The President lied and massaged the truth to get us into a counterproductive damn fool war. Your reaction? USA! USA!
Your government may be spying on you without warrant in violation of the Constitution. Your reaction? Meh.
The Attorney General, the man who is supposed to uphold the law of this land, breaks the law and then lies and conveniently forgets things he knew yesterday. Your reaction? Same old, same old.
Possibility of voter fraud? Your reaction? Aw, that’s all in the past.
But let some Senator tap the foot of a police officer in a public bathroom and all of a sudden it’s 24/7 CNN coverage and outrage and OMG what a gay hypocrite! String him up! String him up!
That is not to say that Sen Craig isn’t a gay hypocrite but, damn, if this is what it takes to get the populace riled (along with Foley’s e-mail gayness) then you deserve the government you have.
Maybe it’s just a reflection of the fact that many folks are way more interested in sex than they are in politics. Sex is a basic biological drive. Holding people accountable, apparently, is not.
You don’t get it. He is a closeted gay man having gay sex! In a desperate and depressing way! And we need to flog the desperation and seediness and danger and ugliness of this particular small slice of the gay sexual pastiche in order to increase the public’s tenuous acceoptance of all gay people for who they are!
So true. I have no control over what the media wants to focus on and shove down our throats and deem “news worthy” and neither do the rest of Americans.
Just because for some odd reason beyond my comprehension they want to focus on slamming Paris Hilton who affects absolutely no one rather than slamming RumDum & Dubya what am I supposed to do about it? Write a letter? Call Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch?
Ever hear “If it bleeds it leads” or “sex sells”? That’s what media organizations live and die by.
One thing I noticed, and kind of agree with, is the separation of actions in support of your duties from actions that are not job related.
You were at work and dropped a $1,000 laptop, irreparably damaging it, while bringing it to a meeting. Your co-worker took $100 out of the register and pocketed it. One of these actions costs the company 10x as much as the other, but is likely to be treated a lot less harshly by management, because it was in the execution of your duties instead of for personal gain.
This leads us to accept a President ordering a foolish military action that gets 10, 100 or 1,000 people killed, while we would be apoplectic if the President ordered a hit on a rival politician even though that’s only 1 dead person.
Sex is always personal, and the US is obsessed with it so that just adds to how outraged we get over a blowjob, a tapping foot, or a briefly exposed nipple.
Also bear in mind that it has been a pretty slow news week, not much goin’ on (kids are back in school, the Katrina anniversary–not much to talk about there, couple of murders, the juice is pretty much out of the Vick thing, the heat wave basically over), plus it’s coming up on the Labor Day weekend, in which news coverage for anything less than 9/11 The Sequel gets put on hold until next Tuesday.
So it’s not so much “stupid prurient United Statesians” as is it “bored and desultory news reporting”. If more women and children had been dying in Greek forest fires this week, Sen. Craig wouldn’t have made it any higher on the foxnews.com front page than a single line way down in “Politics”.
Oh but the Senate investigations have been in the news. There have been news reports of suspicions of voter suppression. The lead in to this war had many of us voicing doubts only to be shouted down with cries of “traitor” and “USA!” It’s easy to try to pin this on the media but it ain’t so.
The legalities of all the investigations are too complicated for the stupid while the thought of bathroom blow jobs is too enticing for the prurient. Go ahead and ask your co-worker, neighbor-- even your own family what they think about the intelligence leading to the war. Ask how many still believe Iraq was involved in 9/11. Find out how many think it is the President’s prerogative to fire AGs because he doesn’t lean to the right. Then ask them how bathroom dick sucking affects them and this country.
Well, yeah, there is that. But hey, these are politically polarized (and polarizing) times. There’s an important election coming up in a year, with the future of an actual war hinging on its outcome. So that means anything remotely political that’s remotely newsworthy gets front-page headlines.
And if it involves Sex, so much the better. I kept waiting for Paris Hilton to weigh in on the Iraq Thingie, because that would have been a media trifecta (sex, money, and politics), but she never did. Shoot.
I have to agree Biggirl but I’m ashamed to say the UK is no better. We managed to get into that nasty war too, although some of our media did get involved in the anti-war camp, there was a bigger fuss when an MP was found to have made a gay film years before he was an MP.
Personally, I hate this country’s Mass-Media and I think many Americans feel the same about theirs.
Are there any countries out there who have a Media worthy of the trust and responsibility that comes with such power ?
Bush is never going to pay for all the shit hes gotten us into, neither is Karl Rove, Gonzales or even a lower echelon scrub like Libby. This guy is fucked though, and pardon me but i enjoy seeing him get his just desserts more than i enjoy watching the people who are destroying our country getting away scot free.
But hey, these are politically polarized (and polarizing) times. There’s an important election coming up in a year, with the future of an actual war hinging on its outcome. So that means anything remotely political that’s remotely newsworthy gets front-page headlines.