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Witches Hunting Witches?

Howell Hurst Uncategorized

Rarely does anyone accuse me of being either a conservative or a liberal. No one has ever dubbed me either a Trump or a Clinton aficionado. Observing as objectively as I am able, I try to find out if some middle point exists between the two opposing political views of the nation.

I certainly do not always succeed. Since most all our viewpoints come from the Internet via computer or smart phones, radio, or TV, we are all getting information from sources it is difficult to closely inspect.

The mainstream media, radio, TV, most magazines and newspapers, from both Canada and the United States, are predominantly owned by some three to five giant media conglomerates: Disney, Time-Warner, the famous Australian mogul who is so famous I always forget this name: it’ll come to me, and a couple of others.

The point is, these giant media conglomerates are so diversified in their financial holdings, that they also have to have, to one degree or another, a finger or two in various defense industries and many other economic industries. It is normal, therefore, to expect that their coverage of news is likely always colored by their owner’s own economic interests. They report what they want, the way they want to; and they deny coverage they want to.

So – I find currently very interesting the story of Mr. Trump supposedly sharing classified Intelligence information with the Russians. The problem I have is that no matter whose story you read, no one has identified who the source was of this alleged disclosure by Trump. Where did the story come from?

Who was the person who told the Washington Post reporter the story that Trump gave the Russians information he was not supposed to? No one has talked about that. So, why should we even consider thinking that the story might be true?

It smells to me a bit like what Trump says fairly frequently: Did someone make up the story? If so, Who? Did the Washington Post make up the story? The Democrats? Some mysterious Blogger? I have no opinion. I just don’t know what to think because I – and all of us – did not receive enough information to make a sound judgment about the matter.

The media are constantly sending us information that is incomplete, and we are supposed to make sense of it. It is nearly impossible these days. We are all always forced to fall back on our own accumulated prejudices to form an opinion. That is a horrible trap to be caught in. Particularly, when we are supposed to eventually use media information to form opinions that decide how we vote.

That is why I named this piece: Witches Hunting Witches. This story, with its Trump White House denial, does makes the whole tale seem like a fake two-sided Witch hunt. The question is who are the Witches: Trump? The media? Some Liberal who just made it all up? Some Conservative with an axe to grind?

Very hard to say. All I know is both sides are taking opposite sides and it seems no one has any hard facts at all to support their positions. An awful lot of Witches running around out there in American Politicsland these days!

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2 thoughts on “Witches Hunting Witches?

  1. Dear Hal,

    As of this moment (2:00 PM, CDT 16 May) the reports are that the information came from Israel, presumably the Mossad. The concern seems not about the information itself, but that agents and procedures may be inferred from the data. Seems reasonable to me. I recall Churchill being frustrated because he could not act on it as he might have liked because it would be clear to the Germans that his people could crack the Enigma code.

  2. Propaganda is a powerful tool.
    Beware of what you hear!
    The truth has been blurred to the point of no return….. EVERYTHING IS MYTH!!!
    “History is written by the victors”, Trump and his camp are the current champs…..
    Wish you well

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