It's just gloom and doom...

One of my favorite things to do when I get a free minute is to look at stories on somewhat "controversial" issues in the online media and then read the comments following the article.

I'm shocked that some people out there that think by calling a story "gloom and doom" and accusing the media of being "liberal" or "leftist" by publishing certain stories that the issues are just going to disappear or that they're not even real issues in the first place.

The article I was reading this morning on Wired "The End of Oil is Upon Us. We Must Move On - Quickly." was one of these articles that was the target of these type of ignorant comments. (Although there really weren't that many in this particular article, there were a few...)

One only needs to take a look at what we're currently surrounded by to see that there are real issues out there that we need to start dealing with including:

* Oil prices at record highs leading to high gasoline prices
* Current military actions and rising tension in the Middle East where there is a supply of oil (Operation Iraqi Liberation = O.I.L.)
* Large increases in home heating & electricity costs
* The falling value of the US Dollar
* The sub-prime lending problems that are hitting hard now

I'm bothered by certain comments because there are people out there taking the time to attempt to shoot down stories and issues that seem troubling by calling them names like "liberal" or "doom and gloom".

If they're so not concerned with the stories or the issues why are they even wasting their time reading and commenting on them?

Everyone else who responds to these comments with logical, reasonable and well thought out responses are also just wasting their time. The person making a comment that a story is "gloom and doom" isn't going to be convinced that there are real issues out there beyond what new gadget they need to buy. (I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite on some of these issues because I like new toys as much as the next guy...)

However with the way things are looking we really need to find a way to align en masse and attack the problems that we're facing. Why are we wasting our time dividing ourselves according to non-issues and labeling ourselves as being a "Democrat", "Republican", "conservative", "liberal", etc? Why are we wasting our time attacking each other?