Let me start by making one thing clear. Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory, and not even a very good one. There is no child trafficking chain, run by Hillary Clinton and/or the Podesta brothers and/or anyone else of those who were mentioned as involved. I am 100℅ convinced of that. If you think I must be crazy (or an Idiot, or whatever) for thinking so, you can stop reading and go send your sarcastic replies right now.
Having said the above, let me also say this: Although Pizzagate story itself is not real, it reveals some very frightening truths about the society, not only of the US but of the majority of Western democracies, including my own country, Israel. Truths that should concern anyone who cares about the world we live in.
This post, in which I am going to discuss some of these issues, is a bit longer than my usual posts. I feel that I have to address the matter once and for all because quite frankly, I am getting tired from the way it keep popping in my Steemit feed.
I will begin with an issue that is maybe not the most alarming, but underlines all the others, and that is the conventional media’s response to the Pizzagate story. If it wasn't for the shooting incident in the “Ping Pong Comet”, they would probably ignore the story completely. This is very sad because the issues that I am writing about here, should have been now in discussion, in opinion articles of the NY times and by expert panels in NBC and CNN. So why aren't the conventional media channels doing that? Because they never do. It’s not good for their rating to even mention these issues. Nobody wants to hear the word “Pedophilia” while eating dinner.
Which brings me to the next issue, and that is that our Children are not safe. The fact that a story like Pizzagate can seem as credible to anyone at all, is very disturbing. We all know that pedophilia and other forums of child abuse are unfortunately, a very real thing. It is also a known fact that in most cases, the abusers are people that the children know, and quite often people that they look at as authoritative figures. Now what does that tell us? It tell us that this terrible phenomenon is rooted deep into our cultures. This is something that calls for major soul seeking. Yet we keep looking at child abuse as “disgusting” and “unthinkable”, while our own children are at risk.
Our children's safety falls prey, just as is the well being of other weak parts of society, to the tendency of leaders, never to take responsibility for the real matters, and instead, deflect any criticism pointed at them in other directions, no matter how cunning and deceitful they have to be to do so. And that is the next issue that rises from the Pizzagate story. Major concerns, such that require the effort of the whole society to deal with, become material for inter - partisan mud throwing. If a priest in a church is accused of pedophilia, non religious people will use the event to smear all religions, and if a high society person is caught, others will point at the corrupt lifestyle of the privilege ones. But in fact, pedophilia and many other social problems are everywhere and are everybody's problem, that we should all feel responsible for and do something about.
And then there is how we got completely lost in regards to respecting other people in general, and privacy in particular. There is a reason why the Podesta E-mails seem somewhat cryptic to the casual reader, and that is that they were not meant for other people to read. They belong to a private circle of people that share a mutual understanding, just like anyone of us has with her or his friends and acquaintances.
In an atmosphere where everything is made public, scrutinized and dissected, we are all in double jeopardy. Not only that we are in a higher risk of becoming victims of abuse and defamation, but it is also that in this situation, where it is so hard to prove bad intent, evil doers can always claim to be themselves, the victims.
A more responsible and respectful behavior by all of us, would help us trust and protect one another. One of the questions that rise every time a story about child abuse or other kinds of tacit violence comes out, is how come nobody knew and said something? If we will know when not to spread unsubstantiated allegations, perhaps we will also know better, how to notice that something is wrong and speak up.
Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory. It is very tempting to believe that it was brewed by someone who deliberately intended to hurt Hillary Clinton and her close circles, or maybe just stain the reputation of the Democratic party. But it is very much possible that the conspiracy theory just evolved without any particular person being in charge. This kind of crowd sourced stories are not unlikely to be created on the Internet, which is perhaps the most concerning thing that comes up from this story. At any moment, any one of us can fall victim to a conspiracy theory and not be able to protect his or hers good name. It is something that we should all think about. Not just because of the risk to ourselves but also because the devastating effect this situation has on our cultures.
