“This message paid for by the Clarion.” Aren’t you glad you don’t have to see that in our newspaper every week? We’re glad we don’t have to put it in the paper every week.
Thank goodness that’s finally over, that time of the year when the leaves die, the air gets cold and we as television viewers got bombed with campaign advertisements.
Those ads have such poignant thoughts. “Why won’t John Kasich release his tax return?” “Time’s up, Ted!” “Fred Strahorn voted for health care reform!”
Those in control of the ads would like you to kindly ignore context, because, well, context is for those interested in the truth, and the truth can get in the way of the narrative. Ask MSNBC or Fox News, they deal with this constantly.
That’s really the issue with politics, no? Truth is irrelevant. It’s how they spin things. Yes, this new legislation will cost Lady Liberty an arm and a leg, but it’ll do this and this and if those two things aren’t done maybe you’ll die or be poor or whatever other potential calamity might frighten us into votes or complacency.
Fear works. Fox tells you that if you don’t watch Fox you won’t know about the next thing that will kill you. MSNBC tells you if you watch Fox you’ll be a bigot. Democrats tell you the Republicans hate poor people. Republicans tell you that Democrats are Marxist and want to steal your money.
It’s all about the message. We’re not sure if President Obama has a done a good job or not, because the only commentary available is either unabashed love or unrestricted criticism. That doesn’t work.
Just the facts, please! We’re literally begging you.
When a comedian with a show on Comedy Central is maybe the fairest voice in political commentary, something is wrong. Actually, no, something is probably on fire.
We’re just tired. Tired of all of it. Nothing is honest, nothing is sincere. Everything has to be a game. A game for votes, a game for support, a game to energize the so-called base. We hope that Jon Stewart is right and that most people don’t belong to this insanity.
But it can be hard to tell when the minority is so loud and the majority is darn near silent.