Losing My Religion

You’ll have to excuse me for seeing myself as one of the last reasonable people on Earth but I’m afraid that’s exactly what I am. I’ve come to hate discussing politics because it’s rare I can find someone with an opinion of their own, and not some piece of idiocy they repeat from a diatribe by Olberman on MSN or Beck on FOX.

It’s simply stunning to me how the marketing arms of the two parties have invaded the consciousness of the masses. When you talk politics, the buzzwords, catchphrases and talking points are spouted out like a prayer of the Almighty Church of My Side. Not only have Church and State mingled, mixed, spawned, the opposing sides have become religions unto themselves.

Pundits are preachers and prophets, they get the message to the masses and their word is gospel. Hallelujah! Go in peace to love and serve the party with which you affiliate! Each side is the benevolent, just and righteous deity to its people and the other side every bit a devil from the pits of hell.

Where is the middle ground? How can so few not be polarized by the us or them mentality of these competing congregations? I made a comment today that was a negative comment about our President, Mr. Obama and it draws the ire of the flock from Our Lady of the Left even though the comment itself wasn’t inflammatory. And immediately, I felt the dirty hands of the parishioners from the Fellowship of the Right pulling and patting and petting me, trying to draw me in, to make me one of theirs.

My comment though, was fair and balanced. It was a criticism of Obama that did not undermine him, or demean him. It was simply an opinion. It was followed up by another that was in support of him. The Fellowship of the Right recoiled from me. The people from Our Lady of the Left kept their distance too. They didn’t know what to make of me. I was of both and of neither. Warily, they backed away from me. I must be crazy.

It may seem a silly little thing, but more and more, we are organizing ourselves into two separate groups. We are blue and red, left and right, one or the other. Each side has a strict with us or against us philosophy. Those of us who are in the middle are enemies to both. Does no one recognize the danger of our behavior? In a world where we readily admit there is more gray than black or white—our opinions on governing ourselves are all black, or all white with nothing in between.

The prophets speak nightly of fire and brimstone, of the end times, of how the other side is evil and is trying to manipulate and destroy. They speak of Revelations. They tell you what to think and to fear anything the other side says—they only seek to tempt you with the apple they offer.

They are preparing for a holy war. Each wants to destroy the other. Each is secure in the knowledge that they alone know best, that their way alone will save us. Let us pray: Obama is the devil and he seeks to infect us with the plague of socialism. Let us pray: I am the hope and the truth and the change.

I feel so alone. My only company is common sense, compromise and those who don’t care one way or the other. I look to each side and see the holy warriors firmly entrenched and when they finally do battle, I’ll be the first to go.

The end is neigh. Armageddon is upon us. Pray to your pundit that your side will prevail. I was of the Church of America, but my god died a long time ago. Blessed be the righteous, for they shall inherit the earth.

And that's the way it is

I find it a bit ironic that after the media storm that was the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, the passing of Walter Cronkite last week has been met with such apathy from the media. Of course, they reported his death, but somehow, with him being the very symbol of integrity in journalism, I’d have expected more.

Perhaps the media didn’t make such a big deal of it because of the contrast that was so evident when contrasting the very things Cronkite was known for, and what the mainstream media has become.

The idea of fair and balanced reporting is such a foreign concept to today’s audience. Today, we have networks devoted to telling us what we want to hear. If we are conservative in thought, we have news networks devoted to telling us how to think and why we’re right and why the other side is wrong. If you’re liberal in thought, you have the same on your own network.

The idea of fact-based news is already antiquated and obsolete. I can’t help but wonder, if perhaps, Cronkite wishes he hadn’t lived to see what’s become of things since he passed on the torch?

Then again, sensationalism in news is nothing new. Less than scrupulous writers have always played fast and loose with the news and the facts for the sake of the “get.” Perhaps the problem is that today there is just so much news and so much competition that stretching facts and bending them to appeal to a certain audience is the only way to assure a certain share of viewers?

After all, the media is, first and foremost, a business. A company who sponsors a certain news program will never be profiled as harshly on that program as they should be—if they do something worthy of media scorn. Is that wrong? If a politician from one party has a scandalous affair, some networks will portray him as a repentant sinner and others as an untrustworthy monster. The next week, they’ll switch positions when a member of the other party does the same thing. Is that wrong?

The common axiom is that we American’s get the government we deserve, meaning that we elect them, so we deserve them. I think the same is true of the media. We get the media we deserve. We get weeks of coverage on Michael Jackson’s death because we watch it and talk about it and blog about it and as long as it brings in the viewers, it brings in the advertising dollars which is what makes the world go round.

We get ridiculously slanted news because we want it. We watch it. We buy into it. We support it. We watch Fox News and buy Ford trucks, or we read the New York Times and donate to Greenpeace. We don’t demand the facts. We don’t even ask for them. All we want is the latest buzzwords. We don’t want news, we want marketing. If you’re willing to tell me what I want to hear, in the way I want to hear it, and explain the events of the world in a way that aligns with my preferences, I’ll patronize you—that’s the way it works now.

Facts? Balance? Integrity? There is no place in the world of big business news for such things. We get the government we deserve. We deserve a government that spends its time posturing, fighting and more concerned with power than people. We get the media we deserve. We deserve the media that markets the events of the day to us rather than report them. Sure, reporters have changed since Cronkite sat in his anchor chair and reported the news to us, but more importantly, we have changed.

We’ve all chosen sides. We all want to be right. We’re willing to be lied to—even to the point of ridiculousness, to maintain that aura of being in the right. The media is biased. The media plays to an audience. The media bends facts and changes stories to suit that audience.
We are that audience. We get what we deserve. We get what we demand. And that’s, sadly, the way it is.