“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.”- excerpted from the opening narrative of the TV series The Outer Limits, ABC television, 1963
In September of 1963, for old geezers like me, ABC Television premiered a groundbreaking science fiction program titled The Outer Limits. Based on far out conjecture and for its time, frightening world ending concepts, for about 2 years gave American television viewers nightmares. We now have, almost daily, excerpts to examine from nightmarish candidates vying for the office of President of the United States.
We currently have a group of gun-toting, trespassing, beer swilling, illiterate thugs, taking over a government wild life sanctuary in Oregon. A leading Republican contender who thinks that confiscating the outerwear of protesters and advocating they be left to freeze, is a good idea and a news network cheer leading a group of candidates who openly advocate religious and ethnic persecution. One of the biggest shames of this ongoing fiasco is the reluctance of the fourth branch of government (the collective press) to call out this miscreant behavior. Is it some fear of the loss of access, the overt acknowledgment of white privilege or just plain dereliction, driving this malpractice? One glaring example of this was the Meet the Press Show hosted by Chuck Todd, this past Sunday. Donald Trump, was queried about his concerns for the state of the union, in typical bombast he replied, “Right now, the state of the union is a mess.”
He went on to deny the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s unemployment estimates and said, “You have 60, 70, 80 million people out there that want to work that aren't getting jobs.” Chuck Todd did not need a fact checker speaking to him through his IFB to dispute this nonsense, but chose not to. During the height of the depression in 1933 the US population was approximately one-hundred twenty-six million people of those nearly 30 million were either under or unemployed. The Unemployment rate was just under 25 percent (24.9). We have a current workforce of nearly 170,000,000, so that translates at the low end of Trump’s imaginary scale to about 35 percent unemployed and 47 percent at the high end of the Disney World, he resides. Todd sat with a knowing glare and just moved on instead of disputing this nonsense out of hand. Mr. Todd, in the past year commented that’s it not the job of media to fact check Obama-care lies and apparently the dissemination of truth is no longer the purview of journalism either.
We count on those supposedly, “in the know” to go where we can’t and suss out information beyond our layman’s capability. When the free press abdicates that responsibility then, “For the next hour, sit quietly we will control all that you see and hear, you are about to about to experience the awe and mystery, which reaches from the inner mind to the Outer Limits.”