Media Madness

The US presidential campaign has turned its focus to the media supposedly covering the news. The only things being reported are facts and acts about media people: O'Reilly, Matthews, Russert, et alii. These people themselves shamelessly are promoting themselves at every opportunity, leaving little time for discussing important issues. Indeed, one wonders if they are capable of doing so anymore. The very basis of partisanship so much talked about and so much in evidence in this society is the unhealthy preoccupation with the Self or Ego. This process assumes that the Self- this Self, myself- is the center of the universe to which all things gravitate. This infilling of the Self is the opposite of Humility. This inflation finds no limits to control its progress, nor are there guidelines for its workings. Since there are-truth to tell-a limited number of truly good, benevolent, and heroic types of behavior to seek to add to one's Self, a person who keeps inflating oneself must turn to "sub-prime" predicates of the Self: creating scenes in which they are the constant focus, creating discords to which they alone posses the answers, creating conflicts where none can be easily discerned by most people. (If you have seen I Am Legend, do not the film zombies resemble the media talking heads in their sound and fury a bit too much for us to be entirely comfortable with the analyses...of the talking heads, not the zombies?) Even Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" no longer takes calls from viewers. Why should it? If maintaining a connection to real people were it's goal, it would. It has some other goal. Assume that the goal is fighting to rid ourselves of the present Rump administration from hell. That would be a good goal and worthy of support, right? The goal is good, but their effort has now become divorced from the rest of us and inhabits the never-never land of the Neoconservatives where wars cost "a billion...tops!". Just because we oppose an infamous wrong does not mean that everything we do is good and heroic. By turning the presidential campaign into a gladiatorial combat between the raving Egos of the media, we have contributed mightily to the downfall of the Republic.