The Chinaman Is Not The Issue

Show Me The Money!

I've always thought that those academics who keep touting that the media is not biased were all a bunch of nutters, but this on-going obsession with promoting Bush and the war really got me to thinking. I mean, how could anyone paying attention to anything think any of this is a good idea? Especially with half the rest of the world (Tony Blair notwithstanding) against it and every other country thinking America is filled with war-mongering lunatics and selfish crybabies. Yet this is entirely not the case. A significant portion of America is against this war, despite what the media decides to portray. There has been more anti-war sentiment in America and more demonstrations than there ever has been since Vietnam (and look what a mistake that war was...). But why isn't the media covering this? Or giving it the same proportions as Bush's little heroic speeches. For example, we keep getting sound bytes from Bush demanding action against a stubborn tyrant (and it takes me a second to remember he's not speaking of himself....) who gasses his own people. Well, the incident he's refering to is when Saddam gassed the Kurds in 1988. And what was the US's part in this? We supplied Saddam with helicoptors to enable him to do this. And all these chemical weapons Saddam is supposedly hiding...does anyone ask where he got the supplies for them? The US. Our big industries have been supplying him with the chemical components for these weapons for years. And we're not the only ones. France, England, Germany, Russia, China...they've all been involved. And it's no secret either. It was public knowledge when it was happening. The question is: why isn't it being talked of NOW? Bush's motives for promoting the war are a topic for another entry (though I will say it probably has a lot to do with hiding his inefficacy in finding Osama bin Laden and is why he keeps linking the two unrelated subjects together), but why is the media promoting it? For instance, after Bush's State of the Union address last week, all the reporters on CNN (CNN! mind you) could say was how presidential and powerful he seemed, and spent an hour discussing just what percentage of his speech he spent on taxes and what percentage on war. Meanwhile, Gary Locke delivered an excellent response from the Democratic Party, and all the reporters had to say about it was how it just didn't have the "oomph" of a presidential speech before Congress. Well I've come to realize that despite appearances, no, the media does not have a political agenda. But it does have a money-making agenda. And a war is guaranteed money. Money and ratings. With technology allowing footage of the war as it happens, people will be glued to their sets just like we were with Desert Storm, and picking up their newspapers every day to catch the latest news. Simple. No conspiracy, no politics. Just money. They don't care that Bush is trying to make himself look powerful and like he's doing something about the war on terror, when he's abandoned bin Laden completely to finish off a war his daddy couldn't win. They only want the money.