Politics...Dividing a Great Country Into a World of Idiots

One of the things I hate the most is bad journalism.  Not just lazy journalism where reporters give you their version of a pinpoint, yet nebulous, location that's spread out over many miles, like "northwest Atlanta" or "east Knoxville."   I'm talking lazy, bad journalism that allows for the continued political dumbing down of our country.

Gone are the days when media truly acted as the "Fourth Estate" and sought to root out lying, deceiving politicians who more often than not are only in it to stay in their cushy offices and loot their taxpayer funded travel accounts.   Gone are the days when media fought against the worst sectors of our national personality - racism and sexism, for example.

What we are stuck with are media outlets who bend over backwards to show you how "fair and balanced" they are, which really means they aren't trying to root out anything.  It's just, put two loud voices up against each other and let them have a scream fest.  Nothing is ever accomplished.  That is soooo not journalism.

But this isn't about how bad today's journalism has gotten (which it has).  This is about how politicians have seized on the lack of real journalism -- j with balls, I say -- and have taken partisanship to an all-time high (or more aptly put, all-time low).  

Politicians have turned the media into a bunch of sniveling, weak, defensive hacks. Not all of course, but what you more often see now as "news" is a bunch of over-hyped, bland, cliched and overall weak stories about who is trending online.  Or just the fact that people are arguing over a point -- never about what the point is actually about or why its important to you.

I blame media for going from an entity that should be telling people what they needed to know to now attempting to give the people what they want.  Which is why you have Fox News and MSNBC, both of which give false credence to the idea that people know a lot about politics and the issues that politicians are supposed to delve into (they don't and aren't the geniuses they think they are).

But this all comes from the political tactic of blaming the media for every ill in society.  Using the fact that most people know little to nothing how media works -- or should work -- against media itself.   So media now acquiesces to politicians and viewers/readers in order to show how "fair" they really are.  Damn the truth.

I want to thank the great politicians of this nation who are capitalizing on the moronic and mud-stuck state of media by now feeding garbage to voters and citizens.  Most of which is crap.  They now have the mouthpiece to blab on, unfiltered, about how bad others are and little about what our real problems actually are.  Also for using wedge issues such as race to pit Americans against each other more now than we have been in a very long time.  I'm sure other nations are laughing as we debate non-issues such as abortion, wrestle over how to make guns more readily accessible when violent crime is GOING DOWN each year in our country. And for making words and phrases such as "values" and "states' rights" a humongous waste of our time.

I don't want to sound like some alarmist wacko, but our nation's media has allowed itself to be used.   And politicians have found the crack they have craved to pour stupidity into our nation's voting bloodstream.

Congratulations.  Now let's continue getting absolutely nothing done.