Politicians are paid by us to look after our best interests, yet there are some who:

• lie
• cheat
• steal
• fail to fulfill promises
• back-pedal
• make backroom deals
• take the easy way out

The media is supposed to hold the politicians accountable, informing readers of these transgressions, yet there are some mainstream media organizations that:

• ignore the truth
• present only part of the truth
• insinuate without proof
• use inflammatory and tabloid language, headlines, and pictures
• lie
• create stories

Many members of the mainstream media are either too lazy or too overworked to think for themselves. They are under pressure to produce the next story, to get the next round of clicks, to captivate that bored, tabloid-raised audience. Simply by working in the industry, they have been “trained” to accept witness accounts at face value without investigation, to repeat verbatim the statements of politicians without challenging, to look for the “selling feature” of a story instead of looking beyond first impressions.

Most members of the newspaper-reading, TV-viewing public don’t even think about thinking for themselves. They believe what they read, what they hear, what they see, simply because it’s been said. They trust their “leaders”, implicitly and without question (at least the ones that are on “their side”).

Many elected representatives are afraid to think for themselves. Their loyalty appears to be first to their party, then to the media, to some vocal segments of their constituency, to the rest of their constituents (regardless of how informed those people may or may not be), and finally, way down at the bottom, to their conscience and to what’s actually right and wrong.

To be fair, they may be threatened with serious damage to their political careers if they don’t “go with the flow” or “toe the party line”.

In the past few years, I have encountered:

• closed-mindedness and blindness
• openness and willingness to listen
• lying
• honesty
• media exaggeration
• media laziness
• media bias
• media untruthfulness
• media anger at being used and abused
• media blindness to being used and abused
• media personnel who openly pandered to politicians’ personal agendas
• politicians who cared about their constituents but listened to the wrong people
• politicians who cared about their constituents and listened to the right people
• politicians who cared much more about themselves than their constituents
• politicians who really didn’t think about an issue at all
• average people who disagreed with certain laws and decisions but weren’t willing to make a difference with their vote
• average people whose only reaction was to say, “that’s not right” and then got on with their lives as if nothing happened
• average people whose lives were destroyed by stupid or uncaring legislators
• average people who decided to fight

This blog is not against a specific party. I tend to be middle of the road in my politics: fiscal responsibility combined with social responsibility.

At times in this blog, I will point out the ways in which politicians (using the media) or the media themselves shape public opinion, especially in directions that don’t make sense logically, statistically, or scientifically.

I want to highlight the actions (or inactions) by politicians and the media that would normally glide past the public eye without a second thought. I want to encourage readers to stop, think, and analyze instead of to simply accept.

• Is that person telling the truth?
• What is the motivation behind his or her statements?
• What has that person done in the past?
• Is he or she telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
• Is the story being embellished, copied, or created?
• Is this person deliberately using certain words (perhaps even inflammatory words) to influence the opinion of the average citizen?
• Is this person conveniently ignoring some of the facts because they don’t fit the desired picture?

So, while you’re getting on with your life, at least remember two things:

• Don’t believe everything that comes out of a politician’s mouth; and
• Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers or on the Internet, hear on the radio, or see on TV