Excuuuuuuuse, me?! The *media* is to "blame" because I was

[Cerridwen]

too fucking self involved to pull my head out of my ass and investigate the candidates on their records?!

Nice - blame someone else because you were too busy/self-involved/apathetic/lazy/ignorant/(and my all-time favorite) "apolitical", to bother to check someone's credentials and voting record and it's all the media's fault?!

You were free to form your own opinions and ideas based on your own research of the issues but you were too busy/self-involved/apathetic/lazy/ignorant/"apolitical" to do so and it's the media's fault?

Perhaps, were you less inclined to suck up information which is packaged and "imaged" to you, the consumer, you wouldn't have had the problem with Gore's "earth tones" and "stick"-like "qualities". Perhaps you would have taken the time to investigate - for your own edification exactly what the candidates stood for.

Perhaps, were you to get beyond the "image is everything" bullshit previously and currently being "catipulted" into our "pop culture" you might have figured out a way to look beyond the superficial and into the, oh, I dunno, ISSUES and voting records of the candidates involved?!

Hey, what do I know? Kucinich is "unelectable" because he doesn't fit the "mold" and "Billary" has too much baggage and Obama doesn't have enough "experience" and Edwards pays too much for a haircut and gee, what else does the media and the Party Leadership from both parties tell me? Oh, yeah, who it is that is "electable" and who isn't. And they're DOING it AGAIN

And it's the "media's" fault?!!!

[BlooInBloo]

1. Apparently you're new to DU. Nothing is the individual's fault here....

[Cerridwen]

2. Okay, you made me LOL - seriously...

:rofl:

And what's truly entertaining to me about that, is you and I so rarely agree on anything. But, hey, we're on the same side.

:D

[BlooInBloo]

5. heh! Let's get things back to normal then!

Things I never learned from the media, and am glad my own research led me to:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/23/113236/176

[Cerridwen]

7. Oh, you are sooo gonna "love" this - links? Have I got links.

:evilgrin:

I'm currently researching the "socialized" health care debate - let's to back to nineteen thirty fucking two and seven; from Time Magazine which is hardly a bastion of "radical left-wing" thought and look at what was being discussed about health care in our past link and

another link and

and another and

you guessed it, another link about this country's "debate" about health care costs and nationalizing them to serve the 'greater good'.

You went off on one topic, I chose another; how DU-like of us. LOL

[bryant69]

3. If the media fills the water we swim in with shit

you can't really exonerate them by saying that there are a few pockets of clean water. I don't know what this is in response to, but of course those of us here can make up our minds on the candidates using the facts (of course we will come to different ideas, but that's just the way things go). But the rest of America who don't seek out info so diligently will be poisoned by the media portrayels and betrayels.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Cerridwen]

4. Not an either/or situation - I wouldn't presume to exonerate

the media for their role.

But, to put the "blame" squarely on the shoulders of the media while ignoring our own complicity, nope, that rings false on sooo many levels.

We get to take responsibility for our own actions and "enabling" behaviors or we don't ever "fix" them.

It ain't just the media who did this.

Of course the "rest of America who don't seek out info so diligently will be poisoned by the media portrayels and betrayels." (sic), but to try to separate ourselves out from that? Nah, time to look ourselves in the face and say, "oh, yeah, the media is not a reliable source and maybe (latest "top" story) isn't worth my time or consideration.

Maybe it's time to make our own decisions rather than relying on media sources.

That is the point of this thread.

[bryant69]

6. Fair enough, but I think we should do both

I think we, as individuals, need to seek out the truth using a variety of sources and our own critical faculties, while holding the Media responsible for their biased and false portrayals.

I'll say also that it is possible for two well informed and well intentioned people to come to different answers on political questions.

Not to the extent of supporting Bush of course (which takes an act of willful blindness at this point or malice, I suppose).

Bryant

[Cerridwen]

10. That's my point. That is what is called "both/and" rather than

"either/or" thinking.

While I agree that "it is possible for two well informed and well intentioned people to come to different answers on political questions", it is also possible that if those "two well informed and well intentioned people" actually sit and discuss the issues rather than resorting to name calling and blame placing, they can frequently find a common ground. But, that common ground can only be found if each agrees that perhaps they share in the responsibility.

The idea that "all" our troubles are the result of the "media" lying to us; means we don't fix the part of the problem that is within our ability to "fix"; that which is our own gullibility. "Charity (and "fixing" things") begins at home (within ourselves)".

We get to do "both/and" rather than "either/or".

[Swamp Rat]

13. I agree

;)

[Cerridwen]

14. Thanks. As do I. I was just providing the "other"

side of the coin that so frequently pops up.

:D

[warren pease]

15. Good Lord! We seem to agree on something...

Can't possibly last, but have one on me while I figure out some vague reason to call bullshit on your otherwise sensible post.

wp



:toast:

[Cerridwen]

16. .

:spray:

one for you, :beer: one for me, :beer:, one for you, :beer: one for me, :beer: "God, I luv you, man...Oh, wait, I'm a girl, I don't do that slobbery, "male-bonding" drunken thingy" :beer:

:evilgrin:

[warren pease]

22. Umm, I don't want to seem rude, but...

That was actually a reply to bryant69, whose posts I usually spend a great deal of time and keystrokes arguing with. Thanks for the beer, though. It's damn hot up here tonight.


wp

[Cerridwen]

25. Yeah, I know.

But, amazingly enough, I agree with both of you.

Funny that.

[Bjorn Against]

8. You are looking at it from a purely individual level, it is not just about me or you...

It is about society. I can research the candidates all I want (and believe me I do) but in the end I am only one vote. We need to have an informed electorate, because unless you are a major campaign donor your vote alone makes very little difference. You need a lot of other voters to know what you know if you want your vote to count.

The media has the responsibility to cover the important issues so that we do have an informed electorate, if they are not going to live up to that responsibility they deserve to be called on it.

[Cerridwen]

11. Read upthread a bit, please. Thanks......n/t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

23. Amen to that

And for those of us who consider ourselves activists to be able to communicate with everyone else, we need to be fully cognizant of what the MSM is putting out there. If you take pride in avoiding mainstream news sources, that's great for you but you are going to be unable to persuade potential voters who get all their information from them. Beyond that, there's only so many people you or I can talk to between now and November 2008. That's why we need to focus scrutiny on the MSM with white-hot intensity.

[stillcool]

9. ah...the blame game..

so helpful in educating the masses.

[Cerridwen]

12. Read upthread a bit, please. Thanks......n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

17. Well, it can't be the media's fault because...

hardly anyone reads a newspaper or watches the news any more. (If no one watches the news, does news exist?)

So, where do people get all this misinformation from? When maybe all of 20 million people out of a population of three hundred million actually read or watch any news, and half of those pay attention to anything other than sports, weather, or Paris Hilton, there must be some process of osmosis that gives them whatever little they do know about current events.

Blame the media, though. Hell of a lot easier than actually trying to find out why we have possibly the most ignorant population in the industrial world. Heaven forfend we find some fault in ourselves.

Blame, blame,blame... who's got the blame today?

Pogo is still right-- we have met the enemy, and it is us.

[Cerridwen]

18. Water coolers, "common knowledge", re-treads from when we

did watch/read the "news".

We all get to carry a piece of responsibility for what has happened in the U.S. To point at the media and say "j'accuse" let's us off the hook for our own complicity in what has happened. But, at the same time, to say it's just about "us" means we let them off the hook.

It's about all of that and then some.

edit to add: and anyone that uses the phrase "heaven forfend"; I got all goose-pimply. I'm just saying. I thought I was the only one who used that phrase any more. :D

[TreasonousBastard]

21. I look at the "media" as reactive...

most of the time, anyway.

No, they can't be let off the hook, but they are a business, and respond to their customers like any business.

Some time ago I heard Barbara Walters explaining why she did celebrity interviews-- she said simply that she preferred the Castro and Kissinger interviews, but celebrities paid her salary. Nobody watched the good stuff, she sighed.

Another time I was watching one of those roundtables PBS has every so often. Some station manager from the Northwest was talking about the time his news team decided to stop the "happy news" and do in-depth stories about stuff that seemed important. Needless to say, the ratings tanked and advertisers took off.

Happy news was back on after a couple of months of serious bleeding.

The Fairness Doctrine is given a lot of credit for decent news way back when. (Somehow, it's not blamed for the excesses of Walter Winchell, but I digress...)

Personally, I think it had a lot more to do with news considered a public service, not a profit center, back then. All stations had to have a certain amount of public interest
Newspapers and magazines were never all so simon-pure back then, either. Every one of them had some spin for their markets, and while we revile Murdoch today, Hearst was exactly the same back then.

So, yeah, the press has its faults, but it is doing exactly what it is expected to do-- no more, no less.

[Cerridwen]

24. But, you see, I don't buy that "it's okay if it's for business" schtick

Because, who are businesses but part of the "We, the People" "masses"?

At the very least, that makes business owners and CEOs very cynical, at the worst, it makes them criminal bastards participating in the suppression of knowledge. (I use criminal here, not in the legal, but in the "ethical" sense. I hope that makes sense.)

So, I agree with you AND I don't. Media reacts to the public perception which in turn reacts to the media which in turn reacts to the public perception which in turn...and on and on.

While they place the blame on us and we place the blame on them; no one AND every one is to blame and NO one is to blame and the cycle continues.

Yes, it's been done throughout history. And, no, I don't think it has to remain that way. Any more than I think that "he did it, too" is a valid justification for poor behavior.

Somebody has to stop the cycle. I hope it's "us."

[TreasonousBastard]

26. I didn't say it was "OK" for business to do what...

it does best. I said that it will do what it thinks is in its best interest, and there's little we can do about that even when it is most assuerdly not in our best interest.

There are some things we can do, such as regulation, and there are market forces. Regulation of the media is tricky with that pesky First Amendment always sticking its nose into things, and the market seems to be pushing things away from hard news and into the fluff.

Aside from some obvious things, such as reversingf the consolidation of media, pretty much the only thing left is to hope the public actually wants to know what's going on.

Personally, I doubt that will happen. Quite frankly, I find it completely overwhelming just trying to keep up with a few significant intersts of mine. And that's without the pressures of a family or 60 hour a week job taking up my time.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

19. You rock...

even if we can't get you out of the house... :P


:D

[Cerridwen]

20. LMAO

Hey, I figured you guys wanted a little private time.

:rofl:

Seriously, taking care of business in between DU rants.

:D

[Greyhound]

27. Another excellent post far beyond the depth of DU.

It is just so much easier to keep regurgitating whatever you are told by someone with some "expert" status and claims to be on your side.

You can't expect the American Sheeple to spend a few hours every other year investigating candidates and issues in order to make up their own minds, I mean it's not like we're talking about anything that might actually be important, not like whether Sanjay will survive another week in the house. Besides, all that investigating has quite a few drawbacks, we might hear about something that we don't want to know about, we might see what a colossal clusterfuck we've made, we would actually have to READ, for god's sake.

No, we are much better off leaving our fates to those rich people that tell us what we need to know. Go Blue Team, YAY!!


:kick: & R