...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, March 31, 2003
      ( 12:45 PM )
 
The Un-Patriot

Please read this beautifully-written editorial printed in yesterday's Oregonian. Just a taste:

"The blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against [the president]," [he] said. As a member of Congress, he voted for a resolution attacking the war as "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States."

Hmm..would a member of Congress be so bold as to oppose an unjust war...and still keep his job? Everyone should read this article - but hardly anyone probably will.



Media-Orgy: v. the state of entwining self-aggrandizing and mutual adoration wherein all forms of American cable tv news outlets prefer to report on themselves and/or repeat what the government says, rather than report actual news. See also: government spokesmen, yes-men, bias-R-us.

It was incredible to watch various media this weekend - so many of the stories were about other media that I wondered if the war was just getting too boring for them. Of course, most are obsessed with the idea that the arab media outlets are biased. The firing of Peter Arnett, one of the most talented, experienced war correspondents ever, shows that our own media are unable to distinguish between their own propogandizing and the actual truth. How is what he said different than this Time article???

A favorite story this weekend seemed to be "the arab media is biased!" Saying that all arab news shows focus on the dead and injured civilians. The stories failed to see the irony that all we see are the ass-backs of tanks rolling through deserts and bombs falling (never who they fall on) - and I can't count how many times I saw graphics -outside of stories - on every single one of the cable news networks of planes dropping bombs, of the american flag waving, etc. Then there are the fade-to-commercial interludes of music played to the pictures of soldiers and their families back home. Fox even has a little bulletin board where you can send in your picture of your own soldier and they'll put it up and tell the story. Local news here has a "support the troops" icon, and here has a "Download the American Flag" - which makes them oh-so-unbiased when reporting on anti-war protests. I loved today's post from easybakecoven highlighting the disgusting antics of Fox News last week.

Only print outlets seem to be addressing issues like oh, the president using forged documents as evidence for his invasion, or, say, the f---ed-up way the Bush Administration has handled diplomacy. But stories like this are few and far between anyway.

Check out this great piece on the media's coverage, along with this one, defining the terms you should know.



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