I am going to keep this civil. One of my criticisms of liberal media ( on all levels, including here ) has always been the perceived lack of information for people who actually want to do something about the problems of the world. Look at most of MSNBC, look at the suffocating stories among the newspaper intelligentsia. The New York Times always focuses on the failure of progress to the exclusion of anything else. I know, it is by design... and that is exactly my point: It does not help. I get it that we are all currently reeling from some devastating news that will force us to re-think much in our lives , but the problem I am talking about, predates the current catastrophes.
To be fair, there are exceptions to the rule— especially where donating to causes and volunteering on political campaigns as say offered here at Daily Kos, especially around election time. Also the Good News folks have done an excellent job of fending off doom for its own sake, and to a large degree, showing how our reaction to information is a choice, and that counter arguments concerning what can done are backed up with data.
Maybe you are goth, or a bleak existentialist. Maybe who like to wear a beret and a black turtleneck and sit in a cafe all day brooding. Maybe you are into death metal. If that’s what you enjoy: have at it. I won’t judge. But I want you to engage in a thought experiment. Do you really believe MLK ,and the wider Civil Rights movement, sat around moping and dejected when the most unjust punishments were being meted out to African-Americans in response to their brave efforts during the long, protracted struggle for social justice? No. They had to believe they could win in the first place. That takes reality based optimism and steely nerve, and hope. But not simply hope alone, which is a useless emotion without action.
And that is why, I blanche ( actually, I get fucking enraged Lol) at people whose sole contribution to this site is unremittingly bad news, predictive doomsplaining, as an answer to every bad situation that comes down the pike. It begins to sound a bit crazy, to me. And it begins to sound, in absence of anything else, as bad as mainstream media. Unfortunately, this journalistic posture/tendency has replaced progressive journalism for a long time in this country. After awhile, it is not even informative in any sense. Yes: we know X is terrible, but how does repeating it, ad nauseam, actually begin help us? Try reading the Guardian. It is not bad writing, but after a spell, it is unreadable because it is practically a litany of global horror that so often seems to fail to ask the only important question to ask about any of this, which is: “WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?”