It's part of the big game to keep "conservatives" and "liberals" sniping away at each other, Doug, when actually they (we) have far more in common in terms of basic moral beliefs and human decency than most of us think. You find this out fairly soon if you sit down and calmly talk about moral values with people on "the other side" of the liberal-conservative divide. You may not agree on every detail, but you will agree on the basics of right and wrong.

Thus you have a situation where both left-wing and right-wing people (ordinary people, I mean) are generally under the false impression that the other guys are "controlling the mainstream media". It's the old divide and conquer tactics. That's the main present purpose of the political party system as well, I believe. It keeps people fighting with each other instead of focusing on the very small and wealthy elite who run the game from the top down. In the same way, millions of Christians and Muslims are being set against each other by people who ultimately couldn't care less about either Jesus or Mohammed.

They find people's tendency to divide up and take sides tremendously helpful to their agenda.

- LH