The American Busybody

By Janet Walgren

Have you ever wondered what is really wrong with America? Well I think I have the answer. It’s the American busybody. We call what they have say NEWS! We buy their newspapers, books and magazines. We listen to them on the radio and watch them on television. We absorb their propaganda in the movies. We elect them to Congress. And, we spend most of our spare-time everyday discussing the disgusting diet of misinformation they put before us.

We are like the proverbial kid holding a basket of valuables full of – time, money, talent, skills, morals… and did I mention liberty? Oh yeah, I almost forgot… That’s probably because most of it is missing. Anyway, the American busybodies approach us kids and say, “LOOK OVER THERE!!!” And, when we look, they steal something of value out of our basket and replace it with junk.

Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be informed. We should be very informed. The problem is that the American Busybody keeps us so occupied with getting informed about disgusting, trivial, irrelevant things that we forget to pay attention to the really important things. And, that’s the way the American Busybodies want it.

I wonder, when will we get it? When will we grow up and take charge of our information input, our destiny? And, when and if we do finally get it, will there still be some liberty, some freedom, something… anything worth keeping left in our baskets?