Restless about the dumbing down of America...

I'm disgusted.  Confused.  Frustrated.  Upset.  I've woken up and I no longer recognize the country I live in and the people I'm surrounded by.  It's a bit like the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" immediately following the tornado where Dorothy awakes to a completely new world - everything flashy and fantastic and in technicolor - a color-filled dream escaping the black & white monotony of corn-filled Kansas.  Except in my version, I've awoken to this surreal alternate reality where people's interests and priorities are all askew.  Where we amble around like zombies from one nonsensical popular movement to another.  Let the rant begin...

Now, before some of my readers get the wrong idea, this is not about today's election or the candidates or the campaigning - although there's an angle to that issue that factors in here.  No, this is more about what we've allowed ourselves to become in the US as evidenced by the programs we watch, the manner in which we allow ourselves to be influenced in every way as individuals despite our free agency, and the consequences of the choices and decisions we've made as a whole.  

Some examples?  Have a glance at this brief list of television shows now or recently appearing on networks across this once great nation:

• Jersey Shore (unfortunately NOT about the impact of Hurricane Sandy)
• Desperate Housewives of (insert city here)
• To Catch a Predator (televises people getting busted trying to have sex with minors)
• Living Lohan (chronicles the daily life of a moronic and unattractive partying addict)
• Who's Your Daddy? (contestant has to choose from 25 adults as to which is the actual parent)
• Keeping up with the Kardashians (who cares...)
• Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (I don't even have words to describe this crap)

Much of this I imagine evolved from our country's former fixation with the dysfunctional and disorderly.  Remember "Jerry Springer", "Montel Williams", and "Maury"?  How the hosts of these shows would parade guest after guest to discuss anything from adultery to racial hatred to bigotry to the question of paternal responsibility?  How many episodes ended in a fist-fight, women clawing at each other, hurling explicatives, and being forcibly removed by the same hefty "studio security" henchmen?  I used to hate those shows for the filth they felt passed as entertainment or news when it occurred to me -- these weren't influencers, these were reactionaries.  Circus directors, parading act after act of depravity, merely providing what the masses demanded.  What, then, does that say about us, the viewing public in this country?

When did we become so collectively stupid?  When did the garbage on television become our viewing preference?  What happened to make our society laud and worship idiots like Lohan and the Kardashians and all the rest as people worthy of our attention, our praise, our viewership translating them into veritable icons of adoration?  When did we allow our athletes to achieve a status beyond reproach and above the moral laws and standards we suggest we want for our children?  What happened to allow us as a nation to become so desensitized to young people with guns shooting up a school or a movie theater, to violence and abuse against women, to the sexual predation and violation of our minors, to infants being abandoned in dumpsters?  Is this the American dream?

There's an election today.  How many Americans truly know what's at stake?  What the real issues are?  What the track record looks like for both candidates?  How many in this country will make their election choice based on their own dutiful research vs. the latest SNL sketch or Jon Stewart sound byte?  How few in this country know the names of the cabinet secretaries, the majority and minority whips, the impact of proposed legislation from the past quarter?  

When do we say enough is enough and again retake the mantle of responsibility and accountability?  For seeing most of the reality TV crap for what it truly is - CRAP - unworthy of our attention and viewership?  For taking an active and informed role in the decisions being made by our elected officials and holding them responsible for poor decisions because WE believe them to be poor - not because some moron on a program says so?  For telling the NFL or NBA or NHL or whatever other sport of preference that we're not going to show up to watch juiced-up athletes who are beating/cheating on their wives, selling drugs, or holding out for more money?  That we want to see athletes who play for the love of the game, and owners who don't exploit them (or us) unfairly?

If history teaches us anything it reveals that there is power in numbers.  A giant powerful wave is still made up of individual drops of water.  The power and force comes from those individual drops operating together with singularity of purpose and focus.  We can turn the tide of stupidity and tolerance for what's happening and we can take back our airwaves, our television, our society.  We can insist that our networks report on the actual news and educate and inform us about the things that truly matter - the billion people on the planet without access to clean drinking water, the genocide in Darfur and what's really behind it, potential voter fraud and what can be done about it, how we can help with the recovery efforts in New York and New Jersey, what happened in Libya to our ambassador and the soldiers killed irrespective of who or what it might implicate.  It's their job, it's what we should hold them accountable for.  And if they intentionally mislead us or provide false information, they should be fired - period.  It's supposed to be the news, not the soapbox for partisan opinion or propaganda.

Let's demand shows like CNN Heroes - programming that chronicles human achievement, the best that's within us.  Shows that inspire, that drive us to be better people - not that mock or ridicule the less fortunate.  Let's get back to promoting athletes like Roger Maris, Cal Ripken Jr., David Robinson, Tim Duncan, the Mannings - athletes who strive for natural perfection in their sport, who want to be role models for our young people, who play and live with respect, honor, and work ethic.

I want to wake up tomorrow to the America I once knew - either when I was less tainted or more innocent and naive.  I want to be proud again of our country's collective values and the example we can and should be to other nations.  I want Cheers and Family Ties and the Cosby Show and Carol Burnett and programming that doesn't offend or embarrass me.  I want Walter Cronkite and Andy Rooney and truly investigative and unbiased journalism.  

Come on, America.  Let's wake up and go get our nation back...