Seriously, Dish Network, channel 215. That's where I can find Al Jazeera America. The story on right now is about guns in Chicago, but it's got that squiggly Arab-y logo whatsit in the corner while it's happening, so I'm certain there's a terrorist angle to it somewhere. The story is focusing on this white Catholic priest, weapons and a bunch of black people... Yes, I get that it includes people of color and a political-religious slant with the priest out in front, but I'm not getting enough ululation or public rape in the name of liberation for this to satisfyingly stoke me to a white-hot xenophobic rage followed by the cool, calming relief that I'd watched just enough "news" to confirm my very narrow, Manichean preconceptions about the world as a social system. Mostly it's just inspiring to watch people take an active role in trying to better their community and...
Hey waaaaait a second... I almost fell for that. They're anti-guns? I get how this is going to work. It's worse than I thought. It's not going to be 24/7 America-Is-The-Great-Satan. It's going to be a barrage of sneaky propaganda comprised of long-form reportage pieces designed to lull is into a hypnotically-suggestive state with their attention-span-challenging soporifics and fully formed ideas, then WHAM! Hit us with "facts" about how things that are awesome are not awesome, like guns or invading stuff. And the puppet masters will hide in their camouflage-pattern burqas, just out of frame, operating their proxies--all with the right accents, the right hometowns, the right blue-eyed God--until next thing you know we all want to hand in our handguns and hey, maybe learn more about this health insurance marketplace idea. Disarmed? Drugged-up? Welcome to Obamastan, population: just You and the Death Panel.
I love this country. I have confidence in this country. Not in its ability to make rational, clear-headed judgments as a collective whole, but in our deep, enduring cultural preference for horseshit. To wit:
What's revolutionary about [Al Jazeera America flagship program "America Tonight"] is what wasn't in it: no mention of "Obamacare" (indeed, I'm not sure there was a mention of Obama, specifically). No mention of rodeo clowns, or Ted Cruz's birth certificate, or Hillary. Nothing about gun control or Trayvon Martin, either. Nor voting rights, gay rights and the Olympics, nor the Tea Party.
It's as if the producers: a) knew that the first primaries for 2016 were a year away; and b) understood that some topics, while worthwhile, had not further evolved since they were last discussed. While there was a suspicious lack of "America" to the stories on "America Tonight", what stories did run bore more relevance to the contemporary lives of average Americans than anything on the other networks.
I hope you caught that: average Americans' lives. No Kimye? No royal baby? No numbered lists of things that will kill you? I give it a week.*
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*Unless we invade Syria.
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