Eyes Wide Shut

Actress and down-to-earth celebrity Jamie Lee Curtis offers a refreshing insight into our ailing culture with her Huff Post today. She postulates that we are caught in 'bad news days' solidified by our addiction to technology, frail celebrity, political confusion and international embarrassment which keeps us from focusing on what is important; eye-to-eye communications about issues that really matter. She has a point. We are caught in a cultural 'mis-information' campaign, but I don't blame technology, rather the super marketers, i.e. politicians and the media.

Recently I witnessed, first hand, the swift power of a 'mis-information' campaign aimed at leveraging the fears of conservative voters in a rather pathetic attempt of racial profiling. On February 26, 2008 GOP operative and Cincinnati talk radio host Bill Cunningham delivered an inflammatory anti- Obama speech in which he repeatedly referred to the Senator from Illinois as Barrack "Hussein" Obama, with a little extra emphasis on the middle name for good measure. He made other accusations that he couldn't back up due to a lack evidence (obviously) and derided the so called left wing media, especially CBS and NBC, as solely supporting the Clintons; are we beginning to see a pattern here kids? Immediately the cable news media scooped the story and soon Cunningham was on Hannity and Colmes defending his position and denouncing Senator McCain for repudiating him. Of course, the never 'fair and balanced' Fox News quickly gathered a group of questionable experts to debate this nonsense ad nauseum, including the always available for a fee Dick Morris. This went on a few days and further fanned the flames of confusion to leverage America's xenophobia surrounding all things Muslim in an attempt to gain political ground for the Republican party.

The reality is that two-thirds of the world's population is Muslim, many of whom are wealthy, sophisticated and educated. If they wanted to over run the country, they would have by now. But this kind of logic doesn't create controversy, get attention for politicians, and feed the TV producers need for viewer-ship to sell more advertisements to add to Mr. Murdoch's coffers. No, its really not bad news, now is it?

While all of this was happening I was on a ski holiday with dear family friends who are old school conservative Republicans and fine, decent people who were easily swayed by this 'mis information' campaign. Why? Because it came from their leaders and was on the television; two sources of trusted information for them.

The issue of Obama's loyalty due to his Muslim heritage is an ongoing platform of ignorance some members of the Republican party like to stand on. It is a weak and immoral one, but as Hitler, McCarthy, Saddam Hussein and Karl Rove all knew, it's easier to scare people into following you than actually leveraging logic and solving the issues that really matter.

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