David Corn: Amusing Ourselves to Autocracy

[llmart]

17. Excellent analysis and questions for all of us.

For me, DU is the place I go to get the headline news stories each day because I refuse to have some talking head tell me what is supposed to be important in my life. Reading about a major news event you get more in-depth coverage of any given story. On any given day, the three major stations' nightly broadcasts all talk about the same stories, most of which I'm not remotely interested in or have any affect on my life. Tiger Woods comeback from his reckless driving event? Not important to my life. Two idiots trying to switch planes in the sky? Just another stupid stunt to get attention. Throw in a really cute, nice story at the end of the broadcast so the prior 20 minutes doesn't depress you enough? Not helpful.

Americans have very short attention spans, thus the popularity of Twitter. They don't want to spend any time reading an in-depth analysis of an issue. I had a real problem when DU started using Twitter as their go-to source. Since I wasn't on Twitter back then, nor am I now, I kept saying to myself, "If I wanted to know what was being talked about on Twitter, I'd have an account. Same goes for Facebook. Now almost all the threads are from Twitter.

Americans are also the country of "excess everything". Too much stuff, too much food, too much social media, personal vehicles that are too big, too much waste, too much weight, too many prescription drugs, houses that are too big, etc. We think more is better for everything. The real consequences of all of that are the society we have right now. The "greed is good" mantra started in the 80's and went downhill from there.