The News, Politics and Soap operas

Years ago I watched a soap opera (AMC). I watched until the realization that very little gets done and when something does happen is typically bad news. The futility of it all is what got to me. The futility is what prompted me to stop watching.
 

After not watching the Soap for a few years I began dating someone new, this was back in 1985. The new lady in my life watched the same soap I did years earlier. I decided to watch an episode with her one day as she prepared for work. Though years had passed nothing had changed on the soap. Whatever differences there were they could only be described as tragic. In my  humble opinion this is analogous to politics in America today.

Prior to moving to Thailand I was a bit of a news junkie. I like to say informed so I watched the National news daily, I watched the PBS news, some CNN and a few other programs and I did some reading, some of the news on-line, MSN.com, yahoo news. I did this as to get a "well rounded view" of what was going on in the world. I found it too depressing to watch the local news. Every lead story every day on the local news (chicago) was tragic and depressing. Blood and guts sells in Chicago. Because of this I found it easy to navigate around it.

After being gone from the USA for a couple of months I decided to go to MSN.com and read up on what I've been missing in politics and news since coming to Chiang Mai Thailand. I'm shocked to read the exact same bullshit I was reading/watching months ago. Not a damn thing changed. Still no budget deal. Still looming crisis in the future. Everyone living in a state of panic from day to day.

The National news is like a fucking soap opera. Almost nothing changes and when it does it's almost always bad. The only good news America seems to have generated in the last five years was electing it's first black American to the Presidency and that president passing health care to cover many people that did not have health care.

The best political prognosticators said if America did not get its financial house in order it was doom and gloom and our politicians had a deadline, January 1st, 2013. The deadline has come and gone. The only thing that changed was the deadline.

Well done Assholes!

"Off with their heads" I say. All of them. Pundits, politicians and the news makers. It's as if the three of them are conspiring to defraud the American public. They use and abuse the public for one reason, money-money-money-money. They worship at the alter of the almighty dollar.

The news is supposed to serve the readers and watchers. It does no such thing. The news serves itself. The government is supposed to serve the people. It does no such thing. First and foremost the government, our government, serves itself. Next in line it serves big business. Serving the citizens is an afterthought.


When big business bought the new channels and newspapers things changed. Delivering news stopped being the priority. Corporate America has only one concern and that is their bottom line. News programs became a vehicle for which and with which to increase their bottom line.  

Government is supposed to serve the people. In America it seems serving the American citizens is no longer the priority of government. America's government seems more concerned with serving big business more than it does the citizens of the nation. It does not. Government serves itself.

I'm not sure who originally said it

"Congress will do the right thing only after exhausting all other measures"

That statement certainly fits in with the budget crisis

It's the blind leading the blind in America..