What next?

As I sit and swill the two shots of Adidas cologne that my intervention group forgot to confiscate, strange vibes are rippling to my corner of the world today.
Things all around seem on the brink, explosions on the ready in the middle of unsuspecting crowds.
News reports out of America lately have had the same Apocalyptic feel to them as the news coming out of Iraq; they both give me a rotten feeling in my gut and leave me a little panicked. Hurricanes, police brutality, senseless violence -- they all have become headline staples.
But as a rational being you have to wonder if the mainstream media is showing us a distorted picture of reality; somewhat like Socrates' 'Parable of the Cave'.
Our media channels have desensitized us to the point where grainy footage of bombings and blood-smeared walls have become the norm. But are the horrible images on the tape a reality vastly different from our day-to-day lives. In my case the answer is "yes."
I deal with dwindling money supplies, decreased job opportunities and a shitty drive to work, but am I in danger of a terrorist strike. Probably. But the question looms: How real a threat is it? Is this just one person's distorted view aimed at tainting our collective "big picture."
Same thing as what happened in New Orleans. What percentage of people made up the vast reports of looting and murder? I would venture to guess that neighbors did some pretty heroic things in those turbid hours as well.
But, when it comes to perspective, you have to be especially worrisome are recent fads in network news, such as the emergence of the star-fucking media currently stuck on the TV screen everyday. Tom Cruise did this. Pitt and Joile are adopting more babies. Fine. Let him fucking jump on a couch, while the happy couple saves a baby from eating paste his whole life. I don't care.
All forms of media seem to have morphed into mere paparazzi, keeping the "working class" at our homes with mouths draped at eyes glued to images fluctuating between craters left by suicide bombers and vigilantes running the streets of the Big Easy.
But the moving pictures are just a distraction. Another curtain draped in front of the action in the back room, where a mass of Hell-fire breathing Frankenstiens are preparing for the End by a steady diet of raw anger and an indifference to human life.
But the catch is that they need us to be afraid for them to be fully empowered. We have to be so terrified of the .10 percent chance that something horrible will happen today that we will give up all our freedom and be content to let them handle every aspect of our existence.
But hopefully that will not be our fate. Maybe there will be one last band of villagers willing to tackle the stinking beasts: a renegade crew of heros who felt uneasy and started rounding up the pitchforks and torches while the rest of us were busy laying down our last shreds of individual freedom.
Then again it might not end up that way. Maybe we will go down the way they planned it: tuned to that damned flickering box, unwilling or unready to take in the reality dancing in their peripheral.