Bullshizzle
A lot of hub-bub has been raised over a recent poll by the Pew Research Center that shows that about 26% of American Muslim youth (18-29) felt that suicide bombing was justified.
Compare this with a recent survey by the Department of Defense of US troops conducted by the Mental Health Advisory Team which revealed that:
- 30% of US troops feel that torture is justifiable to save the life of a soldier.
- Only 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of the Marines believed that noncombatants should be treated with “dignity and respect.â€
- Disturbingly, one servicemember in 10 admitted to hitting or kicking a civilian, or destroying noncombatant property without justification.
I’d say that what these American Muslim youth feel about warfare is not all that different from US soldiers fighting on the front line.
Yet, the latter is not headlines whereas the former is? The hypocrisy of the media in the so-called Freest Country on the face of the earth.
Bullshizzle.
Sphere: Related ContentPublished May 23, 2007 . Filed under: Critical Democracy Studies
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as salam `alaykum
This doesn’t come as a surprise. In the idealist neo-conservative paradigm consent must be manufactured.
I’m sure you’ve seen/read Chomsky’s work on this?
If you haven’t get hold of it. It’s amazing.
May 23, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
I wish there were some news media in the world out there that did not actually put it’s home country first. The first thing that comes to mind is what I believe was called Risala in Pakistan whose writers went through alot just to get the truth. My point is that unbiased media is a myth, it doesn’t exist (collectively) in the real world!
sophister.wordpress.com
May 23, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
wa alaikum assalam
Sidi Ahsan: Its not just the neo-cons bro, its the very structure of the media itself. I think we’re going to see a lot more tension in the future given that “traditional” Americans (i.e. white non-immigrants) are quickly becoming a minority in America. The media is going to reflect a shift towards the conservative wing and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the type of ultra-nationalism that gave birth to fascism. The neo-conservative movement is merely the political manifestation of this sociological trend. The Democrats and Republicans don’t considerably differ in their world view from the Neocons.
Ikon: Excellent point. Every piece of news has its own spin. Yet, there are some media that are more free than the others. The internet is helping in many ways to shape a more objective open source of information.
masalama
May 24, 2007 @ 2:30 am