The United States is blind. Media blurs pop news as it ignores world events. We focus on soap opera drama bickering between figure heads and never critically evaluate anything. The average citizen of the U.S. does not care or know what is happening in the world. The views presented are not only myopic, but limited and heavily influenced by nationalist messages.
Wording is used to demonize individuals who do not fit into the acceptable mold. Socialists are automatically assumed to be evil. ‘Illegal’ is used to define migrants without any critical evaluation of who they are or why they are ‘illegal.’ News is dictated with an acceptance of the authority of rulers rarely questioning them outside of the paradigm that they set out for us to be stuck in.
To be informed by pop news media is to be uninformed, under informed, and misinformed. Even more liberal sites tend to obey the dialogue. Mother Jones likes to do a column ‘We are Still At War‘ where they present a picture depicting this war we are still in. The problem with the depiction is that the images are all images that glorify the United States. They picture U.S. military in a manner the military wishes citizens to view them. We do not see victims of the state. They do not show the bodies of young girls ripped to pieces by the products of the military industrial complex. Instead they show images of blond hair American children mourning ‘brave soldiers’. The lives these soldiers take are seldom seen. They are not counted. They continue showing images of ‘brave soldiers’ training and doing their exciting jobs. This only glorifies the paid killers of the state.
Mother Jones, I would be proud of you if you showed the war through the eyes of the uncounted innocent victims and not through the same uncritical lens as Fox news.
Isn’t it time we sent photographers to the funerals and graves of the victims in Iraq and Afghanistan to begin to show the U.S. what is happening outside of our blinders? I think so.