Anybody remember that 2000 election between Bush and Gore? It's amusing to think about it now, after we have been through so much as a country. I wonder how Gore might have dealt with 9/11. My conspiracy side shows through, though, when I suggest that the whole incident might not have happened if we had a different president in office.
I read a few things today about the election results, specifically in regard to these Diebold voting machines. This particular article goes on to condemn television networks for their part in announcing alternating results for the election three times before they all of the votes could be counted, and in spite of many failures in equipment. One thing they suggest in the article is how the TV networks have become America. I think that's true to a certain extent.
Not to fall into my fourth-grade trap of relating everything to role-playing games, but this is all reminiscent of Shadowrun. Don't you get the feeling that the country is run by corporations and not really by the government? I think the power flows between the two these days, especially when the government can toss enough muscle around to smack down companies and send the country to recession.
I watched the news with Berta the other day, and after a couple of individual stories I gave her the related information I had gathered from the internet that day. There were quite a few stories where the TV news didn't bother to explain the reasoning for certain events. There was a conspicuous lack of detail in their reporting that leaned toward sensationalism. Many of the stories seemed to beg for a directed emotion.
In particular was this story about a 2 month old girl who was beaten by her father. This is a particularly gutwrenching story for a parent - I can't imagine how anyone could ever come to do this to any child, much less their own - and there is just a strangeness about it. The story doesn't say why they arrested the father at all. On the other hand, they say the mother admits to seeing the child simply "falling off the couch". One has to wonder how an infant can have both legs broken, bruised eyes, and skull fractures from falling off the couch. How did this mother not get painted as a danger to her own child? And they carted off the dad? Where is the completeness in reporting?
But I think that people will just accept this news because, well, they reported it that way. I think people don't really read between the lines anymore and just accept what they're spoon-fed by TV. And that's how TV has corrupted America. When the results of our elections are in the hands of TV newscasters, why bother voting at all? When our candidates for governor are all movie action stars, what will we do?
I wonder what the world would be like today if Gore had taken the office. Do you think 9/11 would have happened? Do you think the economy would be in such a bad state today? As shocking as it may seem, I'm not a democrat - never really pronounced myself as such - but I don't know that I would have preferred Gore to Bush. I can't imagine how he might have reacted to the trials of the past few years.
I'll just have to add these thoughts to my notes about who really runs things in this country. Is it TV? Big business? Oil? Do you think those new $20s have tracking RFIDs in them? The next time you see me, I'll be wearing the tin-foil hat.
