Over the past several weeks, I have dipped my finger into the political waters in an effort to not only learn, but be able to feel confident enough to voice an opinion on the presidency, Iraq, war, and all the issues that we both face and make decisions upon daily.
I felt that since the media cannot always be trusted as an accurate source of information compounded with some unavoidable bias by both reporters and the conglomerates they represent, using the weblog community as a directory to information plus the wealth of diversity in opinion would be a valuable tool.
They are, but they are also useless in this main way: They are political statements of opinion only.
While there are many bloggers who seem to have an intelligent and non-partisan take on current affairs, there are many more otherwise intelligent, delightful people who rationalize with emotion rather than research. From some very insightful postings I’ve gleaned some different viewpoints that have altered or clarified my own point of view. But there are some nuts out there as well. Mainly, however, there are armchair politicians who are understandably outraged and feel the need to express their take on current events, especially in light of the American abuse of prisoners, and the execution of Nicholas Berg.
There is also a growing pressure among some bloggers to cover these areas, and I admit, I too fell into the trap, not wanting to seem apathetic or worse, and hey, when someone tells you to speak up, when you read everything from intellectual discourse to downright idiotic ravings, and you’re a writer, you jump right on the bandwagon. Well, I’m hopping off here.
While I will not discontinue reading the blogs that may seem to go beyond reasonable thinking (in my opinion only, of course) I will not hold it against them, and will patiently wait till sanity returns to enjoy their finer writings. Even what I might consider the most trustworthy of reports ends up twisted to suit personal beliefs. I will also not post any more here on current events. I have opened up one of my other blogs to post my own opinionated ravings that will be kept to myself, but since blogging is so easy and fun and offers instant catharsis, it will offer me a place to get things off my chest, but without spraying the universe with more useless rhetoric.
So I care, I’ll read, I’ll blog my own opinions elsewhere and thus avoid adding volatile fuel to an emotional fire. I’ve learned much already, and besides being saddened and affected by the events, what I’m fascinated by is what seduced me into voicing my opinions at all.
It all comes down to perception.
Update: Some entries have already been deleted from Spinning that were posted earlier this week, simply as a matter of removing political content.
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