Not telling people, then blaming them for not knowing all their government has done

We’re getting a taste of what the civil rights and antiwar movements of the ‘60s would have been like without the not-quite-yet corporate media reporting on the daily events. But over the past half century with just about all the major media gobbled up by corporations, the monied powers and politicians decided very little of their criminal actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen would be televised. Now some are criticizing the American people for not caring about the death and destruction the US has rained on Afghanistan when it wasn’t being served up as a nightly dinner course by TV.

This time around, there were no journalists in war zones freely doing their jobs. Nope, this time they were embedded with the US military. If you thought they were going to bite the hands of their military protectors by reporting things Washington didn’t want reported, it’s time you got a grip on reality. And for those who weren’t in the clutches of the military, many were severely punished for telling the people what they needed to know. Think WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who still languishes in Britain’s Belmarsh prison while the US is intent on extraditing and trying him for espionage and hacking government computers. Think whistleblower Chelsea Manning who received a 35-year prison sentence for turning over a cache of classified documents to Assange. Her sentence was commuted by President Obama, but she was jailed again on March 9, 2019 on a contempt charge for refusing to testify before a grand jury and finally freed after the grand jury’s term expired on May 9, 2019 another subpoena but was immediately served subpoena to a new grand jury on May 16. She again refused and the court ordered her back to jail and fined $500 a day for each day over 30 and $1,000 a day for each day over 60. She was finally released on March 12, 2020. Think whistleblower Edward Snowden who had to flee in the US after revealing how we were being spied upon by global surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance and the help of telecommunication companies and foreign governments. He was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property. And these are only three who have felt the wrath of the US government for revealing its crimes.

Back in the day, the TV cameras were on civil rights Freedom Riders, sit-ins, and marchers as they were beaten, set upon dogs and blasted with water cannons by police in the segregated South. The courage of Martin Luther King Jr, Jesse Jackson, the young John Lewis, and Malcolm X was inspiring to those who cared about equality and justice for all citizens, regardless of color. And there was the shame of black girls and boys denied entry to white schools and colleges; of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson having to call in the military to deal with white mobs who didn’t want black children in their schools. Nor should the image of Alabama Governor George Wallace standing before the cameras and declaring “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” be forgotten.

The TV cameras also were on the antiwar protesters. It was these images people had with their dinner and, whether they approved or disapproved of what was going on, they knew what was happening.

Those cameras had an impact the outcome of both, but now it’s as though the handmaidens of the corporate media are only reporting what their masters tell them to. Americans have enough other distractions, so why get them fired up over what their government is doing to other people?

How many of you think about the people of the countries the US has destroyed, try to walk in their shoes in order to attempt to understand their suffering and how they manage to cope? Think you could survive what they have suffered and are suffering?

Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.