notes on notes, the punditry, and objectivity

"political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts, but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties,,,much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from context and and doctored so as to change their meaning. events, which it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied...the general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakeable fact can be impudently denied." notes on nationalism.george orwell.october 1945________________goeorge's "nationalism" is a bit broader than the ordinary...he includes "isms"...ideologies...and religion...and ideas that set themselves solely as counterpoints to other ideologies with no positive ideas for alternatives...and so this framework would lend itself to an analysis of the present state of politics and mass media where the divisions are clearly along partisan ideological lines and have little to do with fact as opposed to the subjective matter of "truth" which is what the media distortions are pandering to...reinforcing world views in spite of what may actually be happening...and all to the benefit of corporate profit and political expediency...shopping around the web ( and bearing in mind you can find anything here that will support your views...the web is media too )https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/...this site finds most pundits "counterfactual" and they do have a fair cross section of the political spectrum...from micheal moore to rush limbaugh...and then have a look at this:https://www.medicaldaily.com/being-confident-better-pundits-being-correct-246304 if pundits are correct 47% of the time they are doubtlessly doing better than politicians who basically lie for a living...we seem to be awash in a flood of allegations, counter allegations, distortions, lies, emotional assaults and blackmailing, banalities, outrageous claims ( "when you lie, tell the big lie" ), and a deep dose of denial about a lot of things we should be paying attention to but can't because the distortions and existential hum of all the bullshit are in the way...that i have no faith in politicians and very little in media is apparent...which begs the question, in the face of that what do we do? the political system is geared towards interest groups...it does not respond well to individuals...we get to vote for elected officials who then, for the most part, go on to work for the interests of their donors more so than their individual constituents...“[democracy is an]institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s votes.” Capitalism, socialism, and democracy p.269...that is from joseph shumpeter...an early to mid 20th century political economist and harvard professor who maintained that elections were popularity contests and not much more in terms of actual representation...i find myself inclined to agree...which leaves the ballot box as a poor vehicle for change...i am an individual and so will act as an individual despite the systems inherent bias against them..my actions are the one one thing i exert some control over ( we could go off on to the hegemonic culture and how, since, like everyone else, i am so deeply embedded in it that some actions that run counter to it are not possible without a good deal of negative sanction...but read gramsci instead...if you have the patience )i have some choice in what i do or do not support and some choice in how i spend money ( but not really complete control for instance, if i stop paying my utility bill to protest my power company's use of coal fired generators they will, eventually, shut off my gas and electricity at which point everything in my house ceases to function..and what do i do? pay the bill...embedded )...so i can choose not to patronize say fox news ( electricity costs money ) or (ugh ) the national interest ( subscription costs ) or buy products made by nestle or nabisco at the supermarket ( but it is difficult to avoid the supermarket altogether...seeing a pattern developing? )...and i can sift through as much media noise as i can stand to try to ferret out something of a balanced picture of events...as far as that is possible given my own biases...past that i can work towards making as much of it as possible irrelevant...willfully ignoring pundits of all stripes...eschewing as much electronic media as possible ( yes print is still biased but it takes longer to assemble and you can see events unfold in some anticipation of it and make value judgements as there is a bit of a lag )...and shutting off the media and going out in the yard to think instead of just passively listen...most of it isn't simple and it may well be ineffective...but i have to say stalking dragonflies with a camera cuts down on the angst...the zeitgeist is awful...do what you can to stay whole.