2016 has been such an diverse news year here in the US. And of course, after all of the media storm is over about one thing, something else pops up and sweeps up everyone’s attention. People have been so annoyed about the conversations going on that memes have popped up around the internet.
Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist (although I have plenty of friends who are), but I wonder if the general public is being snowballed by media diversions. There are topics that need to be discussed. But if you look at timelines, it certainly is curious. Remember when Benghazi happened and the administration was quick to blame an anti-Islam indie movie that almost no one had heard of? Now Hillary, a presidential candidate, gets off without any charges much to the dismay of a large and undoubtedly vocal portion of US citizens. And immediately we are rushed to a news story surrounding race (a massively hot topic especially when police are involved). Absolutely, racism and power abuse and corruption need to be addressed, but did no one else find the timing odd?
I wonder if one day, we’ll wake up in an America we don’t even recognize and say “how did we get here and allow our country to come to this?” as so many already do. We’ll look back at the yearly events where we spent more time talking about gorillas, alligators, celebrities overdosing, what kinds of guns were used to kill people, and drama between celebrities and politicians that we missed the events that changed the course of our nation and threatened our basic civil liberties. For example, as Ravi Zacharias said in this article we watch as our freedom of speech dies on the altar of political correctness, but we’re too concerned with our right to bear arms to notice. And they did it by pointing to the “dragon” over our shoulders, much like a child stealing a cookie would. “Look a unicorn.”
And we fall for it in our rush to be relevant.
We’ve been sublimely taught that to be “thought leaders” and leaders in general we need to give our two cents on every debate that comes up, thus perpetuating the conversation of topics that are being over-talked. Social media is the worst offender. We’re so busy trying to cash in on a trending hashtag to expand our platforms, that we miss the bigger problems we face.
Stand for what you believe in. Show love and compassion. Choose your battles and walk away from the madness if necessary. But keep your eyes open. How much of what the media feeds us is a decoy to what is really going on? Aren’t the corrupt of the world counting on our narcissism (regardless of our age) to keep us distracted from the evil they’re pulling off right in front of us?
What do you think? What are some topics that should have had the spotlight but didn’t because of something else?
