Media At It Again

Weekend Edition by HumanFission

I'm sick and tired of the media. They latch on to the most gruesome thing they can find, then hash and rehash it across the nation as much as they can, underscoring the "horrific nature" and "terrible tragedy" of the event.

Seriously; what good does this do?

None, except for their ratings, which is the point I suppose. All they are doing is playing to the carnal nature of humans to see something horrible. Sure, what they are saying about the act itself is true…it was horrific, it was tragic, but 90% of the people saying that feel nothing of the sort. They watch and give attention for one reason: to satisfy their primal curiosity about death.

Of course these same people will look at you in shock if you mention that to them and say things like "How can you say such things, it's a horrible tragedy!" or "You're a bad person, how can you not feel for those people after such a horrific event."

Maybe I AM a bad person. But I'm not a part of that event. I'm not tied to it in any way; I am an outsider looking in to see something that is an abstract situation. I've never been affected in that way, I can't relate to what is happening there. I don't feel bad about it nor do I feel happy about it. For me to say things like "horrible tragedy" and "Horrific act of violence" would carry about as much weight as saying "blue sky" or "wet water". Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either lying to themselves or to you, or maybe both.

The media preys on this for ratings. Let me say that again so it sinks in. Not for the humane aspect, not to personify the pain these families and friends are sure to feel, there is no executive producer anywhere right now saying "I want this to be a message, I want it to make an impression to the world so everyone else can see what kind of pain this causes." No…they are saying "how can we focus on this to keep people's attention. How can we boost our ratings? Who can we get an exclusive with that will reveal something no one else has seen, that will shock the nation into watching US?" Ratings. That's all it's about to them, and by focusing on that, and by pushing through half-truths and flawed information as fast as they can they serve only to create this false sense of guilt, not grief, not understanding.

And then the finger-pointing starts. Because with all of this attention, misdirected as it is, there HAS to be a cause, something that can be blamed. Because we can't accept that maybe, just MAYBE, this person was unstable all on his own. That he actively CHOSE to do what he did…no, that can't be possible in our society, so we look for something or someone to blame. Let's blame whoever sold him the gun, let's blame video games, let's blame his parents, and let's blame the people around him. But for God's sake, don't dare step up and say "Hey…maybe we should blame the guy that DID it?" Because the backlash from facing what we as humans are capable of would somehow prevent us from hiding from it. Pushing that out into the open that an individual is responsible for their own actions, no, that goes against everything we've come to rely on in our society.

The only thing this has really done is prove, yet again, how the human race's attention is still commanded not by news of enlightenment, but by self-destruction and death. Beneath our facade of civilization and high society, we still bow to our darker side, and odds are, we always will.

Still Pissed at Current State of Our Country

Yesterday's rant got me fired up, so I'm going to pickup where I left off regarding our country's skew from the original founders visions.

The first problem we need to overcome as a country is the huge rift between Democrats and Republicans. Of course people are going to have different ideas and the two parties will never agree on alto of things, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Different ideas are actually healthy for the country. No, what I'm talking about is the near hate that the two parties have for each other. If you take a Democrat and Republican and have them answer a 10 question survey in private, and then put them in the same room together most of the time you will not get even close to the same results. The reason being when they get in the same room, they'll disagree with the other till their deathbed because it's better for the other side to be wrong than both sides be right together.

This is not just silly, it's stupid. So, with that out of the way I am about to hit you up side the head with a mack truck. Quit blaming the President and Co. for the mess we are in. The mess we are in started long before this group came to lead. You can't blame Republicans or Democrats. I know what your thinking, "No, he's wrong, at the very least the war in Iraq is the Presidents fault". Well, yes, but your not looking at the broad picture as that's only the smallest detail in a portrait of shame. The real blame belongs on the heads of the American nation.

A lot of our problems as a country started back a couple of generations. I read another good blog post this morning discussing this here. Freedom of speech, privacy, religion, and the freedom to have different ideas have all been reduced to nothing leaving only the idea's of freedom in our constitution instead of the ability to pursue those freedoms at the hands of the baby boomers and their offspring. But I'll leave that to Steve Olson's post and comment section.

The most recent turn of events of course happened on 9/11. It was on that day the the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil took place. Since Americans aren't used to these types of attacks absolute panic ensued. I can't recall for how many days I watched coverage of the rescue attempts running in the background while everyone asked how could our government have let this happen over and over. There is a saying "hindsight is 20/20". It means that you can always look at events in the past and find things you could have done better. However what Americans don't seem to understand is the number and magnitude of these types of threats that are declared on America every single day. If the government acted on every single one, we might as well shut down every official government building, every memorial, every hub of business, and every public event from here on out.

Lots of these threats have merit, lots don't. The point is that we take our safety here for granted. Every single day these kinds of things could occur, and the fact that you can probably count on 1 hand the # that have succeeded on American soil is something that should be weighing on your mind far heavier than the thought of someone making a bad call and one occuring. People aren't perfect, and that alone is enough to keep our government from being so either.

With accusation after accusation from the American public that enough wasn't done to prevent 9/11, our government took action. The cries they could hear were "You didn't protect us, how could you have let this happen, will you let it happen again". So in the best way a government can, a shift in focus was moved to safety and security. They tried to explain to the public that they can't act on every threat because it would encroach on our freedom and ability to live our daily lives without their constant meddling. The answer given to them "We don't think that's a very good excuse, are you going to provide us safety or not". And so the government has started doing just that. And now that everyone's anger over 9/11 has subsided, we are pissed off about airport security measures, wire tapping laws, and the ability of federal agencies to get private records without court authorization. We'll there is no one to blame but the people that kept saying that the government should have done better, and that's the American public itself.

It was also immediately apparent that no matter what security measures were taken here on the home front, it would never be enough. So we launched our war to eradicate terrorist's and terrorist states. America screamed when we invaded Afghanistan, but said they'd support it if we killed Bin Laden not understanding that terrorist networks work more like a hydra than a snake. If you cut off the head, the network doesn't die, it just grows a new one. So to really eradicate the terrorist threat, we have to take away their money, their weapons, and their harbor's of safety. This led to the war in Iraq. Most people don't see the link because Bin Laden was several countries away, but the link doesn't come from him. It comes from safe harboring of Al-Qaeda top officials, and it comes from the availability of some of the worst weapons imaginable if they were to make it to our soil.

But we didn't find any WMD's your saying. Well, there are two replies to that, first is, we know they had them within the last decade and that they haven't used them up. And that meant they were either still there, or were sold on a black market. You didn't really think Iraq just got rid of its entire stockade of chemical and biological weapons with no trace of even a disposal ground in Iraq did you?

The second takes us back to that "hindsight is 20/20" again. We know we didn't find any now, but at the time we had plenty of reason to think they were still there. You also didn't expect them to tell our weapon inspectors the full truth after delaying their inspections for many many months. So what happened to them? We don't know, and that's why the government is afraid. So there we are, in Iraq, can't find the WMD's so we can dispose of them, and now the government is scared for the first time since the cold war.

I'll give that a minute to sink in, because most of America has returned to the mindset of we are safe here and nothing can harm us mindset. Well, we aren't invulnerable, and now there are some nasty weapons unaccounted for, last scene in a country that's ruling party hated the west and everything we stand for.

And as much as we'd like to get out, we can't do it quickly. We invaded the country because of the threat it represented to us, even if not directly. But we have to stay there for the sake of the world economy. It has absolutely nothing to do with "Big Oil" or politicians making money off of it. If you think that's the case, feel free to go buy stock in Haliburton, or trade some oil commodities and maybe you'll learn a thing or two. What it does have to do with, is that a large supply of oil for the world has serious potential to be cut off or stagnate if Iraq breaks out into a civil war.

If that were to happen it would indeed have a global impact. You think gas prices are high now, wait until a world supplier goes on hiatus. The biggest impact wouldn't even come from filling up your car, it comes from the sudden inflation on nearly everything because of businesses increased costs to manufacture, package, and distribute. And with rapid inflation a recession is likely to follow. And not just here in America, this would have impact in many industrialized countries.

There are always more sides to a story than can be scene. And while most of this could be discussed here in America on a local scale, it isn't something that we are just going to broadcast to the world. I mean if we don't finish our work in Iraq, then the screw ups and blunders we've had in the recent past will pale in comparison to the worldwide turmoil we create by leaving to soon. So lets finish the job right. Then when it is done, bring our troops home and tell our government that we screwed up as well, we are willing to sacrifice some of our safety in exchange for our freedoms back.

The road is coming to a fork, it's time for us as a nation to either take responsibility for our actions and make amends, or continue to allow our country to unravel while looking for scapegoats as the old group moves out and new one moves in.