The Produced Reality issue 1

I would like to thank everyone involved in the spread of this info. On both sides of the argument. Whether you are liberal, conservative, or other you have to have noticed the lack of actual information coming down the newswire of late (of late? How bout as long as I can recall it has been steadily getting worse.) The Right sees a left bias, and the Left sees a right bias, I see a corporate bias against the public interest. Any way you see it, it is a problem for all of us. I'm certain that everyone agrees that the mainstream media has abandoned their duties. I realized one day, about a year ago, that I could knew more about the everyday goings on IN Paris Hilton than in Paris, France. That I knew more about the complexities of Bennifer than the EU. This is embarrassing but, I still have a better understanding of the conflict between Hillary Duff and Lindsey Lohan than I do about the US/ N. Korean impasse. The News has become the opiate of the masses. It decides elections, tragedies, and agendas. This latest tragedy in New Orleans is bad, really bad, but it is not any worse than the daily atrocities in Danfur. Too bad no one knows what or where Danfur is.
The networks assail us with soundbytes and polls marketed for the sole purpose of widening the chasm between the two points of view in this country. Wait, how do we have only two points of view. We rarely see two matching eyewitness accounts about anything, but every news worthy event can be pidgin holed into two narrow mindsets. You will never see a random man on the street interview that sounds like' "Well, I am angry at FEMA for not taking charge of the situation, but the Mayor should have stepped up the moment he realized that federal aid was not forthcoming. Instead, locals veritably campaigned blame forcing the federal govt into a defensive media blitz of their own." Thousands of people died! Officials from both camps squandered life saving resources filming 'See how much I care? I am flying over and assessing damages, thru this little window." advertisements for themselves.
We can satellite image anything and it would make sense to have the officials coordinating rescue efforts, in contact with eachother. Why is it that they did not all go to a primary headquarters and work together to help the people of New Orleans? Why? Because of the popularity contest we call Politics. Corporate sponsored, media screened, governmental lies and abuses, oh my. I saw a quote the other day, "The news is what they hide from us, the rest is advertising." Yup, fraid so... Rove and his talking points, the nightly news has controlled our watercooler talk for generations. They also ensure what we aren't talking about by ridiculing the topic. Polls push opinion to the "Winning side" soundbites anger us by picking the most asinine confrontational opinions and slamming them into us repeatedly.
I sent out an email, which I will be the first to admit, was slanted straight from an Anti-Bush position. I have since been in contact with a lot of people. In four days the email and email postings have bashed from both sides into an almost middle ground opinion. If we allowed for contrary voices in our discussion groups, we might actually figure out how to fix our problems.

I for one am open to some new ideas.
-X