Almost three years later and this tweet is still active – itself a vain attempt by a marginal reporter at self-promotion, citing two inane articles she wrote about ME, implying I was some type of nefarious figure (including insinuations that I was a criminal), operating in the shadows.
And as long as it remains there, it’s author continues to live on twitter slandering and defaming me, seemingly, with impunity. Meanwhile, your’s truly was summarily suspended from the same medium for taking this so called “journalist” to task. My, how laughably thin-skinned she proved to be.
Somebody should ask her if she still thinks I’m “MIA”? If you do, don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer. You won’t get one.
More importantly, ask yourself if there is ANYTHING the media pushes at you that you are still gullible enough to believe? Cheap propagandists like Wilkie abound and certainly hope so. Their salaries depend on it, after all.
(Note the number of retweets and comments. If you read some of them you’ll see that Wilkie’s followers are as vitriolic and vicious, as they are presumptuous and stupid – the epitome of a malleable “angry mob” in all its unbridled glory. And you thought Trump supporters were gullible! Imagine being so biased, so brainwashed, as to believe something at face value just because a nobody like Wilkie says it’s true. I suppose it’s willful ignorance. People so blinded by political bias and rage, that they desperately want a statement that adds fuel to their cause to be true whether it’s true or not. Frankly, if I was her I’d be embarrassed by such followers.)
By the way, these are also your fellow citizens and fellow voters. In Books VIII and IX of ‘The Republic’, (which I happen to be reading again), Plato famously infers through the voice of Socrates, that the inherent problem with “democracy” is that it will treat people as equals, whether they are equal or not. After being put through this pointless experience of defamation and slander first hand, I understand what he meant now, more than ever.
Lest you think I’m some kind of apologist for the right (given my tenuous associations with Trump which sparked this whole ridiculous episode to begin with), I’m not.
The right wing media is just as culpable and has just as many misguided acolytes and numbskulls too stupid to think for themselves, following their propagandists of choice, as the left. That’s why I’ve come to a point where I see it all as farce. It’s all a joke, and sadly, as long as “journalists” like this are allowed to smear and defame with impunity for political purposes, and have made objective truth itself suspect, the joke is unfortunately, on all of YOU.
I realize many of my friends and followers are uncomfortable when I bring this sore subject up. Because it raises issues that encroach into their comfort zones. People’s backs will always get up when they are forced to confront flaws in their own sacrosanct belief systems, be they religious, political, philosophical, whatever. Many of them wish I would just forget about it, put it behind me, and move on. Some of them probably think I’ve overreacted and I’m beating a dead horse. I can understand how they feel and why. But they also know, that’s not me. I may have many flaws of my own, but tolerating dishonesty, particularly when it’s swathed in such nauseating sanctimony, and topped by accusations questioning my professional integrity, isn’t one of them.
To invoke the words of another philosopher, in this case Plato’s student, Aristotle, taken from Book I of his Nicomachean Ethics,
“Piety requires us to honor TRUTH above our friends.”
I suppose abject failures like Wilkie will always exist in “free societies” such as ours. Like ambulance chasing lawyers, they’ll always operate (and sometimes thrive) in the gutters of their profession. They’ll continue to exploit legal loopholes, skirt laws on defamation, and evade culpability for their own shameful actions – all quietly backed up by corporate media enablers with legal departments the size of small armies looking for the “next big story” and ratings, with no regard (and certainly no concern) for whose reputations they damage in the process.
I doubt that the fictional narrative Wilkie tried to weave about me actually furthered her career, in any case. Given no other media outlets paid attention to this “non-story”, I suspect if anything, it exposed her amateurish over-zealousness and undisciplined demeanor for all her “peers” to see. She saw fire where there wasn’t even smoke, and I can only surmise, rabidly salivating and foaming at the mouth, and sitting squarely at the center of a giant bell curve of journalistic mediocrity, she came after me thinking she had a story, gleefully waiting for the recognition and accolades to pour in. She got neither. In fact, she got quite the opposite. Having spoken to a number of her peers in the media, some of who actually advised me and came to my defense, I learned that rather than earning their respect, she managed to become an object of their scorn and ridicule, because as one of them told me, “she’s played into all the stereotypes that give us a bad name”. Pathetic.
Nevertheless this episode shouldn’t be forgotten, because as long as unethical propagandists masquerading as journalists (like Wilkie), are allowed to spread lies and smear with abandon, and NOT be held accountable for their reckless and irresponsible behavior, it will continue to happen, and could very well happen to any of you.
I certainly won’t forget it, as my upcoming album “The Disappearing Architect” will soon attest.
