Tag Archives: media

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2020, Amirite?

Last week, you might have noticed that my blog was completely silent. I generally write about current events and parenting during my Tuesday/Thursday blog, depending really on how I feel. With the riots and protests last week (still going on this week), I couldn’t do it. Why? Because I’m a white girl from a middle class neighborhood that doesn’t feel it’s my place to discuss the plight of others. Why? Because I’ve never experienced an act of racism towards me. Aside from witnessing racist acts against my own child, I’ve never had to personally experience it so what right to I have to profit off an opinion on it? I stand by communities fighting injustice and somewhere I hope this means the world can start to change. I won’t hope too much because change is always a slow process. We promised change many decades ago, and look where we are today.

2020 has just been a dumpster fire. The year has only hit 6 months, just halfway through, and I feel like we should be celebrating New Years to just be done with it and start fresh in 2021. We should erase this year out of the history books, because there is so much that we should be ashamed of. I’m not going to say that having a democrat as president during these times would have made a difference, because who knows if it actually would have. But if there were a democrat in charge, I feel very positive that the people standing up with the President now wouldn’t feel as strongly about how great they are doing. Because they’re not. I don’t care what party is in office. What I do know is that we deserve a lot better than we are getting.

What is making this so bad? I think I’ll first put blame on the media. The left-biased options jump all over the President even if there’s nothing there. This stokes the fires of their base. The right-biased options consider him a messiah that can’t do anything wrong, which riles up the base to stand up for him when they really shouldn’t. If we had media that praised the good and held him accountable for the bad, regardless of political beliefs, things probably wouldn’t be so bad. The media on both side helps drive the wedge because neither want to stray away from their talking points. This is because rather than being the institution that held people accountable, they’ve become a business that just cares about ratings and money. They don’t care about silly things like facts. They pander to the masses and wonder why the world is going to hell.

This doesn’t mean that the politicians in charge are innocent parties. They are just as complicit when it comes to tearing the country apart. They work with the talking points (or even are the ones creating the talking points) for the media of their particular bias to further cause division. The President doesn’t help matters when there is a truth out there and he passes it off as “fake news” because let’s be honest, he’s lying and people just blindly follow. The minute that we somehow forgot the politicians lie and only want to benefit from their power was when things started to go downhill. I never take a politician’s word for anything. I wait for their actions to decide who they are. And I’m not liking anything that I’ve seen.

The people of this country are the only answer, but at this point, are we way past that? Have too many people been blinded by the people that most benefit from their ignorance? I really hope not. I hope that the sensible people that think independently and logically will start to become the voices of the next generation. We need less lemmings of a political party and more voices that speak out. Don’t just follow a movement because it’s cool; follow it because it’s right. Don’t follow politicians blindly because they honestly don’t care about you. Follow your own beliefs, even if they aren’t defined by a political party. That’s how we make the world a better place.

I’m sad about this. The people are revolting because of decades of fighting “the right way” have failed. I’d be mad as hell to if that were me. If that were my son, I’d probably set the world on fire myself. If you push people enough, they want to see the world burn. That’s where we are right now.

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Politics Making You Sad? Me Too…

The political atmosphere of your location should never get to a point where you feel defeated. It should inspire you to be the change that you want to see, in a peaceful and respectful manner of course. But, it is just making me sad and I almost feel like there is no point in fighting for what I believe in. I do feel defeated and I feel a little angry about that. But before you start judging me and berating me, hear me out.

I said it the minute the president was elected. I told my son “You can agree with his politics or not, but he is the president and that commands respect.” He looked at me, “But they never really respected Obama.” I nodded and I replied, “It is your job to be better than that.” As much as I feel angry about some of the things going on (among the biggest gripe, our Secretary of Education), I still stand by that. The title of president does command respect and there is a respectful way of disagreeing with him that does not include rioting, refusing to acknowledge him during a congressional speech (or maybe not even showing up) or trauma levels of therapy. Those things take away from the problems going on, causing people to focus on “babies” rather than the real issues that people have concerns about.

So why am I sad? The biggest reason is because there is no real place for political discussion today. People immediately ignore the other side because they are steadfast in their beliefs and you can either accept that the relationship is over. Whatever happened to the ability to debate using facts and logic to point out sides and then shaking hands afterwards? The answer is people are brainwashed by mainstream media on both sides and choose to just follow along rather than educate themselves. This causes misplaced passions and a “It’s me or them” mentality that is actually going to ruin our country. In fact, we are already going down this slippery slope and as much as you want to blame one side for it both share an equal amount of blame in this matter. You should be pissed off about this because this tells them that you are idiots that they can turn into their little puppets. We are not puppets; we are Americans.

Civil disobedience has been a staple in our history for decades. This is how change happens. Without this, the Civil Rights movement would have never succeeded and women would not be able to vote still. Now anyone who practices any level of civil disobedience respectfully is referred to as a “snowflake” or a “liberal”. Since when did your political affiliation become a slur rather just your political leaning? Sure, there are a lot of people who are not being respectful about it and they should be called out for it. But those who are doing it right, with marches to raise awareness for their causes or running rallies and raising money for charities that they believe in, why are they getting slammed for that?

This is exactly what is supposed to make America great: diversity. Everyone is supposed to be able to have their own belief system and that should be okay to have. But these days, people are judged unfairly because of what they believe in. If you think everyone should have the right to get married, you are a bleeding heart liberal. If you are worried about losing your healthcare or your public schools, you are a whiny snowflake. Rather than hearing each other out, everyone is dismissed because Fox News/MSNBC/CNN told me that you were wrong so you’re just wrong without showing you facts about how you’re wrong. And if someone dares shows actual facts? Fake news.

That can make a person not want to fight anymore. How can you fight if you are just going to be dismissed as an idiot or a wuss because you don’t accept your fate? Fate is not set in stone and we can change the outcome. But for now, are country is being torn apart because no one wants to admit that both sides have very deep flaws that really need to be discussed openly and without judgement or anger.

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Now Reporting Today’s News Yesterday

It seems that I write more posts about how the media fails the American people more often than I care to mention. It probably is one of my most frequent topics, just because the media’s job is to hold people accountable for things and to keep its people informed of facts. The media fails us constantly. They only people they hold accountable are whatever people they want to hold accountable, and have become propaganda spreading machines. What makes them any different than media in other countries that are controlled by government to spread messages? The difference is we claim “Freedom of Speech”, which in actuality gets sent to the highest bidder because it’s about ratings and sales, not information being properly distributed to keep Americans informed.

Yesterday, there was a shooting at a Boston hospital. Every article I read alternated the ending of the story. All stories agreed that it was a cardiac surgeon that was shot. Some decided that the person was in custody after the shooting, others decided that the shooter had shot himself/herself. Everyone agreed it was a senseless tragedy It was like reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. (Seriously, who didn’t love those?) Eventually, I gave up trying to find out what happened and eventually forgot that I had even cared. Why? Because the media wanted to be the first to get the story out, facts be damned.

This isn’t the first time this had happened, and it won’t be the last. Another more widely known flub is what happened with the ObamaCare supreme court ruling. Remember when they announced that it was unconstitutional? People roared with excitement! People, who immediately shut off their television rather than watch the rest of the breaking news report, went straight to the internet to troll. “Socialism is dead! Long live ‘Merica!!!” “On to further our fight for access to healthcare! We won’t be stopped!!”. Had these people watched their choice of newscast, they would have realized that upon further reading of the decision, their original report had been wrong and in fact it was ruled constitutional. Instead of being concerned with facts, they wanted to be the first to report it. Another memorable moment? When media outlets started circulating pictures of the “Boston Marathon Bombers”, two Arab looking young adults. They were being labelled terrorists, when they were just guilty of being Muslim at a place where a terrorist attack took place. Instead, two boys probably just a tad less white than I were ended up being the culprits while those original people pictured ended up having their lives harmed and potentially risked as a result of the media wanting to be first rather than be accurate or even correct.

To my other point about media propaganda, I bring into evidence an actor that I really enjoy watching. I read the headline “Seth Rogen Compares ‘American Sniper’ to Nazis”. My immediate thought was “Oh Jesus. Another celebrity that put his foot in his mouth. What an idiot.” Conservative media, and other people who follow it blindly, rant on about his un-American statement. (Hilariously, discussing their right to freedom of speech, ignoring his because they don’t agree with him that American Sniper is a nazi propaganda film). One even stating that as a soldier, they had fought for his god given American right, probably not doing enough research to know that it is his god given Canadian right since he is in fact, Canadian. Back to the point. I follow him on Twitter, and I actually read his post. “American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that’s showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.” I read that over a few more times, and I didn’t understand how that goes into “AMG AMERICAN SNIPER IS NAZI PROPAGANDA!!!” I didn’t understand the outrage. Even his tweets afterward made complete sense. I didn’t understand the controversy here. I still don’t understand the controversy here. So one movie stylistically reminded him of something else? If  it weren’t for the “Deflategate” controversy, I would agree with him that this was all just a result of a slow news day.

Which leads me back to the original point. I think I have read pretty much every article about how “Belicheat” struck again. I gathered it was mostly non-news since I had also read just as many articles about how Rodgers likes an over-inflated ball or how some people like to alter the ball so it’s more worn in. I even read an article where a team had heated balls during cold games. After all that, I only got one thing out of it: Any other team would be slapped on the wrist and talked about for one day on the news. Instead, since the Patriots were already caught with their hand in the cookie jar once, they are automatically guilty forever and ever. Some say the balls were taken out during halftime, which was when the Patriots really demolished the Colts. Did it help them win? Probably not, unless a deflated ball makes defensive players see a guy with a ball running towards them and decide to make a path rather than tackle him. Is it cheating? Absolutely and they should be punished for it. Is there one news article that is a reliable source at the moment? Of course not, the news fails at their job and should all be fired for people with actual journalistic integrity because this new form of media fails at what they were supposed to be doing: keeping the masses informed.

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Leave the Remdawg Alone

Normally I don’t discuss Massachusetts only topics here, nor do I really discuss sports here. I felt the need to discuss the situation with Jeremy Remy that’s a hot button issue in this dubbed “Red Sox Nation” on whether he should continue his job calling the Sox games while his son is on trial for brutally murdering the mother of his child. It seems to be a divider among viewers and is taking away focus from what should be a discussion on Opening Day or whether or not the Sox will be the first team in  about 13 years to repeat a World Series win.

Before the season, Remy admits to enabling his troubled son in efforts to help him. He agreed that maybe he went too far, but what was he supposed to do. Normally I agree that enablers are as guilty for a situation as the person they enable, if you give someone a fish and whatnot. His son was an uncontrollable rager waiting to happen. The only thing they are guilty of is not letting him sit in jail longer because they thought he was fixable. Every parent likes to think that their child is fixable.

Now here’s why I don’t think enabling him mattered: Jared probably would’ve done it anyways and no matter what Jeremy did, he still would be blamed in the media. An abuser is an abuser for life until he’s stopped. If the courts were harder on him or if all the women he beat stood up and put an end to this, he might have been in jail longer,  but he still would have done this. His son was a bad seed that liked to beat up people. If Remy had cut off Jared and wiped his hands clean of him and his son still killed his baby mama, the media would still rake Jeremy Remy over the coal and Remy’s resignation would still be called for. Except instead of being guilty for enabling a bad seed, he’d be guilty of neglecting a child that needed him and because of that a woman has died. There is no situation where people aren’t calling for his head on a big Red Sox shaped platter.

The issue here is accountability. No one ever wants to take responsibility for themselves. It’s always someone else that needs to take the blame. Boo hoo, his daddy worked all the time. Mine did too, but I didn’t kill anyone or shoot up heroin. The real person at fault here is the one who committed the crime. He was a grown “man”. (I use the term “man” here very loosely because no man hits or acts violently towards a woman let alone the mother of his child.) He’s the one on trial and should stay the only one on trial. I have a hard time feeling sorry for a woman beater, let alone a rich spoiled child. Leave the Remdawg alone and let him do his job. When I see him today, I will see the same guy I’ve always seen only with a little bit more sympathy because his dirty laundry is fodder for the news while essentially being compared to an accomplice to murder.

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I’d Like to Thank the Academy…

I admit it, I watched the Oscars last night. Albeit on DVR so I could fast forward through everything but Seth MacFarlane and the few categories I cared to see. (And as much as I love Jennifer Lawrence, that fall needed to be seen.) The benefit is when MacFarlane stops being funny, as he often can, you can just skip him. DVR is great, it really is great. I enjoyed it though, as much as one can enjoy one of those things.

Like everything else, politics end up the main discussion of the event. Rather than Jennifer Lawrence’s fall or Seth MacFarlane’s hosting job, all I hear is how Zero Dark Thirty lost as part of a grand conspiracy against Republicans to solidify the “Evil Liberals” as the most powerful people in the world. I’ll have to see the movies, but I’ve heard from people I know that love movies that Argo just was more entertaining. Maybe I’m a dumb Liberal, but I want to see movies that entertain me. I must be naïve to think that there’s a reason it’s called “the entertainment industry”. Silly me.

I don’t like it when a celebrity tries to tell me who to vote for. I want the to entertain me, not boss me around in the field of politics. They should be separated, and I’m tired of people not separating certain things from politics. I don’t choose to watch a movie because a Democrat wrote it/directed/starred in it (though they tell me odds are there are more in Hollywood than Republicans), nor would I refuse to watch one because a Republican does. Why? Because I’m a free thinking adult that just likes to see movies and television shows that entertain me.

There’s too much focus on politics where there shouldn’t be. I said this at election time and it’s still true today: just because someone doesn’t agree politically with you, doesn’t mean they are bad people. Life would be boring if we were all the same. Not every thing is a grand conspiracy to brainwash the masses, though the jury is still out on that topic in terms of all news organizations. Entertainment is entertainment. If Paul Ryan can like Rage Against the Machine, I think Liberals can like Zero Dark Thirty.