Why Visit No Man's Land?

Cynics have long lamented that the system is rigged and that all politicians are liars.  Alas, some of the headlines in 2016 confirm this jaundiced world view.  

Mark Twain once quipped: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misniformed.“ With this in mind, why visit “No Man’s Land”?

• Nearly all polls showed that UK votes would reject Brexit, yet the referendum to leave the European Union won by a large margin.  Were the polls rigged? Was media coverage slanted? Or were there forces which tried to influence the outcome but failed in this instance?

• Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT)  kept beating Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in Democrat Presidential primaries but due to the allocation system and Super Delegates, the preordanined winner became ever closer to her coronation... uh that is nomination.  Were the Democrat primaries preordained?  How much was the winner helped by the Democrat National Committe headed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL 23rd)

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was investigated for a year and a half by the FBI over her private homebrew email server for official government business.  FBI Director Comey excoriates Hillary Clinton over the many irregularities associated with her email set up , then declines to suggest to the Department of Justice to press charges.  Are there special rules for Washington Establishment insiders? 

• The Main Stream Media seized upon every seemingly outrageous soundbyte from Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump (R-NY), but rarely gives the full context or hyperbolizes the worst interpretation.  Is all of the press slanted?  Where can ordinary Americans find news?

While America still has vibrant First Amendment freedoms, people need not settle for the official story, especially if it seems sketchy. The Internet allows for corrections of the record, covering news which the Main Stream Media conveniently declines to cover and the sharing of opinion so one can better discern the truth of the matter.

Check your sources.  All reporting has a viewpoint.  Often it is shaped by opinion or emphasis. Once you recognize that fact, it helps you discern between facts and slanted perspectives.  

Challenge your news sources.  Sometimes, timely reportage requires unnamed sources (e.g. “Senior Government Officials”) who must remain shielded. But if news is based totally on anonymous sources or relies on one source, be confident that the “jo-whore-nalist” is intellectually seducing you. 

But on the other hand, don’t believe everything that is published on the Internet. If the news piece can substantiate itself through reference to other reliable sources, one might lend the report more credence.

Assess what is not reported.  This can be hard for someone who is not a news junkie. But an insidious power of the media is not only what they report but what they don’t report. When reporting on a political crime, one party is often immediately reveled whereas those in the other party rarely are immediately identified.  Many liberal Main Stream Media will give short shrift to some stories (such as possible pay-for-play connections between  Hillary’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation) whereas they are covered on other media can be telling.

It may not be convenient to avoid political minefields of corruption and deception but A No Man’s Land may provide a map avoiding the obstacles on our path.