“False News” contemporary figurative painting

Listen to False News, and you will be angry with everyone except the people who got it all wrong.

If you travel through a few small towns in developing countries, you will run into Brits, Canadians, Germans, etc who are traveling to different places just to learn or explore. You will almost never run into Americans unless you go to a resort. European news about developing countries has to be a lot more detailed because their audience has actually been there and talked to the locals.

When the French told us that the invasion of Iraq might be a bad idea, we hated them for it. Even when they pointed out that we had no adequate plan for the peace or exit strategy, we were still convinced that the Europeans were just being ungrateful and irrational. Could this have been possible without all the help of False News? I doubt it. Do you have to have a PhD in history to know that invading and occupying an Islamic state in the heart of the Middle East is a bad idea? Probably not, but if False News was all you listened to, you would have thought it was the only option. Listen to them, and you will be angry with everyone except the people who got it all wrong. False News is so warped and one-sided that they have to constantly remind you that they are unbiased.

In spite of all our laws, people like Ken Lay of Enron are able to destroy billion dollar companies and worker pensions here in the US. Just imagine what these CEOs have been doing for decades  in countries where the people and laws are weak. You want to know the real reasons why people all over the world hate us? You will never see it on False News.

The same CEO’s that lie to you about your job are doing even worse things all over the world. In our name. They are the only America most people ever see. Or at least 99% of the time.

The good news is that there is always a disaster somewhere in the world, so False News can always show stories about the US coming to the rescue. But if those stories aren’t representative of the big picture, how can they be anything but spin?

America consumes the lion’s share of the world’s resources even though our population is relatively small. Could this be possible if corporations weren’t exploiting the developing countries ruthlessly? How else do you think we get away with importing so much and exporting so little? On False News, the US does nothing but give out huge grants and aid packages. If False News is all you watch, the rest of the world’s behavior makes no sense. They are just behaving like jackasses. So you get even angrier. But are you getting angry at the right people?

False News is the infommercial of corporate America. It is more spin than news. It is how they keep you in the dark, and it is not making us safer.

Here is a link to the BBC radio stations streaming live online from London.  The BBC has been fair and balanced as a whole in my experience.

Joe Moorman, engineer