Sunday, December 09, 2007
My problem with AlterNet:
(A copy of this will be sent to Don Hazen at AlterNet.)
I do not watch TV or TV news. When reading news on the web I pick what I want to read, and more importantly, pick what I don't wish to read by the headline.
So the other day the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is released that states Iran gave up their nuclear ambitions years ago. This left egg on the faces of our idiot president and his neo-con buddies. It pretty much defused their drumbeat to war with Iran.
It was a big win for those of us who oppose war and violence, particularly when those wars only serve to get young men killed so old men can make more money or have more power. The balloon Bush had been blowing up was popped quite thoroughly.
It was a big win!
But what did I see on AlterNet? I saw this article entitled; "Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet."
Instead of celebrating a win for our side they felt the need to engage in more fear-mongering from the left. I'm pretty liberal, an advocate for peace, a Democrat. And one of the things I hate about the Rupert Murdoch School of Journalism, (Fox News,) and the mainstream mass media is the constant focus on "fear and consumption." (The brilliant observation is by Marilyn Manson.)
Fear and Consumption.
But it seems that AlterNet can only get the first-half right – the fear mongering. So many of their stories scream at the reader – "Be terrified of these bad people! Be terrified of what Bush and Cheney might be doing right this minute! Look out for the evil corporation! – Fear! Fear! Fear!
Extremism is just as ugly coming from the left as it is from the right.
I didn't abandon American TV and the mass media only to have the alternative press fed me the same line of fear and consumption. (There are all kinds of little ads on the AlterNet site encouraging you to buy political bumper stickers and t-shirts, though in fairness the consumption part is much more played down than in the mainstream media.)
And I see this happening on AlterNet more and more. Freelance journalists who want to convince us that elected official (x) will take us back to the Stone Age, or that our government is about to start WWIII that will end in a world-wide nuclear cataclysm.
Using fear to compel your readers into thought and/or action works for a while. Until the reader gets tired of being afraid and stops going to the site. AlterNet loses another reader because of their constant negativity.
But don't fret. AlterNet will always have plenty of "nut-jobs" ready to believe whatever conspiracy theory that comes down the pike, people who enjoy living in Liberal Terror Land. They will always be around to eat up the garbage that passes itself off as journalism on AlterNet.
There are plenty of bad things going on in the world, most of which the entire Western media misses completely. But they do catch a few things worth reporting. We have become so accustomed to bad news we are becoming numb to the suffering of those around us. So I offer my congratulations to the mass media, with a nod toward the alternative press. Between the two of you, you have made the people apathetic to suffering through your constant bombardment of fear and consumption.
Take a bow.
So maybe, just maybe, the next time there's good news – you can just report that without having to whip up a dose of nebulous fear. Or maybe you've been doing that for so long you have forgotten how to write a news story that doesn't contain an unhealthy dose of fear.
What the alternative press is doing is making themselves as irrelevant as the mainstream press. They may have already succeeded in doing so. But don't listen to me. Just keep pushing your leftist blend of fear and consumption and have no doubt the right will continue to do the same.
One has to ponder: Is there any difference between the mainstream press and the alternative press? Since both seem to be engaged in the same mind games with their readers.
Yes indeed, one must ponder.
(A copy of this will be sent to Don Hazen at AlterNet.)
I do not watch TV or TV news. When reading news on the web I pick what I want to read, and more importantly, pick what I don't wish to read by the headline.
So the other day the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is released that states Iran gave up their nuclear ambitions years ago. This left egg on the faces of our idiot president and his neo-con buddies. It pretty much defused their drumbeat to war with Iran.
It was a big win for those of us who oppose war and violence, particularly when those wars only serve to get young men killed so old men can make more money or have more power. The balloon Bush had been blowing up was popped quite thoroughly.
It was a big win!
But what did I see on AlterNet? I saw this article entitled; "Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet."
Instead of celebrating a win for our side they felt the need to engage in more fear-mongering from the left. I'm pretty liberal, an advocate for peace, a Democrat. And one of the things I hate about the Rupert Murdoch School of Journalism, (Fox News,) and the mainstream mass media is the constant focus on "fear and consumption." (The brilliant observation is by Marilyn Manson.)
Fear and Consumption.
But it seems that AlterNet can only get the first-half right – the fear mongering. So many of their stories scream at the reader – "Be terrified of these bad people! Be terrified of what Bush and Cheney might be doing right this minute! Look out for the evil corporation! – Fear! Fear! Fear!
Extremism is just as ugly coming from the left as it is from the right.
I didn't abandon American TV and the mass media only to have the alternative press fed me the same line of fear and consumption. (There are all kinds of little ads on the AlterNet site encouraging you to buy political bumper stickers and t-shirts, though in fairness the consumption part is much more played down than in the mainstream media.)
And I see this happening on AlterNet more and more. Freelance journalists who want to convince us that elected official (x) will take us back to the Stone Age, or that our government is about to start WWIII that will end in a world-wide nuclear cataclysm.
Using fear to compel your readers into thought and/or action works for a while. Until the reader gets tired of being afraid and stops going to the site. AlterNet loses another reader because of their constant negativity.
But don't fret. AlterNet will always have plenty of "nut-jobs" ready to believe whatever conspiracy theory that comes down the pike, people who enjoy living in Liberal Terror Land. They will always be around to eat up the garbage that passes itself off as journalism on AlterNet.
There are plenty of bad things going on in the world, most of which the entire Western media misses completely. But they do catch a few things worth reporting. We have become so accustomed to bad news we are becoming numb to the suffering of those around us. So I offer my congratulations to the mass media, with a nod toward the alternative press. Between the two of you, you have made the people apathetic to suffering through your constant bombardment of fear and consumption.
Take a bow.
So maybe, just maybe, the next time there's good news – you can just report that without having to whip up a dose of nebulous fear. Or maybe you've been doing that for so long you have forgotten how to write a news story that doesn't contain an unhealthy dose of fear.
What the alternative press is doing is making themselves as irrelevant as the mainstream press. They may have already succeeded in doing so. But don't listen to me. Just keep pushing your leftist blend of fear and consumption and have no doubt the right will continue to do the same.
One has to ponder: Is there any difference between the mainstream press and the alternative press? Since both seem to be engaged in the same mind games with their readers.
Yes indeed, one must ponder.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Reflections on 2007:
As I reach the end of another calendar year I find myself looking back over the year and evaluating it. Mostly it was a good year. A couple of bad things happened but we survived them and life goes on. Nobody died this year, which is a good thing.
I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped this past year, and I'm hoping next year will be more productive. I got a lot of work done but I have not completed my most important project – the release of my first novel. Stuart and I have done a lot of the final corrections but we're not done yet.
I'm not going to blame any of it on Stuart as I've been just as distracted as he has. I developed more productive work habits, but then everything went by the wayside when the holidays hit. I always know that will happen the closer we get to Thanksgiving, so I've learned not to fight it, to accept this time of year as busy and distracting. Come January 02, 2008 and it will be right back to work.
Most of my friends have had a hard year by all accounts, and I've worried about them from time to time. I fear their hard times have not ended with the holidays or the changing of the calendar, though I continue to hold them in my meditations and prayers, and I continue to "hold them in the Light," (as the Quakers say.)
I've always liked that expression and the action behind it; to "hold someone in the Light." Great spiritual ideas can come from many different places.
So I hope and pray that 2008 will be a better year for all my friends and family.
The greater world has also had a hard year. Between the two disastrous wars our country is engaged in, the bust in the housing market, and a lot of chickens starting to come home to roost – the United States is not in its usual "cat-bird seat." Our short-on-brains President let his greedy little buddies run rampant and they've made a much bigger mess of things. (All those brilliant bloggers we like to read have covered Le Grande Spectacle.)
There have also been a number of books released this past year that give us a truer picture of what's going on than our mass media, which I largely ignore. I've learned to just not pay attention to their blather, as well as my decision last year to divorce myself from the American mass media. My decision months ago to stop watching TV was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I plan to keep ignoring the mass media as we enter 2008.
I learn a lot more from reading good books anyway, and NetFlix keeps movies and shows coming to my mailbox so I'm hardly starved for entertainment. My TV is basically a monitor for my DVD player.
Like most of us I'm going to have a lot of work to do once the holidays are over, which is (partly) why I'm really looking forward to our trip to Argentina and Peru in the last half of December. This is the time of year Erik and I go an explore a new corner of the world. We've seen so many great places and we've hardly scratched the surface.
It's a marvelous and wondrous planet, and we've met so many great people and seen things I used to dream of seeing; New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian Outback, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico. The list (and the memories) grow with every trip.
But the nicest part has been sharing these experiences with someone I love. It's so much more fun when you can share the experience with someone else. Erik and I treasure the adventures we share.
Our country has been going through a very dark time, and I'm hoping we are starting to see some light at the end of that tunnel. But the men in power have done a lot of damage, and they're going to try and slink away and leave us to clean up their mess. I sincerely hope we don't let them.
But for our country to come through this, and for all of us to come through this, we have to put aside our apathy and deal with our democracy, and that may be the hardest thing of all.
As I reach the end of another calendar year I find myself looking back over the year and evaluating it. Mostly it was a good year. A couple of bad things happened but we survived them and life goes on. Nobody died this year, which is a good thing.
I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped this past year, and I'm hoping next year will be more productive. I got a lot of work done but I have not completed my most important project – the release of my first novel. Stuart and I have done a lot of the final corrections but we're not done yet.
I'm not going to blame any of it on Stuart as I've been just as distracted as he has. I developed more productive work habits, but then everything went by the wayside when the holidays hit. I always know that will happen the closer we get to Thanksgiving, so I've learned not to fight it, to accept this time of year as busy and distracting. Come January 02, 2008 and it will be right back to work.
Most of my friends have had a hard year by all accounts, and I've worried about them from time to time. I fear their hard times have not ended with the holidays or the changing of the calendar, though I continue to hold them in my meditations and prayers, and I continue to "hold them in the Light," (as the Quakers say.)
I've always liked that expression and the action behind it; to "hold someone in the Light." Great spiritual ideas can come from many different places.
So I hope and pray that 2008 will be a better year for all my friends and family.
The greater world has also had a hard year. Between the two disastrous wars our country is engaged in, the bust in the housing market, and a lot of chickens starting to come home to roost – the United States is not in its usual "cat-bird seat." Our short-on-brains President let his greedy little buddies run rampant and they've made a much bigger mess of things. (All those brilliant bloggers we like to read have covered Le Grande Spectacle.)
There have also been a number of books released this past year that give us a truer picture of what's going on than our mass media, which I largely ignore. I've learned to just not pay attention to their blather, as well as my decision last year to divorce myself from the American mass media. My decision months ago to stop watching TV was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I plan to keep ignoring the mass media as we enter 2008.
I learn a lot more from reading good books anyway, and NetFlix keeps movies and shows coming to my mailbox so I'm hardly starved for entertainment. My TV is basically a monitor for my DVD player.
Like most of us I'm going to have a lot of work to do once the holidays are over, which is (partly) why I'm really looking forward to our trip to Argentina and Peru in the last half of December. This is the time of year Erik and I go an explore a new corner of the world. We've seen so many great places and we've hardly scratched the surface.
It's a marvelous and wondrous planet, and we've met so many great people and seen things I used to dream of seeing; New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian Outback, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico. The list (and the memories) grow with every trip.
But the nicest part has been sharing these experiences with someone I love. It's so much more fun when you can share the experience with someone else. Erik and I treasure the adventures we share.
Our country has been going through a very dark time, and I'm hoping we are starting to see some light at the end of that tunnel. But the men in power have done a lot of damage, and they're going to try and slink away and leave us to clean up their mess. I sincerely hope we don't let them.
But for our country to come through this, and for all of us to come through this, we have to put aside our apathy and deal with our democracy, and that may be the hardest thing of all.
