POST APOCALYPTIC REALITY WITHOUT THE APOCALYPSE

One of the podcasts I listen to is [http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/mm|KCRW's Minding the Media] the weekly short opinion column is delivered by Nick Madigan of the Baltimore Sun who never shies from calling a spade a spade. Which is rare these days. In [http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/mm/mm070206coddling_the_friendl|his latest column] he talks about how both insiders in the government and a few mainstream journalists feel like both the government and the media have lost a lot of credibility over the past few years, mainly over the Iraq mess. I tend to agree, but not just about the Iraq mess. There's Katrina, too, where state and federal governments failed to do much to save the people in harms way. The media, too, while on-location a lot have dropped the ball on following up on just how poorly state and federal governments are helping Katrina victims get back on their feet (not to mention the victims of past hurricanes in other states). This whole thing brings to mind movies like Mad Max and Road Warrior or any other film that presents a post-apocalyptic reality. Think about it--we can't trust our leaders to tell us the truth or even to be there if something bad happens. We can't trust the media, the watchdogs of our leaders, because they just deliver the press releases our governments give them. What's left to trust? A great many people in power seem to be doing generally whatever they want with a general disregard for anyone else's real safety or concerns. The governor of the most financially powerful state in the union referred to a fellow politician as "sick" and to another as a "hack". These guys don't even respect each other. >From the latest Minding the Media column I refer to above:

Reporters who cover politicians and corporate executives have to cultivate confidential sources in order to cover their beats properly, but some of those relationships are too clubby, too self-serving and, ultimately, harmful to the notion of a free and open press. As Tim Rutten wrote in the L.A. Times, the Libby trial's "unintended seminar in contemporary journalism" shows that Cheney and his staff believe that truth is malleable, and that they knew that some members of the Washington press corps would "cynically accommodate that belief for the sake of their careers." "It's a sick little arrangement," Rutten said, "in which the parties clearly have one thing in common: a profound indifference to both the common good and to their obligation to act in its service."

We The People, no longer know what the hell's really going on and the sad thing is, we're not even very concerned about that. It's like the end of all the civilized parts of civilization. Now we're left only with the appearance of civilization. At least, that's how I see it.

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