13 posts tagged “media”

The problem is not that these extremes exist, the problem is that these extreme segments of both of the major parties are dominating our politics at every turn.  A never-ending assault of scary statements and end of the world “if we support this” or “don’t support that” prophecies and on and on. 

I  have been wondering, in this era of so much media and information, how this could be so effective and not repulsive to most.  Then I realized, that there is a large portion of the country that is elderly and concerned (for example) about health care who tend not to use as much internet etc. and would only have the words of someone they trust to believe as the facts.  This gloom and doom, it’s the end of the world greatly impacts that group and any others that may not be as apt or able to do more research beyond what someone they perceive as an expert says.  So there are really people who believe our Hanitys and Moores are the gospel (depending on which lunatic extreme is more comfortable to you)

There is so much childishness going on that is becoming stupid.  This weird thing where people are being told to just disrupt town hall meetings with random yelling etc. talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.  All any smart politician would do in the future is simply record a message, control who is in the crowd, or just not have them at all.  Does one party not think if you do it now, they will do the same thing later.

The real trouble is that terribly ill informed people are believing things that are not factual and starting fist fights at political events and ultimately completely dividing the country.

To some this division is desirable, but for those of us who live in California we know there are only two possibilities.

A one party system where the lunatic fringe of that party can easily overtake our politics or a system where both parties get so angry at the other that everyone drifts toward their lunatic fringe and refuses to compromise on anything which in the end means absolutely nothing can ever get done.  Everything ends in a stalemate.

The whole idea of our government is that there are different sides that negotiate and agree at some point on any issue that comes up even if that means that sometimes they agree to just put off an issue here and an issue there.

Now, whenever a politician says he or she will make a compromise with the other party that person is a traitor, and is punished in the media, by his or her party, and by voters and constituents who are told this person sold them out.  If compromise is punished on either side, how is anything supposed to get done?  This is the mindset and techniques used by the extremes of our party system that are gaining more and more control of our country and media. 

As far as I am concerned I have a new term for this.  Accidental terrorism.  This is an inadvertent attempt to destroy or entire political system just to prove a few idealistic points. 

The politicians are not the ones who will be punished when this all plays out.  The so called experts on television and in our media will not be the ones who suffer.  The people who make over $200k or over $250k who are so concerned about paying more taxes are not the ones who are going to suffer.  It is the average person who although gullible when it comes to this sort of information, we all just want to live peaceful lives with the opportunity to support our families and better ourselves with hard work. 

I attached a link to a clip that I hope you can access.  It is not to say that one party is better than the other, it is to show how stupid the whole thing is.

This childish war to have one or the other extreme’s way is really a war against democracy and more specifically the average middle class person. 

Everyone knows (for example) that there is a terrible health care problem.  One side is fighting any sort of solution saying things should stay the way they are (Einstein – Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting the same results) and the other side is coming up with a plan to insure everyone while secretly using it as a Trojan Horse to sneak in a bunch of stuff such as money for abortions.  In the meantime the American people suffer and pick a side to protest with while still losing healthcare by the thousands daily. 

Ask yourself, if you were a terrorist who wanted to destroy America would your money be better spent on blowing up some airplane here or there or on some politicians on the lunatic extremes who will invest that money and the money of other Americans to make sure our entire government is in a stalemate. 

I know all of us have our deep personal commitments, but there has to be some kind of compromises for our system to work.  We have to get the lunatic fringes out of power and elect people with our individual values who know how to compromise and when to so that our government will not get stalemated.  Especially since in the last election one party almost gook over completely.  NO!   Everything will not be perfect and everything will not go your way (no matter which party you prefer).  But, the truth is this country will never get everyone to agree on anything and if you are waiting for your party to take over so you can have your way, you are really a part of the problem.  An involuntary tool of those who wish to destroy our political system and our government!

All of the Republican rhetoric of the past few months stomped out by the McCain campaign.  I will get to that in a minute, but I am not sure what will be worse for the Republican Party a loss in a week or an unlikely win.  I believe that most of the American public (excepting the most diehard Republican “fans) already had a pretty good idea about much of all of this, but I think it is simply a vindication of the media that has been taking the brunt of the blame for creating these perceptions.

In case you have not heard all of this, there are endless reports of dissention in the McCain ranks centering on Governor Palin.  The hero of the Republican party is now a “rogue” “diva” candidate undermining the McCain campaign.  The pride and joy of the campaign has become the poster child for the statement “Pride cometh before the fall.”

The latest episode has to do with the fact that Sarah Palin decided to write her own script and inadvertently distract attention from the campaign by not letting the clothing argument die.  The campaign over the past couple of days has drifted from “The Testing of Barack Obama” and “Joe the Plumber” to “Sarah the Rogue Diva.”

CNN has been reporting that members of the McCain camp are saying she has no relationships of trust with anyone in the campaign or even her own family.  That she sees herself as the beginning and end of all wisdom.  She is being described using words such as “diva” and “rogue” and on and on.

That however, is not the serious statements, those are just the entertainment to warm us up for the real bombs.  We all remember the Katie Couric interview and some other early appearances where she looked lost.  Then, after all of the talk about Senator Obama as some kind of rock star, the main defense for her presence on the campaign trail is her popularity.   Then came all of the “media bias” talk about the sexism and the evil “leftwing” media trying to paint her as someone who has no idea what is going on and has no business running for vice president.

Now suddenly, sources of many of these arguments in her defense, are turning one-eighties from within the McCain Campaign.  There are reports that members of the McCain camp are saying that she had a lack of understanding on some fundamental key issues on a level one person called “dramatic.”  Another described her as the hardest candidate to get up to speed in history.

The rhetoric is still there about how she is being picked on or that people are being mean and sexist, and on and on.  Let me spell this out.  THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HER BEST POLITICALLY ARE NOW SAYING THESE THINGS!

Again the Republican Party is doing the worst job of damage control imaginable.  The polls show that people believe she is not qualified and is hurting Senator McCain, the media has been leaning that way, Republican Party members have one by one been leaning that direction, she is found guilty of previous ethics violations while on the campaign, she holds a rally for herself a week before the election when the actual candidate is behind in all polls, and now the leadership within the campaign is verifying what the public has been suspecting all along. 

The weird part is the Republican folks are all over the media still rallying support around her far more than anything they are doing for Senator John McCain.   

It is like a ship with a hole in it.  The crew keeps trying to patch the hole but on the other side of the ship there is one crew member who keeps cutting holes on the other side of the ship.  The crew keeps having to patch the new holes and is constantly being distracted from patching the original hole.  The ship is sinking and now the “rogue” crewmember keeps punching more holes in the ship.   If you were on the ship, what would you do with that crewmember?  Apparently in the Republican camp has decided that the solution to the holes is to blame the mean people on the other boats.

The problem here is not policy and that is why nobody is focusing on policy, the problem is “WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY DOING IN THE REPUBLICAN CAMP?”  This is the question that those of us who are not Republican are wondering and that is what the media is covering.  Most of us are satisfied that Senator Joe Biden is not the best candidate in the world, but he is savvy enough to be a vice-president.  He is no longer interesting. 

But boy, when you spend all of your time getting your clips on television attacking somebody and complaining you turn even the person who is actually in the lead into the underdog and should not wonder why so many are so interested in seeing these Republican candidates beaten. 

I posted this as a response to a thread of comments on a blog and felt that I wanted to share this response with all who read my blogs, because I think this shares the struggle I have within myself.  I suppose I am saying, in the words of that great american philosopher, Rodney King (kidding of course),  "Cant we all just get along?"

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Not to put anybody down, but we all have to find a way to take the intensity of the partisanship down several notches. The strength of this nation has always been the ability to come together in the fact of great challenges. Since about a year after 911 (and in reality since the sixties) the American public and especially those involved in politics (even those of us who blog) has decided to split ourselves into two terrible extremes.
In the past the nation has come together and even when we had made terrible mistakes in some knee-jerk reaction we simply made the best of what we had all committed to do.
In the last year and a half the country has become the most divided racially, politically, in terms of class, and any other demographic that one could come up with since the late sixties/early seventies.
Now that we are near to our political civil war how do we intend to overcome anything else in the world including terrorists, Russian invasions of allies, Iranian nuclear bombs, and so on. Our current politicians can't even unite their own parties unless they play on the hatred that the people of their party have for the other party.
I am astonished how people do not see that terrorism in twenty first century is not about guns and bombs. The war is fought with fought with video cameras, cellphone videos, websites, and the battlefield is the television in our living rooms.
In this kind of "Gorillavision Warfare" we seem to be very poorly equipped and poorly trained. This is where we are loosing in Iraq (no matter what happens to the insurgents the whole planet now thinks we are this crazy and reckless empire) and in Afghanistan (the rest of the planet is beginning to think of us as the crazy Americans who kill woman and children and don't respect the boundaries of sovereign nations). The reason we are doing so poorly is our absolute inability to present a united front. If the goal of those seeking to destroy us is to use the tacktic of "divide and conquer" we are in desperate trouble!!!!!

Here we are going into September, near the end of the Democratic Convention and the biggest rival Senator Barack Obama has is…Senator Hillary Clinton?

How can this be?  How do the Clintons get more airtime and media attention than the nominee, Senator Obama? 

I have to question how this man intends to unite the country and the world while he cannot even unify his own party.  The independent voters and unsure Republicans in particular have a hard time thinking he can carry out anything if he cannot even get his own party behind his ideas.

The government is divided enough with two parties fighting and being childish without separating the members of one of those parties and in reality pitting three groups against each other in a fight to the death (although it is others that seem to do the suffering and dying while they sit on Capitol Hill playing games).

This potential scenario is quite scary.  If that is the new Washington we are being promised, it is actually worse than what Washington is now.  Tri-partisan politics under the president of a kingdom divided against itself.

In Senator Obama’s defense I have to admit two things.

The first is that while Senator Clinton has stated all of the right things over the past few days, she has been slow to undo the damage she did to Senator Obama in the brutal cage match that they had against each other.

A simple statement to the effect of:  “I know I said that Senator Obama was not ready to lead or to beat Senator McCain, but the experience and growth both of us has had over the past few months on the campaign trail has made him obviously a far stronger candidate than he would have been without our brutal battle and things that were true than have been proven not to be the case now.” 

That is the kind of political statement a person who was truly supporting a candidate would make.  Her whole case over the past few days as to why we should vote for Senator Obama is that Senator McCain is such a terrible choice (not that I disagree, but it is not a very strong case for Senator Obama).

The second is that the diehard Democrats and Hillary Clinton supporters who seem to be holding out on Senator Obama all seem to be total wing-nuts whenever they are interviewed.  I honestly tried to hear their case with an open mind but they sound so silly, petty, and spiteful that I cannot take them seriously.

This one lady I saw on Larry King yesterday named Elizabeth Joyce stated she was not ready to vote for Obama because she doesn’t “vote on the first date” and that he hadn’t “courted” her vote enough yet.

She basically stated that she wants to vote for the person most adept at behind kissing.  Not whoever she believes is most qualified, will do the best job, who most represents her values, or even who is more likable, or any of that.  She sat on national television as a representative of the progress and strength of women in 2008 and said the key to the votes of strong women like her was political foreplay (I personally think she just set the cause she represents back thirty to forty years in one interview).

This was not an isolated incident (although it may have been the stupidest that I saw). All of the people I heard trying to defend this stand basically made it clear they were making a political statement by not voting for Senator Obama.  Most of them would state however that they felt he was a better choice than Senator McCain.  A political statement?  Who are these people who would throw away what they themselves believe to be better for the nation, the world, and all of us just to make some point. 

This is the party Senator Obama is supposed to represent in his plan to unify and run our great nation and this is the result of his candidacy. 

Whatever the reason is for how it happened, I am not finding a lot of hope in what I am seeing.

Since the time Senator Hillary Clinton was in the primaries and started to take Senator Barack Obama seriously there has been talk of the media being in love with Senator Obama and not giving other candidates equal time in the news.

Senator John McCain’s camp has begun to use the same defense for why he is not getting the media time that Senator Obama seems to get.

I have been thinking about this for the past few weeks and I noticed something this week and I watched it carefully before posting about it.

The biggest offender at this minute in terms of getting Senator Obama in the news an keeping him the main story is……..Senator John McCain himself.

Almost all of Senator McCain’s airtime as of late has been focused on talking about Senator Obama or he ties whatever he is saying to something Senator Obama is saying.

As I watch this unfold what it does is give everyone reason to question Senator Obama’s motives and thoughts.  The next thing that happens is there is discussion and debates for hours or pages on Senator Obama, his motives, his thoughts, his past, his future, etc.  The result has been the Senator McCain is taking a man who we all know very little about and creating a media environment where we are focused on Senator Obama and we are becoming more familiar with him that we have been to probably any other candidate in history. 

Every time Senator McCain speaks in public we are all left hungry with questions about Senator Obama which has been translating into interest in Senator Obama who seems to have a very likable public persona. 

Is this really the best strategy for Senator McCain to use?  It seems like a silly ploy at this point in the game.  I mean, Senator Obama has been struggling to get people to think they know who he is and what he stands for and that had been playing in Senator McCain’s favor.

Now we know all about his parents, his grandparents, the people he went to school with, about his legal work, his work in the inner cities, past identity crises, how he will do in working with foreign leaders, and every time large groups of Americans all begin to say that Senator Obama doesn’t make sense or is fuzzy about something John McCain is the one who brings the point into the public, the media debates it and Senator Obama has plenty of time then to say whatever will make him look good.

It is true that Senator Obama seems to get all of the positive media even when he has done or stated something stupid, but it is Senator John McCain that is causing this to a large degree. 

The entire planet knows that Senator McCain is not even close to as good of a public speaker as Senator Obama is.  How can Senator McCain’s camp not see that creating an environment where he has another opportunity to speak publicly is to fight the battle where Senator McCain is weak and Senator Obama is strong? 

This last trip that Senator Obama took was nothing more than a publicity stunt that only served to prove that people (even foreign leaders) find Senator Obama more likable than Senator McCain.  Likeable does not make a person a good president (but it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t hurt your chances of being elected). 

Senator McCain has just spent an entire week trying to attack these travels, raising the debate and once again giving Senator Obama a hungry public that is eagerly awaiting his discussion of this trip.  In other words he just gave Senator Obama the perfect opportunity to address the public in public speech (his strength) and legitimize a trip that really was nothing but a publicity stunt.  Senator McCain has created the opportunity to turn a trip that even the media had questions about into a great step forward in his campaign. 

Who is running this campaign anyway?  I would think that that with all of his military background Senator McCain would know better than to take your weakest troops and attack the enemy where they are strongest with no other plan. 

A smart John McCain would find subtle ways to take away the legitimacy of the trip and what happened in these places and appear to be ignoring the whole thing because it was truly as irrelevant as it seemed. 

Senator McCain is accidently become the biggest supporter of Senator Obama in the country and keeps getting on my television “shooting himself in the foot (no Donald Rumsfeld puns intended).

The New York Times has refused to print an Op-Ed Editorial (a ridiculously long one) written Senator John McCain in rebuttal to Senator Barack Obama’s article titled “My Plan for Iraq.” 

In Response the McCain camp has seized the opportunity to pull a play out of the Senator Hillary Clinton playbook and start crying foul in the media.

For those of us who follow my blog, this is one of those activities that completely put me off when Hillary Clinton did it.  Then we had that stupid debate where something like forty-five minutes were spent in an obvious attack on Senator Obama that embarrassed out nation and political system worldwide.

I have to admit that with Phil Gramm’s comments recently about us being a nation of whiners, this sure sounds like a lot of whining to me. 

I listened to and read a few debates on this subject over the past few hours and have my two cents to add.  As a person who does not particularly believe in either of these candidates, I have to say that I believe that there is a good reason for there being more media attention on Senator Obama than Senator McCain.  Senator McCain is dull to watch and even more dull to listen to.  Members of the press, please do not suddenly inundate us with boring clips of Senator McCain smugly rambling the same thing over and over again trying to be able to say that you are being fair (particularly if he is in front of a green screen or hiding his face because he does not know how to answer questions about Viagra).

Let’s look at today’s footage.  Clips of Senator Obama with troops and world leaders in fancy buildings, playing basketball, waving at crowds and so on.  On the McCain side we have Senator McCain (already struggling with questions of his age) with former president George H. W. Bush looking like they are fighting to stay awake long enough for the photo-op and some sound bites of Senator McCain saying exactly the same things (word for word) that he has been saying for a week and a half.

There is an old saying that we all are probably familiar with that I think applies here.  Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.  What if the media decides to give him equal time, will that really help him.  I for one doubt that more media time can help him unless he has a complete personality makeover of some kind. His campaign personality is not made for public consumption.  I can take about two to four minutes a day of his personality when he is trying to attack Senator Obama before I find myself irritated.

I am not the only one.  Remember that debate from the primaries where there was an approval meter on the screen while each candidate was speaking.  Every time Senator McCain would attack another candidate the approval meter would absolutely tank.  The American people (according to that meter even the ones in his own party) do not like it when he is on the attack.

Senator Hillary Clinton managed to gain some ground on Senator Obama using the “the media likes him more” tactic, when she also remade herself as the shot drinking, barroom, party girl everyone could relate to. 

I think if you are a candidate and the media is not covering you, it may be because you are not a candidate of interest to enough of their audience.  It may also be that you are not doing anything that is newsworthy or even video-worthy. 

I may or may not believe what Senator Obama is saying and his voting record may not match what he is saying, but I sure do like to see and listen to him more.  I do not think that that should dictate who one votes for, but it should dictate who gets the airtime.  If you are not good in the media, you have no business crying when the media does not want to cover you. 

You also cannot have someone call the entire nation a group of whiners and then begin whining this much and think people wont start getting exasperated.

I also have heard a lot of complaints about this really large op-ed article that the New York Times refused to print from people who have never read it.  Has it ever occurred to those complaining it may have just been poorly written or structured?

The corporate monster that is Viacom in no holds barred fight with YouTube has won a bid to get information on who views different videos on the internet.  This may not seem like earth shattering news to allow them to see this information to settle a lawsuit, but the reifications of this decision could open the door to more attacks on the internet user instead of in these court battles with the general public.

At what point did it become okay to make what I view and don’t view on the internet public information.  I pay good money to have spyware, cookies, viruses, and other stupidity blocked from my computer unless I want it put there. 

I don’t believe that I am viewing anything that is embarrassing or incriminating in any way, but I do not believe in an internet where “Big Brother” is watching.  This isn’t even about antiterrorism or defending our country, this is about if the free advertizing that Viacom gets from having clips of the shows it owns put on the internet and viewed by millions can be another source of revenue on top of the free advertizing. 

I suppose it well within their legal rights to do this, but it is an assault on the internet as a means of connecting with each other and still have some level of privacy and it is greed at its worst. 

I do believe that there should be some limits to how long clips can be that come from television shows etc. and I think that there should be some level of credits to the show and whatever network and so on, but to demand that the records of who viewed what is to be so cocky that you think you can bite the hand that feeds you with impunity.  That is to bee so cocky that you feel you can attack the very public that watches your shows and not feel a backlash.

I have herd and seen news about the begging’s of a new media outlet that allows small time television and movie producers and directors to make shows and get them to the viewing audiences without the control of giants such as Viacom.  That outlet is the internet.  Until I heard this report I thought the idea would be relegated to a niche market like foreign films are here in the United States.

The truth is that this is in reality the last hope we have of regaining control of our media from these corporate monsters that have grown so powerful that they no longer care what we think, like, or dislike.  The giants have decided they will dictate what we think and like instead of responding to what we think or like.  They are in an effort to tell us what to do and believe and we have little we can do to stop it. 

What are mass numbers of the United States public suddenly going to stop watching television suddenly?  Not unless there is an alternative.  We as a public have to find a way to get those not interested in working for these monsters out to the viewers at large and again create true competition that will force the monster that is television to have to totally change the way they view us the way that blogging has forced the monster that was the newspapers to have to scramble to change the way they do business.

All this talk of “flip-flopping” and supporting evidence from everywhere; can we trust either of these people?  What is going on?  It’s like there is a flip-flop fever going around.

The camps of both major party’s hopefuls for president have been ramping up the rhetoric about the other candidate’s “flip-flops” and inconsistencies.  When one follows the facts, the truth is that both candidates have had major flip-flops over the past year.  Flip-flops big enough to make one wonder; “Who the heck are these people and what do they stand for?”

The truth of the matter is that June and July historically are the months when candidates retool their message and their stands to move a little closer to the center and away from the extreme ends of their party’s ideals to appeal to larger voting segments.

What makes it different this year?  I think there are two things that are different.

I think with Senator Obama, his voting record shows him to be almost as far to the left as one can be, while his rhetoric, campaigning, and speeches make him appear to be very close to the middle and as “The Candidate of Change.”  There a already many huge question marks about who he really is to begin with without him changing the message again.

For Senator McCain, he already has done more and more to alienate the far right within his party over the past eight or nine years and who he really is also warrants a huge question mark from his would be supporters.  Many of the things he stands for and represents already is a hard sell to people in the middle or on the right at any level.  Keep in mind that he represents the same party as the largely unpopular current president which makes his candidacy a hard sell as it is.  He has somehow got to get the support of the right and the middle at the same time when both are skeptical to begin with and he is even going so far as to try to draw from the right betting on the fallout from the Democratic primaries.  For those who are not already set on a candidate or a party (voting for a candidate simply because of party affiliation at this point in history with all that could happen over the next four years is not only stupid but grossly negligent) his message seems to be all over the map and makes him even less understandable to us.

The other reason I think this is such a big deal this year is the fact that there are more mediums that will verify what they are saying and more people who are apt to research such things. 

How many of us have heard something stated by one of the candidates and then by the next day heard and read a firestorm of contradictions stated by the same person as noted on “factcheck.org” or other such organizations. 

What I am saying is that the microscope has grown more powerful for this year’s elections and the candidates are under much more focused scrutiny.  I suspect that if previous candidates had been under the same level of scrutiny as the current candidates history would be vastly different.

Are the candidates “flip-flopping” and still undefined?  Absolutely!  Are these candidates distancing themselves from their own past stands and voting records?  Absolutely?  When I look at both of their past stands and voting records, this is not really a bad thing if we are talking about a true change of heart. 

The problem is, will this newly retooled and refined candidate show up in the Whitehouse if elected president or is it all for votes?  I for one sure do like the candidates’ campaign faces a lot better than what the facts show.

This morning as I went through my morning ritual of watching the news from several different sources and then getting into my car to listen to the local public broadcasting station in the San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Silicon Valley area, I noticed an interesting phenomenon:  the news was dominated by one story.  The story was gay marriage.  

I was okay with this at first because no matter which side of the argument for or against gay marriage one is on, it is a newsworthy topic of relevance.  The problem I had was that our local public broadcasting station took it over the top.  I will explain.

I eagerly went to my tiny but efficient commuter car to spend my twelve dollars in gas to get to work and listen to a mostly impartial view of the news as I usually get on my local public broadcasting station in my travels.  I felt largely ill informed this morning getting into my car because most of the stories I was really interested in were not touched in any detail because the big story in my area was the marriages that took place yesterday.

I turned on the radio only to get approximately forty-five minutes of human interest stories relating to gay marriage with occasional news squeezed in. 

I suppose for some this is a monumental moment and for some this is a terrible moment, but for me I simply wanted to hear the news.  The urgent, pressing, and life changing news.

What is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan?  What is going on with this increase in oil production promised by Saudi Arabia, will it actually help us or not?  What is going on in the elections?  What is going on Capitol Hill?  What is going on with the economy?  What is going on with the value of the dollar?  Is the government going to do anything to keep us all from loosing our homes?  What is going on in al of the states that were flooding yesterday?  What parts of our state are burning to the ground today?  Am I headed into a huge traffic jam?  What is our governor and our state government going to do about the sinking ship that is our state budget?  And on and on and on…

Is this marriage story really that big of a story that it completely eliminates the need for other news?  Maybe I am the only person today who was interested in all of these other things, with all of the supporters of this doing a victory lap and all of those in opposition circling the wagons to fight against it.  I guess with that kind of emotion flying around it is hard to see anything else, but in my mind, people are dying, starving, loosing their jobs, loosing their homes, going broke paying for gas, and two are running for president.

I also suppose that there may be need for a diversion from the stress of focusing on all of the stress that is normally related to our news lately, but I am interested in these other things.  I would venture to say that in my mind these other stories are at the least as relevant and in my mind a bit more relevant and should get equal time at the least. 

I also have to wonder what motivation the radio station that I usually listen to for impartial views has for letting human interest stories related to gay marriage dominate large blocks of the airtime.  I can only conclude that it has sunk to pandering to one side of the argument to get more listeners or it already has taken a side and is trying to campaign for that cause. 

These are things I expected from the mainstream media that is funded by commercials, but this usually is the one place I have been able to count on for somewhat impartial vies on things.  I like to hear both sides of the arguments and have my preexisting beliefs challenged.  I like facts and opposing facts.  I have been a listener to this station to receive balanced news not propaganda.

I am not sure what I am going to listen too on my ride to work anymore, I suppose I will have to find something more impartial on the internet in the form of a Podcast to download each morning or something of that nature and play through my car stereo.

I am not saying that the gay marriage story is not a good news story, I am saying don't get stuck on one subjsct when there is so much of deep relevence going on.

I was thinking about our government and the stalemate that we are in and I thought of an analogy.  What if the goal of the government next week was to screw in a light bulb.

Senator Obama would give an awesome speech about the equality of all light bulbs and discuss how he is going to get everybody light bulbs if elected.

A certain Mr. Wright would suddenly surface describing how different light bulbs are just different and how Senator Obama had to distance himself from him because of politics.  

The media would find every tidbit that could sound strange to listeners from Mr. Wrights speech and play these clips over and over and discuss these clips over and over.

Senator Obama would again try to distance himself from this person.

Senator McCain would ask Senator Obama why he spent so many years in a church with such beliefs about lightbulbs.

Senator Hillary Clinton would have said that Senator Obama does not have enough experience to put in a light bulb and does not really have enough support to screw in a light bulb, but she has finally realized that she is not going to win the Democratic primaries.  So now she will say that Senator Obama, her friend, is well equipped to screw in light bulbs.  But, she continued to campaign because she felt the American people deserved the best light bulb screwer-inner person that there was and she is that person.  The popular vote showed that the American people know who can better screw in a light bulb and voted that way. 

Hillary Clinton supporters would say that the media stated that Senator Clinton could not do a good job of screwing in light bulbs because she is a woman and would want her to keep trying to stop Senator Obama from being the one to screw in the light bulb.

Former President Bill Clinton, would start calling members of the press scumbags and other names for the conspiracy against his wife and for using the light bulb as a tool to help Senator Obama get elected.  He would later apologize but, Senator Hillary Clintons approval rating would take another hit anyway.

The media would have debates and talk show hosts would rip on different people for not getting the light bulbs in fast enough.

President Bush would tell congress to write a bill stating that the light bulb should be installed.  Because the bill idea came from the President, the Democrats would say it is a terrible idea and try to draft their own, somehow different proposal.  The Republicans will write a really long version of the bill and have it read aloud to the entire group to irritate the Democrats.

Senator McCain would say nothing about the President Bush idea (because he has to distance himself from the administration).  The Senator would get in front of his green background with a small handful of supporters (trying to sound like more than they really are) and give a speech repeatedly saying that the kind of changing of light bulbs that Senator Obama wants to is not change at all.  He would then give some reasons why the light bulb that was already there is fine and should stay and then screw up a perfectly good speech by saying it would be okay if the light bulb stayed in for a hundred years.

Senator Obama would reply by saying that Senator McCain just wants to keep changing the light bulbs with the same kind of light bulbs that President George Bush has been putting in which means that electing Senator McCain is just like giving George Bush a third term.

The media would just keep playing clips of Senator John McCain saying he would leave the light bulb in for a hundred years.

The Democrats would fight amongst themselves in drafting their own bill because of the carbon footprint of making the light bulbs and that the light bulbs create.  There would be a huge debate on florescent light bulbs and the fact that their disposal is as big a problem as the footprint of regular bulbs.

The tree huggers will protest outside of government buildings demanding that the light bulb not be put in and that the light bulb is destructive (because they heard all of the news reports about the fight the Democrats were having).

I would take one look at all of this, freak out, turn on my computer and type a blog post. This post would talk about how stupid all of this is and how our government is broken etc.

In the end, the light bulb will not get put in.  Everyone would still be fighting and the whole government would still be in a stalemate. 

Where is (really who is) the person who would just take charge and put the light bulb in. The person who could do what is the best solution to the problem and rally the American people and the media to support what has been done. That person should be president and other like him or her should replace the people that are in our government at all levels.

This is the only way I could think of to describe how ridiculous all of the partisan politics that is going on at this point in history seems to me.  There is a lot going on while at the same time nothing is really happening of substance and even less is getting accomplished.

What a Mess!