“I’m going to be a journalist.” is how many announce their decision to descend into delusion and deception. They begin by getting into journalism programs. Amazingly, America has 450 journalism programs at as many colleges and universities. They produce employees for newspapers and media outlets that tell us ordinary people what the owners of such institutions want us to know, think, and believe.
So, journalism programs provide employees who have the skills to make believable whatever reality is selected for them to espouse. We understand journalism better when we realize that those who rule the world think of us as a huge herd of cows who live on their ranches.
Thirty or forty years ago, some owners wanted herds on the bigger, richer ranches to believe in Global Freezing. Their journalist-cowboys got the herds moving toward that belief. Then, owners figured they could make more money if they convinced those herds to believe in Global Warming.
Orders came down from lofty places, “Tell your foremen (editors) to have the cowboys turn the herds completely around.” They were moving their herds from winter feedlots to summer pastures.
The less perceptive cowboys don’t see it. They are blinded by vanity. They can’t comprehend that they, themselves, are just another herd, driven and directed by their own foreman.
But, the brighter journos know that they’re just cowboys who drive their part of the herd from one pasture to another. The better they move their herd (public opinion polls exist to measure their effectiveness), the larger the herd they are allowed to influence, and the more money they make.
Messages change with the times
Is it time to make big money with a war? “Frighten the herd! Fire yer pistols in the air! Stampede ’em! Have ’em gore and trample!”
Have the ranch owners gotten all the war profits they can? “Circle the herd! Slow ’em down! Have ’em move ’round ‘n round! Head ’em off to greener pastures! Let ’em eat! Fatten ’em up! Get ’em ready fer the nex’ war! ”
As the brighter cowboy-journalists see how easily the herd is moved, most of them begin to despise those within it. “Those people are so stupid that they actually believe this drivel? They keep on believing it?”, they say to themselves in astonishment as they keep churning out the same copy, over and over and over with a few name-changes.
Most journalist-cowboys do as they’re told, perpetuating solid, reliable, income-producing frauds. But, sometimes, an old fraud has to be replaced with a new one. Then, an old, reliable fraud may be “exposed”, if its owners approve and have been assured of a commensurate cash flow from a new fraud or frauds.
The “good” journalists who facilitate this process are rewarded with various “prizes” that commemorate how well they are able to make the herd move from one lie to another. They excel at maintaining the bizarre pretence that exposing frauds is the same as eliminating corruption.
Keep the herd movin’ wha’r it’s s’posed to go.
Every day, every herd has to kept moving and under control. Sometimes, parts of the herd have to be driven into corrals.
Every day, parts of herds have to be sent to the you-know-what. While all this herding is going on, the cowboys are singing a very old song:
“As I was out walking one morning for pleasure
I spied a cowpuncher a-riding along
His hat was throwed back and his spurs were a-jingling
And as he approached he was singing this song
[Chorus]
‘Whoopie-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopie-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.’
Early in spring we round up all the dogies
Mark them and brand them and bob off their tails
Round up the horses and load the chuck wagon
And throw all them dogies right out on the trail.”
We in the herd need to keep one line of the cowboys’ chorus in our minds: “It’s your misfortune, and none of my own.”
