Losing Our Grip On Reality

by Tony Blankley - December 20th, 2006 - Townhall.com

In fast succession mass and long-distance communication was advanced by the general availability of telephones (1870s), linotype-fast newspapers (1880s), radios (1920s), televisions (1950s), computers (1970s), the Internet (1990s) and cellular text, audio and now video devices (2000s).

Over those centuries we have gone from ignorance of the events of the world due to the absence of information to today's condition of confusion and ignorance due to an unending glut of information.

We are living out the truth of Sherlock Holmes' insight that to hide something, surround it in plain sight with many similar items. In his fictional case, a criminal hid an incriminating broken piece of porcelain in a room filled with broken porcelain. Which was the piece that mattered?

Today, as snippets of news flash past our consciousness at a rate and volume greater than our capacity to absorb, we don't know what to know and what to ignore. And of the information we decide to notice and absorb, there are so many versions of it that we don't know what is true and what is false or distorted.

An important article. This is in fact one of the biggest issues we face today. Most people do not have time to stay up with all of the important issues of the day, and until recently we got our news from sources that allowed us to turn over to them the choice of what information was important. We trusted them.

Then a really bad thing happened. Our news sources became corrupted by political correctness. These people allowed the democrat party to declare certain issues could not be challenged. About the same time the democrat party ran out of its members a large group of people that came to be called neo-conservatives.

Around this time talk radio started up, and suddenly the Main Stream Media (MSM) no longer had a monopoly. Liberals screeched as if this was the end of the world. They ignored that 90% of the media was still under the control of liberals. However they could not stand even one small voice challenging their "political correctness" mantra. . . . especially when it was clear that talk radio was pointing out the idiocy of their positions. They came to the conclusion that the only solution was to screech their views louder.

Then came the Internet, shortly the World Wide Web and then a simple web editor concept called Web Logs. That permitted "blogs", a simple method for millions to comment on current events . . . . and today even the facts of such issues as Dan Rather's attempt to frame George Bush can be successfully challenged given enough time.

This has become a part of the current problem with communication. Because we don't have a lot of time it has created a situation where a constant drumbeat of lies has the ability to steer public perceptions. Since the democrat decision that they had to screech their view to get them heard there has been a concerted pattern of constant lies in the MSM. In the last election, the MSM unquestionably drummed the democrat theme that we were losing the war in Iraq. It became an accepted fact even though it is not true because George Bush failed to effectively rebut it. Our soldiers are not losing.

However recently even George Bush, the President, with his huge information resources, has claimed we are losing. He believes the MSM! It is truly sad when our leaders do not know how to use their own power to communicate effectively.

Tony Blankley described the problem with George Bush's Presidency when he said "the leader must by force of mind, word, image and personality define for the public some semblance of objective reality. As never before, the leader who fails in that mission will fail in his office."

George Bush is failing. He has lost sight of objective reality. Our soldiers are not losing. However Bush is the leader and he is taking our country down with him.