Saving the Internet is Saving Freedom
by Doris Colmes, MSW
Way back in Viet Nam times, not only didn’t we have the internet, we didn’t even need it. Hey, we were out there marching and hollering because we were all pretty much aware of the lies our government was attempting to foist on us. How so? Well, for one thing, the Viet Nam war was the first war ever to be reported via live TV. This meant that TV reporters, TV cameras were out there shooting the truth. This meant photographing, for eternity, that little girl fleeing naked from napalm. It meant photographing for eternity an “allied” officer shooting a dissenter in the head as the dissenter knelt in the dirt at the officer’s feet. And it meant photographing for eternity that famous, infamous wagonload of injured US soldiers being transported out of a battle zone. Hordes of helicopters flying over villages “destroyed to keep them safe from the Viet Cong,” replete with the murdered lying in the mud. It was all there for us to see.
If our government was hiding its true motives for involving the U.S.A. in a manufactured war, lying blatantly about the Vietnamese sinking ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, it didn’t matter. All of us who protested were able to access media, were able to watch live coverage of this sin against humanity on TV and decide for ourselves how we wanted to deal -- or not deal -- with it. .
All that has changed. This time around, all media is censored, only news that the government believes will assist in propaganda efforts is being released, and that ain’t much. Apparently, the “Decider” running this Iraq version of Viet Nam has decided that even a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Therefore, in today’s Iraqi Viet Nam re-play, you may view soldiers in Baghdad, rifles at ready, gaining forcible entry into homes, charging upstairs while occupants watch silently. We may view soldiers in their tanks and humvees driving along roads surrounded by unexploded “I.E.D,s” (improvised Explosive Devices) along with lots of photos of Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts.
But, if you want to see what infants severely deformed by their father’s depleted uranium absorption look like; if you want to see what the actual demolition of an entire city (Fallujah) looks like; if you want to see Afghanistan again under Taliban rule; if you want to see the actual face of war, you need the internet.
Way back in Viet Nam times, not only didn’t we have the internet, we didn’t even need it. Hey, we were out there marching and hollering because we were all pretty much aware of the lies our government was attempting to foist on us. How so? Well, for one thing, the Viet Nam war was the first war ever to be reported via live TV. This meant that TV reporters, TV cameras were out there shooting the truth. This meant photographing, for eternity, that little girl fleeing naked from napalm. It meant photographing for eternity an “allied” officer shooting a dissenter in the head as the dissenter knelt in the dirt at the officer’s feet. And it meant photographing for eternity that famous, infamous wagonload of injured US soldiers being transported out of a battle zone. Hordes of helicopters flying over villages “destroyed to keep them safe from the Viet Cong,” replete with the murdered lying in the mud. It was all there for us to see.
If our government was hiding its true motives for involving the U.S.A. in a manufactured war, lying blatantly about the Vietnamese sinking ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, it didn’t matter. All of us who protested were able to access media, were able to watch live coverage of this sin against humanity on TV and decide for ourselves how we wanted to deal -- or not deal -- with it. .
All that has changed. This time around, all media is censored, only news that the government believes will assist in propaganda efforts is being released, and that ain’t much. Apparently, the “Decider” running this Iraq version of Viet Nam has decided that even a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Therefore, in today’s Iraqi Viet Nam re-play, you may view soldiers in Baghdad, rifles at ready, gaining forcible entry into homes, charging upstairs while occupants watch silently. We may view soldiers in their tanks and humvees driving along roads surrounded by unexploded “I.E.D,s” (improvised Explosive Devices) along with lots of photos of Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts.
But, if you want to see what infants severely deformed by their father’s depleted uranium absorption look like; if you want to see what the actual demolition of an entire city (Fallujah) looks like; if you want to see Afghanistan again under Taliban rule; if you want to see the actual face of war, you need the internet.
posted by Alice at Wednesday, May 17, 2006
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