Media Whores Part I

Today I was trapped for several hours in a venue that had CNN blaring. With nothing else to view but my fellow human it was inevitable that I spend some time looking at the glazed over phosphor glow. Let me give you the highlights of what you already know so well: Iraq, Iraq, 2008 Presidential Race, What The President Did Today, it rained somewhere. Repeat ad infinitum. I know nothing more about my world than when I woke up this morning as a result of this involuntary investment. The formula for all segments was to present the most contentious angle possible. Even the weather made sure to harp about the storms that were going to wreak havoc on poor defenseless people.

There was another annoying factor aside from pandering to idiocy and fear, and that was the obsession with dead American soldiers. I've taken pains over the past few years to learn as much as I can about terrorism, guerilla warfare, and insurgency. Most of what passes for inspection of this phenomenon concerns itself with the kinetics (killing people and breaking things). If you read about the practice of Fourth Generation Warfare, and read with the leaders on the Salafi Jihadist movement write and say, you'll learn that the conflict is 80% non-kinetic. It is stage managed violence that is formulated for maximum visual impact beyond the battlefield. (Here's a little example of this type of conflict. When the PLO was engaged in the Intifada we were bombarded with imagery of Israeli military forces wreaking destruction upon the Palestinian people. Conditioned response: Those Israelis are slaughtering helpless civilians. How many video clips did you see of suicide bombers detonating themselves in Israeli restaurants and cafes? None. This is Fourth Generation Warfare at its most clinical.) There are virtually no strategic kinetic fights. What you have are a series of tactical engagements that are positioned to give a strategic appearance. This is where CNN comes in, willingly.

The endless obsessing about death serves absolutely no positive purpose. The "other side" views this as weak, overwrought wailing. The domestic consumers have images constantly piped into the visual cortex, bypassing cognition. The deep inspection of each death serves to keep viewers in the emotion and well away from logic or analysis. This is precisely the state that Fourth Generation Warfare opponents need us kept in. The broadband obsessive-compulsive stream of conflict that is being constantly mainlined into our jugular keeps us intellectually anesthetized. While immersed in emotion sound judgment is essentially impossible. Imagine, if you will, doctors that broke down uncontrollably every time a patient was diagnosed with a serious life-threatening illness. This overproduced microscope of television creates self-fulfilling prophecies. Just like your life, complete daily inspection of all aspects will rarely show marked progress. The ancient lie told since the beginning is that they are merely reporting what transpires and aren't responsible for what happens in the world. A cursory inspection of Fourth Generation Warfare reveals this to be turned on its head. The other lie passed off by big media, that they're just doing what everyone else is doing, wouldn't pass muster between a parent and child but is willingly swallowed by an entire society. Eventually, in the long term, I think this issue will sort itself out. I have yet to meet and discuss this very concept with anyone that is anything less than disgusted. When enough people vote with their eyes and feet this whore of a dinosaur we're forced to endure will wither and die.

Ares