Fluff Stories Crowd Out News the Nation Needs
"Official reports bragged about Cpl. Tillman's bravery("The fact is, investigators determined fairly quickly that Tillman died of so-called "friendly fire"; he was accidentally killed by another squad of Army Rangers and died yelling, "Cease fire! Friendlies!"), just as a year prior they disingenuously advised us about Pvt. Jessica Lynch firing her weapon at the enemy until she ran out of ammunition. Unfortunately, these stories were grossly embellished.
Underreported story two: A Senate committee led by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., accused George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament, of improprieties regarding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. Sen. Coleman subpoenaed Mr. Galloway, apparently assuming Galloway would roll over for his committee the way Democrats in this country usually roll over for Republicans these days.
To everyone's surprise, Galloway roared into Washington and proceeded to make a fool out of the unctuous Sen. Coleman. When Coleman questioned Galloway about allegations that he had been advancing the interests of Saddam Hussein, Galloway responded: ''Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.'' Galloway's Senate testimony was simply bombastic, but if you want to read it in its entirety, you'll have to look it up on the internet. It received scant coverage in the press.
Underreported story three: We also have ''The Downing Street memo,'' which nearly caused Tony Blair to lose his government. In this memorandum, British foreign-policy aide Matthew Rycroft summarized a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and his top security advisers. Rycroft also analyzed a U.S. visit by Richard Dearlove, who then led Britain's intelligence service. The Dearlove visit occurred while President Bush was still promising Americans that no decision had been made to launch a war against Iraq. The memo said that ''the intelligence and facts were being fixed'' by the Bush administration to support its previous determination to invade Iraq. According to the memo, the British attorney general also seriously questioned the legality of the war. U.S. media have given short-shrift to the Downing Street memo, which essentially affirms that Americans were lied to in the fall of 2002 about the decision to invade Iraq.
There is a fourth story, still unwritten. It should examine exactly what has happened to the U.S. media. Many vital news events now receive minimal coverage. This is a shameful development. We should demand more hard news coverage, because we have a right to be well-informed. It is not unpatriotic to print stories unfavorable to the Bush administration."
I wonder how many Americans like the way their tax dollars are used:
Many voters and our elected representatives hardly bat an eye over the fact that half the federal discretionary budget funds the military. This will be $438 billion in 2006 -- excluding the costs of action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the National Priorities Project, the average San Francisco household, for instance, paid:
$13,139 in federal income tax in 2004, of which
$5,097 funded the military (including interest on its debt),
$2,664 for health care,
$482 for education, and
$52 for job training.