Wednesday, September 9, 2015

A New Story

As I've touched on before, there is nothing wrong with being skeptical of our media, as it has proven not to always have our best interests at heart.  So I don't blame others when they are skeptical.  There is nothing wrong with that.

On the other extreme, one can't ward themselves off from the World - paying no interest outside their own bubble, avoiding any sources of media that could burst it.  It leads to a ignorance of the workings of the World, right or wrong, and a dangerous gamble to ignore that which could very well come back and take an interest in you.

One needs to find balance.  A happy medium between believing everything one reads, and distrusting the lot.

So how do we know what to trust?

Well, I prefer using the same thing I trust in to find answers - the scientific method. When a particular organization or media figure theorizes a certain event will happen given their current political realities, it's fair to analyze the result of those predictions.  It's well within reason to judge a media organization on it's accuracy, ability to dig deeper into subjects, and willingness to amend the record when it realizes mistakes.

It's no different than looking at the record of an Sports commentator. Did he do well predicting the Win & Loss record of a team or conference? Did they predict the winner of a tournament or playoff correctly?  Of course, it is simpler to check these things in sports because W's and L's are easy to see.  The record in real life is more difficult to discern comparatively, but it's there - right in your face every day.  That is where we see if these people are telling the truth. 

Fortunately for us, we also have the internet (so long as it stays free of government control) to help us judge these things on our own.  We can see for ourselves what people do - we don't need a filter.  It doesn't matter if it's the 47% video that exposed Romney, or the series of videos of MIT Professor Gruber that exposed corruption in the ACA, We The People have more tools than ever to understand what's going on in our Government and World than ever before. 

I happened to see first hand Fox, and majority of the media, go after the regular people here in Murrieta.  I saw how they misconstrued one event into a smear campaign against the Tea Party movement.  I don't support spitting at a person, but the real reason why it happened was never portrayed in those media sources.

It was then, at a very personal level, that I realized that Fox wasn't out for regular conservatives, let alone real people, who I saw standing in that green field that day.  Not watching on television, I was exposed first hand to the diversity of the people who protested.  Many of them legal immigrants themselves.  One would probably never have gotten that impression at all if one was not there in person.

As a result, there are some organizations and people across both sides that I simply don't trust.  It's not personal - it's business for me. I want the information that is relevant and coherent, even if it may offend or upset me.  The more I was open to information from outside the MSNBC/CNN misinformation circle - the more I realized how much was being withheld or spun.

The same had happened widely to my generation, Millennials.  Our cultural World has been twisted across many platforms, including new media such as video games, and old media, literature.  We have been betrayed, bashed and lampooned by our own generation, on digital forums of every sort. Even labeled on the more "serious news" as zombies of a dead era.  Allowed to be blocked enmass by a poorly programed auto-blocker, which I might add is against the Twitter TOS, while their accusers gain large platforms on which to spread their slander.  They have even been denied their rightful awards because 'social justice.'

It's a crazy, completely mixed up world in which our generation now finds itself in.  It seems to them that both the entire new media world is stacked again them, as well as the old, traditional one - telling them who they are, and what they have to believe.

But we do not want to be told by anyone who or what we are. Particularly when it's not true.

I am an individual. I demand to be defined by the content of my character, not by the tone of my skin, the color of my eyes, or if I like to play video games, or even if I believe in things you don't agree with. 

Telling me I'm dead, a has-been, racist, bigot, misogynist, un-scientific cave-dweller, a denier or whatever flavor of the day it is - does not go over well with me. It's simply not true - and no amount of media spin will ever convince me of my own feelings.

It's sad that I have to say this, but it should be a pre-requisite for any writer to have both a way with words and a depth of knowledge on the topics of which they speak. And if they don't know - they need to find out.  In which case, I like to see them exhaust every avenue of research. 

Breitbart has been one of those organizations that has ended up on the correct end of those predictions on a wide range of subjects.  It's not perfect - no organization is - but it's the closest that I've seen. I find them as a conservative to be a pleasant oasis in a desert of incompetence and misinformation.  One doesn't need to agree with everything they write, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that there is real talent at Breitbart.

For instance, the piquant Milo Yiannopoulos, who has continued to wreck havoc on GamerGhazi's core instigators.  He has done as any good reporter would do - he exposed some rather unscrupulous behavior (and I'm sure there is more to come). What has elevated him even more so - has been the way in which he has worked with the Gamer community of all political stripes, and helped form (perhaps inadvertently) the community's real world presence.

I'm not saying that anyone should worship at his feet - merely realize he has been on our side. And continues to be there - giving us our own platform to fight back.  We should appreciate it - and at the very least use it to our advantage.  I'm sure Nero won't mind being "used" for his talents, particularly when it's for good purpose.

It's clear that we haven't let the other side determine our fate.  We have our own story to write here, and it's only the beginning.  

They know we are out there.  We know they are afraid of us.  They are afraid of change. I don't know the future.  I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.  I came here, to tell you how it's going to begin.

Where we go from there, is a choice I leave to you.