ON THE ROAD

July 7, 2003

Back in the Tri-State Area

Driving through New England today scanning the radio dial I came upon a radio call-in talk show. I listened to two callers. They were complaining about the "liberal media" who always give "The President" such a hard time, and "Why do you have to let a liberal talk on your show? We hear enough of that on TV," ... And I can't disdain these people, they sound like good, earnest people, but they are so tragically misled.

Both callers came pretty much from the same middle American point of view, and used the same phrases, which they obviously get from the right wing media. Both talked about how these people -- they said the word as if they have to spit it out, like it almost chokes them to call these people people -- don't value human life the way we do ...

And I'm thinking: Has anyone read the casualty figures, some 6,000 Iraqi civilians killed for some reason the White House has still never decided. Also a couple of hundred Americans and countless Iraqis dismissed and uncounted because they were "military" -- men who took up arms to defend their country against an invader -- killed for this elusive justification. Did anyone tell them which country invaded which? Did anyone tell them there were no weapons of mass destruction? That there wasn't even an air force in that UN-disarmed country? That it was all a big lie?

Where does this "value for human life" crap come from? It can only come from propaganda, from talk radio and pasty corporate media that the right wing radio inoculates people against, calling it "liberal", which means anti-American, Communist from the devil. This pre-packaged point of view can only come from propaganda. It does not come from reality. These people have not seen or heard that. Very sad.

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