The New Opiate
One technique used in psychotherapy involves leaving the role of therapist/patient and melding or joining with the subject. I believe the different flavors of news and pseudo news available to us in the United States provide a type of 'joining' with the the various types of thinking out there. This I believe has an immobilizing effect, holding the general populace in a kind of stasis that puts a lid on civil war. Without FOX for example, the generally more heavily armed 'right' would be a danger. There's an agenda being followed in this country no matter who is in the White House. George W. and BarryO both carry on with it and so will the next puppet. That's why the Tea Party is so dangerous that it required a media campaign to demonize and marginalize it. Say what you want to about it, one things is for sure, it was way out of the control of the purveyors of the status quo. They simply had to be attacked and marginalized. How about a new party come next election called the Centrists Who Want Our Country Back Party? Of course it'll be viciously attacked as well...