I Don’t Want to Be a Pinhead No More, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

July 24, 2010 Martha Thomases 0 Comments

Have you been watching or reading any of the American news media this week?  If so, you might be under the impression that a lot of important issues in our society are being handled in an appropriate manner.

•The leaking oil in the Gulf of Mexico is capped, and some people and even corporations seem to be stepping up to the plate to make things better.

• A scam by a right-wing nut was caught and exposed.  The President and his administration were blamed for falling for it.

• Lindsay Lohan is safely behind bars.

These three stories seem to me to take up most of the evening news.  There’s other news (the financial reform bill passed, it’s still really hot outside), but this is what makes most of the talking heads talk.

But then, watching BBC America, I saw this story. According to this, it’s quite possible that the weapons we’ve been using to fight in Iraq are causing hideous cancers and genetic mutations in children born since the war started.

Doing a little bit of research online, I found this had been a big story for months.  Clearly, I hadn’t been paying much attention.  According to my Google search, neither had American media.

(Quick disclaimer:  I might have been using the wrong search criteria, because I am an old person.  However,  neither Fallujah + cancer nor Fallujah + birth defects produced any results.)

I understand that American media gives more play to local stories.  I understand that American media, supported by advertisers, wants to air stories that end happily.  However, I don’t understand why either of those things is more important than telling us what’s going on in the world, and offering possible explanations about why.

I’d also like to know why wrong-doing, when committed by the wealthy and powerful, is so rarely punished.

Someone looked the other way when the oil rigs on the Gulf were inspected, or did a dangerously sloppy job, and that person (or those persons) should be in jail.

Andrew Breitbart deliberately posted an edited version of a tape of a speech by Shirley Sherrod, one so edited that it appeared to say the opposite of what she actually said.  He claims he didn’t know there was more, but he seems to have done nothing to find out.  In my day, this was called “libel,” and the person who committed libel would be sued.

And the weapons used in Fallujah, most likely by us, seem to have caused horrible problems for innocent civilians.  This, to me, would seem to be a war crime, and either the people who created these weapons and/or the people who ordered their use should be in jail.  There are people upset that their tax dollars might pay for abortions.  I’m appalled my tax dollars might be spent to give children cancer, extra limbs and worse.

None of these people are in jail, nor are they facing charges.  Where’s the outrage?

People who are outraged might be too busy marching in the streets in protest to buy all the products advertised on their nightly news.  It would be much better to distract them with shallow, gossipy stories which will keep them amused.

We are not.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases wonders why white conservatives are so obsessed with the idea of black racism.  Are they afraid that karma really is a bitch?