Another election is drawing near in the US, and I have to confess after listening to a number of the ignorant and oh-so-massively-biased “talking heads” at the various US television networks, listened to radio commentary, ads purporting to state facts in order to slander the one side or the other (and even Christian Radio stations weigh in on this – shame!) I come to a conclusion:
I frankly can’t understand how our American cousins can possibly come to an informed opinion as they are about to vote for who will be their president for the next four years.
How can US citizens listen to these mouthpieces go on and on, day in and day out, harping on the same topic? How those same talking heads trot out hearsay, innuendo, and even flat lies, and pass that off as responsible journalism? I forgot – they’re not journalists, they’re commentators, and they don’t have to deal with the truth. Have we got to the point that truth has become dependent on situation?
I fully understand that people vote based on their likes and dislikes, that’s human nature. However, when they want to set aside bias for a moment, in order to weigh a man’s body of work, his history, what he has contributed – they should be able to get to the truth – the real “un-spun” truth.
There have been a lot of likeable presidents and prime ministers that did little to no good, or even great harm; and there have been some that have been very little liked, who did the right thing and the country benefited from that.
The real truth has to surface in order to make an informed decision, just like one needs to have a drug-free Olympics in order to determine who’s the best in his field of sports. If everything is being distorted, amended, augmented, then one would have no real basis for deciding beyond “I like this guy”, and never having a hope of justifying even in your own mind why that’s a good decision. Otherwise, we’ll (continue) toward a path where the American people get the President who’s puppeteers have paid the most to get public opinion warped to their self-serving intentions.
Our own Canadian elections are disgusting, dirty and unethical enough, but thankfully we Canadians don’t have a system that allows for Super-Pacs to take half-truths and sew them together with innuendo and huge amounts of money, and try to pass that off as fact – at least not to the same degree as we see in the US. Or at least, if we do, they’re not as well-funded as their self-interested billionaires or massive fundamentalist churches south of the border.
Who can tell who’s telling the truth from who’s telling (shall I be polite) something other than the truth out of cleverly-disguised self-interest?
I wonder if the average American knows to what extent these folks are trying to lead him around by the nose.
absorbinglife 