I have read dozens and dozens of articles on this site dating back to last spring before this past election. In my opinion, the most enduring and welcome result of this historic election was the passionate re-engagement of millions of Americans with the political process in our country, regardless of political affiliation, beliefs, or philosophy. Welcome, because as far back in my political memory as the contentious Carter/Ford campaign in 1976, Americans have grown progressively less engaged, and more apathetic to arguably the most important privilege and right we have in this country—the right to freely elect those who would lead us. Is it a perfect process? No, it is not. It is a messy, divisive, expensive, interminably long, and often, bitter process. But it is the cornerstone upon which our country’s foundation is laid. The root of all our most precious, and of late, waning and swiftly disappearing freedoms.
While any objective observer would probably agree that the excitement generated by the McCain/Obama campaign which triggered the massive participation of the American electorate at-large to come out and vote in record numbers was a positive if long-overdue development, it can also be argued that it brought to the forefront, with disturbing clarity and alacrity, the deep, bitter, and growing division that exists in this country between the Right and the Left. It has become a battle royal. A set-piece confrontation of near-mythic proportions rife with misinformation, outright lies, subliminal and overt political iconography, and downright scurrilous, vicious propaganda practiced by both sides and that is no longer a battleground restricted to the traditional arena of the print and electronic “Old Media” watchdogs of the past and their inimitable adherents of that grandest of American pastimes, “Politics” … with sincere apologies to baseball, Mom, and apple pie.
The “game” has now expanded into what Marshall McLuhan once presciently referred to in the 1950s as the “global village.” Technology has allowed our grandest game to “graduate” to the Big Leagues … the Worldwide Web with its all-pervasive, perfect delivery system for the countless Web sites and blog sites that litter the internet like so many locusts on a feeding frenzy bent on creating an electronic wasteland. The blogosphere is overrun by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pundits, self-styled political analysts, observers, and average everyday folk who feel they have something important to add to the political discourse, and by God, they’re going to put it out there, come hell or high water.
This recent development is in the ongoing process of being totally and completely co-opted by the guardians of the Old Media and corporate establishment. All in the name of big profits and obscenely healthy bottom lines. There is now what is known in the tech world as “convergence” between the Old Media and content developers to the internet/Mobile nexus. With this convergence comes a critical, growing mass audience that can be reached at any time, and any place through a variety of wireless devices, both mobile and portable, that attempts to keep users engaged and connected to that which is both important and compelling enough to them to do so. The selling of politics in this nascent, convergent media was inevitable. Without this crucial connection to potential voters it is arguable whether or not the Democrats would have won this recent election. They took a page from the Republican campaign playbook, the wildly successful usage of vast propaganda mail outs generated by their tireless devotion to accruing massive mailing lists, and updated the tactic by focusing primarily on the Internet as their message medium of choice.
I say all that to say this: with this newfound ability to express ourselves in a manner never before available to the masses in the history of mankind, we have opened up a veritable Pandora’s Box of potential and very real calamities. Instead of cold, hard facts, backed by proper research and empirical reasoning and practice, we have succeeded mainly in creating vast petabytes of widely divergent opinion, most of which is disinformation and bald-faced lies, rumor as fact, propaganda, and garden variety misinformation and ignorance. But backed by very little fact. For someone to tell me that they did some research on a particular subject on the Internet and weighed its value as “fact” in order to qualify and buttress their own opinion or post a response to a blog with which they philosophically, fundamentally disagree without checking on multiple, legitimate sources, is, to me, highly irresponsible at best, and functionally irrelevant at worst.
So it is with the deep-rooted, bitter, occasional vitriolic opinions and responses to those opinions often expressed on blogs or social networking sites like DivineCaroline. Increasingly, there is no middle ground to be found in the various media for those who espouse centrist opinions and beliefs. Though they are undoubtedly the majority of the electorate, they find themselves becoming marginalized by the “true believers” on both the Left and the Right. Polarization is the order of the day. Nowhere is this more evident than in the venom spewed by the Right upon all things “liberal” and Democratic. The far Right Wing, populated, in the main, by strict religious Christian fundamentalists, socio-political “wing nuts”, Right-to-Lifers, NRA types, and rabidly pro-business anti-conservationists, is a loudly, rudely vociferous minority that has dictated the Republican platform since Reaganism ruled the political landscape, and has ruthlessly silenced and crushed the moderate voice in their party. Contrast that dogmatic stance with the Democratic Party’s truly All-American, inclusive platform and you begin to see the basis for the ongoing and burgeoning divisiveness that threatens to tear this country asunder in a manner that might one day leave more permanent and deeply etched scars on the national consciousness than did the Civil War.
Most damaging is that the legitimate media, in all its various cross-pollinated platforms and distribution channels is moving swiftly and inexorably in the direction of the Fox News and, to a lesser degree of polarization, MSNBC formats for disseminating crucial information to the public. It has become a world where he who shouts loudest and longest wins the day and gets more of the market share, thereby increasing the rates one can charge for commercials on the media outlet of your choice. Why? Because it’s an obvious and bald-faced attempt to make hay on the passionate and deeply held opinions of the critical consumerist mass, however wrong-headed said opinions can sometimes be. It almost seems as if it doesn’t really matter what the tenor or content of your deeply held beliefs are as long there are millions of you who share it and can be sold a bar of soap or a roll of toilet paper while you freely express your opinion, however educated or hackneyed it may be.
I’m all for expressing your opinions in whatever forum you choose. That’s a fundamental right of all Americans, up to this point. I say that, because we have gradually been losing our personal rights and freedoms for many years now, no more spectacularly and chillingly then through the scare tactics, skullduggery and neo-con philosophy of the Bush Administration (The Patriot Act I and II, as well as other insidious legislation). But when you express your opinion, be prepared to be challenged by others who may disagree with you, sometimes vehemently, especially if your opinion is specious, incorrectly documented, ignorant, not well-thought out or expressed, or even colored exclusively by narrow religious or racist beliefs. If you’re not willing to be challenged, then keep your opinions to yourself. As the saying goes … and I paraphrase in the interest of common courtesy … opinions are like anal apertures … everyone has them.
Just because it’s YOUR opinion doesn’t make it right, valid, relevant, or true. It just makes it your opinion.
