BRAVE NEW WORLD

rayban1 wrote:

DTOM wrote:
by the way, just what do you consider hand wringing ?

Hell, I don't know........I just thought it might piss off a liberrrulll.

ahh-hah! now see how you are ? and then you wonder why...

BTW.... your dad sounds like my kind of guy.

well, he is a pretty good guy, so i over look his misguided political views. :wink:

i chalk up his being led astray to the way the media has morphed from mostly journalism to mostly opinion over the last 25 or so years. maybe even longer. after all, there is some evidence that despite what i believed as a teenager, he is in fact human.

i guess the same could be said of other humans as well. as i commented to blatham earlier, people tend to gravitate towards the writings or other media that says what they want to agree with most of the time. i usually at least try to read opposing opinions and digest it with an open mind, though i'm not always successful.

not easy is it ?

there are a lot of media figures that are so adjective driven that before they deliver a single point, they have turned off the very people they are trying to sway. they come in all flavors and do nothing for their stated cause. they just preach to the choir.

there are others who have no intention of bringing someone else to the cause. simply like to shriek out insults in between their talking points, which they only use as an excuse to get beligerent with somebody...anybody.

then there are some who really do try to walk the line and present facts or considered analysis. and usually wind up getting slammed on all sides because they don't fit in any specified agenda. damn praggggmatists !! :wink:

to be fair, this shows up on both sides of the political debate.

i worked for a time on an underground paper in '70 or so. (in fact, i just found a tattered copy of our 1st addition in a box at the folks house. i'm thinking about enshrining it with my tattered lp of "in-a-gada-da-vida"...) at first it seemed like we were doing something. later it seemed that the fps packets we were getting were more ideological than "news". great. more preaching to the choir.

in my opinion, most blogs (the new underground papers) are pretty much the same.

you mentioned disillusionment a few posts back.

my initial disillusionment appeared when it came to me that abbie hoffman was just richard nixon in drag.

that's why i find it so difficult to identify as a liberal or conservative and toe the party line. i like making my own decisions about things.

it drives my dad (and others) crazy. "you_you_you think WHAT ??? but you can't think that Shocked

. you're a liberrrrulllll!!!!

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Not just safe; eminently profitable.

It's the Lowest Common Denominator; the story that will appeal to the greatest number of people. And for some reason large segments of our society are more entertained by watching 'Missing White Woman in Aruba, day 58' or 'Shark attacks off of the coast of Texas' then any substantive news.

Never forget that the news is ran by corporations whose overall goal is to increase profit by the maximum amount possible....

Cycloptichorn

now extend that to politics and reality based television. if you can manage to tell the difference.

even the missing white woman in aruba story is fraut with dramatic conflict. aruba versus natalie's mom. joe scarbourogh versus the aruban police. the aruban police versus the fbi.

it's starting to look like the real world imitating "the real world". which is anything but real. worked post with a couple of these whining gen-x extravaganzas. believe me, if there's no drama, there's a director there to stir some up.

if politicians didn't yell and scream at each other all the time, they'd actually have to do some meaningful work and actually, gasp!, account for their actions with more than talking points.

damn... i am getting cynical. Confused

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Interesting post DTOM.......please contact me by [email protected]

DTOM wrote:

that's why i find it so difficult to identify as a liberal or conservative and toe the party line. i like making my own decisions about things.

Hey no one is forcing me to make the comments I make or to memorize any party dogma...........I happen to believe in what I write. If you don't believe it, don't write it.

You've got many good ideas so don't let any blunderbuss on the forum blow you out of the water.

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DTOM wrote:

Quote:

if politicians didn't yell and scream at each other all the time, they'd actually have to do some meaningful work and actually, gasp!, account for their actions with more than talking points.

damn... i am getting cynical.

Which brings us back to the main point at the beginning.
While I agree with you guys on the media playing it safe, I still think that we are being "dumbed down" as the majority is comfortable accepting the crap that we call news. I myself prefer to read and view as many points of view on whatever subject, and then use my own power of reasoning and a little common sense to form my own opinions. It seems that many others just like to see one news report or article, and call it good, buying whatever they see or read.
Maybe its not so much dumbing down as it being lazy and lacking common sense.

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Perhaps all three, Tommrr . . . it is far easier to have your opinions fed to you, and i have always been cynical about the proposition that the public school system's purpose is to produce an informed electorate. Public elementary schools do not teach the basics of logic and debate. I don't think society wants debaters, and considers them to be boat-rockers.

If true, such an attitude could also explain why the media and politicians pander to a low common denominator of political belief.

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Poll takers don't really want to know what you think, either, unless you toe the line. I was kicked out of a prestigious polling organization for being different.

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