"Somewhere, someone is planning what we should care about next. Pundits, reporters, talk show personalities, activists: they all have a plan for what we need to care about....Fox News has this sort of journalism down to an art. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Sustern- watch them and you will know what the outrages are in our world. What issues to be angry about. What politicians to blame. What court cases really matter."
Is this from Eschaton? MyDD? Annatopia? Or perhaps one of our own...PastorDan, maybe? You've probably guessed that the answer is coming out of Right Field. You're getting warmer....
I think this goes to the heart of an "umbrella problem" - one that affects every other debate. This is not always a "Right vs. Left" fight. There are concerned parties on both sides of the Great Divide, and we shouldn't forget that sometimes it's good for us to pull our own heads out of the Media Soup Bowl (MSB).
Let's discuss. Answer below the fold.
These quotes are from a conservative Republican Pastor and blogger.
Read the full article here.
I don't consider myself a Christian, but I was put in mind of this discussion by, guess what? Yup, the fate of Terri Schiavo and the circus marching over us all. And there is nothing more to say about that.
But there is plenty more to say about common ground between normally dissenting folks. The facts: There is no schism in American Culture about this feeding tube issue . What we would want if we were on that gurney? We overwhelmingly say "Take out the tube".
But there is more to the story. Why do we put ourselves on Terri's gurney in the first place? Why do we get so passionately involved in cases like this, over and over again?
We constantly accuse the Republicans of having no empathy. They are heartless and cruel, casting families on the street and dissenters in prison. But they are not all lacking empathy: they just empathize with different people. In bold strokes:
- We empathize with the desperate case of Michael Schiavo, they empathize with the desperation of Terri's parents.
- We empathize with pregnant women, they empathize with the fetus.
- We empathize with the detainees at Abu Ghraib, they empathize with the soldiers on dangerous guard duty.
But we clearly all (almost) agree about the feeding tube.
So, why does the Media Soup Bowl facilitate this divide? Why do they feed off dissent like vultures on a dead cow? It's no surprise - even the Republicans can see it:
"There's a sense of unease because so much emotion has been poured out through the media. There's a lot of emotion, and it seems be a crisis.... Now, in between the crisis and the experts, there are commercials and promos. I assume the price of these advertisements is somehow tied to how many people are watching. So we always pause in our discussion for a message from our sponsor. "
Does this perhaps mean that the Evangelical Right is not manipulating the media , but rather the media is manipulating them? That Michelle Malkin and the others are all just media dupes? Stooges in an ever-widening Soup Bowl of Money?
"If I want to know what to care about, there is always someone to tell me. I can custom design the things that I care about with cable channels, radio stations and web pages. I can care about religion, sports, conservative politics, health issues, youth culture, money, the environment, or whatever interests me. It's really not hard to care anymore. The directions are everywhere, and I'm listening.
[But]...I don't know what's happening with the families around me unless it's very bad, or very public. And then it's usually too late.
I don't even know all I could know about my students, my co-workers or my extended family. We've always got other things to do, and there's no one telling me that I should care more about these people than those on the television or the computer screen. "
There's a lot of stuff about Jesus in this article too, most of which I think is right on (if you are a follower of his.). But I edited it out because...that's another Diary.