I watched in anticipation as Prop 19 neared the race, was put on the ballot and then I heard that the drug czar had given instructions to all of the law enforcement offices in California that they should do whatever they need to to make sure this did not pass. A week and a half later I saw the DA's office in LA put on what was called an experiment, but was clearly as setup - they new if they allowed the adults to wait 30-45 minutes their driving would be fine, per a study published by the DOT in 1993. Then less than a week later another news item all over the broadcast news about a sheriff's office needing to let the public know that marijuana candy was found without proper labeling, so they felt they needed to warn the public that if it were accidently mixed with Halloween candy a child might be poisoned. This bothered me very much that the station owner was a reknowned cannabis prohibitionist and had no problem using his station to put forth the agenda that weed is bad. I really think they lost the six points on those two stunts alone.
At the bottom of it, I saw the Federal government, the popular media and local law enforcement colluding to mis-inform the public and hold sway over an election. That was strike one.
Then I cut back on TV stations ahead of being laid off, and started watching LinkTV, and specifically a show called Democracy Now. What knocked me off my feet was watching Lies and Mis-Reporting in the Middle East, a talk given by Robert Fisk. He seemed to make sense, and asked the audience to Google Area C, that the area of Palestine they were talking about was called Area C. When I looked online for a map of Area C it was very difficult to find one, and it was very difficult to make it out. When I watch the news on Channel 7, local network station, the map they show of Israel is one color, Israel and Palestine in one color, with some indistinguishable lined area under the color red. The fact the the occupation of Palestine by Israel, and that they slowly are claiming more and more of Palestine's land, and forcing the people to live in three small areas...it seems a bit like concentration camps to me. Especially the way they treat the people there. I guess it's impossible to know how much of the rockets are blow-back for occupation and treatment before that, and how much is simply ideological, but it follows that if you stop pissing your neighbor off they'll stop lying to their kids about your shit. The fact that low information voters are not given a clear and concise picture of the issues and the points of contention is not a testament to free speach, it is the opposite, and disgusting, and I am ashamed i was in front of that TV for 45 years. One year ago I had finally come to the conclusion that they should go with the one state solution and get it done with. I believed it, and thought there was a lot of support for it...like it matters what I as an American think about this.
Like I could even help push the government to change their foreign policy by having an opinion or sending a letter. But I'm jumping ahead....I found that I had been given a distorted picture of the Palestine/Israel conflict, and I had no idea it was intentionally being dragged out. When, after watching documentaries and Democracy Now for a couple of months, I saw one about Norman Finkelstein, and the singular moment of the movie was seeing Noam Chomsky saying, "If you examine his claims they're really quite tame." So, yet another dimension of media obfuscation was revealed...not the stupid slanderous pseudo-intellectual militia-man reveal, but a down to earth, watch and you see it clearly, they are on high alert and I wouldn't be surprised if they find me sitting here through my privacy filters...I'm not going to press it, it's not what this is about.
A famous actor was shocked that people didn't understand reality TV shows are scripted. Everything on TV is scripted. He took a year out of his busy career to make a mockumentary intended to help illuminate some of how we build a relationship with stars on TV, and how the TV industry capitalizes on that relationship. He spent a year just trying to help break their lens. I got it, I will be forever thankful. I am mad, but I know ultimately it was my choice to put so much faith in the TV, to think I was making a difference just by watching the news.
I've effectively disconnected from their lens, and their system of shows. I see the spin now. Once or twice a week I watch Mosaic News from Around the World, and instead of seeing the unbiased news from around the world, I see pretty clearly the spin of each nation. Germany has spin on DW. Israel has spin on their contribution. I'm having a harder time seeing the spin of Al Jazeera, which I've started watching every other day, sometimes twice. BBC's map of Israel is wrong also, and I detect spin and mis-direction, same as here.
On the day after the Republicans voted through the union busting bill in Wisconsin, in the middle of the night, against the normal and required vetting and discussion, there was nothing on network TV about it. It was all over Democracy Now, and Al Jazeera said the world is waiting to see if American's stand up like the People in Cairo. On my Channel 7 news they were blaring about Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, all fricken day, I kept checking if they'd mention it or how it would be portrayed.
Then I watched the movie, "Out Foxed," and it fit into what I knew of how the Wisconsin debate was being portrayed from a "Tea Party" view-point, not from the people of Wisconsin's viewpoint.
There is and has been so much mis-information that people's ideological stand-point can overtake their simple experience, and this is not encouraged as it should be with educational content of a social nature.
Much has been learned in the past 50 years but we're not allowed to see much of it because it would go against their interests, break certain ideological paradigms and accepted facts that are convenient in the continuous campaign.
I believe that every American should and must take themselves to task to re-examine their core political beliefs AFTER watching Democracy Now or Al Jazeera English or some independant news source side-by-side with their normal network news source for just three or four weeks. Get a sense of how our beliefs have been tampered with, and how bad for us media consolidation is.
there's good reason to be mad, don't you think?
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