Posts Tagged ‘priorities’

My post on the media fat-fest got more hits in the last three days than any other single post ever. This fills me with despair. This blog is about many things, but its first and foremost priority was discussing how military families and members are bearing disproportionate levels of hell because of governmental stupidity and/or misdirection and indecision. Soldiers, airmen, sailors, Coasties and Marines are people, too….not Kleenex; they are more than soft, strong and disposable. And yet, for the last eight years, the media has ignored them except when they wanted to act piously patriotic and patronizing.

In some ways, it is related to the usual media coverage of America’s “fatness” issue. Both are used to fill air space when they don’t have anything else to hold over the fire of burning bullshit. The fact that they show morbidly obese images and while discussing an “epidemic” of fatness that technically included buff rock-hard body-builders to scapegoat fat as the cause of the health care issues shows where their paychecks come from, and little else. They ignore objective truth and go for the soundbite jugular.

America’s health care debacle is a combination of companies wanting to make money in obscene amounts without delivering the “product” ….be it insurance or medicines. America’s fat issue is much more related to office-bound sedentary lifestyles and the longest working hours in the Western World than Americans being lazy and prone to overeating. And the food industry bears responsibility, too: they produce ever more cheaply made food items for convenience of over-worked, time-short families and fill in with metabolism wrecking crap (corn syrup and MSG derivatives) instead of using real food.

And America would be less likely to fall for these sorts of sensationalized media feeding frenzies if there wasn’t the idea out there that the main event in every life is sexual attractiveness. “Everybody must be HOT” reasoning is possibly more damaging than the 60’s rational that “everybody must get stoned.” Though, the resultant ‘munchies’ might not be such a good thing for the must be Hot crowd.

Every person I have ever had an argument with about why they think it is ok to give fat people a bad time, sooner or later it comes down to one thing. Once you point out that it IS possible to be healthy at weights the medical crowd calls obese, then they go “But LOOK at them!” Right. Look at them.

How is this different that “looking” at Afro-Americans in that “easy to spot, easy to blame” sense that is the only focal length in the KKK magnifying lenses? How is it different that Germans in the 1930’s buying anti-Semetism as the fix-all for their horrid economic woes? How is it different than South Africa in the apartheid years treating natives like unruly, possibly rabid animals? How is it different than Israel deciding all Palestinians are devoid of rights because of the actions of a minority?

How does finding bullshit statistics to back up scapegoating a very visible minority for problems that plague the entire nations FIX the issue? How does it do more than obfuscate the real reasons, to which exist REAL fixes?
How do we STOP it?

First off, stop thinking of people as nothing but bodies. We humans are not just walking meat. Your mothers used to teach this by saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” (Unless it is Silver Ravenwolf….then yes, judge the cheese as it stands!) People are so much more than their bodies; and even if they were not—why are your standards so limiting? I live with two photographers; trust me when I say homogenized vanity gets bloody boring!

Americans like labels. Nerd. Geek. Egghead. Stoner. Fundy. Loser. Jock. Bitch. Asshole. Fatso. And I am skipping the entire ethnic schtick, ok? We both know you have heard them all. All of them have one thing in common. They each apply to ONE ASPECT of the entire person. Watch what you wish for, if you fall for buying into dismissing a person as a Fatso: there is surely a sign out there for you, too. You just might find yourself dismissed when you need attention most.

Some years back, I recall reading a blog (don’t ask which—long since lost that list of bookmarks) wherein it was suggested that in deciding how to tackle America’s numerous problems, the powers that be needed to do “triage” in the medical sense of the word.  Now, since we are (still!) at war, I am sure all sorts of old M.A.S.H. episodes come to mind at the mention of the word; but it really is simple—someone experienced walks stretcher to stretcher and decides who gets care first because of the urgency of the injury.  This person also has the unpleasant duty of deciding whose case is utterly hopeless of course, so time is not wasted leading to loss of other lives.

As I watch the news (more and more rarely) or read it online, I surely wish somebody would come up with a news-related method for them to determine what stories to print/report.  Then perhaps the idea of prioritizing hot points and buttons could spread to other areas of life?  I mean, really, do we all NEED more drama?  And yet, every one of us can name someone in our lives who simply leaks drama like salted cucumbers leak water.  The news shows follow this tendency to very literally stupid conclusions.

They publicize silly nonsense about some actress falling off the wagon, but do not tell us real details about why Americans are losing their homes in foreclosures?  Or, when a major paper prints up the ills of the Bush Administration now afflicting America, they blame it on America’s declining middle class for taking  “huge, fat tax breaks”?  First off, we qualify as lower middle class, if only barely.   Our ‘huge’ tax break was a whopping $600 or so, if I recall.  Gee, wow, which Carribbean island should we purchase, dear?  Second, I really don’t see where any newspaper columnist gets off pointing fingers at the “middle class” as if they were Bushie Brown Shirts out throwing rocks through windows, when THEY were notably SILENT as the Bush Administration set much of the current revolving hell into motion.  So, yes, all of you wanting to point at ordinary citizens en masse as compliant and blame-worthy?  Shut the fuck up unless you had your mouth open just as wide to scream about the lies and deceptions of those in POWER positions.  I did not vote for that imbecile, I did not believe his lies about the war, I was making phone calls, bitching, screaming, protesting, and it did me no fucking good.  Possibly because Congress is incapable of separating truth from manure and none of them had the balls to be called ‘unpatriotic’ while the shit went down.  It isn’t the middle class to blame, its the elected middle management!
Now, mini-rant over, back to the idea of triage.  Really, what story affects more people, that Angelina Jolie succeeded in giving birth or that Turkish-based Kurdish rebels took German hostages to try forcing Germany to stop supporting Bush Co?  Honestly now, if online news and email were added, we could really have some fun, eh?  Like, which email should a thoughtful person, a smart person (yes, channeling Wanda here!) give more credence and attention to: the one saying there is a trail of bodies in Obama’s past (OMG…a reporter who once asked him a question died of ‘natural causes’?!) or the trail of completely verifiable and unnaturally bloodied bodies that are the result of the Bush lie-engendered war?  What if Congress had to actually see every issue facing America like those combat docs and nurses see their problems: as bleeding, hurting humans on stretchers?  Do you think they could pull their heads out of the damned pork barrel and stop thinking about re-election, if a bleeding, screaming “issue” grasped their hand in a shaky grip and cried “Help me, oh God, please help me cause it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!”

It isn’t just the news media, folks, nor is it truly just Congress, although since they do ascribe such powers to themselves; I do wish they would start a new trend. Call it triage if you like the analogy.  Or call it “pulling your head out of your ass and giving your brain some oxygen”…..in any case, fucking GET REAL.  Cause damn, the knee jerk stupid is burning and scarification is just not my thing.