Amphitheater Live
Amphitheater Live
Jeff Bezos and the Rationalization Tour
Life is just so over-the-top sometimes. It’s razor-sharp edge, know what I mean. Can someone please tell Jeff Bezos, you know, the owner of the Washington Post, yeah that guy, who has the power to pretty much decide anything at his paper, to tell his paid journalists to print the facts about Trump. Because there is a lot of shady shit that Trump and Musk are doing and the American people deserve to know all about it.
After all, we cannot let democracy die in darkness. I think a lot of people, who actually like the media and believe it must exist, want to see the credibility of WAPO restored.
I am concerned about Bezos. He is actually not a horribly bad guy. I mean, he is a little greedy, but listen, who among us is perfect. I hope he is not worried that printing the facts will upset Trump and the MAGA cult. Goodness forbid Bezos is being censored.
Trump claims anything written about him is a lie unless it flatters him, which if the media is printing facts, is simply impossible to do. Fox News is clutch in this regard.
Standing up for truth is the hallmark of a great leader. Coincidentally, time and place notwithstanding, Bezos missed a great opportunity to show he is on the right side of history. I get it though. It doesn’t mean I agree with it or like it, but, I totally get it.
Trump has spent the last 8 years discrediting the media in order to get his followers to lose utter faith in the media. That’s Naziism 101, taken straight out of Mein Kampf. Much to my chagrin, he has been very successful at it. Proof? If you support Trump (still?), you have been hood-winked. Then, just to make a mockery of America and his followers, because he is sadistic like that, Trump creates TRUTH social, a platform of lies. Truth certainly is much stranger than fiction. I mean, you just can’t make this shit up.
This was followed by Musk, who has spent the last two years discrediting the media, but only because he wants to turn X into a cash cow that capitalizes on producing dung. Shit sells, or so it seems. And Musk’s X certainly produces a shitload of dung.
Next up Bezos, oh, my god. Here we are. Come on, man, redeem yourself. I mean, all of a sudden, he sure is sounding very bothered by the off-the-cuff writers and podcasters and a lot less concerned about journalistic integrity. What got his undies in a bunch?
The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.
Jeff Bezos, Owner of The Washington Post
Who had on their bingo card the owner of a newspaper calling himself fake news?
All journalists are writers, but not all writers are journalists. I am stating the obvious, obviously. While great writers are incredible and much needed, journalists are held to a higher standard because, unlike writers, who can basically write anything they want, journalists must stick to the facts and only the facts. Some writers, who may not be journalists, may actually think and write much better than journalists. That’s okay. Some journalists are actually great writers. And many great writers both rely on and appreciate journalists who provide them with verifiable facts about current events.
The world needs writers and democracy needs for ethical journalists to write about the facts as they are, without kowtowing to fear of retribution. Or (gasp) censorship.
At this rate, I fear Bezos will be wearing a MAGA hat soon. God forbid. What to do?
People often question how someone like Hitler rose to power. It is because many people supported him. Jesuits, Jews. Many people support Donald Trump, who is as innocuous as the Bubonic plague. Many Jews, sadly, who were afraid to lose their money, supported Hitler, if not outright, tacitly, until they realized much too late this was the worst possible choice to make. Today, people who believe in the superiority of race identify with Trump. People who believe a woman is just slightly less than a man relate to Trump. There are some rich Jews who support Trump and evangelicals, too.
Trump taps into the id, the dark crevices of the psyche, that unconscious part of the mind responsible for impulses, drives, and base needs. Whether it is greed or hate or fear, or religious fanaticism, he knows how to appeal to his audience. He is a great salesman in this regard because he gives the people (who follow him) what they want.
There is a subset of folks, who may not like him at all, but they love their money a lot more than they dislike him. In that very space we encounter silence and complicity.
Jesus taught folks that it is much easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to part with his money. Kind of makes me think of Bezos. Coincidentally, Bezos says he pulled the plug and realized that the media lost all credibility, just as his CEO happened to schedule a meeting with Trump. Call it perfect timing. I mean, what luck!
The fact is, Trump does not have a promising vision for America. What he has is a vision for himself that is only achievable at the expense of Americans and everyone else. Today, people who are afraid to lose their money support Trump, or at the very least, remain silent. And remember, silence is complicity, and thus, tacit endorsement.
History knocks on our door, at some time or another. And it demands we stand up and that we pick a side. Good or evil. It is infinitely harder to choose good than it is to commit evil, no doubt. But, at the end of the day, if you realize that We Live in Time, like the wonderful movie I saw today, then you realize that no price is worth your soul.
A Harris endorsement would have created the perception that Bezos is neither biased, nor a supporter of fascism and authoritarianism. Journalistic integrity will not survive under Trump. The media would be censored, cut off, disallowed from printing truth.
Diana Hochman wrote Dispelling the Myth, a novel about conversion to Judaism.