Sorry for the poor timing of this one!
Prolouge:
I began writing the following in February 2005. As much as changed, so much remains the same. Here we are well within the Holiday Season and much of the nonsensical rhetoric continues. The nation is still divided; the President continues to abuse his authority with impunity; and Americans are still preoccupied with whatever mainstream media regurgirates for consumption. The alleged conservatives (actually neo-cons) are still sqauking like parrotts within their party's narrow-minded views.
OK, I had to take a small break, well long break, from "The Rove Head". There have been many things picking at my brain lately. First, I have just finished reading "Censored: 2005". This book is a testimony to the deplorable state of affairs in the mass media. With the current rate of media consolidation we will be getting all of our news from just a small handful of outlets, each tied to the wishes of their corporate masters. We are witnessing the debasement of what should be a free thinking society. This is not alarmist behavior, the signs are all around.
A few weeks ago I was watching television with my partner. We were watching a serious account of the recent tsunami tragedy in SE Asia. An alert ticker begins along the bottom of the screen. It says: "Breaking News...." and then something about Brad Pitt and whoever it is he was married to are getting a divorce. We both thought for sure that the breaking news was going to be something along the lines of another natural disaster or W was finally going to bomb Iran, as he is wont to do.
It is appalling that in the face of disaster we are so consumed with the petty lives of meaningless celebrities. Sure, they provide entertainment, and some of them are pleasant on the eyes but why in the hell do people obsess over them? Most people I know that spend hours waxing moronic over the life of a famous person cannot manage their own affairs. Yet here they are, spewing out the latest drivel from Oprah or Jerry Springer and their own life is beyond reproach. I'm no saint here. I know I have many improvements to make in my life. I work hard everyday to make those adjustments. It is beyond my scope of reason to understand how anyone has the time to give a damn about the affairs of actors or royalty or sports personalities.
Yet the major media outlets continue to feed us this fetid stew of gossip and topical nonsense disguised as "breaking news". We sit in front of our flickering boxes, watching as yet another sports figure or celebrity is charged with groping, or spits in public or some other unimportant tidbit of their life is exposed. We drool, wide-eyed and zombie like, as we grab another handful of Doritos dipped in lard.
It's time to wake up! We have to hold the media accountable for their tyranny. We have been misled by a machine that cares more about the bottom line, then about journalism. Look at how the major media fell in line with the call to war over the "weapons of mass destruction" that Saddam was to be harboring. We sat watching all the stations with their overlayed images of flags in the lower or upper corner of the screen. The pundits crying the call to arms, crushing anyone that did not agree as unpatriotic. Look at the dumbasses that began a boycott of all things French. So much so, that in our stupidity, our congressional representatives changed the term "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries". In actuality, french fries are a Belgian invention, although they are most know by that moniker in the USA. But enough of that.
