January 13, 2008

Stories we Missed in 2007

I am having a horrible day. I am out of sorts and totally tired of denial and CRAP.

The Court decisions on Guantanamo and certain forms of "shoot the messenger" that I see going around me have me really out of sorts.

It's really hard to want to keep blogging or writing anything at all. Cuz What IS the POINT? No one really listens anyway. They choose to take the Easy Way rather than put in the effort it's gonna take to change this society into something livable for future generations.

Yes, I think the system is that cunning, baffling, powerful and insidious that it's looking pretty hopeless. I am having real trouble staying optimisitic or hopeful today.


I don't feel like anyone appreciates ME. I don't feel like anyone has any idea what it FEELS like to be the one that they system has "done in" and they couldn't care less. I try to keep myself on an "even keel" and do pretty well at it most of the time. Today is NOT one of those times.

I feel, rightly or wrongly, totally misunderstood and unappreciated. Continuing to swipe at The System (and the mean ideology that feeds it), is to be made weary on a year to year basis. I've been at this FORTY YEARS and while I know The System is entrenched, I just find the DENIAL too much to take some days.


My posting on Guantanamo this week became the stuff of real upset.

Watching the video below made it all the worse because what he says is TRUE; the men who are held in "detention" are just not getting ink. I try to correct that. I write about Omar Khadr. I try also to ALWAYS put in the real faces of the people who are so badly abused and get the reader's heart into feeling the outrage these men's families feel.

It's ain't no "tea party" - the gut wrenching reality is bound to make people feel something.

Yet, those who make a serious attempt to portray this as a HUMAN reality are shot down; it's not just some POLITICAL thing to comment on, which is mostly what I see floating around.

I even think Cliff Schecter does that when he doesn't show you the faces of the men. He isn't getting across HIS emotional attachment to the story. It's NOT the blow to American prestige nor bad policy to maintain Guantanamo; it's that it is an affront to life itself to continue to kidnap and then detain and then torture other human beings. And that's the bottom line.


For myself, it's a Bad Day.

For the men inside Guantanamo, there is a good chance that they don't even have an idea of what day it is. On some days (and we don't know which ones, or how often) the torturers in there make sure that they don't know if it's day or night as part of the torture.

Is this not one of the saddest things you've ever heard? If not, why not?

I REFUSE to call Guantanamo GITMO - why?

It is to my mind part of the trivilizing of the trevails and suffering of these men who are held there. Part of the euphemisation, the trashing of their suffering.


I think the following video is INSTRUCTIVE. But part of the instructiveness of it is not all that obvious.

When, in a brand spanking new millenium, the suffering of nearly 1000 people (and that's a guesstimate, which says something, too) - is portrayed as a press shortcoming rather than asking WHY the hell people are not screaming daily at the press to TELL THESE STORIES shows a symptomology.


It was pointed out that ONLY Michele Shepperd here at the Toronto Star was up to speed when the military tribunals were held at Guantanamo, ONLY her. No US reporter had been given the money to pursue the story or understood the details.

Why are people buying these RAGS, these insults to human intelligence? Why do they support the demise of investigative journalism for paying to be advertised AT -- afterall, all they REALLY are is a medium to dessiminate the "business as usual" mindset.

BUY! Buy! BUY! consume, consume .. let the corporatocracy run the world. If you don't buy, you are unpatriotic; if you DO but are middle class and run up debt, YOU've ruined the economy - an economy that has been predicated to keep the unnatural consumption of oil and nukes for over 50 years.


Only torture in the interest of keeping the insane system going should make us all stop dead in our tracks and insist that it STOP. We must all become intervenors when it comes to torture and abuse. Otherwise we are less than fully human.

It comes as no surprise to me that these men have no "faces" - they're just part and parcel of the game that fuels the system, a symbol that we, too, are expendable and keeping the bottom line going on PROFIT$ for the corporations is far more important than PEOPLE.

I realize that my logic isn't making sense.

Torture has that effect on me.

Veeger

Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet


Investigative reporter A.C. Thompson reflects on the stories the news media is largely missing at a time of great turmoil in the industry.

A.C. Thompson: Stories We Missed in 2007

The video made by New America Media, features A.C. Thompson, an award winning investigative reporter, reflecting on the stories the news media is largely missing at a time of great turmoil in the industry.

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Tagged as: ac thompson, media

Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.


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