The system is broke. Busted. Kaput. Get it? Government. Banking. Business. News Journalism Telecommunications Education Sports All Our Institutions (now say this in your best Yyl Brynner accent) etcetera, etcetera, etcetera are all ineffectually flapping like an arhythmic heart if they're not like some disgusting multiheaded mutant that crawled out of the local lake slobbering in your picnic basket at your family's summer picnic.
Now suddenly, all the people who caused the problems are saying, Whoa, enough is enough. All the pundits, commentators, journalists, talking heads are now giving their spin, opinions, their yakkedy-yak and filling the 24/7 talk-news-what's my agenda programs with the same useless, pointless, knee-jerk blather.
News is now agenda. News is business, not reporting or informing. And yes, there are some who are making sense on both sides of the aisle, but for the most part, all the hate and attitude and snarky personas we see and hear on the airwaves are going to stay there because, simply, they make money for those big corporations NBC CNN FOX ABC MTV etcetera, etcetera, etcetera and you think Rush or Bill or even Sarah are going to stop talking? Do you? That's how they make money, too. Say it for me: Muuuuunnneee. That's right. Money. And it's a Pandora's Box: Once they're out, they're not going to shut up and their going to keep defending themselves. I mean, excepting for Imus and Helen Thomas, both of whom pissed off advertisers. It's 24/7 baby, and the sponsors are eating this up.
Last month a man opened fired on a school board in Florida. Here's a parents' blog from January 5th: Three school shootings in as many months. Remember the rash of gay kids committing suicide from bullying? People going berserk, people who simply don't know how to treat others with kindness because all they hear and see is a pop culture of narcissism and greed and nastiness. I think it's about time we start to realize that pop culture does indeed affect people's behavior, and I'm not advocating censorship, I'm talking about abuses of the First Amendment where people who should know better--the journalist and the members of the media whose shoes cost more than the some people's average weekly paycheck--who hide behind the constitution and have either a political or business agenda to push.
Now some crazy person (and from all reports he's as crazy as a loon) shoots someone in Congress and kills a few bystanders including a little kid and this story becomes THE BIG ONE. Oh, it's because finally you can really pin this one on Sarah and Rush and Bill (and let's not forget the lesser voices you can hear every day on talk radio, all the wannabes.) Omigod, am I really this jaded that I think it's still all politics and business as usual?
1 comment:
The loon that turned that Safeway into a firing range would have hurt someone without a twenty-four hour news cycle at some point. Even if he had to throw rocks.
A credible argument could be made that Arizona has become the Mississippi of the early part of the new century. The place just seems like a hothouse for whack jobs.
The first few days post-crisis were just an angry mess. Fists up on both sides ... angerball types just waiting for a reason to sock that bastard they never liked at all who voted for the other guy.
Kinda boring. Rip-roaringly predictable.
It would have been great to talk about the need for a comprehensive approach to treating and caring for those Americans who suffer with/from mental, or what can be done to protect non's at the state and local levels from those unfortunately afflicted with [insert disorder here], but yeah ... we missed that one. Too busy pointing fingers.
But it did give us the official end of any serious chity chat about Sarah Palin winning the White House. So, as the good book says, all things work together for good.
Horribly so, but still.
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