A Misguided Message of Frustration

I just submitted this email to NPR's All Things Considered.

"To the hosts of NPR’s All Things Considered:

I have a bone to pick with you.

In 1991, I was a young college student in Rexburg, Idaho, working at the Ricks College NPR affiliate, KRIC. Public Radio was entirely new to me then and I was deeply impressed by the news reporting I heard every day. Its integrity and fairness was far above any broadcast news to which I had previously been exposed. I came to trust NPR over any other news source, confident that at last I was hearing thoughtful, objective reporting on the events of the day.

That trust came to an end during this past election cycle.

I was fully awakened to NPR News’ political agenda during the primaries. Suddenly, descriptors became glaringly obvious in reference to the various candidates. Certain candidates became known as the “front-runner” or “Republican favorite”. Others were the “dark horse” or even the “long shot”. The use of the “front-runner” descriptor in connection with the names Trump and Clinton became so pervasive that it was impossible not to notice the bias accorded them and be angered by it. These were not harmless words employed to make the prose pop or the sounds sizzle. They were subtle forms of electioneering on the part of NPR News which has no business playing politics in any way. Perhaps this occurred in past elections, but this is the first time it was so obvious it jolted me out of my trusting complacency.

What would have been preferable? What would have ensured that NPR maintained its trusted status in the ears of this listener? To begin with, if descriptors had to be used, it would have been better to say things like “presidential hopeful” or “Democratic candidate”. Terms like these are purely factual, with no weight added to them. They leave the value judgments to the listeners, just as they should be.

Perhaps I’m naïve in supposing that you are different than the commercially-controlled news outlets. Perhaps I’m tilting at windmills to expect that you would serve the people with ironclad integrity, reporting the news in a manner as unbiased and as truthful as is humanly possible. Do you remain servants of the public or have you completely sold your soul? Up until now, I ignored the not-quite-commercials disguised as underwriting that bookend NPR news modules. Perhaps I should have been paying much closer attention to them.

I have been considering my words since the defeat of Bernie Sanders. Though I now address this missive to All Things Considered as you are the flagship of NPR News, my words are intended for the entire NPR News organization. You have lost my trust and support. I am confident I am not alone. Since November 9, I haven’t been able to listen to NPR News in any form without being physically sickened by the sound of it. The gambit played in which you took part to ensure the victory of one candidate over another has backfired and now all of us will suffer the consequences. (Are you listening, Ari Shapiro? You should be especially worried about this.) Given the incoming administration’s view of public entities, it is questionable whether you have the time to regain your integrity before the karmic axe hanging high above your heads starts its descent and it’s too late to save you or any of us. It might be already."

Orwell and Sanders: Today's Animal Farm

George Orwell's Animal Farm has been on my mind a great deal lately. That fable of the foibles that corrupted a grassroots movement is a warning to those of us who would see great changes occur in the United States and the world, changes that we feel would make this world a better place. Our desires, like those of the animals, are mainly to have a better life. Nothing extravagant, just better. We're tired of working to exhaustion just so someone else can profit from it. But in the story, something went wrong...very, very wrong, and it's taken me a while to put my finger on just what it was.

Yesterday, I shared on Facebook a Bernie Sanders campaign video created for the citizens of New York. Its message is inspiring, calling on us to stand together instead of letting our differences be exploited by divisive fear. Nothing harmful in that, right? Isn't that just the message we need right now? For those of us in Pocatello, aren't we seeing in a very real way how much we need that message?

Well, yes it is! It's exactly what we need to hear. We shouldn't blame Muslims for our troubles! Immigrants aren't purveyors of crime! Gays aren't the enemy! Women aren't the enemy! Our enemy is... We need to stand together against... The true blame is on...

Wait. That's...divisive fear. Those big bankers and corporate bosses are homo sapiens too. I don't think he realizes it. He just became his own enemy.

You see, that right there is where the animals went wrong and so will we if we're not careful. The animals that spearheaded their revolution ended up looking just like those they had overthrown. Why? How did that happen? How DOES that happen over and over again, not just in stories but in our own history? How did Bernie let that happen in his own ad?

"Be careful who you make your enemy for you shall become them." Most of my friends know how hotly I "feel the Bern" right now, but this is one very important point where I disagree with him, and incidentally is why any comparison of Bernie to Jesus Christ makes me wince. Bernie is a good man, with an all-too-rare vein of integrity as wide as the Grand Canyon...but he's flawed just like the rest of us. He's the best by far of the current crop but he's not our Savior. In the video, Senator Sanders encourages us to tell the angry and disenfranchised that their righteous anger should be directed towards their true oppressors, but this is how the cycle is perpetuated and why Christ's message of love through forgiveness is so crucial to breaking it.

We need to stop making our own enemies.

When we declared Communism and the Soviet Union our enemy, didn't we start exhibiting many of the same features of their society, complete with our own KGB and propaganda machines? How many terrorist organizations have we supplied with money and guns to topple regimes in other countries, becoming in essence terrorists ourselves? It's very uncomfortable but if we look at America today, we often look like our supposed enemies because we are. We are our own enemies. We need to stop making enemies. We need to assuage the anger. We need to calm the troubled waters and stop the hate from the inside out.

I'm not saying the people of the United States or the world should submit to continued exploitation, and frankly ending that practice could include some firm and even forceful behavior, but the motivation behind our actions makes all the difference in the world to the consequences that will follow. Lasting change is motivated by love.

A great if fictitious example with which most people are familiar is Darth Vader. He wanted good things and was trying to fight for what he felt was right, trying to fight for positive change, but he allowed his anger to rule him, to blind him, and he became the very thing he started fighting against. Anger and fear lead to selfishness which is the opposite of love and are the very things that corrupt virtue and usurp nobility.

If this rising progressive movement is to escape the failure of past attempts, unassailable virtue and steadfast nobility rooted in wise and determined love are essential. While we must acknowledge our feelings of anger and hurt, those feelings must not be allowed to turn into hate.

"I say unto you love your enemies. Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." This is the real revolution. This is how we ALL will win.