Medicare Scares (aka A Good Excuse to Talk About Superheroes)

Lately, I've been watching a lot of superhero cartoons (that is, within the limited time I have to watch anything). I used to collect comic books. I've been watching reruns of The Justice League on Youtube.  It's a great show. They've tackled some interesting topics beyond destroying evil maniacal geniuses, all while wearing high healed boots and bathing suits or unitards with capes and of course looking almost perfectly coiffed and getting thrown into impossibly hard objects without ever breaking a bone or getting more than a scratch (I love Batman, but the things he does - it's just simply impossible to conceive that he is not at least a paraplegic by now... #superheroquestions).  But again, as usual, I digress….

WIth the Ryan budget and medicare proposal out there being discussed, I thought this clip of The Justice League was apt. This is why people don't like to watch political discussion, are cynical about it, and why people are afraid to actually speak their mind.  Media pundits ask seemingly inane questions and turn the answers around to make the interviewee look stupid or disconnected. Then they, political and media operatives, throw numbers around that have NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER to what is being discussed and pin those statics to the person being attacked.  Sound familiar -- GOP: "$700 billion is being stripped from  your medicare because of Obamacare; we wouldn't do to that to you!" -- Democrats: Cue pictures of Paul Ryan look-alike pushing grandma in a wheelchair literally off of a cliff. 

Watch this clip to the end, because though it's not the end of the world, it's the end of civil discussion that can actually lead to solutions that we can all work with. Media doesn't bring dissimilar viewpoints on to talk solutions. They bring them on to sow dissension for dramatic effect. 

Sometimes cartoons make points better than real life.  BTW, Green Lantern is a good looking cartoon man. I'm just saying….He looks even better with the bald head and Avery Brooks-style mustache and goatee. That's when interspecies misengenation happens and he and hawk-girl had their little flingy fling…but that comes in future episodes….