Remember P.T. Barnum........didn't he say there's a sucker born every minute?

Warning - this is a long post.

There seems to be a very intense dislike and mistrust of the "mainstream media" on this forum. There also seems to be a pretty widespread belief that the general media is quite to the right politically and, essentially, wanted Bush to win and now wants McCain to win the Presidency. Certainly it is true that this media is primarily owned and controlled by those who lean to the political right.

For some years this media has chosen to present a virulently damaging picture of all Democrats. The media seems to select the ugliest tidbits from formal and casual comments, from observed public and private actions, from stated political positions, from staged appearances & speeches, from family activities, etc.....basically from anything that a prominent Democrat might do, say, be, have, etc. Time and time again, I've seen the complaints on this forum that indicate that the stories and pictures and sound bites are lies and deceptions deliberately portrayed to both the American public and to the world. Although it is true that they have not totally ignored Republican sins... mostly the media gets excited over the sexual sins of the right because such stories get great ratings and nicely adds to the illusion that they come down on Republicans as they do Democrats.

And it does seem that this media has outdone itself with its reporting on the candidates, the campaigns, and the voter polls & demographics in the 2008 Democratic primaries. The ratings have been fantastic and the entertainment beyond imagination. That is what our "news" is now..... Entertainment.... and the presenters are Media Stars. From that perspective, the mainstream media is giving the American people exactly what they seem to want.... just look at the programs like ET and Insider and TMZ... where the nastier the tidbit, the better. CNN, MSBNC, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc., the endless "blogs", the printed media.... all play only to what gets the most 'hits' (ratings and circulation are paramount). They present what they present because it works for their interests.

I would guess (only a guess, mind you) that most on this forum would agree with this post so far (although who knows.... if you don't, then oh well).

So, given the above (assuming you've hung in this long), I wonder why so many of us seem to actually believe what we hear and see? If the pictures and words support our candidate and attack our candidate's "opponent", we ingest them like manna and can't wait to spread the pathetically nasty or nice viewpoints the media has fed us. If the pictures and words attack our candidate and support our candidate's "opponent", we can't wait to denounce every nuance and use them to create our own attacks or defenses of one of the candidates. We act like we believe this stuff and, eventually, we do believe it. And so on. I am sure many will claim to do independent research (which I think means scanning articles on the net or watching more TV) on the topics. Are all of us really spending 24 hours a day trying to find, read, absorb, and analyze the data available? I just feel quite skeptical about that. Or there is the reliance perhaps "trusted" sources.... which usually means it is a source that's been found to be relied upon to support one's own existing position. It does seem that only a tiny minority ever try to actually question the veracity of the information that is handed to them on TV, in newspapers & magazines, and (oh yes) on the internet.

What if we assumed that NOTHING we see or hear on our usual communication channels is true? What if every terrible thing said about Senator Obama and Senator Clinton were, in fact, lies...... big, deliberate, ugly lies...... or even small insidious lies (nice tidbits as well as nasty ones) ........ just as much lies about one candidate as the other? All lies. Can you imagine that the (good and bad) things shown and said about the "opponent" are as false and pathetic as those shown and said (good and bad) about our preferred candidate? What if the mainstream media has played us and continues to play us like the proverbial violin to spend our precious time and energy on garbage? What if all this hysteria and "division" in the Democratic party is a complete fabrication that so many have bought into and now, of course, cannot relinquish without admitting perhaps that we were/are perfect marks? The media says it is true - we see and hear it everywhere - so all Democrats will now work hard to make it true. After all, the Democratic party leaders themselves have bought the story that the current situation is TERRIBLE (despite all political history). They watch and listen to the same stuff the rest of us do and get just as hysterical..... and it suits them to do so just as, for some unfathomable reason, it suits many of us on this forum.

But what if everything we hear and see are only the products of the vested interest of the presenter? Then what? Perhaps, then, it would be important to find some presenters that have the "old timey" vested interest of investigating and reporting on as comprehensive a story as they can on whatever serious topic they are reporting upon. Leaving absolute truth aside as non-existant, there actually did used to be a goal of observer/non-partisan journalistic truth rather than interpretive/look-at-me journalistic fiction. Hmmmmm..... but where are those reporters? Pretty much gone.

Maybe it's literally no longer possible to get the information needed to be truly the informed citizens that I think we all would like to be.... so that we can effect real, constructive, participation in our government. Maybe the real outrage on this forum should be about the fact that the media seems to have played everyone and continues to do so. And that everyone seems to embrace it.

But when we finally sit down for a minute and take our inner temperature, does it really feel so good to have spent so much time and energy sharpening up our hate-speech and getting angrier and angrier about very little? I bet it doesn't really. I know I used to be pretty angry about a lot of things and spent years looking for every justification I could for that anger.... then, for some reason, a moment of clarity (grace?) occurred about a dozen years ago and I saw that the main victim of my rage was myself. Not to say I don't get angry....it isn't easy to cure oneself of such self indulgence.... but at least I know I don't want to live there.

While we think we know what's in it for others to take us for a ride, maybe a more pertinent question is what's in it for us to be the marks?

Oh, yeah, P. T. Barnum actually didn't say "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute" - his competitor did.
http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html

being to assume that everything reported by the MSM is false. It isn't. Besides, we need to know what they are saying in order to understand what most of the public is thinking. The solution is to go to many sources, mainstream and not, consider the evidence, factor-in bias, do your own research, and then come to the best conclusion you can.