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Off The Rail - Jan 31, 2006 - Printable Version
- Fanning the Flames
by Mike Bohling
If you were to trust what you see on the nightly news, you would think that America is at war with itself. Red States against Blue States. Uptight Moralists fighting a life and death battle against Evil Debauchees who believe that the only thing that should be forbidden, is to forbid. The media seems intent on making us believe that our neighbors are our enemies. The Right Wing media pushes the idea that Liberals have no morals, that they’re all cowardly gay pornographers that want to kill God and give you AIDS. The Left Wing media would have you believe that Conservatives are all war mongering racists that hate clean air and secretly desire to assassinate vegetarians.
Since our individual opinions on the long list of hot-button moral issues have already been formed and are unlikely to change, addressing them one by one and adding my 2 cents worth would be a waste of time. So, I’m only going to talk about a few of them in order to point out that they all share a common thread. The Media.
I came to this realization last month when Fox News was touting the War on Christmas, and nobody was engaged in battle. When I took a realistic look around in my community, it was clear to me that there was no controversy whatsoever. Aside from a few letters to the Editor of our local newspaper, (written by people who didn’t know they were at war until O’Reilly proclaimed it), you would hardly know that there was ever any disagreement at all. Christians and Non-Christians alike celebrated the holiday peacefully. There were no fistfights because somebody said “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”, no riots, and no Atheist hordes running around town tearing down Christmas decorations. Nothing. The only sign of discontent that I witnessed during the holidays was O’Reilly’s nonstop bovine excrement trying unsuccessfully to pass itself off as “news”.
(On a side note: If fist fights, riots, and general mayhem had occurred, is there any reason not to think that O’Reilly should be held liable?)
That got me thinking seriously about my previous conclusions on the Church/State issue. Just because a handful of extremist nut jobs are bent on turning our country into a theocracy doesn’t mean that they have any credibility, or backing from the American people. It only means that the media is over hyping the hot air coming from a few disillusioned fanatics.
The Mainstream Media would have us believe that our morality as a nation hinges upon homosexual marriage, abortion and a few other controversial topics. In their endeavor to brainwash and divide us along moral and religious lines, relatively insignificant news stories become circus acts, complete with clowns. Who can forget the Terri Schiavo grandstanding? I don’t mean to demean the tragedy of Terri’s death, but the unplugging of one brain dead woman from life support was not worthy of 24/7 minute by minute News coverage for over a month. Nor was it deserving of a special session of Congress, or a 1:00am flight to Washington from Texas by the President to sign the ill-fated “Save Terri” bill into law. Maybe it’s just me, but there are many more serious problems in America that I would rather see addressed by the media and my government.
Judge Moore and the Ten Commandments is another prime example of media excess. Being a Judge, Roy Moore knew that erecting a five-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments in his courtroom was unconstitutional. His only objective was to goad the ACLU into filing suit in order to get his hysterical followers foaming at the mouth, and it worked perfectly. The media glommed on to Moore’s publicity stunt, and nonstop television coverage of Moore and a handful of imbeciles carrying picket signs ensued. Another circus act joins the long list of irrelevant themes vying for “Media Story of the Year”.
About fifteen years ago we started getting inundated with sensationalized, 24/7 coverage of things like O.J Simpson and Michael Jackson. Since then, they have revved up the non-news machine with incessant coverage of Laci Peterson, Kobe Bryant, and Natilee Holloway. Again, I’m not trying to deprecate the memories of the victims of these crimes, but I scarcely think that they deserve headline status and perpetual attention from the nation’s news outlets. Over the course of the past ten years, it seems the Media has completely lost it’s taste for addressing serious problems that face our nation, like war, health care, and global warming, and shifted it’s focus to insignificant wedge issues. This raises an important question: Why is the media more concerned with Janet Jackson’s nipple flailing about on national television than it is with the state of world affairs?
The obvious answer is that these stories distract us from more important issues.
So, if distraction is the motive, the next logical questions are who wants us to be distracted, and why? Doesn’t an informed citizenry benefit the country as a whole? A cynical person might think that the politicians and the media are in cahoots with each other in an effort to misinform us, and keep us distracted from their misdeeds. An even more cynical person might contemplate that both the media and the politicians have their strings pulled by some unseen, outside force.
Call me cynical, but let’s explore that thought a little further.
As I pointed out in my last article, Liberal Media Bias – Dismantling the Myth, the mainstream media is controlled by corporate officers who are devoted only to enriching the bottom lines of the Defense Contractors, Financial Institutions, Oil Companies, Drug Manufacturers, and other multi-national corporations whose Boards of Directors they sit on.
These corporations not only decide what you see and read in the news, but they also hold influence over our elected representatives. When John Q. Congressman receives a giant pile of cash from Exxon for his election campaign, it would be naive to think that it won’t have an impact on how he votes on an energy bill or pollution standard. Winning elections costs money, lots of it, so in order to survive John Q. will put the desires of his corporate benefactors over yours and mine every time. To do otherwise would kill the Golden Goose that keeps John Q’s career alive.
Because of these conflicts of interest, the public, who want and deserve unbiased news coverage and politicians who will truly represent them in government, get the short end of the stick.
Gay Marriage, Family Values, Pledge of Allegiance and the War on Christianity have become the latest weapons of choice employed by our politicians and the media. They have been extremely effective in distracting, dividing and dumbing down an America that has an ever-decreasing attention span for the serious problems facing our nation. We are a nation at war. 44 million Americans have no health care coverage. The divide between rich and poor grows every day. Our dependence on energy from foreign sources continues to grow, and our energy policy gives no credence to renewable sources.
Those are the real problems that face Americans, but those who control the media don’t want you to know it. The bottom line of corporate profitability would take a nosedive if our real problems were confronted and solved. We are indeed a nation at war. It is a war of distraction, propaganda, and misinformation. The media giants and politicians act as Generals, and ordinary, everyday citizens are the foot soldiers. The sardonic humor of it all is that most of us don’t even realize who the enemy is.
Here’s a hint: People with different moral views are not your enemies, they are your countrymen, and they face the same struggles every day that you do. Our true enemies are the ones who corrupt our politicians. Our true enemies are the ones who control the media. Our true enemies are the ones who steal America’s wealth and hide it in tax-free offshore bank accounts. Above all, our true enemies are the ones willing sacrifice everything you and I hold dear in order to maintain their power and influence. The only things they fear are you and me, because we are the only things that they don’t control.
Or do they?
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