Message Fatigue

Message Fatigue

by Marco M. Pardi

“I suppose it is good for the body. But the tired part of me is inside and out of reach.” Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), responding to a friend’s suggestion that he rest.

All comments are eagerly welcomed and will receive a response.

Yes, it’s me again. Message fatigue. I’m sure all of us are familiar with the concept if not the name. As young children we read about The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We learned about Chicken Little. And, in Greek classes we followed the sorrowful fate of Kassandra, who correctly predicted dire events but was never believed.

At some point in that childhood we got first hand understanding of message fatigue; we endured seemingly endless “Duck and Cover” drills while imagining Soviet bombers targeting our schools. Well, maybe they weren’t. No, definitely, not this time. Just another drill. Now, where were we?

Through the decades the messages have varied wildly but the industry producing them has only gained pace. The next Ice Age is coming – the planet is warming. Coffee gives you cancer and heart disease – coffee fights cancer and strengthens the heart. Margarine is healthier than butter – margarine is murder on your cholesterol. And on and on. Each reader is thinking of one I haven’t put here.

While reading or doing other things I often have cable news running in the background. CNN. I will not allow FOX News, the Voice of the 4^th Reich, into my home. Throughout the day there are spots highlighting a problem and requesting money, often quite effectively, toward solving it. By afternoon I frequently find myself thinking, I don’t have enough money to spread everywhere I would like to. But that doesn’t stop the bombers from flying into my family room, dropping guilt on me with precision. Recently, however, a question occurred to me. As I was watching an ad soliciting money to operate on children with cleft palates I got the sense that all the ads for this I’ve seen, and there have been many over the decades, showed children in 3^rd World countries. Okay, I get it that the operations are costly, and several of these countries do not have the facilities or personnel to perform the surgery even if the family somehow got the money. But, the impression left by the train of messages is that there is a disproportionate incidence of cleft palate in these countries. If that is so, why is that so? On the other hand, I understand that children born with this condition in the top tier countries are far more likely to receive surgery as soon as it is feasible. But let’s not overlook the fact that this surgery is “elective” and may even be deemed “cosmetic” by our uncaring and predatory insurance industry.

Speaking of children, a few days ago I did my daily visit to a close friend who is fighting two separate diseases, each lethal. A tough as nails former Air Force officer, lifetime NRA member and lifetime Republican, his first gasping, gulping words as I entered his room were, “This…is…just…tearing…me…up.”

No, he was not referring to the swollen abdomen from one condition or the liquid filled lungs from the other. He was referring to the television coverage of the little children being torn from their parents and locked in cages on the Southern Border. I had seen that coverage, especially the little girl sobbing her heart out. My only child, now a woman, had looked so much like that little girl I, a person some of you know as having a career background, was bent over in tears, even less able to speak than my friend.

The administration is all over the news, denying it is their fault while claiming the government is sanctioned and approved by God. The Attorney General, a person who should know the basics of American law, quotes Paul, the man who, never having met Jesus, nonetheless created Western “Christianity”. What the administration does not know, or admit to, is that the very same bible passage was used by the Loyalists to try to prevent the American Colonial Secession (it was not a “revolution”) from England and, later, to justify slavery.

So what is the message? This administration is ordained by God? American theocracy?

Every day I receive and sign dozens of petitions for a wide variety of issues. Where some petitions ask me to craft a message in my own words I do so. Yet, there are times when, faced with another in-box screen filled with such messages, I hear my inner voice telling me I’ve done enough for a while. My one petition or letter really makes no difference. The disgusting garbage that has seized the House, the Senate, the White House and every function of government (in my case, from federal to state to local levels) will not bother themselves to read my letters. But I feel I recognize that voice: it’s the voice of fatigue. It’s the voice that awakens on those rare occasions when I get a response which turns out to be another self-serving form letter purporting to be from the politician to whom I wrote and who likely never saw my letter.

Anyone who has read a substantial number of my posts, especially during and since the election cycle knows I have written often of the impending, and now de facto Fascist takeover of the United States. I was most certainly not alone in doing so. Some of the finest minds spoke out in various media to explain the nature of the threat. But, perhaps that was the problem. The more these people spoke out and the closer in tone their messages became the more they looked like a special class, an “elite”, to the average reader (I include “reader” generously because I think most Americans do not read past the headline) or viewer. So it became not a variety of messages from qualified people but a staccato repetition from what seemed to be a monolithic source, the “Clinton people”. (The name Clinton appeared far more often than the term Democrat throughout most of the race, an indication of how the contest was perceived)

The Russians, on the other hand, had mastered not only audience segmentation but also source segmentation, a relatively new phenomenon in mass communications. Indeed, the Democrats could have gone down the list of Republican Tea Party Conservatives one by one to show how they had obstructed meaningful progress but, careful to avoid anything too cerebral for the public, they remained married to the principle of message repetition. Of course, repetition, especially in America, quickly leads to fatigue. The Russians, on the other hand, launched a blizzard of different, short, and emotionally provocative false and misleading stories and “fake news” items – the real fake news Trump endlessly trumpets about. These stories and “news” items came at the public through a variety of popular media and, while crafted to appear distinct, were leading the public down the desired rabbit hole of post-fact – “They say, so it must be true”. Trump himself campaigned heavily with this technique, constantly saying “Many people tell me….folks are saying….” without ever having to produce the people or the folks.

The mantra “fake news” is not just the ravings of a demented man. It is laying the foundation for actions currently under study by the administration. The Federal Communications Commission issues and renews the broadcast licenses for media outlets. Trump himself has repeatedly threatened to cancel the license renewal of CNN, MSNBC, and NPR, outlets that have dared to expose and challenge the daily avalanche of lies coming from him and his administration. I have repeatedly written the FCC and the White House, citing my birth in Fascist Italy and informing them that centralized control of the media is a pillar of Fascism. I have the form letter responses to prove it.

Honestly, I have wondered how many people have turned away from my blog thinking it was just an endless rant. But self criticism is healthy, to a degree. And being somewhat negative pays dividends; few people are disappointed by not being disappointed. To paraphrase Bob Gates, a man for whom I developed great respect, “When CIA officers stop and smell the flowers, they look around for the hearse.”

I liken my braided careers then and now to watching a porpoise swim along the seashore, briefly visible above the surf only intermittently, and then gone. I continue to spend daily hours clicking away on this keyboard, sending petitions and writing letters. I care very deeply for what’s happening on shore, though there will come a time when I’ll never see it again.