I do keep track of the news. I get the San Francisco Chronicle every morning (the actual print edition), and visit the websites of some other news organizations like The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, The UK Guardian, The Nation, Mother Jones, and others. Lately I've been watching Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. I also like the Thom Hartmann show, and enjoy the wit of Norman Goldman.
And sometimes I take a peek at my twitter feed where I find some gems when it comes to valuable news once in a while. And of course, here at Daily Kos many writers highlight important news and share very insightful commentary.
But here's what I don't ever do: Watch network TV news, including "local affiliates." I don't watch CNN, FoxNews (of course), CBS, NBC, ABC, and hardly ever watch MSNBC.
As I stay away from watching TV network news, when I try to take a peek, even for a few minutes, I'm truly horrified at the level of distortion, misinformation, false narratives and sensationalism they peddle, not to mention total pablum.
Another way I can describe it is as poison to the mind. One could also go into making comparisons with futuristic science fiction worlds, but I don't want to distract the reader from my main point.
Regarding MSNBC, I find the situation quite sad since the overall misinformation and deception is more subtly hidden, with the effect of overcoming the intellectual defenses of some very smart liberal viewers.
The reality we live in can be characterized as absurd. A fraudulent war in Iraq that caused the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and cost over $2 trillion, with 90% of that going straight into the pockets of war profiteers, members of the 1 % ruling elite. Looting of the country by Wall Street with total impunity. I could go on an on; I think many readers who frequent Daily Kos are very familiar with the list of horrors...
Here's the main problem I see regarding the news: There is an endless stream of accounts about all kinds of increasingly-shocking trends and events affecting our daily lives, but they are somehow conveniently presented in a way that encourages tribalism, pitting average citizens against each other, fanning the flames of anger and hate, and distrust.
This is particularly troubling as it relates to liberals and progressives whom I think as representing the only segment of society sophisticated enough to understand the root causes of the social dysfunction we are undergoing.
In the intellectual realm, it is my opinion that we are wasting incredible amounts of energy and talent on the truly meaningless and ineffectual activities of one, being obsessed with the myriad dastardly acts happening at an increasingly rapid-fire manner from the corporate state and their right wing useful idiots, number two, reporting (commenting, critiquing) obsessively about those acts, and number three (the most troubling), thinking that by engaging in these activities we can somehow make a difference.
In the meantime, the entrenchment of the corporate state continues more or less unmolested, as our collective economic security continues to deteriorate, and our constitutional rights continue to be undermined.
Imagine if much of that attention we are misplacing on the symptoms of the dysfunction were to be redirected to the root of all those problems? It would be very, very powerful.
The only news that's fit to print is that our government is on the take.
Although the influence powerhouses that line Washington's K Street are just a few miles from the U.S. Capitol building, the most direct path between the two doesn't necessarily involve public transportation. Instead, it's through a door—a revolving door that shuffles former federal employees into jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists just as the door pulls former hired guns into government careers. While officials in the executive branch, Congress and senior congressional staffers spin in and out of the private and public sectors, so too does privilege, power, access and, of course, money.
- Center For Responsive Politics
That's it. Almost every dysfunction we are facing in government right now goes back to that simple news.
Unless and until we change our collective (non-partisan) attention to this one news headline, we will have no chance on mounting a real challenge to the increasingly fascistic corporate state.
I think this guy says it better...
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Ray Pensador |
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