If one thing is true about how we Americans get our news, it's that the news we see is generically pretty, even in war. How different it would be if Americans were allowed to be exposed to the real picture of war. Of course, these very real, horrible and disturbing pictures of the results of man's in humanity to men, women and children is not available to the average American, and certainly not at supper time. We like our wars, and those of our friends, clean and just something we can vaguely be aware of but not really have to face since we have to go the mall before they close.
Government certainly doesn't want to be showing pictures of screaming parents holding pieces of their former children or family members. Who wants to see the charred bodies of truck drivers caught in a bomb run or grandpa buried with only his hands sticking out of the rubble? Not Americans and the government would just as soon have you believe that somehow those people are used to being shot at, bombed, blown up and dying badly. Since we aren't used to this, we best not show it to ourselves.
I think the government also learned one lesson from Vietnam. Of course it was not the one we would have wished, but one thing is sure. ..Never, Never show the American people what invasions, war, bombs, fire, rocket attacks and mortars can do to humans. Never show them what it does to children. And never let on you might have weapons that would make your blood boil..literally, if so chosen. Once Americans began to see their tax dollars at play in war, they wanted no more war. So that is one lesson learned from Vietnam. The other lessons were long ago forgotten.
It is interesting to me how that men who never have been to war, flap their mouths the most about why war needs to be inflicted upon this or that imagined enemy. Those that have been to war usually get marginalized when those who either never had to go, skipped it or were given safe places to wait them out start a war. We may have a "war President," but we don't have one that has ever seen a war. Causing them, encouraging them, provoking them, threatening them, is NOT the same as SEEING them. I can't put my finger on it, but there is a sense to me that some in high places get some kind of enjoyment in holding the power of life and death over helpless souls. Maybe it's just me, but it seems so. Mocking those that one has turned down for execution seems to lend itself to that feeling.
The talking heads of radio that have never been to war and wouldn't obey an order given them if their life depended on it because no one tells their ego what to do, harp on needing to kick ass pretty often these days. Not a few tell us that they are mouthpieces of even more powerful people who wish events to go and public loyalties to spin their way. I would encourage them to sign up or at least send a few relatives to war to give them some kind of credibility when they harangue us for not thinking that blowing humans out of the way is the way to get ones way.
I have a feeling that being lied to has been raised to an art form these days. Maybe they think they are telling the truth, but when they are told they are not, they don't stop "propelling the propaganda," as the President probably accidently said recently. Someone had told him that's how to get a point across and he forgot to leave that out of the public explanation. Freudian stuff!
So, if you want to stop a war, just show a war. Punch in a few key words or find the sites on the net that are willing to show you just "what God hath wrought." You won't like it. You'll swear you can't look at "stuff like that." Some of you just might stare and wonder how it was in the final seconds of that persons life. Some of you will think about your own children and what if that happened to you. Most of you will simply say "oh my God." But you won't see it on the news or in the news in America. Too messy. Too honest. Too not helpful to whatever cause is being pushed at the moment and unhelpful in pushing the present truth.
If your biggest trial of the day is getting to the mall or getting the yard mowed, I'm glad for ya. If what to wear tonight or where to go is the biggest thing on your mind, then good for you. If the sermon you hear tomorrow or next week or next month is about love, compassion, getting along and full of warm fuzzies, well great. If you go to a church where the Pastor rants and raves about how Jesus is coming soon and the King of the North will swoop down and be pressed by the king of the South, and then Iraq will be this and Iran will be that with Jerusalem being surrounded by armies and Angels swooping in to deliver them all and make YOU a saint, you're not in a church, you're in a holy war recruiting station. If he is going to do493 that, at least ask that he show the congregation the pictures of the current invasion of Lebanon and stuff that really goes on when humans do the Lord's dirty work for him. If you nod your head in pleasant approval of such things and think that the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is also the Jesus of Revelation, better try again and see if you can't back into a group that at least believes the Kingdom of God is made up of whole children and not just pieces.
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