From A Comment On The Media

(_This is the second part of a comment where I was responding to another post, but it got long enough that I decided to move it to its own post. TODO: Figure out the link to that other post._)

Truth be told though, I do try to avoid a lot of the coverage.

I'm turned off by it, but not necessarily in the right way.

It's the relentlessness of it that I think is getting to me.

But, at the same time, I feel like it's lacking power. Instead of being engaging, most of it comes across to me as a kind of white noise. I really don't know what I'm trying to get at. There are a lot of aspects of this situation that I can't seem to get my mind around. The whole thing really is F.U.B.A.R. And when things are Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, like they are now, drawing any single conclusion becomes an exercise in frustration.

One of the few clear thoughts that I have is that we should not have gone into Iraq the way we did. It's absolutely not a black and white issue, but the way in which we got ourselves into Iraq has few possibilities of redeeming values.

But, that's in the past and now we are where we are and I can't really see any good outcomes among the potential near term futures. And from what I'm hearing in the media it sounds like our political and military leaders have the same problem. And, as is want to happen in our United States, instead of grouping together to try to figure shit out, we hurl political grenades at each other with the goal keeping/gaining power for whichever political party we affiliate ourselves with.

It pisses me off that We, collectively, seem incapable of saying that something that The Opposing Party said is a good idea that every issues effectively becomes a choice from a binary selection.

Option 1: You are with us.

Option 2: You are against us.

Fuck you if you want to talk and exchange ideas.

Pick "1" or "2" or stay the hell out of the game.

Incidentally, I'm a registered Independent, and I think more people (if not most) should be. From what I see, after people register for one of the two main parties they slide into a black and white way of thinking where any big issue, no matter how complex only has one answer.

(Yes, that's a gross overgeneralization, but I'm ranting, so give me a little slack.)

Anyway, I'll close with a quote: "_The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function._" ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald