Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Licence needed for work use Learn More
Top Scoops

Book Reviews | Gordon Campbell | Scoop News | Wellington Scoop | Community Scoop | Search

 

Mary Pitt: This Presentation May Be Too Graphic

This Presentation May Be Too Graphic.......


by Mary Pitt

Is anyone else tired of hearing this crap whenever the "mainstream media" are talking about the consequences of the War of Choice? The announcement is made on the television "NEWS" channels every time there is a story about a bombing incident or a disaster such as the situation in New Orelans after Katrina..

In fact this warning is usually unnecessary because they will "fuzz out" any details showing severe wounds or dead bodies. This protects both those with "queasy stomachs" and those who feel that it is their "patriotic duty" to know what is going on even though they may be repulsed by actually seeing anything gruesome. While the untra-right expound about the "liberal media", the corporate owners of same are as effectivly self-censored as were the German newspapers during the 1930's. They know, without a doubt, that a few episodes of showing the real results of this war and the bungled disasters at home would have this corporate-coddling administration out of office faster than the French stormed the Bastille.

They know what happened to the Vietnam War when the people found out what was really going on. In those days there was still a semblance of a free press and they did their job. We actually saw Dan Rather, standing up to his hips in a rice paddy, and around him the American soldiers, some holding an arm from which the blood still dripped, some being carried on litters with heads totally covered in bloody bandages. Networks actually carried film of villages after we had attacked them, with burned homes littered with dead bodies. Soon, Americans were marching in the streets, shouting, "ENOUGH!", and that futile war was brought to an end.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

With this in mind, the first Bush administration developed the idea of "embedding" reporters in order to control not only what they would see but what they would film. The controlling thought behind this is that if Americans can't see it, It isn't happening.. And many Americans are willing to play along with this pretense. Sure, they may parrot the old quotation, "War is hell", but they do it in the abstract, not out of any sense of reality. They are more than willing to listen to the lies of the administration and to stand and cheer when the Liar-in-Chief announces that we are winning and that "This war is necessary". Others know the truth.

Those of us who, for whatever reason, care enough about the truth to dig it out have seen the reality of this war. We saw the film of American soldiers pumping lead into the Iraqi man who had been bandaged and left in the house with the dead from the previous day's conflict in Falluja. We have seen the clothing lying on the floor with the bodies burned away from inside them after a white phosphorus attack, and we have seen the un-cut film of the beheading of the American by Iraqi insurgents. We have seen the photos of the new-born babies in Iraqi hospitals who were born without limbs, with two heads, or with organs on the ouside of their little bodies as the result of our use of depleted uranium ammunition while CNN and MSNBS rave about our compassion in bringing "Baby Nour" to the U.S. for surgery.. And we have seen the bodies floating in the water that inundated New Orleans, left there to be consumed by the alligators and the starving dogs that were left behind. We have actually read the Project for a New American Century and know how the American people are being used and abused by the perpetrators, and we know about the secret detention camps that have been built on our shores to contain dissenters in the event they become a threat to "The Project".

This is why we have abandoned newspapers and television "news" channels, knowing that the whole truth will not be found there. And we know that "mainstream" Americans simply do not want to know. In the words of Jack Nicholson, "They can't handle the truth!" It is easier for them to dismiss the controversy as "just politics" than to accept that a President who was selected by the Supreme Court and "re-elected" by a bogus vote-counting system, while trying to maintain an image as a "compassionate conservative", and a "good ole Texas boy", would actually sell out, not only the American people, but the devotion to "democracy", which he so loudly espouses, and the American way of life for the enrichment of his wealthy "base".

Wake up, America! Your "mainstream" media are withholding the real truth from you. The print media gives you only "approved" coverage. The television channels are insulting you by censoring the real effects of what we have done to the civilians of Iraq and, by all accounts, will do in Iran. You are on your own in your quest for the truth, but first you have to love your country enough to want to learn it. You must buy books, and actually read them. You must find web sites on your computer. Give up those who are devoted to the interests of the super-rich or expounding the religious-right propaganda and look at sites like www.whatreallyhappened.com and others to which it will link you. You must gather information equally from both sides and make up your own mind.

Those of us on the "left" do not ask you to accept our version of world events. We only ask you to remove your heads from your own rear ends and do your duty as Americans by finding the facts for yourself and making up your own minds. Actually look at the truth, the loss of your personal liberties, the reckless spending of your labor far into the future via the staggering national debt, the enrichment of the already-rich with your tax dollars, the wasting of your children in wars of conquest without end in the quest for total power by the founders of this "Project", and the death of our beloved country as we know it. With your eyes wide open and un-fogged by partisanship, you will add to the numbers of those who will one day rise up and toss this bunch our of their seats of power and send them to the penitentiaries where they belong.

Oh, yes, and I wish to apologize to those who may have been offended by the graphic nature of the truth!

*************

http://mumzeeskitchen.blogspot.com/

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Top Scoops Headlines

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.