(4-minute read)
It’s important that the truth is told as often as the lie.
Too many words.
First off, I’m not an influencer and have the stats to prove it.
In the next couple of months, I’ll be deciding as to whether or not I will continue writing this blog.
My approach has been kind of “Field of Dreams” build it and they will come. That never happened. Now, I have never done the things that influencers do; namely post links everywhere and use every avenue available to advertise my blog. There are hundreds of millions of bloggers in the world. Yes, you read that right. 600 million.[1] I figured if people liked what I wrote they would share it.
People didn’t share it and that’s okay.
Fortunately, I’m not attempting to make any money at this. So, I have some success there. It just seemed important when I started to document what is transpiring in America from a retired factory worker’s perspective. Especially when the evil of fascism is goose stepping around the world again.
The good side to that is that by and large I never picked up any trolls. Some Russians did pop in for a while but seemed to have gone away. Bots show up occasionally. I am relatively certain that my blog got scraped by AI.[2] That isn’t a recognition of anything. AI scrapes everything.
I am a dinosaur in today’s terms of what constitutes being an influencer. My following is miniscule. With that said I will note that I do have some people living in European countries that follow (read) what I write as well as some Asian readers. My thanks and appreciation to those that do read along. Today it is possible, quite easy actually, for people to mask where they are from online but historically, I have some good data.
While I have mentioned this previously it bears mentioning again that when I was in the Army back in the late 60s many of our manuals were written to the 6th grade level. That didn’t make any difference to some of the guys I served with because they did not know the alphabet or how to read anyway. The military has improved since then. I can only hope.
While engaged in a struggle for a more democratic union I once again ran into a communication barrier where I was repeatedly told that what I was writing was over our audience’s heads and that I needed to write for a less educated public.
Never could do that. That approach assumes the worst literacy of people instead of there being incremental differences. I quite often have to look words up myself. It seems to me that my followers are educated.
When I served on a small city council in Kansas, I learned how fickle a public can be as well as turn on a dime to support and then not support something. I was elected to office the first time over an issue that the soon to be replaced council had passed. A survey of the city that was conducted after the election asked what citizens considered the most positive thing the city had accomplished. People cited the issue that the previous council had accomplished and then been replaced over. A vocal minority convinced people that doing a good thing was a bad thing.
That’s what MAGA does.
Preach it Rev.
Once in a college speech class I gave a sermon but it wasn’t really a sermon. I gave a parody of a sermon using a Southern Baptist style of preaching with violent phrasing and imagery. I said like, “… they will be consumed by running pustules of their sinful actions!” I gave roughly 5 minutes of corrupted non-sensical phrasing from various sermons I had heard. They ate it up. My delivery was way too good. It didn’t matter what I was saying. It was a scary lesson.
That’s what MAGA does.
Undecided
And now we have fascists in power in Italy again as well as other European countries delivering the same message that was delivered previously only repackaged for a more modern audience. I repeat, it’s the same message.[3] And as hard as it is for oldsters like me to believe it, we have an Orange fascist seeking the office of President AGAIN. Trump is doubling down on the same fascist message and siding with the now forming modern day axis leaders.
At the most elemental level the differences between the opposing forces in the world couldn’t be more dramatic. I can’t help but wonder if more people living in Axis countries had spoken out would World War II have gone the way it did. Too many people looked the other way. Too many people stayed silent.
Until it was too late.
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