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FEBRUARY 22, 2005 –
There
is a sort of silly conversation that continues. The media is
liberal. The media is corporate. The media now leans to
the right, the media is far left ultra-lefty leftist communist
leftiness.
All of this misses
the basic point: the entire non-Moderate Independent media
isn't liberal, and it isn't conservative, it is just a management
communication tool and hysterically desperate, ratings-chasing
profit-seeking entity.
The non-M/I media
exists for two purposes: 1) To make money for the
companies that own them; 2) To promote policies that make money for
the companies that own them.
In order to do this,
they need to keep you watching. That is directive one.
Not reporting things that are important, not getting at this truth
or serving any public in any manner. They simply need to keep
you sitting there, getting more obese, so that you will watch
advertisements that will convince you to add another person to the
record number of personal bankruptcies our nation is experiencing.
Does any of this
sound in your interest? Does any of this sound liberal or
conservative?
The whole idea of
this fake "liberal vs. conservative" debate about the media is all
part of directive one. To keep you watching, the media needs
to engage you. Making you angry is one way of engaging you.
Making you afraid is another. Arousing you sexually is
another.
And so you are fed a
daily mix of things that are meant to frighten you. To fill in
in between that, there is "analysis" that is not meant to analyze
but to anger you. Idiotic "caricatures" of conservatives shout
down wussy little caricatures of "liberals."
The actual "news"
stories don't simply tell facts and don't have any day to day
memory, but instead continue this nonsense, throwing out a basic
idea and then offering their infuriatingly oversimplified version of
what each side says about it, always concluding in the end that
there is nothing really to conclude except that it is time for a
commercial break. For example, "There were insurgent attacks
in Iraq today. The President says things are going well and
this is a last gasp. Democrats say things are going badly and
will continue badly for a while. All we know here, Peter, is
that its time to run the Viagra spot. Back to you..."
We at The Moderate
Independent have made clear again and again that it is not our goal
to compete with the rest of the media, that we never have wished to
start and grow a major news source, that we only exist to fill in
the void if the media doesn't do its job properly, that our ultimate
goal is to never write another story again, which would mean that
the non-Moderate Independent media is actually providing truth,
honesty, and serving the public as they pretend they mean to.
Honestly, golfing and laying on the beach are much more interesting
pursuits than writing news articles.
But at M/I, one fact
precedes all others: we love our nation and the great people
who live in it; and we will never, can never, rest while people are
being mal- and misinformed. We can not sit idly by while
Americans are being convinced with half-facts that it is in their
best interest to let companies give their mothers lung cancer; while
fake debates about a war go on with neither side beginning to touch
on anything resembling truth; while lies are reported and then
forgotten, even as reality shows the lies to be what they are; and
most importantly, while our entire nation is being told and
convinced that it is in our best interest to be obese and broke,
with 70 percent - 7 out of 10 - of us now dangerously overweight and
with a new record for personal bankruptcies occurring year after
year after year.
And don't think for
one second these things are not connected.
It is time for
Americans to realize that, despite what the non-M/I media is telling
them, it is ok to look out for yourself; that taking care of
yourself doesn't make you a liberal communist or a bad consumer;
that it is not normal or acceptable to give yourself and your
children diabetes, heart disease, and joint problems nor to let
companies give your family members lung cancer or emphysema.
And it is time for
Americans to hear actual facts.
That a withdrawal
from Iraq isn't going to come sooner and it isn't going to come
later. That, in fact, it will never occur.
That the election
stunt called the Battle for Fallujah is an episode that should lead
to impeachment.
That there now
exists, rather than the "recovering and growing" economy you hear
about, something called an inverted yield curve, which has only
existed preceding recessions, and has accurately predicted and
appeared before basically every recession our nation has seen.
That, despite the
media's silence, oil continues at all-time highs.
There is much more to
be listed, but there is a general theme much more important:
that the value of American lives has greatly declined, and we call
can sense this, and it has made us very unsettled.
The liberals and
Democrats are right: we must look to what we are doing in the
world and to our nation and act more morally. And the
conservatives and Republicans are right: we must look to how
we act in our personal lives and act more morally.
Our friends on the
left our looking outward with the right American gaze; our friends
on the right inward. But one without the other is
entirely inadequate and only leads to the personal and external
disaster we see today. 70% of our nation is in immediate
danger, threatened only by themselves. And our economy and
national security are in danger, threatened by our nations faulty
policies.
What this all means,
in short, is that it is time for The Moderate Independent to get
back to work.
We gave the media
another chance. We listened, and watched. We let the new
right-wing media battle to old corporate media battle the new
liberal blog media. But nowhere did we see the whole truth,
and nowhere have we seen the solution.
It is time for
Americans to take care of ourselves, to stop being chumps, to stop
getting played. It is time for Americans to stand up for truth
and what is best for the nation - which also means it is time for
Americans to stand up for truth and what is best for ourselves.
How can someone care for the nation or the world if they can't
manage to care properly for themselves? If we don't care
enough about ourselves or our children to save them from the damage
of obesity and or to put our own personal finances in order, how can
we possibly make better choices for strangers that make up our
nation and our world.
It is time for the
truth. It is time for someone to stand up and truly care about
our nation - not just profits or ratings. It is time to take
on both the personal and political maladies that have sent our
nation into a dangerous tailspin. And it is time to stop
pretending that undeniably impending disasters aren't real.
Pretending global warming doesn't exist doesn't make it so, and
pretending being overweight won't harm you doesn't make it so.
I love my nation and
the people in it far too much to sit on the sidelines while they are
led into a reversible self-destruction.
And so there goes the
golf game. Bye bye beach time.
No one will ruin
this, the greatest nation every known to man, on my watch.
The truth is back.
Our nation's true protector has returned. It is time to once
again put nothing but truth and what is best for America above all
else.
Welcome back to The
Moderate Independent.
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