The News Media...Give Them An Inch & They'll Take A Mile

This is a rant. But on my rant scale of 1-10 it's only about a 6.

If you turn on the news, any news, these days in America, you get the distinct impression that there’s something wrong in that country.
The news media’s 24/7 coverage of the presidential election race is the main reason for this.
The news media and their incessant blather about what’s going on in this race has made this a larger than life issue.
The fear that Donald Trump will turn the country into a fascist state is very real according to the news media. The fear that Hillary Clinton will drag America further into debt and add trillions to government spending is also just as real.
If you believe what you hear.
When to comes to the broadcast news, it’s important to remember, that while it may have started as a service that the networks offered and supported financially, since the advent of CNN, and all its competitors, the news has become very much a business.

Businesses Need To Make Money

And because it’s a business, you are no longer a viewer, but a customer.
And because you are a customer, you’re not just the person who watches the news, you are the person you also watches the advertising that supports the news business.
Even more importantly you are the target audience for whatever agenda the owners of the news media may have. These agendas all vary slightly, but they are all based on one very important concept, which is the generation of fear.
If you watch the news enough…if you let the hyper-inflated vision of reality it projects into your head, you will start to see the world as a violent, out of control place.

Fear Is The Mind Killer

Frank Herbert

Once the news media has you in this place of fear, you then become much more malleable.
This makes you much more susceptible to advertising messages. It makes you question your state of health and well being, even though you are probably pretty healthy. It makes you fear for your job, regardless of the fact that the unemployment rate is only around 5%, and the US economy, while not setting the world on fire, is actually growing.
But worst of all, it makes you susceptible to extreme right wing precepts, like bigotry, racism, misogyny, sexism, isolationism and a whole range of phobias.
You can see this most obviously in the rather large number of people who have become followers of Donald Trump. His rhetoric, which is inflammatory, bigoted and riddled with lies and half truths, has nonetheless manipulated (through incessant news coverage) a lot of formerly tolerant people into a genuinely bigoted state of mind.

The news media wants you is this state because when you are in this state you are almost completely distracted from the reality that you are being distracted on purpose.
A good example is that of the Bush administration: when they launched the invasion of Iraq and ouster of Saddam Hussein.
And what was the real motive behind that attack? To get rid of a dangerous dictator, who was harboring and funding terrorists? Maybe. But if you look a little deeper you will see that that invasion and its aftermath cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
And that most of that money went to the corporations who supplied the weapons, aircraft, vehicles, and the vast array of technology, munitions and supplies that supported the forces.
And where did a lot of that profit go? Well, ask George W. Bush, George Bush Senior and Dick Cheney. Because they are all a hell of a lot richer now than they were before that invasion.
And all the while you were being distracted from its real purpose, by the inspired marketing tactics of “Shock & Awe” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
The news media was the principal public relations tool, used to promote the justifications for this war, and it continues to be the chief public relations tool to sell the ongoing war on terror.
All of this is designed with one simple objective, which is to keep defense spending in the United States growing. And that job is made that much easier when the general population of the country is being fed fear and loathing on a 24/7 basis.

The 2016 Election – Hold Your Nose & Vote

Who wins the upcoming US election doesn’t really matter. The powers that be would like it to be Donald Trump because he’d be much easier to manipulate, since he doesn’t know anything about how government works, but is devious enough to get with the program.
But Hillary Clinton is not a bad choice either, because she is probably the most hawkish Democrat they they could have found.
This is all just my opinion of course. But it’s not exactly uninformed. It’s all based on the fundamental principle of investigative thinking, which is follow the money.
You see it every night on cop dramas and legal thrillers. Who stands to benefit from the crime? The only prizes are power and money or both.

How Do You Rid Yourself Of This Influence?

• Understanding that there is a constant attempt to manipulate your opinions is the first thing you need to get into your head.
• Knowledge is power. Absorb different points of view and understand that the shit people like Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper and the hordes of commentators, experts, retired military folks and partisan manager drones are dishing out is carefully focused to support the agenda of anyone who will benefit from the events they ‘report' or ‘comment’ on.
• If you take a little time to read or watch or listen to dissenting opinions, you will end up with a more balanced picture of what is really happening. And you will form something a lot closer to an informed opinion of your own.

Right now, the news media is working hard to ‘examine’ irrelevant issues like Hillary Clinton's pneumonia and Donald Trump’s medical records.
What is being sacrificed here, and has been all through this election, is discussion and information about the real issues facing the people.
This is because the media has decided to turn this into a popularity contest, with Trump as their Miss America favorite. Hillary is just an old hag who doesn’t know how to manage her emails.
And so it goes in a swirling mass of bullshit unlike any that has ever been unleashed on the American public.
So far these two candidate are running pretty much neck and neck in the polls. But as previously stated, it really doesn’t matter who wins. Both these candidates will find themselves in the same position as every president in the last 20 years or so.
Hamstrung by congress and the senate. Frustrated and wondering what the hell this was all about in the first place, and pretty much as malleable as all the people out there who are suffering from media information poisoning.
End of Rant

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