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The horrible truth exposed by Wikileaks

 The Rage! It Burns!
Aug 062010
 

I’m sure everyone has heard by now about Wikileaks publishing thousands of Afghan War documents and battle reports. The media has gone bat shit crazy about the ‘shocking news’ exposed by this leak, and all of the ‘new information’ that’s been offered up to public view as a result of it. Bullshit.

Seriously, let’s look at the ‘new facts’ offered up by the leaked papers.

Pakistani intelligence agencies have been funding and supplying Afghan terror groups. So…the same thing they’ve been doing for close to two decades? How is this news? They’ve been doing this for as long as they have for one simple reason…if you export your militants to die somewhere else, they are a lot less likely to try to overthrow the government in your country. Hard to lead a revolution when you’re already a corpse.

Afghan terrorists have shoulder launched missiles. Is this really surprising? What militant group world wide DOESN’T have them?

Iran has been funding some tribal warlords. Not news. This has been the case for as long as the Pakistanis have been funding the Taliban/Al Qaeda. Iran is backing the regional warlords who have similar goals. I guarantee you that the Saudis are probably doing the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if India (not exactly buddies with Pakistan) is handing guns to any warlords opposed to Pakistani influence.

The Karzai government has a tenuous hold on power. Um…the words ‘no shit’ come to mind here. Most reports I’ve read have indicated quite clearly that nobody outside of the Kabul region gives a damn what the supposed central government wants or says…the regional warlords hold the sway. And why wouldn’t they? They have the guns and they’re right next door, as opposed to a few provinces over.

The Karzai government is just a little corrupt. Could this maybe be a reason for the previous fact? A simple Google search will turn up 3 and 4 year old reports about Western concerns that maybe the Karzai government stealing dollars by the billion could be a bit of a bad thing.

None of this is news. And since information on ALL of this has been freely available and reported for quite some time, clearly we have to mature and not just start screaming about “Gov’mint conspiracies to conceal the truth!” while heading to our tin foil hat fittings.

So, what IS the horrible truth exposed by this whole ‘expose’? Simple…

We as a society don’t give a shit.

scared

I constantly see people complaining about the poor quality of news broadcasts, and I actually do agree with them. Christ, half the show is filled with celebrity gossip and other completely unnecessary bullshit. I’m a huge sports fan, but do we REALLY still need a sports segment on newscasts? Does anyone rely on those these days? It’s all filler all the time.

Beyond that, the modern 24/7 news cycle means that the smallest things are immediately blown up in to SCANDAL OF THE YEAR material because those networks need something to bring in the eyes to see the ads for the products being hawked by the companies paying for the airtime. Did anyone need the amount of coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death, or anything Michael Jackson did or didn’t do, or the latest pronouncement of who the latest skank to suck off Bill Clinton was? Really? It filled the time, and that was it.

So I agree wholeheartedly with anyone complaining about the quality of news reportage. I DON’T agree when they paint it all as driven that way by owner corporations or what not. No, that’s too easy. That lets the REAL cause of all of this off the hook.

We’re the real cause, because we don’t give a shit.

Why aren’t we better informed? Because we don’t want to be. The hubbub over the latest Wikileaks disclosures as something enormous, despite the fact ALL of that has been available for YEARS, proves that we don’t want to be better informed. The facts were there, but we were too busy worrying about some fake ass characters on a fake ass reality show to bother with them.

And since we don’t give a shit, news organizations don’t bother telling it to us. Hell, we’re saving them money…they can close down foreign desks and replace them with some dumb as fuck blonde with nice tits to tell us what those wacky girls on The Hills are up to.

And is it any surprise that every political leader on the face of the planet acts like we’re a collection of blabbering retards and does whatever the Hell they feel like? After all, we’re the ones deciding not to bother with keeping up what they’re doing from day to day. Why are we then SHOCKED when they spend their time (and our money) on stupid shit?

We’re a society of spoiled brats. We want everything our way right now, and that’s why we’re a collection of fat bastards carrying massive debt. And it’s certainly why we don’t know what’s going on in the world we’re supposedly living in, because we can’t deal with that ‘icky bad news’. We want simplified crap spoon fed to us in an easy to digest manner.

If we truly want things to get better, we need to grow the fuck up and start demanding changes…not just vocally, but also through our actions.

  • Qikdraw

    I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I think its rather simplistic to put all the blame on 'us'. Yes we need to grow up and get better educated ourselves, but when society as a whole has been corrupted by big business who really just want worker drones and not people who will see the shit they're doing. Education has been dumbed down, news IS controlled by the corporations. Fox sends out their talking points of the day to carry the same message across the board. He;; Fox went to court for the right to lie to its viewers as a 'free speech right'. They won. The problem with media today is people think they are informed, when they are simply not. As you say media will focus on Anna Nicole Smith for months rather than tell you news that should piss people off. Like billions missing in Iraq, contractors vastly overcharging (called war profiteering and it used to be considered almost treason), etc. The US media seems to really be designed to hide the truth from its citizens rather than actually tell them things that might upset them and have them protest.

    but this is really a long discussion and filled with a lot of grey area rather than black or white.

  • http://www.peerpressureworks.com Cliff

    However, in this case, every single 'SHOCKING NEW FACT' reported after the fact had already been reported…repeatedly…by basically every media source in existence. If people had wanted to know all of this, they would have.

    And you talk about big business changing society…who let that happen? WE DID. We as a society keep ignoring how bought off all of these politicians are so that we can pretend to be shocked and dismayed when one is caught with his hand so deep in the cookie jar that it has to be noticed. WE elected leaders who cut education funding because we got hooked on the “We'll cut your taxes” part and didn't bother wondering where the money would be made up to cover those cuts. WE didn't pay attention when media laws were changed that allowed these media mega-corps to exist in the first place. And media focused on crap like Anna Nicole Smith because IT WAS PULLING IN VIEWERS. If WE didn't watch the endless coverage, it would have ended.

    We have completely and utterly failed in what is supposed to be our responsibility in a democracy…holding those in power responsible.

  • Qikdraw

    Like I said, I don't disagree with you at all, I guess my main point was that there is more to it than 'its all our fault', but I do agree we did drop the ball as well.

   
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