Obama: The Media’s Making You Think ‘The World Is Falling Apart’

[Cali_Democrat]

Can we go back to the “slow news summer”? This summer has been incredibly bleak and depressing, with all sorts of stories about foreign threats, dangerous diseases, and some serious unrest at home. So what does President Obama think about all this awful news? Well, he thinks it might be a skosh overblown. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser tonight, Obama did not downplay the threats the U.S. faces, but suggested those threats are being exaggerated with the help of the social media and the mainstream press.

The president acknowledged, “I can see why a lot of folks are troubled,” but at the same time he didn’t think hyping global catastrophe is particularly helpful. And as for the media’s contributions, he remarked, “If you watch the nightly news, it feels like the world is falling apart.”

Obama explained he believes the threats the United States faces are not unprecedented, and not on par with what the U.S. faced during the Cold War. He said, “The world’s always been messy… we’re just noticing now in part because of social media.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-the-medias-making-you-think-the-world-is-falling-apart/

[elleng]

1. True, 'The world's always been messy...

we’re just noticing now in part because of social media.”'

[Jamaal510]

2. That's why it feels nice

to take a break for a few days from watching news and politics every once in a while. Bad news=higher ratings for TV media and higher traffic for news/political websites.

[conservaphobe]

3. There's money to be made from exploiting it.

President Obama is not going along with their scheme.

[daredtowork]

4. What if it's not "on the news" - what if it's your life?

Millions of people are still unemployed, millions of people are on welfare. Millions of people are caught in a system that does not make sense at all and threatens to make them homeless at any minute - at a country that has no mercy at all on homeless people!

The world IS falling apart for a lot of people!

And President Obama wants us to chillax and take a staycation?

JESUS H. ROOSEVELT CHRIST ON POGO STICK!

I think it's Obama who needs the reality check here.

Millions of people in this country are being ground down by domestic policy problems, and they feel disempowered. Their ostensible "political representatives" do nothing but speechify and exploit the problems for their own political capital!

Ferguson is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wake up, Mr. President.

The problem is what the media isn't covering.

[Stellar]

13. Well, Mr Bush would have us at defcon 4...

(or what ever the hell republic0ns like to call it), and managed to get re-elected playing that game.. Bush played that ish for years, and had me scared to death. I'd rather take the presidents advice and chillax, thank you very much. BUT, if you'd rather go around screaming (the sky is falling) like a chicken with his head cut off - go ahead, enjoy yourself.

[daredtowork]

14. what I want is for someone to listen when the sky is falling

Voting in Bush and bombing some people over in what-the-frak nowhere certainly doesn't solve anything for me. Is the President listening to what people are screaming about?

When he says "chillax" and "go, enjoy yourself", I just think it can't be soon enough until there's someone else in office who is willing to listen and do some actual work.

People raise the volume of their voices because no one responded the first ten times they tried to convey the problem.

And as I said in my previous comment, the media is also at fault - for calling Defcon 4 on the wrong problems.

[RobertEarl]

5. Talking to us like we are his daughters?

He should be straight with us. Oh, but that is what Carter did and look where that got him.

Any one of us could make a list in minutes of the huge problems the world faces, but what does Obama do? Talks to us like we are little kids.

[conservaphobe]

6. If people stop acting like little kids, he'll address them differently. nt

[BrotherIvan]

8. Are you serious?

That sentiment is highly offensive.

[conservaphobe]

15. His comments were directed at the media's fearmongering over ebola, ISIS, Iraq, Syria, etc...

They're overblowing everything and laying the blame at his feet.

I'm glad he pushed back against their petulance.

[Cali_Democrat]

16. Exactly. nt

[cheapdate]

7. I agree with Obama completely.

Way too much is being made of what are run-of-the-mill disputes in the world.

Israel v. Hamas -- what else is new? I've seen this movie before. It ends with lots of rubble.

A political dispute between Moscow and Kiev? Who'd of thunk it?

Seriously, calm the fuck down. I was listening to a news "roundtable" today where they were discussing all of these conflcits and the starting premise for everything was that the United States HAD TO DO SOMETHING about each and every situation. Bullshit.

Steady as she goes, Mr. Obama.

[BrotherIvan]

10. Was there a STFU memo that went out?

People being slaughtered in foreign countries; police brutality and murder, poverty, unemployment in our own country and the answer is to "calm the fund down" about "run-of-the-mill disputes?"

FUCK THAT.

[cheapdate]

11. Stay on topic. The specific subject of the president's comments

that were quoted in the OP, and to which I specifically replied, was foreign policy. More directly, Obama was speaking to cacophony of voices calling for U.S. military responses in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Fuck that.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

12. That is how I interpreted it.

Obviously there are problems in the world, but we have enough problems here to deal with. The last thing we need is to get involved in more trillion+ dollar wars that have nothing to do with national security.

[tridim]

9. And because of social media we can now change the World.

People power is real.

[Rex]

17. The M$M is garbage.

Infortainment channels imo.

[AverageJoe90]

18. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

They aren't just doing this with Ebola and foreign threats.....I kinda hate to say this, but they've been doing the same thing with climate change for a while as well. And the state of the Democrats' chances for winning this year's elections. And probably other things as well.

Hey, disaster sells, even if you have to twist the truth a bit. But even if there's noble intent behind it, it can still cause problems.