Going over some old posts recently this one dealing with the role the media plays in insuring bad government got my attention. I think the argument it makes is valid, the disasters in Iraq and New Orleans don’t seem to have produced its contradiction. In an inversion of how it is supposed to work, media now regularly prevents responsible politicians and public servants from telling the public the simple truth that public services have to be paid for. It prevents public servants from doing their jobs honestly and efficiently. Anyone who is honest about that risks being ridiculed as an idiot, a tax and spender... we all know the words the media whores use. Safe in their air conditioned studios either having or aspiring to the good life of a media shill it’s no skin off their back that the cities, states and entire country are falling apart.
Starting from there the results spread. Anyone who is unwilling to lie about the necessity of paying for things will be removed from office and be replaced by someone who is willing, if not eager, to lie about the possibilities of cutting taxes while cutting essential services to the point of non-existence. Then the media will point to that situation as proof that the public sector can’t deliver and those should be contracted to private companies. But when those contracts don’t work out the way they are supposed to do the media liars mend their ways? Do the politicians who handed them the public sector reconsider?
The media is the problem, they are the source of the lies. A country that lives on a diet of lies can’t govern itself. It is as simple as that, as certain as water flowing and unsupported construction falling. Our media believes that lies are good for ratings and good for business. They think that telling the public lies they will want to hear will give them a ratings advantage. Their ratings and the profit those bring are the only thing they really care about. They won’t stop lying until the news is made not-for-profit, a requirement for holding a broadcasting license or other privilege granted to those companies. And it will take law to force them to stop lying.