Addicted to Mediocrity
As I was flipping radio channels on my way to work I paused on one of the "dude" oriented morning talk shows. You know the ones, the mildly offensive, proud to be a moron, we're just everyday men kind of shows. It seems like they are everywhere. Now, these guys are not ideologues, we're not talking Fox News talking points here --but nonetheless, something about the Fox agenda became very clear to me this morning. I always wondered about the logic behind Fox's embrace of right wing ideologies on one hand and their simultaneous embrace of trashy, anti-social, dumbed down television on the other. These morning idiots may have given me the answer.
Shortly after ridiculing an African American caller for, unbeknownst to them, being stupid enough to correctly answer one of their spontaneous trivia questions (Dude, my wife just had a C-section, it was gnarly! What does the 'C' stand for anyway? ... Caesar? No way, dude. Like Julius Caesar? Dude, I think the brother is stretching his vocabulary a bit! ) our everyday idiots moved on to more serious fare. Somewhere between the football analysis and the discussion on the relative merits of snorting coke off a stripper's tits they wandered into a discussion of whether or not the Israelis kicked major ass in Lebanon. Their thoughtful roundtable discussion was broken up when one of the dudes protested something like this: Okay, STOP! this has nothing to do with OUR LIVES! This is not news! Whether they kill each other or not is irrelevant! Let's talk about what's going to affect MY LIFE! Give me the weather. If it rains, I miss my tee time so I want to know if it's gonna rain. THAT'S NEWS! All that other crap is a waste of our time! NEXT TOPIC!
With that inspired outburst from Idiot #3 I realized that the dumbing down of America is the Fox agenda. Like P2 before them they understand that uninspired, uninformed, uninterested, jaded and sarcastic Americans won't get involved. They don't ask questions, they don't debate and as long as it doesn't affect their tee time, they don't care. How these dudes could not count terrorism, or the deaths of over 3,000 men and women on 9-11 as affecting their lives is incredible to me. Yet we have more proof everyday that 1) the numbing of the American spirit is epidemic, and 2) the wolves are quick to the sheep.
5 years after 9-11, and three years after the invasion of Iraq 50 percent of Americans polled believe that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Obviously this is no accident, this Administration and it's enablers care not if their sloppy logic leads people to connect the dots to a pattern that does not exist. This is an Administration that has asked nothing of it's citizenry but silence and compliance in return for security and the freedom to not give a shit. It's a social contract and it seems this is a citizenry that is eager to accept whatever is offered. In a recent article retired Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes (who served in Iraq in 2004) said it better than I. "Hammes said removing the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein 'introduced major instability not just in Iraq, but in the greater Middle East.' And while the Bush administration has repeatedly said the war in Iraq is critical to U.S. security, 'it has asked nothing of the majority of U.S. citizens...while asking major sacrifices, to include the ultimate sacrifice, from those Americans who are serving in Iraq, we are not even asking our fellow citizens to pay for the war ... Instead we are charging it to our children and grandchildren.' "
We now have outraged generals, outraged widows, outraged intelligence officers, diplomats, allies, civil libertarians, human rights organizations, ex-POWs, relief workers and peace activists.
As for our everyday idiots?
Call me when it affects my tee time.
posted by Alec The Bee @ 12:12 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I guess we all know who the "addicted to mediocrity" are. Some people miss every chance to keep their mouths shut, and now we know that instead they are given all the space in the world to tell about their uselessness. They are still good example od "wasted existences." Completely wasted...
QuickFact (post aside): Baltimore is the world's capital of paint-spattered pants. Did anyone notice?
who owns the federal reserve bank?
I've heard that the "banks" that make up the Private Ownership of the Fedreral Reserve Bank (many foreign) own a great deal of the media... . Thomas Jefferson's Warning To America : "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Written by Jefferson in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802).
Convictus
Anonymous
Come my children, gather round, and hark to what I say
For I shall tell a tragic tale
of power gone astray
The tale is old as Sophocles,
The characters are new
So learn this dreadful lesson;
It is happening to you.
Now, when you babes were very young (that wasn’t long ago),
George W. Bush and Albert Gore were pacing to and fro,
Waiting for the Supreme Court,
in usurpation grand, to choose which one would hold the highest office in the land.
And when the grave announcement came it set Gore’s fans to crying.
They wanted to believe
the television set was lying.
“George Bush has won!” the Court declared.(God help them to repent.)
And two months hence Bush was inaugurated President.
His Machiavelli was Carl Rove, just as he'd been before.
And Don Rumsfeld was at the helm as Bush’s man of war,
Poor Colin Powell served one term
as Secretary of State.
He sold his soul--and then was dumped--a horrifying fate.
And let me not neglect to mention Condoleeza Rice. She refused to knuckle under to Rumsfeld (he wasn't nice.)
Mr. Cheney wielded all his power behind the scenes. He rarely spoke in public (he was skulking in the wings).
Just eight months later terror struck and all cried out to Heaven
To guide us through the nights and days that followed Nine-Eleven.
So vulnerable were we then (we couldn’t be distraughter).
We followed Mr. Bush’s lead
like lambs en route to slaughter.
So onward to Afganistan
to ferret out the Talliban
and neutralize Al Quaida.
Saddam Hussein would get his too, but that was planned for later.)
(Reader: Please add a verse or two and circulate)
so off we go to war
to ferret out Saddam
but now that feat accomplished
I wonder
what really was the "plan"
but we're still there
does any one care?
we're knee deep in the muck
people are dying
families are crying...
- W -
what the fuck?
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