Manufacturing Consent

[go_team]

Okay, so the U.S. government and media scream bloody murder when dead or captured U.S. soldiers appear in the Iraqi media, but it's okay for pictures of dead Iraqis to be front-page news in U.S. newspapers. That's one thing, and it's pretty disgusting hypocrisy in and of itself, but I just caught an Associated Press article about U.S. anti-war protesters wounded by the police, complete with graphic pictures (you might want to skip these, pants_of_doom). I read the full text of the article, but I got the unstated message loud and clear: "Sit down and shut up, peacenik: 'your' government is in control, and you could be next in line for rubber bullets, mmkay?" It makes me mad.

Comments

[chocolatesmudge.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. I didn't know the kind of damage rubber bullets could do to a person. That looks brutal.

It is interesting how American media draws this line at showing dead people on TV or in print, unless they're the "bad guys."

[goteam.livejournal.com]

So-called "rubber" bullets are actually metal pellets coated in rubber. Unless you're wearing leather or heavy denim/canvas, they can rip right through clothes into skin and muscle. It's my understanding that they're pretty much guaranteed to leave a huge, nasty welt at the very least. Other "non-lethal projectiles", like bean bags and wooden dowels, are pretty nasty, too. I'm really glad I don't have any firsthand experience with any of this, and really angry that pantsofdoom does.

[pants-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Mine might have been solid rubber, they're really too little to have much of anything inside them. Not that I know for sure, but they're the size of the tip of my pinky.

I'm taking your advice and not reading the article. Blah.

[chocolatesmudge.livejournal.com]

By the way, you might find maxomai's journal interesting. It is a collection of news links, some war-related, some not.

[sillygoosegirl.livejournal.com]

The whole claim that Iraqi media isn't allowed to show pictures of dead Americans seemed like a bunch of bull shit to me. It seems to me that our government should respect freedom of the press everywhere. Were Americans and Iraqis created unequal?