The (Useless) Information Age

Television “news” is virtually dead at this point. When one must watch hours of MSNBC or CNN to get any information about the current state of our “conflict” with Iran while simultaneously being bombarded 24/7 with pictures of Brittney Spears’ bald head and the growing line of Anna Nicole Smith’s wannabe baby daddies, I think it’s safe to say that on television, the information age consists solely of useless information. If only print news were any better.

With The New York Times continuing to peddle Bush administration talking points, providing front page placement for nothing more than White House propaganda and “analysis” of intelligence information on Iran that is never analyzed after it leaves the Vice President’s desk, I’m getting the sense that war with Iran is as unavoidable as was war with Iraq. Not because events are driving our two countries toward an inevitable confrontation, but because the Bush/Cheney war machine continues to be fuelled by a compliant (culpable) press. Thank goodness for the Internet.

But while many of us are turning to online news sources for information and alternative analysis of unfolding events, there are still many people in this country who don’t, but there is a beacon of hope. As television “news” becomes more and more indistinguishable from Entertainment Tonight, a few of our traditionally soft news and entertainment magazines are stepping up to the plate to fill the void (a trend I wrote about in the first months of my blog, albeit a bit sarcastically).

Last year, Rolling Stone published a great piece on the fraud ridden 2004 Presidential Election that provided hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to read information that had been, up to that point, confined to the Internet. And now, it is GQ (yes, the men’s magazine) that has stepped up to offer what our newspapers should, a clear and concise case for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. I’m not one of the many that cite “President Cheney” as a reason for not impeaching George W., but impeaching them both is by far the best idea, even if we start with Cheney.

As I've written many times before, impeachment isn't an option so much as an obligation. We have a President and a Vice President that have both committed high crimes, violated the laws of our land AND our constitution, and it is our duty to impeach them. We cannot allow our executive branch to lie to Congress and to the American people. We cannot allow them to break our laws with no consequences. We cannot allow them to abuse their power, imprison American citizens and deny them their constitutional rights, violate international law with illegal wars, authorize torture in violation of Geneva Conventions and violate our privacy with illegal wiretapping. These are impeachable offenses. We have a duty to uphold the rule of law and we must make clear to future elected leaders that criminal behavior will not be tolerated. If we don't, we will get more of the same. It really is as simple as that.