Last night on the evening network news, "Breaking news, there has been a sharp increase in severe shocks, even death by electrocution in our nations swimming pools" said the prime time news anchor with dramatic urgency and doom. I couldn't make this stuff up. After swimming in pools all my life, I am now supposed to be afraid, terrorized, by pools of water. They are out to get us these lethal pools and their electrical currents.
So now we can expect Donald Trump to propose building walls around every pool in the country, paid for by swimwear companies? The military will want to call in drone strikes? The landscaping firms - fill them all in? Ah but media outlet owners? - 'Call me back, I'm taking a dip in my private olympic sized pool' (don't tell).
Fear mongering for ratings, for market share, and for profit - this our modern news media. And their audience? Afraid of things that aren't there, filled with anger, with rage against imagined threat, polarized to the point of violence with a complete inability to talk to each other, the people of this country suffer horribly from this 24/7 media blitz.
It has led us to the extreme vitriol, hate, racism and fear that is the Donald Trump phenomenon. It has led us to a dysfunctional congress, to intolerance, seething hatred, terror, even war.
And yet we now live longer, are healthier, safer, and more well off, than we have ever been in the history of the human species.
The media cries wolf to make money and you keep falling for it - over and over again.
No comments:
Post a Comment