Who Protects Us Now?

Tags

Bush, Faux Noise, journalism, Media, Muslims, Rudi Giuliani, terror attacks, terrorism

It’s ironic that in an age of ever increasing access to information, we are quickly becoming the most uninformed generation in perhaps all of American history. That might be going a bit far, but not by much.

We live with Internet access to literally millions of bits of news and facts, along with the ability to turn to 24-hour cable “news” 24/7. You’d think we would be experts on the political scene and all those other “scenes” as well. But ‘fraid not.

Surely, something can be said for our educational lack. I went to a fairly passable county school back in the 60’s. Yet, given our small size, the choice of classes was lacking and certainly only the basics were taught.

I, and my classmates learned to read and write and cypher adequately. We learned the importance of voting, and being patriotic. We learned that some bad things were done (not soo00 important), but we had a continent to conquer and ultimately we were the next best hope for humanity. I guess this was adequate to the middle of the 2oth century, but it is woefully inadequate now.

We are assured that there is only one worthwhile economic system–the free market one–as we slide into economic hell. The fact that most Americans today spend most of their waking hours just keeping their heads above water might account for the fact that we spend almost no time actually learning the facts of health care, our foreign policy, the state of the rest of the world, the truth about scientific advances, and on and on.

So it’s not surprising that Rudi Giuliani tells lies to the likes of George Stephanopolous and nobody, including George even blinks an eye. If you missed it, Rudi joined a list of shabby neo-cons who are spreading the lie that there were no terrorist attacks under Bush at all! George, I’m told, has admitted his faux pas  at not challenging the former mayor, but what matter? Heck, those who knew better still do, and those that don’t, well they don’t watch George anyway. They are firmly attached at the hip to the Faux Noise liars who know this routine so well.

Yesterday, a Brit stopped by the blog and dropped a few f-bombs around (since deleted by me) and basically railed as how I as a liberal was a sodomite supporting, Muslim defender. He, who goes by the name “Larry” of course is a proper Christian, despite his sexual invitation for me to have sex with a goat.

Now being from Britain, I can only say, whew. . . .just goes to show that idiocy is spread across the globe and is not the sole province of the US of A. More, I can point at Larry as another of those who so helps to radicalize people left and right. Contrary to his ugly opinion of Muslims, from what I hear, they are doing their best, at least in America, to decry in the strongest terms that those Muslims who espouse radical jihad are NOT Muslims according to their understanding of Koran.

Yet, this kind of truth, doesn’t find much purchase in the media. They have succumbed to the simpler mode of journalism, that requires little in the way of research or actual work. Just grab a camera, take a few shots, grab a microphone, and shove it in the faces of passersby for their input. Voila` we are ready for air.

Was it only a few years ago that Woodward and Bernstein offered us a glimpse of real investigative reporting? How soon that turned into investigating marital infidelities, and drug usage. It has failed completely to actually investigate truth. Somewhere and somehow, journalism has become the duty of journalists to let everyone have their opinion voiced, without “editorial” comment.

Well, I agree, I don’t care what the reporter’s opinion is, but I do care what the facts are. And when AHole is spouting verifiable “facts” I want them verified and confirmed or denied. And that is your job Ms reporter. It’s what you get paid for. Yet we find little of this any more. In fact  organizations called “Media Matters” and “Factcheck” and others are designed to actually do that job, the one that journalists don’t bother with any more.

Yet, you have to be motivated to learn the truth to even know of the existence of these sites, let alone actually read them. And precious few of us are. Most of us are plainly not interested at all, or we have hitched our horse to the teabagger supporters at Foxy and depend on them to ‘splain things.

Maybe this has always been so. Maybe in 1884, the US landscape was made up of essentially the same percentages of know some things and know nothings. I don’t know. I do know that at one time, most towns, not cities mind you, had competing  newspapers. Cities might have as many as four major voices, and lots of smaller ones. Today, most cities are owned by one media conglomerate or other.  A failure of course of our fine “regulatory agency” the FCC.

It often seems like beating one’s head against the wall to decry the never ending failure of the media to tell us truth rather than the usual gossipy innuendo that passes for facts. It was called in the past the 4th estate. It was accorded some respect. It was feared by politicians and corporate heads. It could uncover the hidden lies. It could make or break an industry. It had integrity. It was like superman, out for Justice and the American way.

How far it has fallen, and how dumbed down we have become. We need a super hero, and we need one fast.