.........and another thing!
Why is it that those who consume most of the world's resources are the very ones who will not sign up to doing anything about the mess and pollution which they help to create?
Now, another topic : I watched the movie, " Weapons of Mass Deception " last night. I didn't think that it revealed much that was new to me, but I did get the feeling that figures like Walter Cronkite were contemptuous beyond belief at the way in which the huge industrial concerns of the United States had manipulated the television news of the recent and present war in Iraq.
A parade of hacks from the major networks made pathetic excuses for their network's coverage and tried to defend the system by which the news is reported. This system which we have come to know as " Embedded Journalism" is well named. The journalists are in bed with the forces and are drip-fed items of news, as and when the army decides, and are treated as friendly, so long as they are not critical of the job which the army is doing.
This system is so flawed, and unconstitutional, that it beggars belief!
The British Army has the same deal. The public have bought into the idea on the basis that :
- might is right
- our army can do no wrong
- we don't want to give aid and comfort to the enemy
- they know what they are doing
- keep a stiff upper lip
- stand united
- don't appear divided
- etc. ..........
When was it decided that there would be little or no accounting of foreign intervention on the basis of creating the army as a separate entity from the rest of us?
If the army is just doing a job ' over there ', then why isn't that job the subject of independant scrutiny?
Why has the army become independant of the constraints of democratic debate? Surely this usurps one of the most important elements of democratic freedom which the army's masters seek to impose?
This is only a tiny fraction of the questions which have to be asked about what is happening as a consequence of the recent conflict.
All that I see is an arm of democracy and freedom being corrupted by the machinations of unscrupulous political adventurers who are despoiling the concept of the army of Right, and condemning future generations of the west to wearing the mantle of the armed bully while the media reassures us that it's all right, there was little colatteral damage!
You get the coverage which you want to hear!