I have touched on this before, but I can't get it off my mind. Day after day, as you watch news programming, you are confronted with an array of experts. They pose and pontificate and sagely nod at the cameras as they talk to the hosts about the woes of the world. Only one problem, they don't have a clue what they are talking about.
What proof do I have of that? Simple. They seldom get anything right Remember back to the days of George W. Bush, henceforth to be known in this blog as the Shrub. As he launched the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, talking head after talking head appeared to assure the American people that we would prevail and banish the evil doers in short order. 15 years later, we are still there, still fighting and watching lives destroyed by bombs and insurgency. The only difference is that we now are also involved in Syria.
We were told by countless medical experts a few years ago to get ready for a pandemic of H1N1 flu. A few cases showed up and proved to a very mild strain. Ebola was to be a scourge that would wipe out large chunks of Africa before turning to the US. It killed for a brief while and died out. More die in Africa from hideous tribal warfare than from disease. Sars was poised to spread from Asia to the west; it didn't.
On a less dire note, what we are supposed to eat and the foods we are to avoid changes on a regular basis. Coffee, alcohol, butter, milk, and red meat were all declared only slightly less toxic than arsenic; now, they are considered okay, at least until next weeks study. Water was declared the key and folks became obsessed with remaining hydrated, giving rise to the bizarre sight of people constantly strolling around with plastic water bottles. When I was young, we just had a drink before we left home and I don't recall to many people dying of dehydration. Now, the consensus is that too much water has become a real problem. Salt, which I truly thought would be banned, is now considered a necessity.
When we began to experience our deep economic collapse, back in the Shrub's day, financial experts said that while we were in a rough time, we certainly were not in a recession. They kept saying that, quite literally until the day the government said we were in a recession. "Hang onto your investments," they cried, as people lost their retirement funds. "The banks are sound," they assured, until said banks began whining for bailouts. When we bailed them out we were told that they would start immediately lending money and that would jump start the recovery. Instead they sat on the money and gave themselves enormous bonuses. (how you can get a bonus when your business almost failed is beyond me).We were assured that the housing bubble collapse was brief, as it kept worsening. "The economy has turned the corner," we were told, as unemployment continued to rise. The economy was declared sound even though jobs refused to reappear.
Why do we do it? Why do we sit and watch these idiots parade across the screen, day after day, spouting nonsense? Either these fools are deluded to the point of near psychosis or they are lying to push a point that they think will benefit themselves. Day after day, the news channels drag these numbskulls out and solemnly ask their expert opinions when, again, they are either compulsive liars or lost in Wonderland with Alice. These are people who have years of experience on top of years of study. How can they be so consistently wrong? And, more to the point, why do we Americans who have more good common sense in their little toes than these pundits do in their entire body, keep listening. Turn on the news, get the headlines, and if nothing of earth-shaking importance is going on, turn the news off. Play with the dog, read a book, go for a walk, just turn off the news. If you must keep the TV on, watch something more intellectual; I recommend SpongeBob Square Pants.
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