The economy sucks, trips are a down, people are worried about what will happen with taxes and health care and all these things are understandably causing some anxiety with people but please, get a fricken grip. I'm taking a minute to watch a little Chris Mathews and Meet the Press and I have to say, I'm a little embarrassed to say I'm an American. I just saw a few clips of Rush Limbaugh and my favorite dumb asses on Fox 'News' and can't believe the irresponsible nature of what these people are 'reporting.' There are pictures of rallies where people are holding up signs of Obama with a Hitler stache or a bone sticking through his nose, people still claiming he was not born in the States, calling him a racist and claiming that he will create a system where old people are put out to pasture to die so-to-speak and I just have to say you are all f'n crazy.
What does this have to do with guiding? I spend a lot of time with people who are mostly very educated, have money, and although they may be conservative in their political views, they still use logic to form those views. I understand the political side and although I don't agree, I can respect it. None of these people have held the views for mentioned because again, those views are crazy and they are only being propagated to make the uneducated, the irrational afraid and to act out on that fear. It's kind of like the tech scares that people went through where they thought these viruses would take over and not only would their computer crash, but so too would their T.V., stereo, DVD player and whatever else could blow up on them. Or the Y2K craze...how ridiculous was that?
Let's just take a look at what this kind of reporting really is and we can make some pretty disturbing parallels. In terrorism, the entire purpose is to create fear so that groups of people react based on that fear. On nine-eleven, the market crashed because of that fear. We also started making decisions as a country that compromised who we are. We compromised our values and our laws and because of that, we dug ourselves into a variety of holes either economically or in how we are perceived and supported by the rest of the world. Regardless of whether you think we should or shouldn't have gone to Iraq or that Bush handled things one way or another, our country took a more significant hit than just the lives that were taken on that day because of our reaction to it.
In a very real sense, many people who have a microphone or a camera are doing the same thing right now with this administration. They want to create fear because they want you to react. They gain support not because of truth or reality but because of the irrational fear they have created and none of it has been substantiated. And it's largely due again to money and the preservation of their lifestyle. The real fear is that their taxes are going to up because we have to pay to get ourselves out of this mess; a mess they are largely responsible for and they don't want to foot the bill. So what they do is get the uneducated and the poor into the fever, believing the administration is going to kill the seniors and the developmentally delayed because they cost too much, or that they are going to take your guns away, or that Obama hates white people--not because any of it is true, but because they want you to support their agenda and in the end, they save some cash and you suffer through rising health care costs, compromised educational systems, rising crime rates, etc, etc.
Don't get me wrong, this administration isn't perfect and although I'm hopeful and support the direction they want to go, I don't think the should be immune to criticism. We have a system that is supposed to be about balance, which means both sides of the isle and all socioeconomic classes should be heard. But please, I beg you Rush and Fox and all the other media terrorists, please show some responsibility in using your voice for education and reporting the truth instead of the distribution of propaganda.
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