Obama’s Dance of Deceit
Truth and Lies
One’s Character Reflected in the Penumbra
The word penumbra is an appropriate and wonderful word for describing the edges where the difficult answers reside. Penumbra has been used by The Supreme Court to describe privacy rights that are not explicitly found in the Constitution, the ones on the edges. The word avails itself to the description of pornography as “I know it when I see it.” Each person may draw the line of description in a different place. What one may see as Art another may see as Porn. Where one draws the line may reflect matters of upbringing, religion, ethics, experience, associations, knowledge of history, context, intention, and character. The shadowy region where lightness and dark meet, not quite one or the other, is the visual image that comes to mind when I use the word. It’s where the dance occurs that results in firming of our opinions of what we are seeing, hearing, and experiencing.
This image seems to work in trying to describe something as the truth or a lie – is not always an easy question. Where do Actions fit in? What if one has an interest in the outcome? How about intentions? What personal lens of experience is the viewer looking through to judge truth? For me, both an accurate knowledge of context and the actors’ intentions are critical to discovering truth. Unfortunately, both of these are hard to know for certain and are subject to manipulation. John McCain has a long history which helps. Barrack Obama has a short public history, which does not help and raises the level of investigation required from the media.
When it comes to recognizing truth, I believe half of what I see and very, very little of what I read. With today’s media so clearly taking sides regarding this election and regarding most issues, what I read must be scrutinized to discover what facts are facts, what’s the real context, what facts are omitted, where opinion is stated as fact, what is implied as fact, what is credible, what is the author’s bias. It’s such a difficult challenge that I sometimes think that I’m better off staying away from many “journalists” who have a strong command of the English language, understand its power of persuasion, and clearly intend to use it for that purpose.
I’m speaking mainly about the main stream media or “drive by media” as Rush Limbaugh calls them. The media who a clear majority sees as biased. The media’s access to thousands of digital images to reinforce and/or paint a distorted narrative is a very powerful tool indeed. We all think we can trust what we are seeing. However, the visual is so strong that we need to talk ourselves into questioning what we see. “Seeing is believing,”is what we have always been told. I need to remind myself frequently not to trust that what I am seeing is completely representative of truth with a capital T. If the context is intentionally distorted then the meaning of what one sees is also distorted and that reinforces the false context. Context, bias, intention, interest in the outcome, conflict of interest, the viewer’s knowledge about history & context all come into play regarding the dance to discover truth and lies. Only the most basic statements of what is truth can be believed. He is older. He is white. He is black. He is young. Even these have nuances that can be considered.
I do believe that there is a core to Truth and a core to Lies, defined by intention and context. However, the shadowy regions where manipulation can occur are very broad indeed, so beware.
I think that our personal knowledge of the history of John McCain makes it much more difficult for the media to be very effective when they try to distort his beliefs and values. Actually, it may be part of the reason that most can see the bias that exists. We know John McCain and media attempts to manipulate are just not as credible. They are somewhat effective when they try to manipulate what we think about is age.
If the media were not so in the bag for Obama, I really believe he would not be the Democratic nominee. They have been intentionally not looking closely at the many issues that would bring most politicians down. Things like the allegations of corruption surrounding Tony Rezko and his partners in crime. How the associations with Rev. Wright and his hateful view of America have shaped Sen. Obama? Does he have any real level of patriotism? His upbringing and birth certificate are also issues. The Senator’s association with William Ayers, a person who was involved in bombing the pentagon, is very troubling. The anti-Semitic attitudes held by several of Sen. Obama’s close associates are also deeply troubling. Additionally, the press has totally failed to investigate the allegations that the Senator and Larry Sinclair used cocaine and engaged in consensual gay sex in 1999.
All of the above have the possibility of giving us some clear insight into Senator Obama’s intentions, credibility and our understanding of the context of the Senator’s actions today. What were the Senator’s intentions when he finally goes to Iraq for the first time? What were his intentions when he failed to visit wounded soldiers there? What was the real intention of putting a prayer in the wall in Israel? What about the Senator’s image that makes it possible for him to brush off legitimate criticism? Why is the media distorting almost everything we are learning about the Senator? Are we to believe that the media is interested in Truth? I don’t think so.
Instead of having real information from the media to use to judge Senator Obama’s character, intentions, believes, and actions. We are fed a ‘fairy tale’ that paints the Senator as new, pure, wise, a messiah, the bringer of Hope. This then becomes part of the reference many misled people use to judge all of the Senator’s current actions and intentions. Intentions are presumed pure and actions authentic. People judge this manufactured credibility as supreme when comparing his history, actions and statements to those of say John McCain, Fox news, or Larry Sinclair.
However, the media is not the only culprit here. Senator Obama himself and his campaign use their enormous fortune to shape and reinforce these false perceptions about him. At the same time, Senator Obama uses his minions to attack and discredit those who question, criticize or doubt him. He is really a very dangerous, deceitful politician from the pit of corrupt politicians, Chicago.
Hopefully, by the election, the dance of deceit that is taking place in the penumbra of truth and lies will be revealed. The media manipulation of truth and image, the manipulation by Senator Obama, the distortion, the attacks against voices in opposition to Senator Obama, the use of catchy slogans that mean nothing when they are not sincere, the naiveté, the inexperience, the socialist agenda, the true nature of Obama style politics, and the true context of his life that reflects a questionable character may all come into focus and not be denied any longer. How one states their own history, accurately or distorted, speaks volumes about their character.
This is the most important election that I can remember and I hope we will not let it be stolen by Obama’s Dance of Deceit.
