TV News LIES

My mom’s step-dad was the only grandfather I ever knew. He was a short, stout, outwardly devout Christian and looked like a Norman Rockwell American straight from a cover of The Saturday Evening Post. He and the rest of Nixon’s “Silent Majority” were taken completely by surprise by the '60’s.

The seemingly placid era of the '50’s was turned upside down when Negroes forgot their place and demanded Civil Rights. The next thing he knew young people defied authority and refused to support the war in Vietnam. Women suddenly seemed to lose their minds and wanted control over their own bodies.

Last week in one fell swoop the last two remaining critics of Washington/Tel Aviv imperialism were removed from the mainstream media. Judge Napolitano’s popular program, Freedom Watch, was cancelled by Fox TV, and Pat Buchanan was fired by MSNBC. Both pundits had wide followings and were appreciated for speaking frankly.

It has taken some time, but most of us think we have come to understand the near-total economic collapse rigged by greed-heads, the most recent collapse, that is, the one we all hope has passed.  Or, we all feel that we understand -- same thing, for many people.

Which kind of scary to address?  Oh, hell -- let's try to do both.

Hard to tell what is satire or parody in this life, as it does such a smash-up job with its special sweet-sour mash-up all its own.  Life, poker-faced, says it's playing straight with us, dealing from the top of the deck.

We remain fantastically doubtful about that here.  When we absorb our daily ration of information, insipidness, and fear, via newspapers, we hold them up to the mirror and read everything from there. This way, we don't have to look the news in the eye, not directly at it. We avoid the Gorgon's gaze.  Plus, we are embarrassed for the news,  at all the sludge and drivel in there.  We handle newspapers with metal tongs, so we don't get any on us.

Car mirrors have legally insisted to all passengers and interested passersby, desperate for reading material, objects in mirror are closer than they appear.  They try to remind us, this nearly inconspicuous, almost invisible image in the view, that being seen smaller in there doesn't necessarily equate to being further away, out here.

No mirror so far observed carries warnings or alerts about smoke being wielded in there, by professionals sent to distract us by way of politicians, corporations, or religions, to name only a few possible sponsors sent to trick our looking and seeing, trying to put off our few visions with unending illusion.

Despite the new era of transparency and open government President Obama promised three years ago, "his administration has been just as secretive—if not more so—than his predecessors, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has become the prime example of his administration’s lack of progress," the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted last month.