Arun Gandhi recommends using an anger journal to help control anger. I knew I needed one when I caught a story of the people that were stranded on the cruise ship. They had been without electricity for 24 hours and couldn’t flush their toilets. They had plenty to eat, but it was of rescue rations quality. And they complained about that.
What made me mad was that Haiti’s been without electricity for way longer than that, ditto for any sort of toilets, and they’re eating sand when they can’t get the rescue rations. There’s a nation that’s been adrift, thanks in large part to the 19th-Century prejudices of France, England, and the USA, and thanks even more to 20th-Century US support of horrendous dictators, and the news ignores them. When there’s a slow news cycle, do we revisit Haiti? Or the Ninth Ward of New Orleans? Or Darfur? No. We do not. We get shark attack stories. We get them because they help sell ads.
The love of money is the root of all evil, and there’s the reason behind the terrible way mainstream media reports news. If it doesn’t attract sponsors, they don’t run the story. That’s why there won’t be any huge investigative report into the financial collapse: the criminals that brought it down on us are major commercial sponsors. It’s exactly parallel to the way a drug dealer will spread his money around town, so the locals lose sight of the fact that every dollar is stained in murderous blood.
That makes me angry, and I have to find a way to manage that anger or it will destroy me.
I am totally with you, dude. Still working on managing the anger, and the only way to stay sane is to NOT watch the news. An odious choice if ever there was one – I actually WANT to be informed, but being informed about the ugliness makes me suicidal. Who wants to live in a world with all those greedy fat cats, where people are allowed to chain dogs in their backyards and deprive them of food & water, where Haitians have to eat sand and wicked American tourists cruise by at watch them through portholes? I have to pretend there’s just this, here, the stuff I can fix. Oh, and vote against the greedy fat cats. I can do that.
That’s why I like reading Robert Fisk and Amy Goodman. They’re still honest.
I agree with this article. Now days, news ruin our moods and make us kill ourselves, because we can’t do anything. I understand, the news are to inform us of the current issues and events, but what’s the point, when they are so depressing. People are dying because of starvation, getting jobless, getting sick, because of no heat or electricity. Don’t know what’s the reason behind: media, economy, government, or it is everyone? Why can’t we take a chance to help those people out there. In fact, no one is even trying. That’s what makes me mad, and it is really hard for me to manage my anger.
Exactly. Look at the floods in Pakistan: brief mention, then the USA got distracted. Along with the great suffering that was there, it could also result in a situation that crumbles the government of Pakistan: this is a real concern we need to think about as a nation. Instead, the media pass over it and focus us on stories that help get us ready for the commercials.