AMERICANS ALL!
During the recent days marking the funeral of our 40th President Ronald Reagan, I felt a strange sense of inner security and found myself hoping we were making some progress in overcoming the dangers of the tremendous burden of mistrust we bear concerning each other.
For a time, it appeared we knew more of our basic oneness than we had for a long time.
One might say that we experienced a phase of that sort of mutual understanding during “The 9-11 Crisis” but that was centered on rather eminent and obvious fears for our well-being and survival. That's different from the feeling I knew during the Reagan State Funeral. I remember having the same sort of feeling during the ceremonies which laid JFK to rest, as well. Is it possible, I found myself wondering for us the set aside all the rather petty misunderstandings we nourish ands sustain -often by questionable means - which keep us on edge, suspicious and at odds with each other in so many areas?
During the funeral and the night following, I thought rather positively along such lines of national unity, hoping for a day when clouds would clear a bit and we could get along better in the public forum. Then, when the funeral was over and gone, we returned to our daily routines. The bright hopes dimmed quickly and have been fading ever since. We reverted quickly to our back-biting, inconsiderate and costly mannerisms of hate and distrust, held at bay, it seems, for who know how much longer by threads of fear concerning possible national dissolution.
It is not wise to even try to live under such a sodden cloud of deceit and trickery such as we now consider to be “normal” for our political phases of living.
The media has long been held accountable for many of our difficulties. It came about long before the printing press was discovered and it has caused trouble mix with blessings ever since. It was not uncommon for men of old to execute the messenger who brought bad new to their attention. After all, had he not told them evil existed, they could have ignored it. The media, today, in all its many forms, brings us a great deal of bad news and gets blamed for the transmission of such information.
Some of them are guiltless; others, however, deserve such judgment.
In recent weeks we have seen repeated distortion of the news presented to us in some of our leading newspapers. It seems unlikely that such widespread dissemination of obviously incomplete of edited stories would appear in papers in such varied sections of the nation. The inconsistent qualities closely related to our national election campaign. As such, any and all such lapses of truth telling are committed with criminal intent. Those who stretch the truth, or color it to their own advantage, are cheating the public and undermining the legitimacy of our election procedures. It is not the purpose of the media to lead the nation, but to report factually on how it is being led. At times, some feel the media has the gift of prophecy. It is in such times that it sheds creditability and invites distrust and questioning concerning its existence.
Ask yourself some questions about all of this.
Do we still elect”our officials? Or, do we accept those the media tells us have been selected as being the best?
Do we have genuine concern about civic problems, or do we merely follow through on suggestions from an editor or one of TV-radio's talking heads ?
Do we still “read” newspapers.,..or merely “scan”one now and then? Magazines?
Do we really “watch” TV? Listen to radio? Or, do we just let it all wash over us as we move from place to place, cell phone in hand, seeking we know not what?
Time is running out. We had best seek to sustain our remaining freedoms.
A.L.M. June 18, 2004 [c523wds]
