Why the Media isn't Talking about the War...
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.
Comments
MarSt nailed it--- totally to the point good job man !
I've asked a number of acquaintances about the wars since they have started. It seems the middle of the road is too preoccupied or too uninformed to care one way or another. It is a shame. Most of those I ask support the wars and our troops. It is hard not to agree to support troops but "Support our Troops" have become the branding method to conceal deceit.
I studied Structural engineering in school which included stress testing of structural steel and concrete in a lab in order to determine it's load failure. I was good at it. Always maxed classes with A's. I've studied structures and building a great deal and I still can't buy the twin towers story. Especially building 7. It just dose not compute. I know, I know conspiracy theory ! Problem is, I don't believe it is a theory. In fact, I know the official story can be disproved mathematically. I may be referred to as a nut case but I am not naive. Did airplanes hit the buildings ?
Absolutely ! That didn't cause them collapse within their own foot print. Impossible ! Really impossible for building 7. So the US engaged in two wars for a lie. I believe prior intelligence was available to stop the high jackers. They lied about WMD's so why not everything else. Is one worse than the other ? It may be said innocent people were killed on 911. So have innocent people been killed in Iraq, which had a significant population of christians (catholics). Rather than solving a crises
with war, we will have a war follow us home. That is what we have accomplished at great expense to world. Disclosure of the truth by media would be met with denial by a comfortable naive half of the US and outrage by the other 30% with the remaining 20% still uninformed.
I have to admit, I haven't been thinking much about the war either--too preoccupied with the falling economy and its impact on me and everyone I know. It's a shame Americans are so addicted to mass media. I really feel that if we could form communities again, if people started talking to each other directly, face-to-face again, rather than spending so much time in front of that TV set, that that would make a HUGE difference.
It's the standard bribery model of legislating that has come to characterize Washington in the era of oligarchy: if you want to put food on the table of the unemployed, you must lavishly wine and dine the CEOs and bankers who laid them off. Obama didn't create this system, but he is making it stronger before our very eyes. - Chris Hayes
http://www.thenation.com/article/157016/tax-cuts-forever
Why does Thom persist in advocating working within the current system? We need Revolution not Reform!
Although, I'm afraid of my government. You better believe Chris Hedges is now on the FBI terror watch list.
If the war were going well, it would be in the news. The news is a corporate function now, this is an indication that the news would have a bad impact on the 2012 elections if it were reported. Bad news would be bad for either poltical party, neither wants to make the argument for spending more money or lives there. Neither wants to claim this massive political betrayal of American principles (lies, torture and cover-ups) and neither wants to prosecute the real war criminals who engaged in these illegal acts.
The war is not popular but pulling out will only be harder if we keep talking about it. The fact that we are not winning, as a matter of fact Afghanistan has increased their ties to Russia, is not going to make it easier for America to pull the plug and save face. The fact is, we cannot afford these wars and never could. We must pull out, we will withdraw with a whimper.
America is broke and we must cut all the unnecessary expenses. These wars are not essiential to our national secuity and never were. If we are not careful, the people wil be rising up and kicking us out like Tunsia, Egypt and all the other countries that have been torturing people for the U.S.
America has followed the Republicans down the wrong path one time too many. These policies of tyranny, both domestically and internationally, have been disasterous for a "free" country that proclaims itself to be "of the people, by the people and for the people".
The joke that 'our budget is balanced IF you don't count the war' has finally dropped it's punchline on our heads of state.
America's 'New World Order' (the Corporatist purchasing of the U.S. government) is backfiring on both the corporations that are paying the campaign bills and the politicians that sold out. The politicians spent the U.S. treasury on corporate foreign policy interests that are not paying off.
America's lack of integrity has been exposed to the entire world, at home and abroad. We have not lived up to our declared moral values and we have been using the national credit in a way that every person who has gone bankrupt recognizes as 'the last stage', when one is just paying bills day-to-day and praying for a miracle or a windfall of some kind. Something that does not happen and you end up wishing you had just admitted insolvency earlier.
"The war" is just a small part of the decline of the United States that we have allowed these politicians to lead us into. If the people don't wake up and dump BOTH of these Corporatist political parties, the country will never recover it's reputation. Right now we are facing a decision the politicians and corporate media will not talk about. We the people, do NOT have to go down with these losers. We can choose a different path, a path where we admit to the world the error of our ways and we restructure our government, bringing America back to it's original values of individual freedom and justice. Back to a country where the government works for the people, rather than dictating to the people for the corporations and we mind our own business rather than trying to be the boss of all the other governments through corporate investment.
Nothing built on lies ends well.
Last chance America, make a clean break from these Corporatist criminals or be doomed to crumbling from within...
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
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Thom & Louise at a "private audience" with His Holiness Pope John Paul II at his summer palace, Castle Gandolfo, Italy
Personally I feel that a lack of interest/ protest of all the wars we are involved in is : No Draft.. Less people have family or friends who could end up in the wars.