The continuing crises (plural)

How much is enough?

Let’s see..

• Baby formula shortage

• Stock market tanking

• Serious inflation

• High fuel prices

• More scare talk on COVID

• Horrible White House press secretary replaced by someone even worse

We could build out the list, but that’s enough for now. And, of course, except for the impossible-to-ignore consumer issues, there is precious little coverage of any of these in the mainstream media. Certainly, there isn’t any reasonable analysis of WHY this stuff is occurring.

As to the media, let me disabuse you of the notion that its lack of critical coverage is something new. At least as far back as Lincoln, administrations attempted to intimidate journalists. Woodrow Wilson is generally credited as the first president to make a truly concerted effort to censor the media. After all, it was just so VITAL for us to get involved in World War I, right?

When it came to mesmerizing the press, FDR was in a class by himself, but even during his miserable presidency, there were a handful of contrary newspapers. And, how can we forget JFK? It was simply amazing how the Cuban Missile Crisis was treated as some sort of natural disaster that just kind of happened. Why, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion couldn’t have had anything to do with it.

The fawning coverage of JFK and his family, not to mention the absolute cover-up of his many faults and serial adultery was appalling. You get the point. The one advantage we do have now is that alternative media is readily available.

The problem is that institutions do not disappear quickly. Even though the mainstream media has been all but useless for at least 60 years, many people just can’t abandon it.

However, I think things are rapidly changing. Twitter will be cleaned up, the Wokesters are repeatedly misfiring, and the awful public health officials are being exposed as corrupt and dangerous frauds.

Ironically, the Left’s long march through the institutions has created a general contempt for most of them. Thus, the media—once held sacred—is now being attacked, and rightly so. Just think, the late and unlamented Walter Cronkite, who worked hard at hiding his left-wing views throughout his career, could actually get away with saying “And, that’s the way it is” at the end of every newscast. Such a tagline would be unimaginable these days.

I guess it’s the Human Condition that things always have to get worse before they can get better.