Apathy and Blame

Warrantless wiretapping. Indefinite detention. Torture. Domestic political spying. The war built on lies, that has given aid and comfort to our enemies. Preparations for martial law in the United States. The evidence seems clear: our current president and his administration have gone too far. When each day seems to bring more news about their obvious abuses of power, it's difficult for a reasonable, fair-minded individual to think any else but this: President Bush is hurting America and, fact, is pushing policies that are contrary to everything this country stands -- or stood -- for. The response of average Americans to the disastrous actions of this president has been overwhelming: a massive, suffocating blanket of indifference and silence.

Why don't Americans seem to care? It's their rights that are being destroyed, their guarantees of liberty and freedom that are being gutted, their Constitution being shredded by power-grabbing liars and criminals. Don't they give a damn about what happens to them? Don't they value the freedom their parents and grandparents fought to defend enough to raise their voices and begin to take up that defense themselves?

How many people really appreciate that they are under attack from their own president? The American people are not stupid; but, if they don't know what's going on, if they don't pay attention to the chilling reports of the abuses of power coming out of Washington DC, how can they respond?

It is one of the great tragedies of modern times that the media, who so often deserve our contempt for their self-serving, ratings-conscious approach to delivering information, are now the ones to whom we should be paying very close attention. Even now, when their own freedom to publish, post, and broadcast is in danger of being washed away by short-sighted power-hungry politicians, the news we need to hear comes only in dribs and drabs. We are less than two weeks away from mid-term elections, and yet the big news is Madonna's adoption of an African baby.

It's somewhat fashionable, or at least very easy, to blame the media for everything. They, in turn, blame their customers for the celebri-tastic focus of their coverage. It's a knotty problem without simple solutions: on the one hand, you can't expect commercial media to run stories that make people feel uncomfortable and bored, and the other hand you can't tell the great American public to stop caring about bullshit, when they lack the thick political callous required to be able to learn just how far their freedoms have declined without throwing up. It's a situation that will take generations to fix, if we start now.

Not only has the corporate mass-media turned the average American in to an easily bored and disquieted mental wimp, unable to face tough questions about the future of their country, their snubbing of serious political discourse has pushed it to the fringes of the landscape. In an effort to maximize their audience share political debates, when they are shown at all, are mounted and always end in draws so as not to alienate anybody, and then we're off to the Hollywood minute; because Americans can't always agree on war and domestic policy, but everyone can agree that Jessica Simpson is hot.

So, now that we are in the midst of one of the most important mid-term election campaigns of the past 20 years, the media has found a way to get politics onto the airwaves, and it a way that makes Americans sit up and take notice, too. Scandalous, and sex-focused reporting is how they've done it -- never mind the issues. Sure, this might get the vote out and the opposition party might actually wind up in a position from which to reign in presidential abuse of power, but what if next time there is no host of sex scandals to spark interest. Then what?

It's highly likely that Americans will turn away from what bores and scares them. And when they no longer have the ability to vote for an alternative to absolute executive power, they won't care since they weren't going to vote for anything not involving pop stars or Brangelina, anyway.

-S.O