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The words you are about to read will either excite the activist in you, make you “talk shit” about me to your Conservative friends (if that, indeed is what you are), or leave you with a whole different feeling of “Shock & Awe” that the media has thus far been unable to provoke. The latter of the three is my starting point. I write now, with an uneasy voice. I am inexperienced and not nearly as educated on the “War on Terror” as I will at some point be. I use as reference, the bit of reading I have under my belt thus far, and scribbled notes I’ve taken from a few speakers that have come to campus this semester. If I repeat anything you’ve heard, it is because I have a growing concern and angst in me that has sprouted from an almost non-existent opinion in a naïve, college student who naturally grew up feeling she could trust her life and world in the hands of those running things around her. I am now feeling scared and betrayed. Scared to envision how things will pan out during the course of my adult life. Betrayed that after such extensive history and supposed progress, the whole truth is strategically kept from me as if I were 4 years old again and my Mother is neglecting to tell me that she flushed Cleo my Goldfish down the toilet (here I’m thinking he’s down the street in the cemetery).
I need to make one thing clear. I am not a political person, or at least didn’t intend on being. I don’t see this as being about politics anymore. I see Life vs. Death. I can’t wrap my brain around why the issue stands on a smaller scale to so many others. It seems to be all about watching what one says about Bush and the administration. Personally I don’t give a shit what political party’s toes are being stepped on, whose feelings are being hurt; it could be any one of us in the places of the tens of thousands of innocents becoming casualties of War. I can only hope that such selfishness and irrationality is a result of mere ignorance of what is truly going on right under our noses. Toes I don’t wish to step on? Those of the families of fallen American soldiers. They have been betrayed deeper than I pray I’ll ever come to know. Even after their losses, they’re continually lied to, and condescendingly patted on the back. I empathize with those of them who continue to stand behind Bush. Their hearts and souls ride on the backs of those running the country, their loved ones’ lives lie in clumsy hands. They see no other options other than hope and faith; no one can blame them for that. Their voices would amplify a message so desperately needing to be heard. “We have to stand together, not agree on everything, to speak up for those who’re silenced…that’s patriotic” Amy Goodman.
I couldn’t tell you exactly when corporate America first took control of mainstream America; when democratic society was so slyly silenced. There are secrets embedded in the media that are purchased at a generous rate. Images that are too “tasteless” for American eyesight are seen day and night in places like Al-Jazeera. Instead, we watch on TV, a “video war game” of blurry maps and explosions translated by military analysts, or a “parade of retired generals”. F.A.I.R (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) released a study of War on Terror interviews seen on all the major networks. Out of nearly 400 interviews, 3 were of peace protests. If that isn’t right-winged, I don’t know what is. We can ask why Journalists, whose roles should be to present diversity in opinion, would allow such audacious censorship, but we don’t have to research far to find the tip of the iceberg. I.e. Clear Channel sky-rocketing from 40 to 1,200 networks owned with the Bush administration having its back.
I apologize if this is vague, if some reading this have absolutely nothing to relate to, or if I haven’t delved deep enough into the topic. This is more of a coming out for me, an assurance that I have no intentions partaking in the silence or deception, let alone accept it. I have found my voice in an area where many more are needing to be heard. I encourage my peers, the largest percent of Americans who don’t vote and take too much too often with a grain of salt, to pursue the truth between the lines. Don’t believe everything you hear in between the overabundance of commercials. Get involved, and get concerned. Our futures are being laid out for us, not by us...and our silence screams for corruption.