It's Time To Move On

I’ll bet you all read that title and thought I was leaving blogging, huh? Well, no. I’m not. I’m referring to current events, actually.

It took me almost the last 4 days to figure out exactly what I was going to say regarding the elementary school tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I knew I’d struggle with this one even before I wrote the hiatus post and part of the reason I wrote that one was to compose this one. I knew I’d need the time.

What I saw on Friday horrified me in ways that can not even be expressed with the English language because such words don’t exist. I was horrified for the children, the parents, and for America. The shooting itself was half of it…….but, our disgraceful, distasteful, pathetic media was the other half.

I expressed this outrage on a couple of forums I was reading on Friday during the initial stages of this sad event. What I received in return for my honesty shocked me almost more than the shooting itself did. People were angry that I thought that the media should leave little children who had just been involved in a life altering even alone in their terror and grief, that they should not interview them. People were angry that I thought that the media should not be practically mugging the people of Newtown, Connecticut and accosting them in their time of community tragedy. I was told that I was cold hearted for believing that America does not need to watch the entire tragedy on television, like some sick, twisted reality show.

After the initial coverage of the subject, the basic gist of the deal, how many died, etc., the whole thing should have been over. But, it wasn’t. Even on Monday, 24 hr. news stations were running special editions of their morning shows, broadcasted from Newtown, Connecticut where they rattled off the sick, sad details of the event over and over again as they had since Friday morning.

Whatever happened to human decency? Or did we really ever have that to begin with. We have turned into a society that is so attached to their TV sets and so attached to the reality show culture that we are literally expecting full, round the clock coverage of things like this for days and days. We are a bunch of voyeurs. It’s a sick, voyeuristic society we live in when this stuff is actual entertainment.

Fox News and CNN don’t care, to them it’s ratings and sweet, sweet advertising dollars. Don’t you people realize that we’re being used? We’re cash cows. The kids of Newtown, Connecticut were being used as cash cows. Am I the only one that finds that sick? I learned a pretty valuable lesson this last few days. I learned that it’s time to move on from the 24 hr news networks. You can be well informed without being an ambulance chaser or a voyeur. You can be well informed without actually following people to the grave.

There was a time in life when people actually respected other people’s right to grieve. In private, out of the public eye. But, we’ve now gotten to the point where we’re even televising that, now.

I am ashamed to be an American sometimes. Usually, it’s when something like this occurs. I was ashamed to be American after the OJ Simpson verdict when Los Angeles went on a riot rampage. I was ashamed to be American after the Casey Anthony verdict and all throughout that trial. I was ashamed to be American after the Colorado theatre shooting. And, I’m ashamed to be American, now. Not because those events weren’t tragedies (because they are and I’m ashamed that they happened), but because we now expect them to be our reality show. We expect to see the gddamned funerals, dammit!

All Americans are affected by these events, but do we really need to see 24 hr coverage of them? Unless we live in Newtown, I can’t see how that’s necessary. It’s disrespectful of the families to plaster them all over the tube for entertainment. We no longer have real journalists in this country, I don’t know what we have. Walter Cronkite rolls in his grave as we speak, figuratively.

If I were one of those families, I would bar the fucking press access to me. No interviews, no coverage of my child’s funeral. GTFO mainstream media this is a private matter.

I’m thankful that I’m not the only one saying it (but, notice it wasn’t our oblivious American media that posted that), and the people of Newtown look to be backing up my claim, here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20763752

The world is still spinning on Wednesday, December 19th, 2012. Life is still going on, whether we know it for the news or not. I think it’s time that we let Newtown grieve in private. What happened has happened. I don’t like it and I think it’s sad and tragic and sick, but I can do nothing about it. All that’s left to do now is watch the politicians knee jerk about it and not fix our dreadfully bad mental health care in the U.S. Already, the state of Texas is going absolutely batshit. They’re even tossing around the idea of not ONLY arming their teachers and school admin., but also making them MARSHALS! If people can’t see that becoming one hell of a bad idea, I don’t know what else to say. I’m just glad that as of today at noon, I only have 5 1/2 months left dealing with public schools.

Mass hysteria is never good. Now people will see gunmen around every corner, on every street, near every school. Just like we do pedophiles. Whether they are really there or not, and whether or not there is a present danger…..people will still see them. We are truly becoming a shithole. And, I mean that with every fiber of my being.

In other news, here is the weather forecast for this week.