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Media Mediocrity

Two major items of international news are tearing at the emotions of television viewers around the globe right now. If you’ve not watched TV or read a newspaper lately, you may imagine they concern major disasters – the suffering in Iraq; a devastating flood or earthquake – but no, nothing so mundane.

The first item originates in the UK. It involves a number of minor ‘celebrities’ who have chosen to incarcerate themselves in the “Big Brother” house and bitch at each other – presumably for cheap publicity. One of them, Indian actress Shilpa Shetty, got upset when two other she-bitches picked on her because of her race and culture. It’s exactly the sort of thing “Big Brother’s” production company, Channel 4 TV, love. The ratings have gone through the roof.

In India, it’s creating an international incident. Britain’s likely next president prime minister, Gordon Brown, unfortunately chose this week to visit his Indian counterpart and has found himself having to calm the troubled waters

It’s all a storm in a teacup, but that’s the sort of species we are.

The second emotional upheaval comes from the US, and concerns the rather more serious and disturbing case of two boys from Missouri, both kidnapped by the same man. One of the boys, Shawn Hornbeck, was held for four years by his captor.

Although at first glance, this case and the “Big Brother” story have little in common, what makes them similar is how the media has used both to try and wring the last ounce of emotion from viewers.

It’s not the first time Channel 4 has allowed mayhem to reign in the Big Brother house. The program thrives on bitchiness and controversy. The hypocrisy is in their public attitude, declaring a self-righteous condemnation of those directly involved, while secretly rubbing their hands with glee at the improved ratings.

NBC Nightly News tonight ran the kidnap story yet again with the preview of: “Disturbing new details emerging tonight in the case of Shawn Hornbeck……….”

While it was obvious the “disturbing new details” were meant to imply sexual assault of the boy by his kidnapper, the relevant segment only served to highlight that Hornbeck had not spoken of any such happening. Finally, right at the end, his father was asked if he thought the boy may have been assaulted. He answered, “Yes.”

Here is another example of a production company (NBC) wringing the emotional effect out of a story to gain viewers’ attention, and at the same time keep the ratings score up. Even if the boy had admitted he was assaulted, it’s nobody’s business but his and his immediate family. What right has NBC or Oprah Winfrey (the family appeared on her show, of course) to pry into the matter and lay the victim’s life bare before three hundred million Americans?

Why do they do it? For ratings – and the subsequent financial rewards.

Such is the state of our media today.

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The Price Of Arrogance

Shortly after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, check Iran “…….proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion” according to a BBC report out today.

Tehran also offered to make its nuclear program “more transparent” if the US ended its hostility towards Iran.

Although the state department was keen on the idea, Vice President Cheney rejected it out of hand.

It raises two questions: is the Vice President the real Commander-in-Chief; and, how many American and Iraqi lives may have been spared had the US responded positively four years ago?

More from the BBC HERE.

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Devil In Disguise

Condoleeza Rice was all smiles for the cameras yesterday during her Middle East excursion to “accelerate” progress on the ‘roadmap’ – political rhetoric for the non-existent peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

It begs the question: what has she been doing for the last four years?

Let’s not kid ourselves. The roadmap is dead. It won’t move anywhere, let alone “accelerate”. What Rice is really doing is whipping up support among Sunni Arab nations for America’s abortive military campaign in Iraq. While Saddam Hussein was unloved by most Sunni Arabs outside Iraq, he did at least reign in the Shia militias presently rampaging through Baghdad. Sunni Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are nervous of Iran’s Shia influence in the region; influence that will likely strengthen substantially if the Shia-majority government in Iraq allies itself to Tehran. Hence the apparently snap decisions by Sunni leaders to jump on a US bandwagon, under the guise of resurrecting the ‘roadmap’.

Last year’s democratic election, that brought Hamas to power in Palestine, resulted in yet more blunders by Western governments. Hamas’ announcement that it would not recognize Israel’s right to exist prompted knee-jerk reactions from the West. Cutting funding to the Palestinian government could only result in escalating conflict. If you want a war, starve the people. The resulting unrest led to violence in Gaza that eventually escalated into the Israeli/Lebanese war and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.

Had the West used diplomacy to resolve the Hamas issue, it would have known that Hamas was not intractable on its policy towards Israel, and was merely refusing to recognize a Jewish state that continually trampled with impunity over Palestinian rights.

The US/EU financial sanctions caused the Palestinian government to turn towards its fellow Arabs for support. As a consequence, the biggest financial contributer to the Palestinian government is no longer the West, but Iran.

The situation that now exists in the Middle East is due almost entirely to the persistent bungling of Western politicians clinging to an American policy of support for Israel, even when that nation commits outrageous atrocities against its neighbors. (Let’s not forget that last year’s disastrous war in Lebanon resulted from the kidnap of two Israeli soldiers.) If this is, indeed, continuing US policy then Europe needs to think about ending its vegetative alliance with its Atlantic partner, and using its own not inconsiderable powers to shape a more peaceful, lasting solution to this troubled region that has for decades suffered the effects of Western foreign influence.

The foreign policy of George W Bush and Richard Cheney has manipulated the region for no other purpose than the extension of US power, at a cost in lives that will go down in history as utterly unacceptable. Condoleeza Rice’s visit to ‘accelerate’ the roadmap will do nothing to further a promised Palestinian state, but has succeeded in girding Bush’s resolve to escalate US aggression towards Iran and Syria, those two nations most feared in the Sunni Arab world.

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