Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Big Lie

I was looking through the multitude of information out there that is available on our economy and realized just how many lies we are fed every day. We get more spin than any real meaningful data for us to plan our retirement, a vacation, or home purchase. From Unemployment to GDP, all the numbers are skewed to make the current administration look good.

We are spoon-fed bullshit by a media that refuses to dig for the truth. What good is any newspaper, TV news show, or online news outlet if they don't ask the hard questions, if they don't seek the Truth.

If they are not telling the truth, then what are they? Entertainment. This is evidenced by how much time is spent on the "human interest story" in every broadcast. What is Jennifer Aniston saying now? Did you see Demi Moore in her new fabulous bikini? How about you tell me the real unemployment numbers? Including those who are discouraged, or are forced to work part-time, or teenagers who would like a job but cannot find one?

How about we see a story where the hard questions are asked to those in charge? Ask obama flat out what his strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq is? And don't let him off of the hook until we get a real answer. Not a sound bite, a honest and unambiguous answer to a direct question.

We will not see such things in our lifetimes. Our world has been forever changed with the 30 second attention span we have adopted. I'm just as guilty as everyone else. All I am asking is to get honest facts in that 30 second blurb.

Everyone has their own agenda. Remember that. Even the bloggers who try to put together the real story are slanting the news one way or another. We all see things going down the tubes, but in reality, the majority of Americans are too stupid to realize the poop is hitting the fan, and that might be enough to avoid the big crash.

You never know. All we can do is set the bullshit filter to "high" and hope we can make sense of what's left.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I use a couple of metrics:
1. I ask people I see/do business with what they think of the economy. The overwhelming opinion of EVERYONE is that the economy sucks bad. It doesn't mean that we all can't be wrong.
2. I notice my commutes aren't quite as crowded as they were a couple of years ago. With one out of five people not working what do you expect.

Abraham

Quiet Joe said...

I try to pass the same sentiments along to co-workers to wake up, turn off reality TV, ask the hard questions, and get looked at like a nut case. I try to get others looking at reality. I guess thats all we can do.

Mayberry said...

People are brainwashed into believing the media and Hollyweird represent the majority of the country, and always tell the truth. They are shown slanted polls, and outright lies. For some reason, this seems effective in blinding them to reality, as Abraham points out.

Then you have parts of the country, like here, that are never really "prosperous", so what's happening today doesn't have a whole lot of effect. The sheeple remain asleep.

The media is working hard to marginalize folks like us who preach the truth, even criminalize us. They tout their "professional credentials" as being somehow superior to someone who simply has a brain and can see through the B.S. That's a big problem in this country today, people put WAY too much stock in "professional credentials". Pieces of paper don't mean squat, the proof is in the puddin'....

Heh heh, the "verification word" is "marcher". More folks who are erroneously demonized by the media as of late....

Unknown said...

Maybe try some different news sources? The truth is out there, but I think it's silly to trust a profit-driven, hyperbole-full news media.

JSTOR and EBSCOhost are two great resources you might try using for academic journals.

The Wall Street Journal is definitely slanted (and I don't know if it's possible for anything to be completely objective), but it's a pretty decent sources for news.