These two stories are but a couple of too many as this mid-term election cycle gets nasty. Both sides of this 2-party nation (while I don’t feel well-represented by either of the main parties, it is still the system we live with) tend to shout from the rooftops about what the founding fathers intended…but only when it is convenient and supports a particular argument (often stretched and twisted beyond the recognition of any of the founding folks). One thing I know for certain is that when this country’s political future was being planned–this was not how it looked in the dreams of a new free nation out from under the tyranny and oppression of the former homeland. We have been working so very hard to instill a whole bunch more tyranny and oppression of late, and we vote for these jokers. Or by being too lazy/busy/disinterested, we vote for the opposition simply by NOT voting. That qualifies as reprehensible in my book. There are so many oppressed people in our larger, global community, that would lop off their left arms for a chance to vote, and we can’t drag our SUVs to the local middle school or community center polling place because we have too much to do.
CRINGE-INDUCING STORY #1
A fringe, radical conservative group hiding behind the benign name “Latinos for Change” bought advertising time on Univision in Nevada, to encourage Latino voters NOT TO VOTE. Univision is the #1 Spanish-language network in this country, and they thought if they reached in through the back door to viewers, they could convince them to stay home to “punish” the current administration for not enacting immigration reform quickly enough. I’m sorry–that is sick. Voting is the only power we have, and I hope Nevada voters saw through this hypocrisy and idiocy and will show up in record numbers at the polls. I don’t care how they vote, but I care that they participate.
CRINGE-INDUCING STORY #2
NPR (National Public Radio) is under attack from Sara Palin, perky cheerleader for not thinking things through. I recognize Sarah is only a mouthpiece, and honestly think she’d be a blast to go out for beers with–I genuinely like who she seems to be as a woman, but the scripts she is given to recite are so very absurd. So a recent piping up of the chatter has been about NPR and other Public Broadcasting Services (PBS). Publicly-funded media. The US has one of the lowest funded public media programs in the world–we pay less dollars into public broadcasting than almost every other developed nation, less than a buck and a half per person per year, but the cry of outrage is that we are wasting our precious money on propaganda. You know, propaganda like Sesame Street, and Reading Rainbow, and Nova, and dangerous mind-control like Antiques Roadshow. C’mon–I swear if I look closely I can almost see you laughing, Sarah (and Bill O’Reilly who has also jumped on the harpie bandwagon, and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who plans to introduce legislation that would slash all funds). I know you have better things to do than gut culture. I know the teabagger gang of thugs that advocates so stridently against government interference isn’t really asking government to pull the plug on people who think differently. You have the plug to pull in your own home—DON’T WATCH. I don’t watch FOX News, I don’t watch SoapNet or Game Show Network…why would you watch something that angers you? I love the inspiration–sometimes I can make a full-blown sport out of arguing with the TV, and it energizes me–but I don’t love the next-step course of action, by trying to convince Congress to become a censorship organization. There’s a FreePress Action petition here to ask Congress not to defund our nation’s only public media resources, NPR and PBS.
Change by Doing 