Can anyone guess what the next great distraction will be?

[Coyotl]

It is rather obvious that DU is completely sidetracked. Most of my friends are heading home from the Oregon Country Fair. Us rural folks are not plugged into the media much, focused on the garden and preserving food, etc. It is interesting to observe from the sidelines how disabled people are by the big distractions, pulled here and there and not focused on what really matters, getting rid of the politicos creating the problems. This is worse than being on the defensive. It is instead being disabled from positive action.

Wake up. You are being manipulated by the greatest propaganda machine ever!

[JaneyVee]

1. ??? DU is sidetracked?

[Orsino]

35. I would hate to see DU become an Internet message board. n/t

[davidpdx]

7. Lindsey Lohan

driving drunk while being a celebrity. Charlie Sheen with white powder on his nose.

[Earth_First]

3. Wait.

What?

[NightWatcher]

4. When Will We Wake Up?!?!

and do something about getting rid of the Designated Hitter in American League Baseball.


That is what you are talking about, right?

[reteachinwi]

5. Glass-Steagall or FDIC?

Bailouts or bail-ins?

[Zorra]

6. A British Royal Family Great American Roadtrip would be effective. nt

[KoKo]

31. The Royal Baby is due sometime this month.....

It will consume weeks. Perfect for Summer Entertainment. We will have endless stories about Grandma Di and her tragic death and it will be a blockbuster.

What it will hide is the question....though. There's always something in August that precedes bad news down the road.

[Zorra]

37. KOKO WINS!!! Congratulations, KoKo!

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. What doesn't really matter?

Please be specific.

[MattBaggins]

10. Yes please do tell us which issue

isn't really important and is just distracting us OP.

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. Perhaps he is referencing the 62 Zimmerman threads on the first page of General Discussion.

Out of how many? 75?

There are other things going on in the world. And this country.

[Coyotl]

14. D'oh!

[one_voice]

23. As compared to...

Snowden/Greewald which had all but taken over DU for the last few weeks? GD was Snowden all day everyday. If you trashed those threads you'd have about 5 others to read.

There were other things going on in the world and this country then too, or didn't that matter then?

[Coyotl]

24. Thanks for reinforcing my point.

Part of the problem is some people think any thought they have is worthy of a new thread, but even if people politely found a thread to post their brief thought in the fact is that it still would seem like almost everyone around here is sucked in by the latest shiny ball.

[stranger81]

30. I don't know that you can call the problem of endemic racism just "the latest shiny ball."

It's been an issue for a few hundred years now. I think people here do have their eye on a critically important issue, and there's no disservice done here by discussing it extensively.

If so many threads on the subject bother you, you can always hide threads on your page. But this is obviously a topic of great interest to many others, and an important one. It's not like there are 62 threads on Cory Monteith or something.

[KoKo]

32. Snowden and Zimmerman Trial were hardly the "latest shiny ball," though.

They are extremely important for separate reasons.

[Comrade Grumpy]

33. Both are examples of the same phenomenon.

[Major Hogwash]

9. Bears falling out of trees when they fall asleep after they climbed the tree.

We've already had 2 news stories about that here.
And one about the new baby monkey born at the zoo.

*ah, but it's so cute*

Hahahaha!!!

[NaturalHigh]

11. Sometimes we need something cute.

Maybe it keeps us from going insane.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. You don't think that a law that apparently lets armed thugs

gun down innocent kids under the pretext of "self-defense" is something that doesn't matter?

[Coyotl]

15. It is immensely important, of course.

But that is not the point in discussion. The point in discussion is how it serves to distract, and how such distraction leads to the point where we are now, having a law like this on the books in the first place.

[Art_from_Ark]

19. But perhaps all this discussion and attention

can help get this law erased from the books?

[snooper2]

16. We are overdue for a politician sex scandal

As far as natural disasters go, I would say Earthquake-

And I predict Poppy or Babs dies before Xmas-

[Puzzledtraveller]

17. k&r

[el_bryanto]

18. It's a discussion board. Maybe this is the wrong place to argue against discussion.

For those who are activists, I would imagine there are plenty of other places to organize.

Bryant

[HardTimes99]

20. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but I'm missing

the point of your OP. Are you saying that the Trayvon Martin verdict and resulting protests were a 'distraction'? Or are you saying there was a distraction that allowed the Trayvon Martin situation to develop while we were all distracted?

IOW, what was the 'last great distraction'?

[The Straight Story]

21. Really? I read more news in one day than you probably do in a month. I can spend 10 min posting

about a hot topic and not get sidelined and miss the latest news in Namibia ( http://www.namibian.com.na/ when you get the time).

People talk, things sometimes have shared interests amongst folks that they want to talk about and then change subjects. Something called human nature I think.

And while one topic may be on many minds at once it does not mean other topics are not there, but there might be less shared interest in them (right or wrong as that may be in some cases).

[starroute]

22. It's true that social issues can distract from the political and economic

This is not to say that matters of race and gender are unimportant. But as something I read earlier today points out, those things are to liberals what abortion and same-sex marriage are to conservatives. They're the causes that let us be persuaded our elected representatives are looking out for our interests -- when they're actually screwing us five ways to Sunday in every other area.

I've also noticed that where I used to expect DU to serve as one-stop shopping for the topics I was most interested in, that isn't true any more. I increasingly find stories at Facebook or reddit that aren't even mentioned at DU -- or at least don't make it to Latest or Greatest.

Another factor may be that the more personal and emotional stories get the most comments because everybody has an opinion or a related life-experience, while those that are deeper or involve other countries or complicated economic issues don't draw much discussion and quickly sink.

I doubt anybody is doing this deliberately. I think it's just human nature. But one way and another, DU is not only less interesting than it used to be but also -- as Coyotl is trying to warn us -- may be turning into part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

[Populist_Prole]

25. It doesn't take much in the way of 'Bread & Circuses' these days

Hell, I'd never thought I'd see the day when celebrity scandals, sports "news", or the latest electronic gadget's launching would make front page news or be TV news headline teaser: But it all seems so routine now.

[lunasun]

34. +1

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Well, the government is certainly trying to distract us from the NSA revelations

by focusing on Snowden.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Which politicians do you want to get rid of?

As others have said, some think the politicians responsible for the Florida Stand Your Ground laws need to go. Others think the politicians who support NSA surveillance need to go.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

28. Yeah, who gives a fuck about murdered children? That's just propaganda.

[Coyotl]

36. You really missed the point.

Everyone should give "a fuck about murdered children" as you so eloquently point out, BUT, everyone should care about ALL the murdered children everywhere instead of wearing the media's prescription blinders and focus on just one case to the exclusion of the broader issue and the broader issues. There are so many ways that children are being made to suffer today. How many threads on education budget cuts, teacher firings, ... the list is too damn long just for how children are made to suffer today.

[lpbk2713]

29. My Pit Bull was refused entry to Olive Garden.

I think OG should be boycotted dammit.