A Distracted Population

We are a throughly distracted people. While the conditions that led up to our latest economic shitstorm were obvious to anyone who took the time look around, we were distracted by any number of things; what celeb-u-tard is going into rehab or getting a boot camp haircut, how our fantasy football picks did on Sunday, the latest Twitter (notice the root word is twit?) from some one who is famous for being famous,  over 500 teevee channels, the boundless pages of the Internet, specialty magazines for just about any hobby you can think to name, et cetera- ad nauseum.

We are distracted from our seeming inability to pay our bills, afford an education, see a doctor or even get a real two week vacation by all sorts of fluff. Most Americans are more interested in who Lindsay Lohan is dating than in what corporation has which elected official in their pocket. When the people bother to look at politics, they are distracted by idiocy like the abortion fight or gay marriage. Any attempt to improve the commons gets stalled out until the politicians figure out how their constituents (not the people who voted for them, but the people who funded the campaign) will benefit.

Even those we entrust to be our watchdogs are falling down on the job. The Founders of our Republic though a free press was so important that they made it part of the First Amendment to our Constitution. Today, some poor j-school grad gets to do a stand-up in front of an Apple store about the latest edition of the iPod or a heart warming story of how a dog was rescued from a storm drain and they call it news, while ignoring the collapse of the middle class and the massive upward shift in wealth that has gone on for the past thirty years.

It's not surprising given that five companies own most of America's media outlets. Teevee news departments are no longer viewed as a required cost to uphold the broadcasters' end of their FCC license agreements (a leftover from the days when teevee came over the “public” airwaves, not a coaxial cable), but as a division that needs to produce revenue. It is also in these companies own best interests to uphold the status quo. Political discourse is reduced to 5 or 10 second sound bites that can be picked up by the echo chambers of talk radio and the blogosphere and lead to more distraction. It then gets all extreme and screamy in order to attract more viewers and raise ad prices, but does nothing to actually inform anyone about why and how these things have come to pass.

The problems our world faces today require multi-faceted solutions, not just “Well, We are not Them and Their ideas suck.” We need bold action to truly level the playing field for workers around the world. We need to examine the American lifestyle and figure out how to get and keep it sustainable – economically and environmentally. We need to realize that freedom is not free and that blood is sometimes a necessary fertilizer for the Tree of Liberty, although it can also be a feeding frenzy for the greed of unscrupulous corporations.

There is a reason we are so distracted. It keeps us from taking to the streets in outrage over what has been done in our name. It keeps us from going apeshit and climbing a clock tower, high powered sniper rifle in hand. It keeps us from waking up, realizing what the fuck is going on and just pulling the covers back over our heads.

Peeking one eye out from under the pillow,

OneEyeChuck