Iraq Vs. Tsunami: The Duplicity Of The Media
/The American media has descended on the Asian tsunami with all the
fervor of feral animals in a meat locker. The newspapers and TV's are
plastered with bodies drifting out to sea, battered carcasses strewn
along the beach and bloated babies lying in rows. Every aspect of the
suffering is being scrutinized with microscopic intensity by the
predatory lens of the media. This is where the western press really
excels: in the celebratory atmosphere of human catastrophe. Their
penchant for misery is only surpassed by their appetite for profits.
Where was this "free press" in Iraq when the death toll was
skyrocketing towards 100,000? So far, we've seen nothing of the
devastation in Falluja where more than 6,000 were killed and where
corpses were lined along the city's streets for weeks on end. Is death
less photogenic in Iraq? Or, are there political motives behind the
coverage? Wasn't Ted Koppel commenting just days ago, that the media
was restricting its coverage of Iraq to show sensitivity for the
squeamishness of its audience? He reiterated the mantra that filming
dead Iraqis was "in bad taste" and that his American audience would be
repelled by such images? How many times have we heard the same rubbish
from Brokaw, Jennings and the rest of their ilk? Well, it looks like
Koppel and the others have quickly switched directions. The tsunami has
turned into a 24 hour-a-day media frenzy of carnage and ruin, exploring
every facet of human misery in agonizing detail. The festival of
bloodshed is chugging ahead at full-throttle and it's bumping up
ratings in the process. [more]
- Disasters don't kill people: poverty does [more]
- Defense Secretary Spoke of Man Made Earthqakes in 1997. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important." then-Defense Secretary William Cohen speaking at a terrorism conference at the University of Georgia - DOD News Briefing Monday, April 28, 1997 [more]
