Herman Edwards spoke to his team at halftime, attempting to get them ‘up’ after having a miserable first half of the game. The New York Jets were losing again, seemed uninspired again, and the crowd was disappointed again. Coach Edwards shared this on one of the cable sports talk shows:
“I said to them, are you gonna let them (the other team) come into YOUR house, go in YOUR ‘fridge’, take YOUR food?!?! Let them sit there and eat it in YOUR face?!?! Then let them go slap YOUR sister? Spit on YO Momma? You need to go out there and throw them out of your house dammit! RIGHT NOW!”
It was a great speech; the Jets went out there and fought like angry dogs and got an unexpected win. To achieve victory, Herman Edwards had whipped his team into a fearsome rage that could not be contained, and done it with just words.
In this context, a football game between combatants on a field that safely prepares those men for the distribution and acceptance of violence, I will say his distortion of reality was valid. He had to motivate his dejected team, and it worked. They all knew there’s no one busting into those players’ homes taking their food, spitting on their mothers or slapping their sisters, but the mental imagery his talk created was akin to that.
But what if your leaders or peers or people you care about are doing that? Is it possible the leaders you trust are manufacturing rage, and that rage leads to combat? At your place of employment, or socially, or politically? Is it happening on the subway or at Wal-Mart or at a political event?
The entire world is becoming more and more embroiled in combat. Kinetic, or potential; Postured and linguistic; Theoretical or experiential; Cultural and societal; Religious or Political; Commercially or Morally.
In the desperation to achieve victory, our coaches or people we admire whip us up the way Coach Edwards did. We may even whip ourselves up. I have had to ask myself about my inner rage. Is what is making me angry really there, is it true…or is the account being fabricated or exaggerated. By now all who are familiar with my commentary are aware I am a deep ‘Capital C’ Conservative. When I see the latest contest with my opposition on the news or on social media, I have had to critically analyze it. The reports make it seem that a violent insurrection of thousands has been unleashed on people of the same political stripe as I. But, in one such news story, when the camera panned to protesters harassing ICE officers, the crowd interfering numbered barely thirty. Still a problem–but not nearly the rebellion it was shown as. I eventually brought my blood pressure down with deep breathing.
My rage, though genuine, had been whipped up. My introspection continued, because I had allowed myself in less than a minute get fired up to the point of gritting my teeth and my fists balled. Had FOX news shown the entire scene, I still would have been annoyed–but not absolutely furious. While not manufactured, my rage had been aggravated by a semi-truth. As I have gotten older, I’ve learned that before I mobilize, I don’t want to BE right, I want to GET IT right.
Which brings me to the question of truth and fact. Before writing I searched the phrase “death of truth” and found numerous books on this topic that I am adding to my reading list. As an old mentor quoted to me: “Truth is not fact, and fact is not truth”. Truth is what we accept with the information available, while fact is proven through evidence or hard data. Truth is inaccurately used interchangeably with fact, but not often the other way around. The dissolution of truth and dismissal of fact leads to the manufactured rage around us. That rage leads to violence.
The best lie is initiated first by seeds of truth, or sometimes a fact, but then interpolated with untruths that match what one wants to believe—and that belief is based on what you want the situation to be, not what actually is. Then you hear from the locals an entirely different narrative:
This is not new. During the civil rights movement, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Martin Luther King, the Black Panther Party all engaged in this strategy or a variation of it. The famous Edmund Pettus bridge episode in Alabama, known as “Bloody Sunday” was designed not to cross the bridge, but to antagonize a violent response that images shown on the nightly news would illustrate the brutality of Southern culture/society on Blacks. The brutality was real, and while the tactic was less than honest, there is no real need to question it. There are no trouble makers in the that line of Black men, note the disciplined nature of their double file, NOT BLOCKING TRAFFIC, clean cut shirts and ties them all. If America had paid heed to THESE black men, you might not be facing the hoodlum protesters we have today.
(Note that I did not say ‘police’; that would separate the police from the pervasive southern race culture of the day and let their society off the hook. The two were linked and thus a complete institution)
That, and the proclamations of revolution from the Black Panther party ‘whipped up’ support for a movement. The assassination of Martin Luther King resulted in riots across the nation. But those were genuine responses. The rage was real and triggered by what had actually happened. King was shot, the beaten marchers were actually peaceful, and the Black Panther Party would stand fifty feet away from an arrest to observe, quote legal verbiage–but not interfere.
But, in these times, it seems rage is manufactured. Race or any other ism is the new rape—an accusation is a social death sentence for the accused and fuels the rage for insurrectionists in the streets. As the YouTube link above points out, the latest rage is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureaus activity to deport illegal aliens. Video gets edited to present a view that enrages you (according to a ‘truth’ you already want to believe) and results in violence based on a lie. And now we have elected officials describing sworn law enforcement officer as ‘Jack booted thugs’ and encouraging obstruction from any angle possible, stopping just short of attacks on agents.
But before my like-minded Conservative brethren and white readers get high and mighty, your forefathers are the originators. You may not be the current users of this deceitful tactic, to your credit you have evolved beyond it, but don’t think this wasn’t something you created:
1898 “Remember the Maine!” screamed the headlines of newspapers across the country when the USS Maine suffered a mysterious and catastrophic explosion while moored in Havana harbor, Cuba. The seeming act of destruction led to war with Spain. To this day there is debate amongst historians and US Navy personnel of rank about what actually caused the explosion that sunk the ship and killed almost three hundred sailors. But America wanted a war with Spain, so we took ‘truth’ and morphed into ‘fact’ to manufacture the rage for war
Spies, Patriots, and Traitors -Kenneth Daigler - In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the ‘Sons of Liberty’ who included John Adams, deliberately created riots and antagonized British Soldiers into acts of violence that could be described and exaggerated in the underground newspapers of the time to incite sympathy and rage. This may be read in Spies, Patriots, and Traitors.
The infamous “Birth of a Nation”, if you don’t know, was early 1900s film that recast former confederate soldiers and klansmen as gallant heroes protecting vulnerable white women from sweaty bug-eyed black men. The film manufactured rage against blacks and was credited with the KKK’s resurgence to over one million members.
And just because this crime against ethics has been committed in the past, that doesn’t make it right. The current climate is exacerbated many factions lying, seeking to manufacture rage to enable each side their own victory. “Hands up, don’t shoot” never occurred, but Ferguson Missouri was torn by rioting over the shooting of Michael Brown and acquittal of the officers involved. George Floyd’s death left out details that emerged later, and most times the video was played, it was silent. Watch the video with sound—and while it will not exonerate Derek Chauvin, it will surely put you in his shoes and in the midst of what was happening around him which was much different from the Black Panthers above. A crowd in a rage with no facts made both situations worse: Officer Chauvin let his ego get the best of him in the face of hecklers, refusing the vulgar challenges in order to show he was in charge, while in contrast Officer Wilson and the town of Ferguson were forever damaged by manufactured rage built on lies. In court Black witnesses admitted that Michael Brown attacked Officer Wilson, but they were initially afraid to talk on scene due to the excited rage of their black neighbors, notably who had NOT witnessed the shooting. The following are from the DOJ report above left:
Let’s do some table setting for a moment: Kevin Samuels aka ‘the Godfather’ aka ‘Saint Kevin’ used to tell the young men on his show, “I don’t want to BE right, I want to GET IT right.” In disagreements, people want to win and be right, even if based on a lie. “Never mind the truth, I just want to be right.” Some prefer to use misinformation to ‘win’; even if the conclusion reached is incorrect. Kevin Samuels was insistent on getting the information accurate, and drawing a conclusion from that. This is opposite people’s desire for the other way around—to mislead with untruths whether through negligence or deliberate lies; omissions of truth; and intellectual dishonesty.
A negligent untruth is speaking on a topic with incomplete to no information. This is the most common, and dangerous when emitted from the mouth of a loud and popular individual. Black barbershops and hair salons are filled with these, and most celebrities regardless of race also fit in this group. They seek to ‘raise awareness’ but want the power of having manufactured rage. Watching news correspondents and comedians’ comment on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s meeting of Senior Leaders in Quantico Virginia is a perfect example of this. Bunch of talk, little knowledge, spread untruth, hope to manufacture rage. All the Generals and admirals in one place? Isn’t that what the Pentagon is? But you WANT him to be foolish, so you support the narrative. If this were stupid, the Joint Chiefs would have stopped it. But the rage has been manufactured at the expense of truth.
Then, there is the deliberate lie…we can save time here, politicians are the main offenders as we saw with the scurrilous Russian collusion hoax against President Trump. For those who read that sentence and continue this idea you are part of the problem. You are lying.
Next are omissions of truth, which tend to come from every segment, but especially from those who know they may be held accountable later. They tell ‘some’ of the story to manufacture rage in you, but leave out what may cause you to pause. Because they gave you ‘some’ you cannot call them an outright liar, allowing them a level of deniability.
While the negligent untruth is dangerous, intellectual dishonesty is the most insidious. This is manipulation of person(s) believed to either be unintelligent enough to know they’re being lied to or will never verify what’s being espoused. The intellectually dishonest will insist that women make less than men, knowing you will stupidly assume that means this refers to a man and woman doing the same job are receiving different rates of pay. Knowing that this appeals to women who will go into a rage but never research all the details, they manufacture support knowing that this is the result of women over time take off more time from work for nurturing children, maternity leave, and family matters. The advocates of this know it is a lie; but it gets the requisite rage to accomplish a socio/political agenda. Same as the lie of Black women being the most educated demographic: Yes, if we simply just count degrees, but then ask this—what are these degrees in? Don’t put your sociology/African studies degree next to an engineering diploma and insist you’re out here crushing it. Intellectually dishonest.
But people want to BE right, and get everyone behind their cause, so they only show you part of the police shooting video. Progressives tell you illegal aliens are immigrants and refuse to distinguish them from legal immigrants. The Democrat party tells you the employment of Soldiers to supplement crime prevention is a fascist conspiracy to harm black Mayors across the country. And downplay if not outright ignore the continuing decades of black community decay due to drugs and violence. Media reports an Israeli bomb hits a Gaza hospital making your blood boil–and leaves out that Hamas fighters took over the building, hid weapons caches there, and conducted tactical operations from it. The media fails to report (again) that the President has bestowed another $495 million to HBCUs, and keep suggsting he’s out to ‘get’ black people. And while you proudly wore your ‘X’ hats and ‘Obama’ hats and ‘Harris’ hats unmolested, my wife fears for my safety when I wear my ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.
The truth is being undone by those who insist they are the champions of it.
But they have to Manufacture Rage.
