Ready for obvious? It’s too easy to bash all types of media on either side of the border, on either side of the spectrum. But it’s still good to do, merely for the sake of re-re-re-learning that news media can be straight up poisonous, especially when we’re talking about 10s of millions of people treating it as gospel. I get it – bias is invetable. But as the major disseminator of information to the public, really. Shame shame, because you couldn’t say your girlfriend’s name. For sure, I’ll say it next time for suuuure.
Flipping through news TV clips yesterday where Sean Hannity and the pale moonlight dancer Dick Cheney said that he disapproved of Obama shaking hands with Chavez, even though Chavez ran up to him like a rookie cheerleader meets the quarterback in the caf. Hannity then led the conversation into Obama’s “soft and anti-American” stance. And of course the neo-McCarthyism gets fanned and fed grapes while the hammer and sickle quickly marquees over the weather in hell. I then proceeded to angervomitlaughcry, how I do. And then my brain thinks of images like this:
Rumsfeld and Hussein during the utterly false Reagan Era.
Nixon and Mao.
Reagan and Gorbachev.
Carter and Chavez.
Hypocrisy first, manipulation close second. Media commentators and politicians continue to conveniently forget the consequences of their own economic imperialism. Ignore the facts if you want, FOX News is the biggest news network in the U.S., I just don’t know if it’s because people want watery entertainment or are actually truthseeking. And don’t tell me it’s good for liberals for an opposing view, bad journalism is bad journalism. I’m not saying networks like MSNBC are the answer, but I hope people have room for two sides in their brain and never decide after 3 minutes of juice. I’m all for raising these probing questions about issues like torture and diplomacy. Let’s just bring a history textbook and a relatively open mind.
I’m not a self-loathing westerner, but I’m also not an arrogant prick. Torture does way more harm than any possible good. It rarely leads to good information and might just encourage more extremist behaviour. Don’t think of Jack Bauer please. One Al Qaeda member recieved waterboarding torture 183 times, and no new intel was received after torture began. Obvious obvious. Tens of millions of people watch bad journalism every day. Insert “fair and balanced” joke here. I too am fair and balanced – I am female and hate cheese. Truth and truth. (Don’t you believe a word).
