I don’t know where this came from. I was rummaging around in my blog archives to see what articles I had started and abandoned for later cleanup, when I tripped over this one. I am cleaning it up and moving it to the “posted” category. If I wrote it, I like it. If I didn’t, thank you whoever did and I still like it.
Newspapers are dropping like flies, and they have worked very hard to earn their fate. The broadcast and cable Main Stream Media (MSM) exist at the pleasure of government; every one of them is subject to licensing. They are completely subservient and their “reporting” is nothing more than passionless stenography. They serve the same purpose Pravda served in the former Soviet Union – they let the peasants know the correct line of thinking. *
To the extent that I take notice of MSM at all, it is primarily to know what lies and distractions afflict the folks I meet in commerce and travel. Real news and information I get elsewhere. It’s proven quite liberating, to my surprise. I am no longer distracted by celebrity this and local atrocity that. I can focus on what is important to me, and at the same time be exposed to new ideas and concepts. The MSM will go the way of the dodo soon enough, I no longer care what stories they are told to ignore. Among the benefits of MSM avoidance are the pleasure of living in a head that is still functioning, a mind that is still working and owning thoughts I put there via the novel process once widely known as THINKING.
When most people around me start a sentence with, “I think”, they are about to regurgitate concepts that were projected into their heads by broadcast audio-visual equipment that bypassed the thinking part of their brain. They recall these concepts, but never once thought about them. Sadly, I am constantly around people my age, half my age and younger whose minds are older and less agile than my own. It’s sad because there has never been anything spectacular about mine. That mine is younger and more vigorous reflects entirely what has happened to theirs.
* My understanding of the big picture has changed a bit from when I originally wrote this. I now see mainstream media AND government as subordinate to the same master. Neither are in charge. Administrations for both come and go, but their agendas serve the same masters regardless of name, brand, language or heritage.