Common sense drowns under a tide of events

What’s an old fellow to do? My sources of information are letting me down. The news of the day comes into my house mainly via the internet, a New York Times subscription, a couple of local newspapers and brief sessions with commercial-haunted CNN (insurance of all kinds, mesothelioma lawyers, and Medicare Advantage) while I’m cooking and eating meals in my kitchen. Not very elegant, but generally reliable, as nearly as I can tell by crosschecking.

Lately, however — since the presidential inauguration, to be specific — my news sources seem to have gone haywire.

It’s hard to believe that this isn’t intentional, but so many things are happening simultaneously that none of them is getting proper attention.

Case in point: On the first day of the Trump Administration, a billionaire pal of the president somehow (and likely illegally) appointed to a position of authority, forced the seasoned head of the Federal Aviation Administration to relinquish his post. The ensuing week featured further diminution of the FAA’s capacity, and ended with a fatal collision of two aircraft over one of our most congested airports, revealing that its control tower was attempting to operate with only half its usual staff.

At least that’s what I’ve been able to glean from various sources. CNN, which normally covers air crashes with almost indecent enthusiasm, pivoted away from its normal interest in the minute details of the recovery efforts to be present at a news conference with the president, during which he rehearsed his usual tropes, affirmed he wouldn’t be visiting the crash site (too wet), and threatened retaliation for nations who will undoubtedly be resistant to his unilateral imposition of trade tariffs.

Meanwhile, a bit farther down the road, young goons employed by private citizen Musk were reportedly crashing the gates of the Treasury Department, plugging their laptops into the department’s records and downloading citizens’ and corporations’ protected financial information. If that’s not a bigger story to cover than the predictable maunderings of an increasingly challenged old man, then I don’t know what is. But it’s gotten so little attention that I’m not sure it’s even true.

There’s a pattern here, one far too clever to have been devised by the president. The idea seems to be to flood the various news media with so many irresistible news items that listeners, readers and viewers will be so confused by the proliferation that they’ll give up trying to keep pace. It’s sort of the civilian version of the Blitzkrieg that the German armies used in the opening days of the Second World War.

It’s caught us flatfooted. Has anyone heard even a peep from Congress? It’s likely the sudden and blatantly illegal rush has sent it into its usual discussive mode (what I call faculty meetings) to determine a course of action that will appear brave, but will ensure that no one will be personally exposed to the vengeance of the president’s men.

Thousands of people watch soap operas daily. But it’s a lot less entertaining to be living in one. It seems that our fates — especially those of us elderly folks — are to be directed by distant and unaccountable people devoid of even sympathy. It appears that our foreign policy, which has for decades been softened and sweetened by aid to nations and people in need, is about to eschew the soft speech and rather emphasize the big stick. Other potential suitors eagerly await such a development.

The Government Demolition Office seems to have thought of everything. The news media who made much of Defense Secretary Hegseth’s unfitness for office have been shuffled out of their own offices in the Pentagon, and replaced by an “annual rot ation” with other, competing media. That seems perfectly fair, but it’s clearly a warning to reporters and media companies to pull their punches in the future.

All of this leaves us common folk wondering where to turn for the truth. It used to be that we could use our high school training to distinguish news from commentary, bias from propaganda, and fact from speculation. That’s not so easy anymore. Where are the commentators getting their facts? What corporations hold majority ownership in our sources of news? It would be easy to ask myself, at my age, why I care? At that point, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule…is the [person] for whom the distinction between fact and fiction … and the distinction between true and false … no longer exist.” Never think that it can’t happen again.

By WILLEM LANGE

For the Valley News