Covering Inane Childminds and Liars

Our great media empires seem to have lost their position as the Fourth Estate. In days of old, the efforts of newspapermen were in search of truth, justice or exposing their polar opposites. Many times, the press was used to tease out salient points hidden behind the rhetoric and deception perpetrated on the public by powerful forces who work best cloaked in secrecy. somewhere along the line, perhaps with the advent of the twenty-four hour news cycle, truth and vetting sources, doing the actual work of news gathering, has fallen out of favor. more and more often, folks are not interested in finding out the truth about any issue but rather finding the newscaster who will tell them what they already know. Instead of getting information that we can use to make sound decisions that will benefit the most people, we get only the part of stories that overwhelm our ability to make sense of the "facts".

It is difficult to piece together a coherent view of most issues because of the abysmal coverage that we receive over our traditional media sources. Fragmentary pieces of information arrive, often without context or coherent logical structure so that the viewer (we get more and more of our information from video sources) is left to place the data in whatever inappropriate context they wish. For instance, the belief that the US gives vast amounts of wealth to virtually every other country, but needs to attend to our own business more lies on the mistaken belief that benefits isolationists and nationalists at the expense of the truth. We do give, where there is need, but the real crime is a free hand given to weapons dealers who destabilize vast areas of the globe and who are literally subsidized by the humanitarian efforts that are required once populations are terrorized. In areas that fall under the power and control of whatever warlord has decided to exert dominion over them, lawlessness and tragedy are sure to follow. The majority of our giving is not in the form of relief but rather in the subsidization of corporate interests who benefit from the pain and poverty of others.

I would like to inject a few numbers to keep this in perspective but I do not want to risk the possibility of losing the point in the numbers either. Suffice it to say that when there is a desperate need, we try to help, but often the root of the problem is totally ignored. sending food to a refugee camp is like the proverbial giving a man a fish. What is needed is resolving the problems, "teaching the people to fish". In most instances, the plight which we wish to deliver recipients of aid from cannot be addressed with money, rather it will take long-term education, resolving cultural issues and tearing down the destabilizing institutions that led to the inhumanity in the first place. Natural disasters are another story entirely. Looking at our own Gulf Coast, we have living proof that our ability to respond to need, even in our own country is woefully lacking. No amount of money can account for the outpouring of love and human effort that has gone into that region, yet vast areas are still uninhabitable, basically untouched for the past six years.

Any idiot seems to be able to stand up and spout bullshit and if there is a camera in the room they usually go unchallenged. Worse, folks will let the charade stand throughout the news cycle, adding importance and validity to their claims by the infinite proliferation of the images and audio that makes their lies seem true. When Nixon said, "I am not a crook", the truth of that statement was immediately questioned and fine lines were drawn to help us gain perspective on what that meant. He may have been a bigot, a paranoid son of a bitch, a pompous lying ass, but of course, he never "stole" anything. Sadly, the positions that he believed himself to be in were of his own creation. He actually was a crook who stole from the poor to give to the rich, just like our current slate of representatives. Without investigation and clarity about issues that affect our daily lives, democracy cannot stand. Without the gatekeepers of information providing us with truthful reporting, how can the public be expected to  hold our representatives to task, suss out where the truth lies or what direction will lead us to timely resolution of our difficult position? In lieu of good information, hearsay and innuendo rule the day. Worse than mere rumors, when we broadcast lies and half-truth, it leads the average person to think that what their eyes and ears are telling them are indeed fact. nothing could be further from the truth.