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I'm not sure how this is going to go, bare with me.

 

I just posted on the Jack Layton topic and I've realized something about this War On Iraq business and the 9/11 attack 5 years ago.

 

Why?

 

I mean why are we still caring about this? This seems to be the only thing that matters at any point in time, what about the other things that are killing the people around the world. Disease, famine, other wars, and crime in general. Why aren't we talking about those, are they just taking a back seat to something that isn't even more important than all of these. A place I grew up near, Midland Ontario (north of Barrie), has a HIV infection rate of something in the rage of 1 in 5 people. I mean isn't things like this just as important? Disease kills mroe than the current Iraq War is killing right now? There are other worse warlords that are killing people in Africa and the world all over.

 

Just thought I'd throw this out there....figure it'll get a good response....

 

Cheers and have a good debate.

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because it's what's 'in' right now? and let's face it: aids and african warloards/poverty are passe. people won't stay glued to their t.v. to hear about either. neither one is a percieved threat or concern to the average north american. there aren't any north american troops dieing in africa. dead somalians don't affect the price of oil and aids isn't a w.m.d. although i could see that drug resistant t.b. getting some airtime real soon.

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I don't see why it's in, personally I'm fuckin sick of hearing about Iraq this, Iraq that....fuck it's war, it is no different than any other war that has ever happened in the history of humanity. People go to war and people die, and war is the most profitable business in the world.

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Well this is a pretty complex question, some say the media sets the agenda, some think theres collusion between government and media to keep specific issues flooding the airwaves and conveinantly ignoring others. Remember all media on TV has corporate sponsers who have specific political interests so all your seeing is what they want you to see.

It's not an easily answered question id suggest, but study the inner workings of the media id suggest reading "Manufacturing consent" by Noam Chomsky, he has fantastic analysis!

 

Fact for the day: roughly 180,000-200,000 Iraqi's have died since the beginning of the conflict.

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You couldn't make up something more sensational than 911. It'll go down as the single most televised, most talked about media event of our lives. it's the number 1 thing on America's mind, so we're gonna hear about it. if your big brother got kicked around at school and subsequently took a gun to school to settle the score, you'd hear about it!

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The war in Iraq is obiously a big topic in the U.S. for good reason, & a lot of the media we're exposed to is from the U.S. therefore we're exposed to a lot of Iraq talk.

 

However, buy a Canadian newspaper (u live in Ottawa like me, so open up an Ottawa Citizen paper) & you won't see Iraq on the front page too often unless something big happens. Right now a lot of focus is on Afghanistan because its news in Canada when soldiers or ours are killed. Go into the first half-dozen pages though & you'll see Iraq mentioned somewhere.

 

While i agree 100% with you, the reason WHY we don't hear a ton about global poverty, HIV crisis in Africa, genocide etc. is that most of that isn't exactly "news". These are ongoing problems & aren't headline stories & don't sell papers or get TV ratings. In many cases too, people just don't care. Governments don't care about Darfur or Rwanda or the Congo because those situations, no matter how horrific, do not threaten them economically or militarily. If countries did put their military in these genocide countries it would be news.

 

Situations like Iran & North Korea & anything Al-Qaeda says is news because it affects us & we have a stake in it. People dying of AIDS in another continent doesn't affect us so most don't care.

 

That why this world is failing its humanitarian job, because humans are natually self-centered.

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