Pet Peeve

Our media is so damn corrupt, which is why I harp on them so much. And unfortunately they still define the acceptable parameters for debate in this country. It is one reason why we are in the current situation we are. For they would rather spend time on Edward's haircut or Hillary's boobs then delve into real issues. Sadly I've come to conclude that the reason behind this is just that the media is lazy and stupid. Which is why they take their orders from Drudge and the right wing propaganda machine and just practice stenography. It beats working, I guess.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when the media takes a nuanced or complicated issues and boils it down to a black or white issue. Take taxes for example. Either you are for or against taxes. There is no room for being for increased taxation on corporations or the affluent. This stance just gets portrayed as being for taxes, which leaves the impression among people who would not affected that they would lose money. It really does a disservice to our system of government. On the flip side, we have a Republican party hellbent on giving handouts in the form of taxation to corporations and the wealthy. Yet all the media reports is that Republicans gave a tax cut. No matter that it mainly went to a small portion of the population. Who cares if Joe Six Pack erroneously believes he benefited. It's his fault if he's not diligent enough to study the government actions. After all, it's not like it's the media's job to inform the public about what exactly the government is doing.

Me personally, I'm not necessarily against taxes. I just expect to receive more from my taxes. It's a travesty that we are the only industrialized country without Universal Health Care. As a society, we work too many hours and definitely do not get enough vacation days. We live to work. And through it all, we seem to be falling further and further behind. Republicans can talk all they want about tax cuts but unless they are serious about tackling the out of control defense spending, we are just creating debt that future generation will have to pay. I could go on and on. After all, government really is about priorities. Do I want to extend Bush's tax cuts to help the super wealthy or do I want to provide Universal Health Care to all Americans? Do I chip away at Medicare so I can fund more defense programs, even though defense spending is approaching 50% of the budget?

At the end of the day, the media is afraid of an informed electorate. Better to placate them with stories of boobs and wide stances then actually dig into issues. For if they actually informed the public truthfully, we would have a one party system. And it wouldn't be the horse they bet on. So they keep on keeping on while dumbing all the issues down to ensure Republicans get a chance to rape and pillage our governmental system, which results in bags and bags of money filling their coffers. When the people finally have enough and elect a Democrat, they do everything in their power to trump up charges and make them ineffective, ahem, Whitewater. Of course they allow Republicans to run over our Constitution - at least they didn't dare host a birthday sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom.

Until we get a better media that actually does their job, we will continue to get f$cked in the ass.

Tags:

*politics*media *rant*Tom G *pet peeve*liberal*conservative *Democrat*Republican