I believe everything everyone tells me- don't you?

The year was 2004. I was but a wee young lad, a student in my last semester at the University of Kansas. It was November and election time. I really didn't know who to vote for. You see, George W. Bush and his administration had really harmed our country the previous four years, so I definitely knew I was not voting for him. John Kerry, the Democrat, was intelligent enough but really didn't have any good ideas for change.

I voted for Ralph Nadar in 2000, to my parents dismay because apparently he was for killing babies. I am not for killing babies, nor any other human beings, so yeah, maybe I clashed a bit with Nader on this one but overall he made a lot more sense than the Republicans and Democrats. In 2004, after knowing my dumb state would waste our electoral votes on Bush, I went ahead and boosted the Libertarian Party's chances of raising funds but voting for their candidate, Michael Badnarik. How did I discover Michael Badnarik? By visiting his Web site, of course, and doing a bit of research for about an hour or two.

It was in 2004 that I realized that our country was full of idiots. Okay, that's a little harsh. Our country was full of lazy individuals who did not realize the simple mistakes they were making. Why were people like me, who went just a little out of their way to actually research a candidate, a minority?

Four years later, my cynicism has grown. There has been some hope this past year, however, with the rising of people running for President who have common sense. The mainstream media, of course, ignored these people and continues to do so because they do not meet the status quo or their agenda. Everything I have learned about these fantastic people I learned on the last free form of media- the internet. People like Ron Paul, like Dennis Kucinich, like Mike Gravel, heck, even Barack Obama (I still think he has more common sense than he has demonstrated in debates thus far).
However, it's just so depressing to me that so many people out there have not heard of anyone other than Hillary, Barack, or John. Someone asked me the other day what I thought of Hillary Clinton, and I said that I don't care about her, I support Ron Paul. "Who?" he asked. I started to explain that he was our last beacon of hope but soon this guy was thinking about Nascar and I knew I had lost him forever.

When will this end? When will the majority wake up? There are many like myself, who know the truth. Who have discovered the truth independently, without influence of the robots. But so many people are spoon fed propaganda to the point where they cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction.

Why do so many people believe everything Bill O'Reilly says? Is it because he speaks with authority, with swagger? The "no-spin zone" my butt. That show, in fact, is the OPPOSITE of "no-spin." I think the most dangerous thing about his show is the fact that he tries to come across as someone who is open minded and objective, as someone who does not prejudge until he gets all the facts. This is bullcrap. He preaches that he is against propaganda, yet he represents how dangerous propaganda can be.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, the reason why John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are the top three contenders for CEO of the U.S. is because of how much the mainstream media has overloaded us with them. How can people support a candidate they don't know about?

Until Americans wake up (and the world, for that matter) things will not change. We have to learn to not take everything we hear on the daily news for granted. We should always question everyone. Those people who report the news- they are human beings with dispositions and their own agendas. Those corporations who own the people who report the news- they also their own agendas (sometimes those agendas are strongly influenced on them by another, mysterious force). More importantly, we must stop being lazy when it comes to researching who is running for public office.

We will not have a true democracy until we have a true democratic process of how we get our information.