There are so many resources out there to help validate many
of my points. They may not completely line up with my exact wailing that we
need new parties and new leadership, yet they are out there.
You may or may not remember a television ad where some guy
is on a deserted island. He is scraggly looking with unkept long hair and beard
like he had been there awhile. It is the typical tropical island, there are
palm trees all along the shore waving in the breeze, the waves are rolling onto
the not white sand, but very light tan sand beach, he has written large letters
into the sand either saying help or SOS I cannot remember exactly and he is
sitting next to a fire looking desperate or lost. And if you are so inclined
you might feel the heat of the fire or smell the salt water in the air. As he
is sitting by the fire he hears a helicopter and goes running out to the beach
waving his arms all excited. The scene cuts to him riding in the helicopter and
he asks how did they find him or something similar and the lady flying says, oh
we are with the resort on the other side of the island.
Or another words what he needed was there all along, he just
didn’t explore enough. I am not quite that far removed as him because I do read
and watch Youtube videos on all sorts of topics, yet I never add these
references or points they make to strengthen or as said above validate what I
believe is needed.
The reason I finally bring this up and you guessed it I plan
on referencing more books, articles, Youtube videos, or whatever else I find
that leads to me to validating my points and thoughts.
Now all of these references may not line up exactly with my
views yet they show that more and more and not just recently people are looking
for something different than what the Democrats and Republicans have been offering
for decades and I do mean decades. True it was in the background maybe because
people would relegate the need for change with earlier iterations of conspiracy
theories or other fringe ideas. Yet people were making honest discussions of
the failure of our two major parties. And this was in other areas of society also.
Some of the frustration of people eventually led to the rise
of Donald Trump. Now some people consider Trump a bit stupid. They are idiots.
He is not a genius, yet he certainly understood or heard what people were
saying they needed or wanted and found a way to align it with what he wanted.
Now that is a worn out argument so I will move on. Or maybe it isn’t because
the Democrats cannot seem to grasp that yet. I will move on though.
My reference for today is a book titled Hate, Inc. by
Matt Taibbi. This book focuses primarily on the media. He is a well respected
author and writer and leans more to the left. Or he has written primarily for
left leaning publications like Rolling Stone. And apparently the book
originally was written on Substack. He acknowledges this in the first two sentences
of the introduction. He goes on to describe how the book evolved and what the
reader can expect either from the evolution he made or if a new reader, as I
was when I first read the book, what the book wants to address.
The subtitle of the book better explains why it is important
to my arguments, “Why today’s media makes us despise one another”. This book
explores the evolution of both left wing and right wing media creating an
environment that pits us against the other side. Some liberals may say this is
all because of Fox News, yet Mr. Taibbi shows us this has been developing long
before Fox News came about. And he also breaks down that it is both sides of
the media using some of the same techniques to divide us for their readers to
maintain a loyalty to their brand. There is a substantial amount of history of
the media over the last few decades and if you are not a regular member of the
press you might get lost in the weeds of his references. Still he spells out
what has happened and most readers can easily see what has developed over time,
who are some of the culprits and make sense of his observations and reflections.
I am not going to write a book review on it, even though I
could. This just plays into my wheel house so much so that I could not make an
objective review. That wouldn’t be fair to help a reader to determine if this
was a book they wanted to read. I am just going to tell you, read the damn book.
Every American and maybe a good chunk of the world should. Go to the library
and check it out if you don’t want to make him rich by buying it, but read it. We
have all felt it, yet we do not want to pull ourselves away from our side
because we need our side. Our side validates our beliefs. And as humans beings
social animals this is needed. What we also need is to think critically and
make decisions based on knowing all sides. This is pointed out in the book, yet
I say again, read the damn book. He does a much better job of laying out what
is going on than I could in some blog post. This isn’t a recent book yet all
his points are still valid and probably the situation is worse than when he
wrote.
There is going to be much more to come on using other
resources including this book and there will be some podcasts using and on
other resources*. Expect one soon.
I hope you continue to have a prosperous and Happy New Year.
It is the Chinese New Year this week so do something exciting and celebrate the
world.
Cheers
*Why is it all the great writers have the great editors, as
always an editor is worth their weight in gold, too bad I have neither.
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