One day to go.
Just a couple of quick notes from The New York Times, my sole source of news for the past month and a half.
Two things worth pointing out, from my humble view. Things that have become something like a theme. First, the War in Iraq, which seemed to be over completely for the past two days (no reporting of any U.S. casualties), now seems to be back on. Though it is a very low intensity conflict indeed. And second, The Times, that liberal bastion of journalism, gives me new fodder for my growing hypothesis that capitalism has overrun every decent sense of humanity that has ever existed on these shores.
The War coverage. Nada for two days straight. I was considering a diary declaring the end of major combat operations, but I couldn’t get an aircraft carrier background to load onto my word processing program. So I just sat and read and did not write about it.
Of course, being the savvy consumer of MSM news coverage that I have become, I just assumed that The Times, like all other corporate controlled media sources, was telling me little of the truth. I imagined what was happening behind their stories. Sure, the “Struggle in Iraq” looked like an unruly constitutional convention in their coverage. Perhaps a slightly askew political convention, not unlike the Republicans in San Diego in 1996. But, certainly not as far out as Chicago in 1968. But, in my mind, I imagined that U.S. soldiers were probably still dying. Call me someone who is not living in the reality based community. But, this is how I form my world view now. Read what the MSM says, and then imagine what is really happening in a world dominated by corporations and lackey politicians. And, today, I finally read some coverage that tells me I was probably right.
The war tally, a little boxed tote board (titled, Names of the Dead) of American G.I.’s killed, with those great and honored who have recently died listed in a most stirring memorial to the profound contribution they have made to what? I do not know. But, it has increased by three. The military admitted three more deaths in the days of a calm constitutional convention in Iraq. The toll is now 1,871. I can only imagine that this is the only way The Times can cover the war. Their reporter sits somewhere in a relatively comfortable living area inside the Green Zone, afraid to go out for being shot by justifiably irate Iraqis, or worse by clueless U.S. soldiers, and waits for some made for television major to announce U.S. military deaths once a day. No details. Just the names. That is our war. Very sanitary, as far as U.S. deaths go. I can really get behind a war like this. I am thinking of heading down to Crawford, to throw my support in behind a reportedly growing band of pro-war protestors. God bless the U.S. of fucking A.
The real war coverage started up again today, after a two day absence. It was found in the final three paragraphs of a very long story about the failing political process. I might as well replicate it for you. This is the war coverage in The New York Times in the past three days. I think it is emblematic of a broken fucking media in a post-republic military oligarchy.
As the political debate dragged on, violence continued.
A United States helicopter made a forced landing on Monday night under hostile fire in northern Iraq, and one soldier was killed and another wounded, The Associated Press reported, quoting an American military statement.
The incident occurred in Tal Afar, an insurgent-ridden city 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. No further details were released.
In another time, a time not scripted by George fucking Orwell, “forced landing… under hostile fire” would be said plainly. A fucking helicopter was shot down.
In another time, a reporter would have been in the field, at least somewhere near the fucking area where this helicopter operated, writing the story of the doomed pilot or crewman who fucking died. There might have been a photograph, in another time.
In our time a military PR man writes a press release calling it a forced landing. The AP reporter gets off his butt, or at least is able to make it to the news briefing by the military briefer. The Times reporter. Well, he or she is able to get it from the AP. And toss it in at the end of a story about the political struggles in Iraq. We really have won the war with Eurasia. I think. Of course, I suspect that the “forced landing” wasn’t really the only military action in the past three days. I will only know the truth the next time The Times publishes its little stat on the Names of the Dead. And then, the details of the truth will be lost. Perhaps the loved ones of the families will be told a story. Something heroic. Something Tillman-esque. This is the truth. It has always been the truth.
Well, after all that cheery goodness, why not move on to another pleasant realization about the world as reported by The Times. At first, while writing this series of diaries, based on my experiment of only getting news from The Times, it dawned on me, for the first time in 38 years, that the liberal Times had a business section everyday, but no labor counterpart. Interesting, I thought. Two forces, supposedly posing against one another in this capitalist world we live in. Big Business and Big Labor. But, why no daily coverage for one of the warring partners?
And then, my scope broadened one day, as I looked at a photograph of a battered bottle of Vioxx, in a wheel chair with band-aids, with a headline saying something like, “Can Merck Recover.” This on the day after a verdict against Merck, in a case where Vioxx killed a man and Merck was apparently found to have lied to consumers, earning a verdict against the drug giant of $253 million (immediately reduced to $26 million dollars by operation of law, because jurors really can’t be trusted doling out corporate money like that in our democracy). And, I thought, this headline is insane. And the battle isn’t just business v. labor. It is really People v. Corporations. And, the Corporations run the very media that tells us everything to think, and feel, and understand about our fucking world.
Today, I have more fodder for my theory. This is subtle. And, perhaps I am hyper-sensitive. Maybe someone should take me from this experiment of reading only The Times, directly to some padded room (room 101, perhaps) where I can be re-programmed for another shot at living quietly in this most apathetic of societies. But, here is the gist of it. The Times coverage leads with a giant photograph. It is post-hurricane coverage. (There is precious little if any mention anywhere that I have seen about the probable connection between these growing, early, massive hurricanes and our love of fossil fuels, but I digress.) There is a big photo of a rescue operation in Ward 9 of New Orleans. Ward 9 is flooded out. I don’t know shit about Ward 9, other than to say that it looks a lot like the neighborhoods I grew up in, in a poor section of a little, soon-to-be-post-industrial town. There is a family getting helped into a boat by what looks like a police SWAT unit (why the fuck are all of our police special units dressed in black these days?). The family, those facing the camera, look passive, but scared. Headlines scream next to the photograph. Dozens dead. Few spared. This looks for all the world like a human tragedy. I suppose it happens in Bangladesh once a fucking year, and I am callous or mis-informed. But, these are our very near brothers and sisters dying, and losing their homes. I’m struck.
The thing that pisses me off, though, is the headline at the bottom of page one.
Another Storm Casualty: Oil Prices
I know. Oil prices. Big story. I shouldn’t be so sensitive. But, for me, it just points out the falseness that has over-laid out entire society. We are sick. You can tell it by the language we speak. Even in our supposed, most liberal newspaper. The headline to me, calling Oil Prices a casualty – like those souls who perished in the last twenty four hours, is akin to walking into a funeral parlor where a beloved relative lies before you, making your way to the middle of the room, and screaming, “Does anyone know how much fucking life insurance Uncle Charlie had?” Because we are sick. It is not just business v. labor, or, people v. corporations, on the scales. It is something like HUMANITY v. CORPORATIONS. And the fucking scale is a tipping real heavily to one side. And, I think you pretty well can see which way I think the scale is tipping.
Yeah. Oil is big news. We are going to pay at the pumps for this environmental disaster. But, can’t we fucking bury the dead first. Can’t we stop thinking about driving our fucking Hummers just long enough to try to get some of these people into fucking shelters, until their fucking lives can be somehow put back on a track to normalcy. Fuck The Times and their front page Oil price bullshit. Fucking commodity. We are all just commodities.
Of course, at least The Times had the fucking decency to wait until page twelve before printing this headline:
Insurers Estimate Damage at $9 Billion, Among Costliest U.S. Storms on Record
I guess that would be like at least waiting until the wake at Uncle Charlie’s house, after the trip to the funeral parlor, before inquiring loudly about his inheritance. Thank God for small favors.
And, I haven’t even made it to the business section yet.
I’ll be glad to be back to the blogs. One more day of The Times.
