I want to excerpt a short quotation from his speech. It is brilliant, and then I want to articulate some concerns about media. Again, I strongly encourage you to read his entire speech!
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news.
We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools... We want to talk about... This time we want to talk about...
Brilliant! I'm sick of the distractions! When are we going to face the issues--the difficult, hard, substantive, real issues that abound in this land?!
I'm fed up with viewpoint-shaping, opinions and pablum being repeated incessantly and passed off to the American people as a substitute for meaningful news reporting and serious journalism, a substitute for insightful information that breeds critical thinking, analysis, and solution-finding. In my opinion, journalism is all but dead in this nation.
We have no national debate, just arguing, mudslinging, emotional venting encapsulated in tiny sound bytes and video clips repeated over and over to fill the emptiness of our national conscience piously peppered with words like God, ethics, conservative--words made hollow by their lack of engendered authentic actions. We have not just replaced doing with speaking. We have now replaced any meaningful speaking with emotional prods and pokes designed to play on fears, incite divisiveness, perpetuate ignorance, and breed an indolent passivity that keeps the masses in check.
Yes, I am sick of this noise. I want to believe we can as a people demand more from our policy makers. I want to believe we can change this impoverished state of our nation's anemic existence. I want to believe that American capitalism can breed a sustaining economy unfettered by greed and intemperance. I want to believe that good people of faith can focus on compassion, tolerance, and acceptance more than self-serving judgement and hatefulness.
Barack Obama, like John F. Kennedy, makes me think that perhaps, just perhaps... I mean, maybe... Wouldn't it be glorious to have hope once again take flight?!
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