acts of God" which kill far, far fewer but seem to garner much more fear and elicit much more empathy.
As an old TV newsman, I can't help but wonder whether a big part of the problem is that this is not a visual form of mass death. The images of terrorism, or war, or the aftermath of ferocious winds, or a plane tumbling out of the sky are the kinds of stories that win photojournalists awards. How do you take yet another picture of a patient on ventilators? There are always people on ventilators. There are always people in hospitals dying. Not on this scale, of course, not by a long shot. But human beings have a hard time comprehending scale. Our emotions are more resonant with the personal, the small tragedy.
I find the emerging number of nurses' heartbreaking testimonials particularly affecting. I am moved by the pictures of smiling family members who had no idea when the photo was taken that they would soon die in pain and alone. I yearn for every one of my fellow citizens to engage. I understand the fear of a crumbling economy. I understand the frustration of schools closed and life and families disrupted. I desperately wish this wasn't real.
But, but, but... it is all too real. My line of work has brought me face to face with death in many forms. It is a finality that defines the ultimate bookend of our lives. And it is here, everywhere. I pray that people wake up. Every small act can literally save a life. Vaccines are coming. Science will ride to our rescue. But in the interim it is our common humanity and empathy that will save the most lives. We need to do a better job of describing the horror. We need to all pull together to make sure the reality of our present doesn't become a final destiny that draws far more into its deadly undertow.
Courage and Peace to all of you.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)that will not see.
People make their choices to accept facts or not.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)makes sense.
Nearly half of the country is...gone
Cirque du So-What
(25,938 posts)I heard it last Saturday while out running errands. My only complaint: too many RWNJs were able to get through and give Mr. Rather a hard time.
JHB
(37,160 posts)...people who have been conditioned to never trust anything you say. RW media is pervasive and forms a constant drumbeat that defines what's normal, what "most people think." It's everywhere and goes on day and night, so people pick up the RW talking points but ones from the Democratic side always have to scale a cliff. Their primary language is that freaky dialect conservatives have that uses the same words as standard English but has wildly different meaning, like how our G-7/NATO allies get described as if they were Warsaw Pact police states because of "European socialism (woooOOOOOoooo)."
What is needed is an actual "liberal media" alternative to RW media and the mainstream networks. That means center, liberal, and left. Out where people can hear it and see it without having to go looking for it. Chew on how to bring that about, use some of your contacts to convince people to fund it.
Without a counter to the RW noise machine and the way it twists the MSM to avoid overtly contradicting it, everything is a steep uphill battle.
-Laelth
Ohioboy
(3,240 posts)It's funny how the people most likely to accuse "the media" of being bias get that idea from their own bias media. We need to bring back the fairness doctrine.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)We need to invest heavily in overcoming the RW lie machine.
Initech
(100,068 posts)And I think what really did it was the merging of right wing radio with conspiracy theory radio. We used to laugh at conspiracy theorists and now they're in the White House writing policies.
Mr. Sparkle
(2,932 posts)these people live in their own parallel America. They will never know the truth. The republicans and their lobbyists have created a echo system where they can herd dumb people into voting for them en block.
Thats is the only way they can ever pass a republican agenda because their policies, in the full light of day stink unless your super wealthy.
Eyeball_Kid
(7,432 posts)Locrian
(4,522 posts)Dan - please take a look around. Never before has there been so much distorted reality and lies everywhere. My god - you're POSTING THIS ON FACEBOOK. One of the platforms most responsible for creating alternate realities based on sensationalism and shock.
I know I keep posting this (below)... but it is important to know what is going on. Its tought to step out of the MSM cable bubble and see what is happening right in front of him, and understand its power. Note I really LIKE Dan - but just look at the system behind the lies
Frank Luntz - I talked to Tristan Harris and Jeff Orlowski of the upcoming Netflix documentary, 'The Social Dilemma.' Tristan explains how social networks are designed to "hijack" human attention by targeting our limbic system and keep us addicted to emotional responses.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,342 posts)RobertDevereaux
(1,857 posts)NOT-SEE
yaesu
(8,020 posts)they are gone, dead to civilization, much like the zombies on the walking dead.
matt819
(10,749 posts)We've all seen the tweets from doctors and nurses who are treating people with Covid who, even when dying, believe it is a hoax, or they just have the flu, and that it will go away.
So, when Dan Rather write, We need to do a better job of presenting the horror, I'm afraid that will do nothing in most cases. People dying believe it is a hoax. How do you reach that level of cultism?
Republican secretaries of state have repeatedly said that votes have been counted legally and legitimately, and they - Republicans, mind you - receive death threats. The cybersecurity guy at DHS said it was the most secure election in history, and he was fired.
How do you turn this around? Beats me. Those people just don't listen. Or they listen and just don't care. Or they listen and just don't believe what you're saying. What a way to go through life, hey?
pwb
(11,261 posts)They don't know the difference. Fox fucks them up.
Blue Owl
(50,360 posts)ooky
(8,922 posts)its someone else's horror and not their's. They are selfish people. We're now seeing just how selfish these fucks truly are, and it's not pretty.
BadGimp
(4,015 posts)They can live with not seeing what they want to see
diva77
(7,640 posts)then cross-faded to that same man, similar facial angle, in the ICU on a ventilator, who later died of COVID-19. Footage of bodies in body bags being loaded into refrigerator trucks are very effective (and indescribably sad, IMHO) too. Maybe an ad that includes all of this in succession followed by footage of the empty seat at the dinner table might work.
Cha
(297,196 posts)a serious disease.