News Blackout

I decided to take a break from news for just one moon. A friend, speaking about something completely unrelated, mentioned how easily she seems to be "thrown off balance". I took that as an important message. In my own life, I have been feeling a bit out of balance over the past few weeks. I had a general feeling that it was because of adrenaline overdose. The more I thought about it, the more I was able to see how damaging the relationship between watching the "news" and my general physical state has become. Even though I know that the oligarch-owned media will go to the ends of the Earth to find tragedy and mayhem. It still has the ability to get me a good dose of adrenaline. Like many, my visual cortex is directly linked to my adrenal gland. When I see a mountainside burning, a bus crashed into a river, or police arriving in military vehicles taking up defensive positions with weapons drawn, I can't help but have a fight or flight response.

Since there is nowhere to run and the vast distances between the action on the screen and my life makes it impossible for me to "fight", my own equilibrium has been thrown off more than even I can know. Although it is difficult for someone who likes to keep their finger on the pulse of public discourse, and "news" is often a big part of that; since turning off the network news and scrolling past the majority of posts on facebook, I have been surprised at how little I have had to hear about tragedy and mayhem. It is as if the night sky has become clearer, my vision is much more acute and my relationships have been enhanced. Instead of being tempted to respond to messages that in no way have any bearing on me or my loved ones, it has given me extra energy to discuss things that really matter.

This would normally be seen as possibly detrimental to a blogger that prides himself in staying up to date on the issues of the day, unless you were a blogger that would rather talk about solutions, enacting them in daily life, committed to positive actions and armed with fifty-five years of paying attention to way of healing our toxic relationship with one another, the planet and the creatures we share Starship Earth with. If there were a salve that could heal the damage of adrenaline overdose, I would slather myself in it, but to my knowledge, there is none, so I will try to eliminate the source of that toxicity as well. By refusing to be drawn into the web of lies and deceit, fueled by the fear and hate mongers, I am striking out into new territory which lends even more credence to my understanding that the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave is more properly seen as WE THE PEOPLE than a bunch of victims. True, the oligarchs have been winning the class war for fifty years, but there was a time before that when they were brought to heel (as The Hil is fond of saying about young black men.) When we look critically at the tax rates in the U.S. of A. we are not, nor will we ever be the highest taxed people on Earth. We are certainly not at greater risk than past generations and there is no vast conspiracy to turn everyone into amoral drones, willing to carry out any level of assault for our corporate overlords.  Facts fly in the face of the "truth" that is being peddled by the uberwealthy snake oil salesmen.

Statistica recently released a chart that details the over 50% drop in reported violent crime over the past twenty-five years; from over 750 reported crimes per 100,000 population back in the early '90s to about 360 per 100,000 today. We are indeed safer today than we were 25 years ago. I agree that we have more threats to our freedoms and have had more freedoms taken away than at any time in our history over that 25 years, but you would think that making more things illegal would have created more violent crime, not less. as people become desperate, ugly things tend to happen, but do not be to quick to decide what is going on. There have been many changes in the world over the most recent generation. Many have decided to get educated outside the schoolrooms of this great nation. virtually everyone is getting to understand the growing deception that has been going on in our newsrooms, on our university campuses, and in board rooms around the globe. Children are being taught moral values by parents who care about the future of our nation and with more wanted children, as well as fewer unplanned or problem pregnancies, we are standing on the threshold of the baby boomers babies coming into their own age. These young adults have seen where their parents have failed. Most of them don't have time for the news either.

Part of what led me to turn off the "news" is a meme that found me on my facebook feed. It said, Remember when our parents used to say, (for me it was a generation removed already, my grandparents used to say to me) "I'll give you something to cry about." What if they really meant that they would poison our rivers and aquifers, destabilize the climate and contaminate both the land and air with chemical and nuclear waste? granted, that is probably not what they meant, but it is what we let them get away with so far. We are at a crossroads, we can let the "news" play us and weave a web of lies for us to grapple with, or we can stop letting them get away with defining our age for us. The wealthy always get to write their own history, but we ultimately will have to write their epitaph if we are to move on. I am making a concerted effort to only take in information from my friends, or on occasion listen to stories they tell about what has been happening to their friends, family and/or loved ones. The world still comes to me, but when I feel the need to fight or flee, at least the battles are in my own backyard, where I can be the most effective anyway.

This is a screen shot of the graph and because I am using it for educational purposes, I feel that just telling folks that it is from statistica is enough attribution. Anyone who tells you that we are less secure than we were two decades ago is lying.

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. 

Unleash Your Fury Appropriately

I tried to hold my "tongue", I really did. Now that we have had a week-long masturbatory period to pat ourselves on the back, wring our hands, and massage the facts in the matter of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, I can't help but say a few things on this matter. Of course, if this man was as terrible as we made him out to be, we certainly won't miss him. The pictures that I have seen of his compound surely did not reflect the quarters of a person who could mastermind his way out of a paper bag. That being said, there are plenty of mentally ill people who live in squallor that don't rise to the level of federal intervention, inciting international strife or all out stalking by the authorities. in fact, when the news obsesses over any story of so little consequence for so long, one has to wonder what we are supposed to be paying attention to that has slipped under the radar during our period of preoccupation with minutia.

We are frequently given something to think about by the media, often in far off places, when there are serious things that need our attention right here at home. Most often, if we did pay attention to our own business, it would be inconveinient for the powerful people who dictate policy. Watching many of the programs that bill themselves as news looks more like a cavalcade of mayhem, stupidity and distraction of the highest order. My wife put it so well when she described it as being the same as when the greeks invented sport, to keep the public from paying attention to politics. The antics of a woman injecting her eight year old child with botox cannot be allowed to rise to the level of national debate. Her State Child Protective Services people are investigating her, that is all you need to know. If anything, we should ask ourselves, "What creates that level of desperation in a mother, that she would feel compelled to "erase wrinkles" from her child for the sake of winning a pageant.

Even if we do not recognize the duplicity and condecention that is expressed by the way news is teased and tortured, we can all agree that most of what passes for "news" is far more about entertainment and distraction than creating an informed public that knows how to be better citizens. The reason for the term "Fourth Estate" is that in our country, we have a tri-cameral system of government. The Executive Branch, consisting of the President and his/her cabinet, The Congress, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Judicial Branch, who are responsible for deciding matters of Constitutional Law. The fourth estate is the term given to the fourth branch of government which is responsible for educating the populace about what the other three branches are doing. Without an infomed public, you can see the direction that we are doomed to drift toward.

The majority of what passes for news now is simply a collection of snippets designed to make one want to turn the channel, or station, but like a car wreck, most folks can't help but look on in astonished horror. If there is any redeeming quality that I am overlooking, please, someone, point it out to me! I honestly can't understand why we would be burdened with a murder that takes place half a world away. I cannot see the sense in tying up billions of dollars worth of equipment and technical expertise in floods whose causes are virtually unmentioned. There are things that need to be understood and changes that need to be made, by all of us, to help solve the pressing issues of the day. As long as we remain insulated from the truth of the issues, and continually provided the fodder that leads us to assume that we are powerless in an out of control world, no change is possible. I was recently quite entertained by an hour-long, supposed in-depth news program about the rapidly escalating diagnosis of depression among young people and women. I kept thinking that if you are paying the least bit of attention and you don't get depressed sometimes, that is the real disease!

The pent up anger and hostility that many of us are getting used to feeling is caused by knowing way too much about "news" that should never be covered in the first place. When the salient points are glossed over and the tiniest of details are rendered ad nauseum for us to ponder instead of what really matters, we are left with unresolved angst. many news casters have said that as long as there is a pretty picture on screen, they are allowed to say almost anything, they can even tell the complete and unvarnished truth, but when the viewer is looking at their face, and only their face, they must never say anything that could be, even remotely, construed as controvercial. In an age that relies on continual controversy, it is funny that we cannot tell the truth about a single thing of consequence. Have we become that fearful of offending someone that we are willing to turn our heads away from the fact that we pump billions of tons of our fertile soils into the Gulf of Mexico each year? Are we going to remain so insistent that we are a moral country that even our nationalized immorality will go unexamined? when the folk song asked, "How many times must a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see." it was a call to action, not a rhetorical question.

Those responsible for what we see and hear will never feel compelled to do their jobs any differnetly, until we get up the guts to change the channel. Most of us realize that we are just having our chains yanked, but as long as we honor the scenarios that they dole out for us, refusing to heed the real meaning behind the messages we are spoon-fed, we will continue to feel depressed and out of sorts. Fortunately, we have the power to turn off the television and actively do what is needed to right the badly listing ship of state. What is needed is genuine change, not hype. Many of us belong to the legions that have become turned off to business as usual. For those of us that have moved beyond the distractions that pass as "news", reintegrating intro the real world, the one with historically low crime rates, the one with pressing ecological problems and the one in which our freedoms carry with them serious responsibilities, life is truly worth living. Great happiness lies beyond the twenty-four hour news cycle. please get out and explore the revolution that is not being telivised. Invite your elected officials to participate and for all of our sake, place the blame for where we find ourselves on those who do the most to create our realities. Money is not, and has never been the root of all evil, the lust for money and the greed and deception that continuously concentrates wealth and power is the root. Stop participating in herd mentality and you just might find solutions to many of the problems that the news cycle continues to ignore. It is high time we reject the sensibilities that led us to our current situation. Sustainability is possible. We will all need to participate in making our way to it, but it can be done, and with less effort than you may think.

When I first began The Otherfish Wrap

Back in the day, we had two competing newspapers in my town. One was large, and exquisitely conservative. The other was overwhelmed by their own "underdogism". My own belief is that there is nothing inherently good about being an underdog, but neither is there anything patently evil about being the biggest fish in a small pond. In a youthful reaction to these two opposing forces, The Otherfish Wrap was founded. At the time, I worked in a print shop, and fanzines were the rage amongst my cohort of punks, tree huggers, and freaks. Looking around for a forum for intelligent discussion of topical issues, finding none, I took it upon myself to start a vehicle for thoughtful outsiders to share perspectives and converse about issues that are important to all of us as well as our neighbors. Rather than crying wolf, as our smaller newspaper nearly always did, or telling people not to worry (about critical issues), or to worry (about false threats) as the Gannett-owned paper did, The Otherfish Wrap took a hard look at decisions that have lasting impacts on the environment, human health, education, welfare and security.

Many of my friends, acquaintances and even some strangers have encouraged me to develop a cable access program that features meaningful conversation about these important points. In time it may come to that, but for now, this is my forum. cheaper than printing and distribution of my "paper", and far more accessible, The Otherfish Wrap exists here for your enjoyment. Rather than constantly seeking diametrically oppositional belief systems, my goal is to find points that all people can agree on and try to educate everyone about ways to tailor their own lives to reflect deeper truths that have direct effect on our quality of life. I shy away from those who demonize and dehumanize their opposition, so I try not to be one of "those guys", however, when you have egg on your face, I will point it out to you. Like a good friend, I'm not going to let things go, just 'cause they make you uncomfortable. Holding one's feet to the fire is considered torture, ask any witch, but when the fire is of your own making, don't expect me to let you walk away from it either!
Living, as I do, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I have always been a bit of an outsider. First and foremost, I'm not a big football fanatic. I do love great defense, because I was around for the "Glory Days" of the Green and Gold, but I also realize that the Greeks invented sport to keep the public distracted from politics. The technique still works today (as do glib, self-righteous and close-minded talking heads) and I believe that this alienation of people from the decision making process. This in turn directly affects us, and in my opinion this is pathological in a society such as ours that has little respect for the birthright of individuals to clean air, unadulterated water, healthy food and a living wage. Sports rarely have real world value, and the amount of attention we pay to these things waste time that could be spent solving problems. We must also ask ourselves, why we waste so much time on issues that are reportedly "unsolvable" by pundits. The erosion of human rights and Liberty have not been justified by any threats, real or imagined. The Otherfish Wrap is my own personal attempt to question the logic behind the fear tactics that are being perpetrated on the people of the world for the profit of a few and at the expense of us all.
I may not fit in because of several other things that are unique to my experience, but these cannot be covered in a short post here. Suffice it to say, my own experience has led me to revel in study, unlike many folks I have known, I thrive on learning. Those who are like me know that this is both blessing and curse. Going with the flow is out of line for those who see the pressing need for change. I'm suspicious of the "experts" that they find for every "crisis" that "arises". Recognizing that opinions are like a**holes, can we not see the fallacy in recognizing every delusional, opinionated "expert" that is paraded out for the cameras in today's media? Needless to say, if you are a Fox News Junkie, you won't like what I'm doing here. I would encourage you to open your eyes, and mind, to the truth that I'm seeking. You may be surprised at what you will learn.
My children have asked, "Why does news have to be bad?" I'm here to prove that it doesn't have to be. In my seeking for answers, I am given courage to continue my quest for solutions that honor life, honor individuals, and respect both the dreams and aspirations of those who are willing to feel, learn and grow in the direction of the highest good for all people and the planet that we must all share. I invite you to take a ride with me on the way back to Eden. Truth needs no support to stand. Lies need to be constantly shored up and buttressed to survive. I will have none of that. Speaking truth to power has created most of our martyrs. I don't expect that to stop, but in the end, we have two choices. To put our heads in the sand, or to bravely stand shoulder to shoulder against repression.
Each day, it helps to ask, Whom do I serve?
Blessed Be, and may your answer become, the next seven generations! Namaste' T. C. Saladino