Are You Confused? Lies, cynicism, and ridicule as news.

You know with all the lies, misrepresentations and obfuscation about almost everything, I have to say that I'm confused. CNN and MSNBC are so biased that I can't rely on anything they broadcast. It wasn't always this way. Some years back Peter Arnet and April Oliver ran a piece called "Operation Tailwind" about US Army Special Forces soldiers who had killed American POWs held by the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong. The report seemed well investigated and they even had interviews with Air Force pilots and Special Forces Soldiers who supposedly carried out these nefarious acts.

I'm watching the special and here are some people who I happen to have met and knew. In the time periods referred to, they were nowhere near anything that resembled the types of operations indicated in the special. I wrote CNN and actually had some email correspondence with April but by that time she was so defensive that getting any kind of coherent story from her was akin to pulling teeth from a chicken. So my estimation of the veracity of CNN "news" sank like the Dow on a bad day. By the way, both Oliver and Arnett lost jobs over the flap about that piece. Arnett made a name with his reporting from Baghdad. But since then he had gone on to take typically anti-American positions in his reportage. That's strange. Risk a career for ideology.

Over on MSNBC Keith Olbermann, some clown with a show called "The Ed Show" (And that's what it is: A show. There is as little relation to facts as the "Operation Tailwind" piece.) and the sage of sages, Rachal Maddow who I remember from Air America broadcasts. Her pieces were so anti-Bush, republican and anything right of Lenin that they actually made the point they were trying to refute. It was good listening but only because it was so thoughtless and comical. But the problem is that on these stations, there's no news. Facts are simply a foil for propaganda. One wonders what their objective could be?

Out on cable/satellite there is a channel called Current. It's youth oriented, mostly liberal but thoughtful. It's funded by Al Gore and other usual suspects. On that channel is a show called "Vanguard." This show sends reporters around the world to investigate how people are living under other systems. The show was obviously meant to show the success of Communist, Socialist systems and how everyone was the same in the world. But a strange thing happened. While they are filming, it became apparent that any comparison to opportunity and development in America was impossible. What the show does is to show just how good Americans have it. For example: Yes, China has an expanding economy but the average citizen is still politically controlled and political speech still lands one in jail. Pollution is rampant and a lot of people are getting sick and dying from the pollution. Building standards do not exist and they fall down quite regularly. They are running out of water. Outside of the enterprise zones, poverty is rampant. Homelessness abounds and in the final analysis, it's still a police state: Travel is restricted or not allowed. So here's a station with a liberal broadcast perspective and experimenting with new broadcast formats that ends up being a poster child for the very things they rail against. This is the station of Laura Ling who is a vanguard video journalist. Her most famous work? Being arrested by North Korea for violating their border. Ain't Communism great? Her report on illegal "immigrants" (Look, they're invaders and should be treated as such.) was a condemnation of American policy. One wonders how she feels after a three-month stay as a guest of North Korea. Yes, it's confusing.

Over on cable/Sat. FOX, we supposedly have "Fair and Balanced." What a crock. So they have some republican mouthpiece debating some democrat mouthpiece. Let me ask: Do you really care? Is this supposed to be interesting? Note to FOX: The format is trite and the people you have commenting are no better than rehearsed simpletons. We know what they are going to say and it doesn't matter the subject. One gives the democratic party view and one the republican. What we need are people who think differently and can offer some insight not based on the tenets of fixed megaliths like the democratic and republican parties. So alter this format and dump anyone who wants to issue an opinion. Change the format to scholars and non-party affiliated people. If the news item is about the parties, then it's OK but the format is WAAAAAY overused. Now interesting, while some broadcasters are certainly right leaning, they are less dogmatic and less rigid than almost anyone on CNN or MSNBC or any of the original three: ABC, NBC, CBS. It doesn't mean they are right but that they appear less dogmatic.

Also: When did it become acceptable to spend valuable broadcast time talking about another station? Is there such a dearth of news that can't be manipulated into a democratic view that broadcasters can spend time lambasting competitors? Do they really think this is journalism? Who spends any real time watching this claptrap of misguided ad hominem. What does any of the broadcasters and their beliefs have to do with the veracity of any news item? And when does coy, snide smirking designed to slant perspective pass as acceptable on a newscast? It's confusing indeed.

We have so much confusion that it's almost impossible to cul facts from all the BS. One thing that should be done is to get rid of party mouthpieces about everything. Report the news without commentary of any kind. When identifying personalities, leave off party affiliation. Even if they are governors, senators or other politicians, there's no need to identify them by party. What should be done is to list the expertise these people bring to the subject area they are talking about. I will tell you something: A congressman does not have expertise because he/she sits on a committee for any time period. At best, they know about budgets and allocations but they never talk about budgets or how they are grafting the system. No, they want to talk about policy about which they obviously know nothing.

Now you're probably asking how do I know this. It's easy: Just look at our schizophrenic foreign and domestic policy. Nobody knows what's going on. The people we elect to lead us are more interested in getting themselves reelected to waste valuable time actually fixing problems. They can't fix problems because our elected officials know less about them than the average bar patron. The news is right in line with this confusion and they live and feed off of such. They do everything they can to further confusion because as much as each anchor, host or commentator tries to appear knowledgeable, they don't know any more than the average person and somewhat less that a college professor focusing on the item area.

If one wants facts, stick to local news when they report about local occurrences. The news is great for traffic jams, robberies and local construction projects

So are you confused? You probably are and that's the way the people who make fabulous salaries giving you the news want you to be. That way they can continue to "inform" you with more lies, more misstatements and more obfuscation.