The News and what it doesn't tell us

Do you ever watch the news and wonder if they are really telling you the whole truth? For example, if you watch the news from other countries and their coverage of the Iraq war, it is vastly different than what we see on CNN or your local news. They often show much more graphic images of the seemingly endless car bombs and attacks. Why is this? You must first understand that the news in the United States is censored, the dictionary lists censorship as "The act,process, or act of censoring" ok, well that doesn't give us much insight into this, however the third definition is a bit more interesting, it lists censorship as "Psychology, Prevention of disturbing or painful thoughts or feelings from reaching consciousness except in a disguised form"
Hmmm that's interesting isn't it. So by censoring the images and articles that news writers can show or talk about are we really getting a true picture of the events transpiring? I would say no we are not. By using the term Psychology what are they saying? this is a psychological process? They don't want these disturbing and painful images from reaching our consciousness because if they did what might happen? Would the public rise up? Maybe. I think if everything that went on in this war was truly reported and shown there would be such a swell of anger and disgust at this President and those that voted for this war that the public might actually take to the streets in larger numbers than have been seen so far. This was part of the reason for the downfall of the Vietnam war. The public was shown caskets coming home daily, they were shown more realistic and truthful images of the impact of war. This war has been characterized by many to be the most censored war in the history of mankind and I'd tend to agree. By forcing journalists to be "embedded" with the troops, the armed forces are then gaining final say in what can be reported on and shown to the American public and the world which is a form of censorship. If you were to watch German or French news you would see a vastly different depiction of events that are transpiring over in Iraq. This is nothing new however, the news in this country has been this way for some time. If you recall during the elections of 2000 and 2004 the coverage was sparse and you never really saw much air time given to the lines of people who never got to vote, or for example to the fact that the machines being used have been shown to be easily hackable by someone that knows how to hack. HBO recently ran an interesting documentary called "Hacking Democracy" which revealed categorically that these machines are not safe and are open to hackers. For more information on this ground breaking documentary please visit.
Hacking Democracy

If you don't have HBO I am sure it might be available by now on amazon or possibly your local video store or on Netflix. I would urge everyone to view this documentary. The news did have some coverage about the machines but nothing as groundbreaking and in depth as this. The point is, who is pulling the strings? The major news agencies have consolidated to a point now where less than 15 large conglomerates are controlling almost all of themajor news agencies. For example, NBC of course is owned by General Electric. By allowing large corporations to own News agencies the country is doing a disservice to itself. It's the corporations that don't want you to know the full truth. Corporations from their infancy were supposed to be tightly regulated by the Government. They were never supposed to wield as much power as they do today. If your more interested in how corporations have become so out of control I would urge you to rent a great documentary called "The Corporation" I know it's in Blockbuster because I rented it there, if you'd like to visit their website to learn more about this amazing documentary, please visit
The Corporation
The point I am trying to ultimately make is, something has gone really wrong with this country. When we allow corporations to control our news, to control our political process and our leaders then we are not a government of the people and for the people. I have a great way to get corporations out of politics. First we must ban all lobbyists period. Yes I know some lobbyists are lobbying for good causes but the bottom line is there are too many of them and they have way too much power. Secondly, no corporation should be allowed to give any money to any candidate period. Each candidate will be given a certain amount of money from the taxpayers, if we can spend a billion dollars a week in Iraq, I think we can afford this. Networks and radio stations will have to give each candidate a certain amount of ad time at their own expense, or have this subsidized by the government as well. By doing this we would get all these special interests out of our political process and maybe, possibly restore some faith in a political process that has been destroyed by corporate interests. Just an idea, but I think it beats what we have in place now. As for voting machines, I don't see what's wrong with the old style, at least it leaves a trail, most of these new machines don't. How about we each fill out a piece of paper and use the ink on the finger idea that was used in Iraq? There are many ways to vote leaving a paper trail. Any computer system is vulnerable to hacking, even some of the most secure computers in the world are. Getting back to the news, I am not sure of the answer, part of the new revolution is the blogosphere which to some extent is keeping the news media more honest. They are even scooping some stories that the major news entities never even find. So hooray for the blogger's out there who are adding their independent voices to the commentary I salute them.I hope in some way to add to it myself albeit in a minute way. Everyone has a duty to seek out truth wherever it may lie, don't just read one newspaper or just watch CNN, go on the web, search out stories, read foreign press or blogs and make your own decisions on what you believe and don't trust just one source. Thanks for reading and hope to see you again soon.