Living in the cuckoo's nest
First thing my dad does in the morning is turn on CNN. He's mostly deaf now so the TV is turned up pretty loud even with his hearing aids in and so I hear whatever they are blabbing about that morning.
The unreality that comes out of the TV some mornings just boggles my mind. As I awaken with the TV blaring I do a mental review of what year it is. This IS the year 2007, right? RIGHT? We ARE supposed to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, between reality and fantasy, but you'd never know it by the "news" that is broadcast in America today.
The two "news" stories on CNN this morning (Jan. 31, 2007) that brings on this post is:
Being forced to continue a pregnancy that resulted from rape in an age of modern medicine is mind-blowing.
The blabbing about beheadings is only to give the impression that the people in far, far, far away Iraq and the Middle East are barbarians.
And so, I do a mental check of what year we are living in. The Enlightenment was supposed to provide a way to live better as human beings without having to kill each other over religious and non-religious differences.
And in the "modern" age of electronics, instant communications, the internet, and YouTube, how in the hell can anyone be so ignorant as to believe that the very people who preserved the works of the Greek philosophers, developed algebra and banking, and taught the Europeans coming out of the Dark Ages how to bath and practice life-saving instead of blood-draining medicine are solely responsible for cutting peoples' heads off? I'm not saying it isn't part of their culture, but too much of what is passed to the America viewer sounds too much like military black ops for my comfort. I've read too much stuff about Vietnam and the goings on of the School of the Americas, not to mention Abu Ghraib and our ditching of the Geneva Convention against torture, to believe that it is the Arabs who are instigating and fomenting all the violence in Iraq.
In other words, CNN does as much bullshit propaganda as Fox News. Especially when Lou Dobbs can go on and on about how Hugo Chavez is a dictator but never once mention that Bush is too.
Update: While this has been sitting around as a draft I got sent a link to an article at Information Clearing House that pretty much confirms my feelings. What's worse, is this link in the comments section that proves the lie about any notion of the Middle East as anything close to barbaric.
The unreality that comes out of the TV some mornings just boggles my mind. As I awaken with the TV blaring I do a mental review of what year it is. This IS the year 2007, right? RIGHT? We ARE supposed to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, between reality and fantasy, but you'd never know it by the "news" that is broadcast in America today.
The two "news" stories on CNN this morning (Jan. 31, 2007) that brings on this post is:
- A young woman was raped, called the police, was arrested on a bench warrant for some petty crime in the past, and was not able to take the second dose of emergency contraception because someone at the jail wouldn't let her because of a personal religious belief.
- A story about a recent beheading that happened in Iraq.
Being forced to continue a pregnancy that resulted from rape in an age of modern medicine is mind-blowing.
The blabbing about beheadings is only to give the impression that the people in far, far, far away Iraq and the Middle East are barbarians.
And so, I do a mental check of what year we are living in. The Enlightenment was supposed to provide a way to live better as human beings without having to kill each other over religious and non-religious differences.
And in the "modern" age of electronics, instant communications, the internet, and YouTube, how in the hell can anyone be so ignorant as to believe that the very people who preserved the works of the Greek philosophers, developed algebra and banking, and taught the Europeans coming out of the Dark Ages how to bath and practice life-saving instead of blood-draining medicine are solely responsible for cutting peoples' heads off? I'm not saying it isn't part of their culture, but too much of what is passed to the America viewer sounds too much like military black ops for my comfort. I've read too much stuff about Vietnam and the goings on of the School of the Americas, not to mention Abu Ghraib and our ditching of the Geneva Convention against torture, to believe that it is the Arabs who are instigating and fomenting all the violence in Iraq.
In other words, CNN does as much bullshit propaganda as Fox News. Especially when Lou Dobbs can go on and on about how Hugo Chavez is a dictator but never once mention that Bush is too.
Update: While this has been sitting around as a draft I got sent a link to an article at Information Clearing House that pretty much confirms my feelings. What's worse, is this link in the comments section that proves the lie about any notion of the Middle East as anything close to barbaric.
posted by NeoLotus at 9:18 AM
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