RUSSIAN ROULETTE, ELECTION STYLE

Before I begin my latest screed, I want to share my observations about my decision to post political content on my blog instead of social media.

Before I made the switch, I saw my political posting increasing in the wake of the election. Even after I had made several attempts before the election to curb my transmissions, I still found myself wanting to comment, re-post links, share memes, and 'like' news feed items at an accelerated clip.

But after I posted the first of what I hope to be many blog entries in re: current events, I suddenly saw my anxiety over posting political content drop dramatically. By moving the forum over to my blog instead of Facebook, my posting decreased.

I can only attribute this to the format of blogging compared to the format of social media: sites like Twitter and Facebook are all about re-posting information created by others; there is nothing inherently original-- and therefore ultimately satisfying --about sharing something that someone else created. Blogs, however, are more likely to encourage original thought nowadays, especially if (like I did) one eschews linking to external sources and concentrates instead on composing a unique (if eventually shared) perspective.

Another plus is that there is less emphasis on trying to draw 'likes' or comments. After nearly a decade of Facebooking, it was a small relief to post something and not care if anyone read it or not. Thanks to Blogger's dashboard, I can check those stats without having to engage further. My last two posts garnered no comments but I averaged the same amount of visits as if I'd posted it on my News Feed.

There is one thing, of course, that makes this enterprise worthwhile: the freedom to write whatever the hell I want to write without fear of immediate and ignorant reprisal based on an uneducated lack of reading comprehension; no semi-clever attempts at defusing the importance of my dispatch via trolling. Sure, it's a blog-- eventually I will get into it with someone as time goes on... but the likelihood has diminished thanks to the march of time and the advent of faster tech. In other words, the time it takes a troll to click onto my blog page, read everything I've written, then comment derisively could be better spent flaming several Tweets in a row. It's simply not an efficient expenditure of time for the average cyber-dunce these days.

That means I get less interference and more expression out of this blog than I ever have. There was a time when I felt how about this blog as I do about Facebook but now that seemingly everyone is on social media, blogs are where people go to re-post to social media. But the majority of people are not actually visiting the sites unless they see them on social media first.

Now, if I were concerned with my online presence, then it might hurt my feelings to know that no one is sharing my work. But I have no advertisers and no personal stake in my blog being seen by the masses. It's merely here for me to get things off my chest. And it has succeeded wildly in that regard. I feel more fulfilled; I am able to vent (more truthfully, if less succinctly) with less consequence, and it has encouraged me to continue without dread or anxiety over who said what and where I am in all of this.

I'm doing this for me. That's all that matters right now. It's good for me. It's healthy... or at least, healthier.

Now, onto the political caca.

I'll make it brief: I see the irony in President-elect Trump and the CIA going at it in the media ring. Only a few short months ago everyone was going on about the lesser of two evils. Apparently unconcerned that at least one of the candidates (Mike Pence anyone?) was pure evil and therefore rendering the notion of the lesser evil moot, potential voters hemmed and hawed for days on end about the ethical complications of voting for any one of the two major nominees for leadership of the free Western world.

And now, post-election, we have ourselves another ethical dilemma, a political Sophie's Choice if you will: who do we want to put our trust in? The organization that has historically lied about all its intelligence while funding backdoor coups and engaging in disinformation globally? Or the dishonest car salesman/casino magnate who actually supported at one time the intelligence of the organization in question and now has the BALLS to denounce same organization for it?

America, you brought this on yourselves. This all could've been avoided had you not been afraid of the corrupt candidate who has a vagina; the same candidate who went on TV and told millions of viewers/voters during a presidential debate that Russia was trying to get Trump elected; the same candidate whose popularity in the polls was greatly negated by a ponderous last-minute news bombshell... from an intelligence organization... a bombshell, mind you, that was later recanted somewhat after the damage was done.

And now the Swamp Drainer has filled it back up again, and all I can think about is the last line of Pete Townshend's immortal "Wont Get Fooled Again"... which I will not link nor explicitly cite because (1) you should already know it by now, and (2) I'm pretty serious about keeping the links to the barest minimum. As my mantra goes: You'll Just Have To Do It Yourself.

And in these days of fake news reports and dubious counter-claims made by various political groups, you may indeed have to start doing it ALL by yourself.