Little Thoughts.

With the election coming up I feel like I'm being bombarded with opposing views from both sides everywhere I go.  The media is playing a huge role in the campaigning process and it is working to Barack Obama's advantage, just as television aided in the election of John F. Kennedy.  My fear is that too many people, my age especially, are choosing to vote for Obama simply because it is a "hip" thing to do.  I see many college kids who are urban outfitted donning Obama pins and wearing fine t-shirts like this

which can be found, at (surprise) Urban Outfitters.  Many concerts I went to during the summer featured musicians speaking out about the election and being pro-Obama.  However, I agree with Noel Gallagher from the band Oasis in the sense that I don't go to a concert to hear someone "sing the news." 

I feel that I must make this statement: I am not a supporter of Barack Obama.  Just because I have a different haircut, a mustache, and skinny jeans does not mean that I am easily swayed to follow one side or the other.  The image I project in the eyes of society would lead many to believe that I subscribe to the same ideals of others who dress like me, but I'm so nonconformist to the nonconformists that I've become a conformist.  I'm not going to vote for a candidate just because they are cool.  To be perfectly honest, I am not well informed on many of the issues and I acknowledge that, but the presidency of the United States should not be determined like the Sophomore Class President of Omaha Senior High School.  There are real issues involved in it, issues that effect millions of people.  

It is hard to find an unbiased source of information in the media.  It seems that it's only possible to see the extremes of both sides.  I think that this is an issue where people need to be media literate and the children of today will need to be even more so in the future.  Propaganda runs rampant in the media and those people who are not anchored in beliefs or properly educated can get swept away in the media whirlwind.  This doesn't just apply to the election.  Take the Katy Perry song "I Kissed a Girl."  The catchiness of the song gets in your head and the message its sending is, simply put, she kissed a girl and she liked it.  Now, if an eleven year old girl who wasn't taught either way about homosexuality hears this song and happens to enjoy it, she is introduced to this new idea that she never thought of before, and ideas can be dangerous things.  The popularity of the song can lead her to think that it is normal and the cool thing to do.  So it is with an election.  If people are uninformed on what the candidates are standing for then they are left with what is popular and what sounds good.  We all need to come to the point where we can think for ourselves and understand the media that is thrown at us.