From Guest Contributor Angi Bryan
It’s not about left versus right. All points of the political spectrum have always existed concurrently and there are usually experts of the varying schools of thought all along that spectrum in debate with one another. To have a right and a left is perfectly healthy; it’s how government is balanced. Where a society’s politics tend to exist most prevalently on that spectrum has to do mostly with the culture. For the left and right to be so polarized, as they are now, there must be a reason.
It’s not about right versus wrong. Right and wrong are, at least to some degree, subjective. What is acceptable in one culture may be wholly unacceptable in another. How that is determined is generally through a common theme that is usually guided by the needs of the people of that culture. This is why we have laws: to set a precedence of right and wrong. However, laws are subject to change. When the needs of people change, either by invention or by convention, the pointer of the moral compass shifts. For our nation to be so off course from our fundamental moral principles, there must be a reason.
It’s not about the people versus the government. Our government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Every election cycle we have the opportunity to learn about the people who want to serve and represent us in those seats that operate the functions of our government, and we get to decide who our leaders are, thereby, making us a nation of self-governance. For us not to take full advantage of this very extraordinary privilege, there must be a reason.
What this is, actually, is the deterioration of the one tool that is critical to our self-governance, that tool being our press. Members of our press are supposed to be objective: they are not supposed to shift political balance, they are not supposed to dictate right and wrong, and they are not supposed to favor one party over another. What our press was always intended to be is the vehicle by which the people could oversee those who we elected to serve in our government. What it has become is a corrupt, biased, complicit propaganda machine for those who wish to undermine our country, and is the key reason we are so very off course.
Because the press has become so complicit, many people have tuned them out; but this is not good enough. Their message has already permeated through the culture, polarizing the left and right, morally corrupting our society, and refusing to hold our politicians accountable for anything. Ignoring the mainstream media does not eliminate their influence. This is obvious anytime you watch a man on the street interview and we hear those being interviewed spew out the same talking points that the mainstream media has dictated. Sure, our public education system has had some influence on the ignorance of the populace and so do movies, television, music and video games; but, imagine a media with journalists that actually attempted to be objective and report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Go ahead, take a moment to really imagine it.
There is this notion that humans cannot be truly objective. Perhaps this is true. As humans, we may always express some degree of bias, but that’s no excuse to not even attempt to at least be factual. Members of our press have an obligation to try to be as objective as possible. Those who call themselves journalists have a responsibility to report the facts to the people. Their duty is to serve as the conveyers of truth. They are, by no means, superior to the people they report to simply because they’ve obtained a degree and they’ve learned to sell their opinion. This does not make them journalists, it only makes them charlatans. A true journalist will challenge their own opinion, be critical of our politicians, investigate improprieties thoroughly and come to the truth, regardless of their bias, and report it to the people.
We must make our press meet these standards. How do we make this happen? How do we take back our media? We start by banding together and deciding we’re not going to take it anymore, then we DO something about it. Rage Against the Media has strategies. If only there were enough people to participate, we could really make an impact on our media. When Costco removed the book America from the shelves, people flocked to Cosco’s Facebook and Twitter sites by the thousands and expressed their grievance with this decision. This made a huge impact and Costco announced it would restock its shelves with the book. Imagine doing the same with all of the mainstream media. What if we flocked, even just by the hundreds, to all of the mainstream media’s social network sites on Facebook and Twitter and demanded they be critical of our politicians, investigate improprieties thoroughly until they reach the truth and report it to us, without bias. What if we did this by the thousands or tens of thousands? We would not be so easy to ignore.
Sitting idly by and letting the mainstream media carry on as they have is the same as letting them win. Ignoring them allows them to ignore us. It’s up to us to turn this around. If WE don’t, who will? Here’s What YOU can do!
Guest Contributor Angi Bryan is just an everyday citizen who’s fed up with mainstream media’s inability to pull their collective heads out of their own… a-a-agendas.