Journalism or Theatre?

What a pleasant surprise to hear from all of you! Your words of encouragement are much appreciated.

Well, the good news is that my doctor says I am good for another 10,000 miles and I can truthfully say I am feeling great today!! Nothing like a good report from the Doc.

I made mention in my last post that I am really tired of the incessant garbage spewing forth from right wing Talk Radio. You know I am living here in SW Florida which went Republican in the last election by a 2:1 margin, so it should come as no surprise that the airwaves here are filled with not only the nationally syndicated blowhards like Hannity, Levin, Beck, Limbaugh, Cunningham and Ingraham, but also locally by a 40 year old woman named Mandy Connell during morning drive time on the only real AM station here in Naples/Fort Myers. I like to listen to the radio at night, and also when I wake up to see what is going on in the world before I roll out of bed and have a cup of coffee and read the online NYT.

More often than not, as my consciousness materializes I find myself listening to the abrasive voice of this woman screeching and yammering about all the things in the world that are Obama's fault....everything from the economic collapse to ruination of the environment. Her delivery is so filled with vitriolic, snide, demeaning hatred that I assume that anyone listening is completely repulsed by her rantings. I am so wrong! Caller after caller comes on the air and agrees with her, while adding their own venomous comments to her conclusions about all the things that are being done wrong by our new President and the liberals, progressives, Democrats, etc. It is a scary thing to behold! These people are borderline seditionists, inciting all of the non thinking automatons in the listening audience to go to Tea Parties and show up at town meetings to scream at members of Congress or anyone else that disagrees with them.

Whatever happened to reasonable discourse?

I wonder how many of these people are really out there? The media would have us believe that it is an increasingly smaller group of core base conservatives, but I am not so sure. These are people with guns (oh by the way, I discovered that 85% of the population here in SW Florida has firearms!) who are buying more guns. Now they are starting to appear at Presidential rallies, national parks and other public places. What country is this? I find it all pretty scary.

I have had a few back and forth emails with this Connell character, accusing her of half truths, distortions, erroneous conclusions and the like, but she is undaunted. I tried to make her understand that good journalism requires that she present a balanced view. She said she was not a journalist, but rather an entertainer! I would call it Theatre of Absurd Journalism! She, like all the rest of these radio personalities, is willing to believe anything regardless of fact if it furthers her argument and can incite her audience, and bring ratings to the station. That means they can charge more for advertising of course! And to think I spent half my life in 'show business'!

Ah well, now that you know what I think about that, let me leave you with some thoughts about something that Kathy said in her comment. She told us that she has tried to write to Obama everyday to tell him how she feels about the non-punishment given to Wall Street perpetrators when compared with jail terms for people stealing food to live , and how the 'deck is stacked against us', the ordinary citizen. I hear this from lots of people... the average citizen has lost control.

We all hoped for a real change when Barak Obama assumed the Presidency, and what we are seeing is what many predicted---the slow erosion of our hopes as the realities of money and the real Washington game becomes visible to us all. Every day we read about some other concession that the administration is making that is the antithesis of the promised changes that we had all hoped would restore the tenets of truth, honesty, compassion and intelligence to the way the government is run and how we want it to consider the needs of real people. What we are discovering is what we have subliminally known all along: Money is the true driver of everything. It corrupts all of our best intentions.

I am an eternal optimist, however. I believe that the inherent goodness of the human heart is stronger than anything else. I will still hope for enlightenment on the part of those who wear the blinders of the profit motive. There is nothing wrong with making money as long as it is not at the expense of our humanity and our souls. Let us pray!.........