Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sanitizing the News
by
Molly the Robin
Now I've done quite a bit of reading in libraries, newspapers and magazines, and I've learned so much. But then I watch television news programs from porches and decks but I never see or hear about such things as the cost of putting boots on the ground in Iraq at $400,000 annually for each soldier, millions of Iraqis have fled Iraq to reside in Jordan or Syria, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead since the war began and countless thousands wounded, sanitary conditions are unacceptable, especially in hospitals because there is a shortage of water and electricity and on and on.
Now, I watched the major networks and cable news shows but there is nothing on vital matters concerning Iraq. Lots of trivia and junk news but little real news. As a robin who learned how to think only a few years ago it is clear to me that the majority of the real news is sanitized, suppressed and deleted. I think it is also called censorship. With all your freedom of speech and press why is there so little reality based news based on facts and actual film footage of millions of Iraqi refugees who fled their country, the human devastation. Sanitizing or censuring the news creates a population living in political darkness and shadows never really seeing or understanding well the world they live. Decisions made on faulty or incomplete information are usually wrong. We birds fly high and see the scope of the land.
The same can be said for the $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street and the banks. Financial institutions are facing a major financial collapse, yet neither the politicians nor mainstream television networks which are “public airwaves” are doing little to elucidate the problem or its causes, instead they speedily spend hundreds of billions of dollars of public monies for private financial sector institutions. I think the total spent is over one trillion dollars. Maybe the television networks have decided its really not that important for the American citizen to know and get explanations on more than a trillion dollars in the largest welfare scheme of the U.S. government for private companies. Favoritism has always been a bystander in American government and society doing little things, now it is becoming the father of the American government doing big things.
The television news seems unable or reluctant to probe the causes of the financial failure? Is the government responsible, if so how? What mistakes were made? Was there corruption? And if so by whom? Was there incompetence by the federal government? Was the Congress of United States responsible? Or the presidency? Or both? I did see a bit on this issue, but it lasted only for a minute.
It is clear there is a deliberate attempt to suppress the important news on Iraq and the financial meltdown on television news where most people still get their information. Hundreds of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars of government spending, mismanagement and possibly corruption are ignored or so briefly mentioned it is forgotten so easily. It could be called self-censorship. American society often condemns or looks down on welfare recepients, but now that the American financial institutions and private companies are receiving trillions of dollars of government money there is no sign of them being called welfare recepients. They are so esteemed that they are not allowed to fail, in fact their failure is equated to our failure, for without them we are all lost. This is probably a matter of self-interest over public interest.
The mainstream television media doesn't appear to getting to source of this problem, for their own profits might be affected adversely. We have now entered the age of creeping socialism, welfare and self-censorship of the private sector. The wealth of the public sector is now being channeled to the largest private financial institutions and corporations for the public good. Maybe the United States government is unwittingly modelling itself after Communist China where public and private sectors merge for the public good.
Any dictatorship would approve of American television news coverage on such subjects as Iraq, government contracts and the recent financial collapse and providing trillions of dollars of public monies to the private sector. Explanations, blame, accountability are rarely provided on television news. That could become politically harmful for some, therefore, television seldom blames anyone. Great for the politicians and political parties. No blame=sitting pretty indefinitely.
Well, from what I understand it is not the job or obligation of television news to cover these overriding and important issues. Their job is to make a profit on the "public airwaves" and provide a modicum of news. The result is lots of concealment of real news that might be very damaging to the political parties and their leaders managing the government for the benefit of all the people.
My name is Molly and I am a robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do.
I will be flying on now.
by
Molly the Robin
Now I've done quite a bit of reading in libraries, newspapers and magazines, and I've learned so much. But then I watch television news programs from porches and decks but I never see or hear about such things as the cost of putting boots on the ground in Iraq at $400,000 annually for each soldier, millions of Iraqis have fled Iraq to reside in Jordan or Syria, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead since the war began and countless thousands wounded, sanitary conditions are unacceptable, especially in hospitals because there is a shortage of water and electricity and on and on.
Now, I watched the major networks and cable news shows but there is nothing on vital matters concerning Iraq. Lots of trivia and junk news but little real news. As a robin who learned how to think only a few years ago it is clear to me that the majority of the real news is sanitized, suppressed and deleted. I think it is also called censorship. With all your freedom of speech and press why is there so little reality based news based on facts and actual film footage of millions of Iraqi refugees who fled their country, the human devastation. Sanitizing or censuring the news creates a population living in political darkness and shadows never really seeing or understanding well the world they live. Decisions made on faulty or incomplete information are usually wrong. We birds fly high and see the scope of the land.
The same can be said for the $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street and the banks. Financial institutions are facing a major financial collapse, yet neither the politicians nor mainstream television networks which are “public airwaves” are doing little to elucidate the problem or its causes, instead they speedily spend hundreds of billions of dollars of public monies for private financial sector institutions. I think the total spent is over one trillion dollars. Maybe the television networks have decided its really not that important for the American citizen to know and get explanations on more than a trillion dollars in the largest welfare scheme of the U.S. government for private companies. Favoritism has always been a bystander in American government and society doing little things, now it is becoming the father of the American government doing big things.
The television news seems unable or reluctant to probe the causes of the financial failure? Is the government responsible, if so how? What mistakes were made? Was there corruption? And if so by whom? Was there incompetence by the federal government? Was the Congress of United States responsible? Or the presidency? Or both? I did see a bit on this issue, but it lasted only for a minute.
It is clear there is a deliberate attempt to suppress the important news on Iraq and the financial meltdown on television news where most people still get their information. Hundreds of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars of government spending, mismanagement and possibly corruption are ignored or so briefly mentioned it is forgotten so easily. It could be called self-censorship. American society often condemns or looks down on welfare recepients, but now that the American financial institutions and private companies are receiving trillions of dollars of government money there is no sign of them being called welfare recepients. They are so esteemed that they are not allowed to fail, in fact their failure is equated to our failure, for without them we are all lost. This is probably a matter of self-interest over public interest.
The mainstream television media doesn't appear to getting to source of this problem, for their own profits might be affected adversely. We have now entered the age of creeping socialism, welfare and self-censorship of the private sector. The wealth of the public sector is now being channeled to the largest private financial institutions and corporations for the public good. Maybe the United States government is unwittingly modelling itself after Communist China where public and private sectors merge for the public good.
Any dictatorship would approve of American television news coverage on such subjects as Iraq, government contracts and the recent financial collapse and providing trillions of dollars of public monies to the private sector. Explanations, blame, accountability are rarely provided on television news. That could become politically harmful for some, therefore, television seldom blames anyone. Great for the politicians and political parties. No blame=sitting pretty indefinitely.
Well, from what I understand it is not the job or obligation of television news to cover these overriding and important issues. Their job is to make a profit on the "public airwaves" and provide a modicum of news. The result is lots of concealment of real news that might be very damaging to the political parties and their leaders managing the government for the benefit of all the people.
My name is Molly and I am a robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. He only got half the story right as most people do.
I will be flying on now.
