Thom's blog - Tuesday December 21st, 2010

You need to know this. A new study by the Pew Research Center may explain why outrage isn't growing around the country over the unpopular war in Afghanistan. Simply – the media is not talking about it. This year – Afghanistan surpassed Vietnam as the longest military engagement in American history. It was also the bloodiest year on record in the 9-year war. In great detail – a release of wikileaks cables illuminated the conflict for Americans to see the brutality clearer. And – a strategy review released by President Obama stated the US military will likely be involved in the country for at least another 4 years. Yet – according to the new Pew study – the American media has only devoted 4% of it’s coverage to Afghanistan. The war costs taxpayers more than $160 billion a year – but it’s not even talked about in the public sphere – even in terms of deficit reduction - which has been a hot-button topic all year. Media outlets claim the story of the war simply doesn’t interest people – so they don’t cover it. And therein lies the problem with our news media – instead of reporting the news we NEED to know – they report what we WANT to know like partisan politics – or the royal wedding – or bed bugs. Ending this war is one of the greatest challenges facing all of us right now. Unfortunately – Americans can’t take a stand against the war if corporations who own our news media - and have interlocking boards of directors or company divisions in the defense industry - won’t cover it.
Perhaps when referring to the "Government" we should start calling it the "Government of Human People". For example. when people are afraid "Government taking something over", we should frame it as "The Governement of the Human PEOPLE is taking it over".
When the Republicans say that the people need to take the governement back they mean "their people" (represented by ATT and big oil - etc... these are the republican "people"). We need to distinguish between the Republican Corpocratic "governement of the corporate person" and the Democratic "government of the human person". We need to be sure Government is "the human people" - it should not be something that should be feared (unless Republican Corpocrats are running it)
Maybe we can start to wiin the rhetroic war.