The Internal Filter
by Larry J. Knight, Jr.
The 2004 Presidential election will perhaps be remembered as one of the most polarizing events in our nation’s history. The contest between incumbent President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has divided the country and created an atmosphere of bitterness, contempt, and guileful attempts to sway the opinions of voters. It seems that with all of the attack ads, talking points, and scathing reports from both Liberals and Conservatives about potential Election Day misconduct, it would seem that the one group of individuals that could provide some semblance of open-mindedness would be our youth. However, it has become increasingly obvious that this once venerable group of free thinkers has now become an assemblage that only soak up what is created by an ‘independent’ media that at times seems to be on a relentless campaign to convert and recruit. The end result of this constant barrage of political information is clusters of teenagers who are virtually unable to filter what they see and hear. In essence, these young people ingest rhetoric created by a political candidate’s press team to spin an agenda. And it is that agenda that is duly articulated to everyone; friends, peers, family members, and teachers. An agenda that spawns an ideology that in most cases is ill conceived simply because no internal filtration process is used to differentiate between fact and fiction. It would seem that any person living in a world as technologically advanced that ours, would take every single opportunity to use that technology to research the information that is being disseminated by our elected officials. For example, when Senator Kerry told voters that President Bush only gave tax breaks to the wealthy, it would seem logical that any person who has access to the myriad of reputable research materials would want to confirm that information before he or she subscribes to the purported ‘fact’.
Now that the election of 2004 is a distant memory, and we citizens seek to embrace the policies of the Bush administration’s second term, we are left asking questions that seemingly have no answers. Even now as the bitter divide that reared its ugly little head in 2004 has appeared to have subsided, we still see people being affected by what can only be regarded as mis-information that is disseminated to the masses. Why are American citizens so willing to give in to what is served to them through both the print and electronic media? Several answers can be 'suggested'; one, they are unwilling to find out the truth for themselves; two, they do not possess the means; or three, they simply don’t care. Sure, it's hard to believe that in this day and age, when so much 'stuff' seems to be taking place all over the world at any given second, that there are people who do not take any opportunity to dig deeper into what is truth in an attempt to separate it from what can only be characterized as a falsehood. For example, I wonder just how many ‘scholars’ of the Fox News network took the time to find out about the backgrounds of some of the Watergate characters who so viciously branded W. Mark Felt as a traitor? I found it odd that some Americans took the word of Gordon Liddy and Charles Colson, two individuals involved in the Democratic Party headquarter break-in as well as innumerable Constitutional violations. These patriotic, yet ignorant citizens, could be found on blog sites, and call-in shows all across the country screaming for Felt’s blood, simply because two individuals who were complicit in the crime said that he behaved ‘un-American-like’. And when the news polls came out, asking whether or not Felt should be regarded as a traitor, many people answered with a resounding ‘yes’.
The point is, why do so many Americans, in this age of access, place so much trust in the internet, television, and radio, instead of using other means to verify and support their beliefs? I feel that we've lost a bit of that which made us a great nation, and that my fellow Americans is the both the determination to seek the truth and to filter out the nonsense and embrace facts. I only hope that in the coming years leading up to the 2008 Presidential Election that we can somehow restore our internal filters and look weel beyond that which is ceremoniously fed to us in the new troughs of the 21st century...24 hour cable news networks and internet blog sites (insert irony). Perhaps we should use the next two or three years to try to reinvigorate our desire to eliminate our apathetic attitudes to things that are being fed to us like lobotomized bovines. And that doesn't mean that we should take the position of Coporation for Public Broadcasting chair Kenneth Tomlinson who along with members of the CPB want to 'change' public broadcasting's tried and true legacy of free speech. Attempting to use a sword to cut out the splinter of that which affects us today is asinine, let alone dangerous.
Simply put, I feel that the powers that be should employ tatics that will seek to unite and form a political coalesence, rather than deepening the divides that already exist. However, it is safe to assume that we adults will ultimately do everything within our power to selfishly think of ourselves and never consider that which is most important..the futures of countless children who will live in this world long after we have expired. Quite honestly, the only way to restore that which needs restoring is to start teaching our children, who are quite impressionable, to acquire facts and evidence through meticulous, not superficial, research, before they make a decision. And if not, if we have grown tired of the 'same ole same', well, there’s always 2012!
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