mr smith titled this essay: everything is staged, and i fully agree. we don't live in the world the tv sells you but most believe it to be real;

All the staging is a means to an end, and everyone in America is nothing more than a means to an end: close the sale so the few can continue exploiting the many.

You know how realtors stage a house to increase its marketability: first, they remove all evidence that people actually live there. (Of course a vacant house is ideal for staging because there's none of the messy real-life stuff to deal with.)

All the clutter of everyday life must be moved elsewhere so the house can look like a bloodless furniture showroom. In other words, fake.

Then various tricks /cues are employed to activate the sense of "home": induce the "smell of fresh bread" in the kitchen, adorn rooms with vases of fresh flowers, and have a few fake "family" photos set on bookshelves.

We all understand homes for sale are staged for marketing, as are showrooms and any other space devoted to selling. The raison d'etre of the space is to close the sale, so exacting care is given to every signal, cue and nuance.

(It doesn't always work as intended. Apple Stores make me want to run screaming from the sci-fi white prison workshop to blessed freedom.)

The problem is everything in America is now staged with an eye on selling you something. Maybe it's just selling your attention to an advertiser or data-mining outfit. Maybe it's selling an ersatz slogan like "we're all in this together" to placate the herd being led to slaughter.

Maybe it's phony membership in a movement that masks the few taking advantage of the many with a bogus ideological rallying cry. Maybe it's a so-called "panel of experts" offering up soothing assurances that this highly addictive opioid is incredibly profitable-- oops, did I say that? I meant "safe." It's incredibly safe.

And so on. Since everything is staged, nothing is remotely credible. The 70-year old performer's deep-red hair (with a small splash of gray to make the charade "believable"): fake......read more.....