The wife and I watched a documentary last week about the days after Princess Diana's death. Boring, but the wife was a fan of Diana's, even when she was alive!
What struck me was the level of hysteria that was whipped up in such an incredibly short time.
Apparently the initial reaction was to blame the paparazzi, and the news organizations that paid them so well for Diana's likeness. The media responded by shifting the blame onto the Royal family, and as a result some were fearing an overthrow of the Monarchy. Silent vigils, screaming protestations of undying love, massive mountains of flowers.
The Queen ended up by regaining the love of her subjects and the film ended on a high, if solemn note.
I've witnessed similar outpourings of emotion in the States. Those who cried for Kennedy, even after damning him loudly the week before he died. Those who screamed that we needed to take out Vietnam Now, before all the Asian Domino's fell. The masses who cheered as Bagdad was bombed, and those who suddenly began pouring French wine down the gutter and closed the only good French Restaurant in Las Vegas (damn their eyes).
The media was very much involved in stirring all these, and many more, pots. They weren't so much reporting on the stories as they were whipping up the nation, and incidentally their ratings.
When Russiagate suddenly blared from every "News" channel a similar hysteria suddenly sprang into existence. Obama had teased Romney for claiming that Russia was the enemy in the 2012 campaign, yet by December of 2013 Victoria Nuland was bragging of spending $5B to overthrow the Ukrainian's elected government.
What a huge turn around! And Putin is pictured with horns on "News Magazine" covers for halting the terror campaign before it swept through Crimea. - Oh, he also ended America's dreams of a naval base in the Black Sea.
The election takes place and every MSN poll proves to be totally wrong. Editors, political commentators, national columnists, all with egg on their face. Who's going to pay to watch, listen to, or read pundits that are so out of touch with reality?
Rather than admitting that they were wrong, they announce that Russia colluded secretly with the Trump Team, and together they had stolen the election. It wasn't that the editors were all stupid or uninformed, or even that their pollsters were all wrong. How could they have been expected to be cognisant of a secret conspiracy so powerful that it subverted an American election? It wasn't that they were incompetent, they had all been played by an evil genius. - Goebbels was so right.
And so media driven hysteria. Just as the British media blamed the Queen for their own misdeeds, the American media explained away it's own incompetence by blaming Putin and Trump. In Britain the maddened masses went back to their tea and crumpets when Diana was safely under ground, and the Queen was secure on her throne.
What will it take for the American media to move on to the next Demonic Desecration of Democracy?
Terry
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6947808/