{"id":358149,"date":"2018-04-24T05:37:06","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T04:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-moral-mask\/"},"modified":"2018-04-24T05:37:06","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T04:37:06","slug":"the-moral-mask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-moral-mask\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moral Mask"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_101537\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-101537\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-23-at-8.29.32-AM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"341\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Phi Requiem | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It feels as if world events are in overdrive, and sometimes it\u2019s hard to escape the thought that that there is no longer much point in trying to analyse, or make sense of, a trajectory increasingly out of control.<\/p>\n<p>I see little evidence that those of us in the segment of the world political spectrum likely to read these words need much persuasion \u2014 nor that those who consider us dupes of the Evil Vladimir, or apologists for what was once called the \u201cYellow Peril\u201d, could ever have any inclination to even glance at the arguments and sentiments of those they consider so utterly deluded.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the plethora of information (both truth and lies), and the amazing communicative possibilities most of us now have at our disposal, have brought with them a world in which no one is very often persuaded of anything: for every fact we present, they have access to an official or cleverly crafted lie with convincing-looking documentation that demonstrates our ostensible mendacity and subversion.<\/p>\n<p>What pre-internet thinker \u2013 is it possible that bygone age ended only 20 years ago for most of us? \u2014 would have ever thought that a technological world in which every voice can be heard worldwide would solidify, rather than threaten, the role of propaganda in public life? or that near-universal access to technology enabling impressively thorough research, at incredible speed, would be one of the major factors in eliminating political consensus and&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/04\/23\/the-moral-mask\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Phi Requiem | CC BY 2.0 It feels as if world events are in overdrive, and sometimes it\u2019s hard to escape the thought that that there is no longer much point in trying to analyse, or make sense of, a trajectory increasingly out of control. I see little evidence that those of us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-358149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}