“It’s time for Americans to share their voice"

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     A Serious Satire About Working Together ...

           “Two guys are busting up pavement in front of a bar in August of 1960. They lay down their            

              jackhammers, walk into the bar, and sit down at the counter to eat their lunches. The bartender walks

             over to them and says, ‘Sorry, you can’t eat your own lunches in here.’ So, the two guys look at each

             other, shrug, and swap lunches.”

     While they were eating lunch, had there been a TV in the bar, the “two guys” would probably have watched the Red Sox play the Yankees or the Cardinals play the Cubs. They would not have watched FOX or New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, and MSNBC (THE ALPHABET NEWS CHANNEL) because there were no twenty-four-hour news channels. And, when they went home and watched the news, they would have watched the same Walter Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley newscasts and the next day at work, if they talked about politics or the news, they would have had a common basis of understanding.

     We have traded that common basis of understanding for our bias. 

     There are now television and radio stations that pander to our particular and specific view of life. If we watch FOX, we don’t watch CNN, if we watch CNN we don’t watch FOX. We watch and listen only to television and radio programs that present and comment on events from our perspective and in doing so our perspective is hardened into what we believe to be the truth. And if I believe the truth and the guy on the other jackhammer does not believe what I believe; he does not believe the truth. What kind of person is he if he does not believe the truth? What kind of person is anyone who does not believe the truth?

     FOX and "THE ALPHABET NEWS CHANNEL" tell us the answer is easy; the other guy cannot be trusted. The other guy is “un-American” and the people he chooses to represent him in Congress are “liars” or “crooks” or “fascists” and they are trying to destroy the country and subvert the American way of life. The sad thing is, if we hear it often enough and frequently enough, we believe it. 

     Before there was FOX and "THE ALPHABET NEWS CHANNEL" and one “guy” said the car parked at the corner was apple green and the other “guy” said it was forest green, they were, at least, willing to agree the car was some shade of green. Today, FOX tells us apple green is the only shade of green and  the "THE ALPHABET NEWS CHANNEL" tells us forest green is the only shade of green and anyone who does not believe as told is a threat to the American way of life. 

     But what if that “guy” on the other jackhammer thinks the car might actually be apple green, not forest green, but is reluctant to say so for fear of being labeled “crooked”, or “fascist”, or “un-American” by his friends who watch and listen to the same programs he does? How will you know what he thinks and why, not what FOX or the "THE ALPHABET NEWS CHANNEL" think?  You ask him. 

     You ask him not to argue but to learn. And when he answers you listen, only to understand. Then, maybe, he’ll want to know what you think, and ask you. Then you can walk into that bar and have lunch, or maybe even a beer, together.