Thursday, May 18, 2006
The Most Evil Man in 06
When selecting the world’s most evil man, there are two places my mind automatically goes: corrupt politicians and Roger Clemens. I am leaving sports out of this however, because as evil as Roger Clemens is (and he is evil, there is no doubt about it,) he has only been merely annoying this past year with his hemming and hawing in order to squeeze a few last moments out of the limelight before his steroid ridden body balloons under the stress of a few too many meat pies.
So with that out of the way, let’s break down the candidates into groups:
Evil Terrorists/Criminals: The gruesome twosome of Osama Bin Ladin and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are still the leaders in the clubhouse, although Bin Ladin is definitely living off of the evilness of his past deeds, having been marginalized to hiding out in the border regions of
Evil Business Moguls: Hard to pick out any one mogul for specific lauding here, although collectively, these people are capable of more evil than any other group. The strength of the evil business moguls is the fragmentation of evil throughout their ranks: if any one mogul becomes too evil, they generally end up getting into trouble. The primary example is Ken Lay and the Enron cronies. So while there has definitely been some evilness going on, like Microsoft and Google caving to China (choosing the large marketplace over free speech,) and of course the major oil companies cashing in on a war and a hurricane (death is good for business!) they are unfortunately taking advantage of a system set up to benefit themselves. Or are they? We’ll come back to this.
Developing country Powermongers: The winner of the category, running away, is Saparmurat Niyazov, of Turkmenistan, for developing a cult of personality based on himself, replacing school textbooks with his own works, building a statue of himself that shines light on the capital city at all times, and suppressing alternative viewpoints throughout the country. It is also forbidden to talk badly about the President-for-life, especially stating that he is very short, or that he wears a toupee.
Members of the Bush Administration: A two man race between Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney has been going on for years, with Cheney’s shady background pandering to the energy industry battling against Rumsfield’s defiance of human liberties and ignoring diplomacy through controlling foreign policy by way of The Pentagon. The last year Cheney has really upped the ante, through governing the handout of Katrina reconstruction to the same oil companies that were under fire for profiting off Iraq (and, of course one of which he was CEO of prior to becoming VP) to the involvement in his staff in leaking classified information, to shooting a friend in the face, it has been a banner year for Dick. To quote one embodiment of evil (Tony Soprano,) “Dick Cheney for President. Of the fucking universe.”
Hidden Sources: But you expect people like Dick Cheney to only care about themselves, their rich allies, and making the world an easier place for both. Give them power and you can predict what they will do. How do they get power? And how do they keep it? They keep it through propagating a culture of fear of the different and progress, be it Islam, Hispanic immigrants, or homosexual couples.
But this battle between fear and progress, and those who exploit this conflict to their own ends has been going on for centuries. What the real enemy is today, is the culture of fake news and distraction that has taken hold of our culture. There used to be a separation between news and entertainment (and entertainment’s ugly sister, marketing,) that no longer exists. As I surf over to cnn.com, I notice that with increasing frequency, “news” of Paris Hilton, Nick Lachey, and American Idol is making its way onto the front page of CNN. That’s not to say Paris Hilton is the most evil person on this planet; (although she is up there,) the blame for this rests in the hands of Rupert Murdoch (the ultimate conservative media kingpin,) and the content editors for Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
Put it this way, I was informed of a lot of this crap before I went to Australia. Honestly one of the best things about being in Australia was that I only had five channels on my television and most of those channels were showing crappy Australian shows that I had no interest in. (although some of the chicks from "Neighbors," and "Home and Away" are very hot.) This forced me away from television somewhat, so that when I returned to the U.S., I had much more personal control over my consumption of television.
Compare it to the tobacco companies: yes smokers choose to smoke, but as a society we have chosen to assign some of the blame for the ill health effects caused by smoking to Phillip Morris because they make their product more addictive, more unhealthy, and attempt to market their product to a vunerable target that will be consumers for life (junior high schoolers.)
Likewise, yes you have to blame the individual consumers at some level, but you also have to look at the media conglomorates that are putting this out. And I actually dont have much at fault with US Weekly, E! or MTV because you can take them at face value. (Where I would blame all three of these media types is for their constant reinforcment of unacceptable standards of beauty and wealth.) But CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are supposed to be NEWS CHANNELS. I realize the 24 hour news cycle is long, but there is enough hard news happening in the world to fill up 24 hours. News is supposed to report on what's happening and educate, not shock and entertain.
I don't think it is a fair analogy with tobacco companies because the main argument against the tobacco companies is that they lied about their product. They did not tell the users that cigarettes were addictive nor of the harmful affects that the companies knew about and the users did not. While you could claim that the news channels are not completely forthcoming with their product either, there is little more to it than what is easily discernible by watching the program. The true essence of a cigarette however is basically impossible for the average citizen to figure out just by smoking it.
Also, just because we as a society have decided to blame tobacco companies does not make it ok. A significant portion of the population are eager to blame anyone but themselves for their problems. The tobacco problem could be ended if people stopped buying cigarettes.
And even if you single out Fox News, you're really still in the same boat. Sure, perhaps they have made mistakes and distorted facts (but every media source is guilty of that). But if they did things perfectly ethically, they'd probably lose market share, and some other conglomerate would fill the void. The thing I see is that Fox News isn't breaking the law- they aren't really even being untruthful. They're just selecting the facts to report on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is nothing evil about them, and in fact there's nothing "wrong" with the system at all- it simply is reflecting what we as humans and americans think. And I don't think the system is broken. I think it works as well as can be expected- just as I think our republic/democracy works as well as can be expected. Not perfect, but fine.
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