Cable Voyeurism from Virginia

Cable Voyeurism from Virginia bumped & updated

BREAKING: VIDEO… Actual News from NBC Shorter version: Shooter had time to mail a package! It makes Reynolds and Malkin look even sillier, doesn’t it? Oh, and she’s ba-ack on the Muslim attack.

Our hearts go out to the Virginia Tech families and the entire community. It
was a senseless tragedy of unspeakable magnitude and every single victim deserves
to be known for the glorious life that was lost so needlessly.

But I can’t help but wonder when MSNBC will do something
like this for our slain soldiers.

When will CNN, Fox “News” and MSNBC spend all day for two or three
days showing the bodies in Iraq; showing the U.S. soldiers in broken pieces
in hospitals across the country and in Iraq? When will NBC send their prima
donna Brian Williams to pontificate about the dead soldiers coming home in flag
draped coffins actually showing one of them? All we’re getting from Mr. Williams
lately is whining about the Internet, or going to Iraq to help his sagging ratings.

We can’t show the coffins because people might get the idea that soldiers are
dying one after another after another… … after another… after another…
…

God help the corporate hack pack if they did a tally of dead Iraqis, because
the American people would be shocked and sickened. Or maybe we’d all just turn
our collective head away and pretend it’s not happening as most do every single
day. That doesn’t stop the death toll from rising, but if we can’t see it the
whole thing is easier to take come suppertime. Pass the buttah.

We have seen more carnage on cable shown in the midst of the Virginia Tech
tragedy than we have seen coming out of Iraq in years. Why is that? One is a volunteer
gig of soldiers sent to slaughter, and the other was a senseless massacre. It’s
all young people for fodder any way you cut it. Show it.

Broken and bleeding soldiers are only allowed on PBS specials or HBO, anywhere
but the regular cable fare, which gives us only ad nauseam drivel about Mr.
Bush’s latest 9/11 speech that centers around why we must continue sending our
soldiers into the meet grinder in Iraq. “Face the Nation” gave us
an “exclusive” interview with Dick Cheney on Sunday; featuring a man
who has done nothing but lie to the American people for years.

Where are the stories of the slain soldiers from the corporate cable hack pack?

I dare any cable network to get the talent out of their air conditioned studio and defy
the lies and start showing the flag draped coffins.

Again, my prayers continue for the entire Virginia Tech community. But why
are the lives taken on American soil more important than showing the young men
and women who are dying for the Iraqis? Why?

Oh, and while we’re at it will someone ask the president why we’re still dying for the Iraqis? It’s not a minor point.

Why have the cable outlets drenched us in an emotional bath from Virginia
while our soldiers are fighting a never ending battle that is obliterating young
lives as well?

Yesterday we were treated to a media spectacle that was as gratuitous as it
was blatantly self-serving, with each cable network trying to prove they cared
more, could send the most people to cover it; could set up the best on sight
situation room and every single anchor swallowed his or her orders
like good members of the corporate hack pack. They made sure their cameras were
trained on the families and students grieving in the gymnasium, hoping to catch
a glimpse of someone’s loss, ripping the scab off of any privacy these people
and this community could grab. We even had Mr. Bush and Mr. Kaine making sure
they both were up front and on camera for the event, because they had to help
the people grieve. The arrogance of some politicians is choking, isn’t it? Sure they cared, but who needs a politician when your life is falling apart? What
was the point of televising the community’s private pain, and theses two politicians
and their wives? Their wives? And why is the media sticking microphones in student faces so we all can listen to their tortured stories over and over again?

Have we lost all sense of dignity? When did our pain become something we’re
so proud of we need to broadcast it… never mind. We are a therapy nation now,
televising our grief for all to see. It’s what we now do best. But did the community
of Virginia Tech need our prying eyes? It likely never occurred to anyone to ask.

When was the last time one media outlet offered a soldier a microphone to ask
how he or she felt about their tours being extended while Mr. Bush and his ever
dwindling base pimp Dick Cheney keeps the Republican dam from breaking? Oh,
that’s right, soldiers can’t talk. How convenient. But boy do they bleed.

Soldiers serving and dying in Iraq have become media fodder, a story that is
flippantly passed off because everyone knows the media “supports the troops.”
It’s a given. Targeting Democrats who are trying to end the war is much more
fun than focusing on what the war is actually costing, just ask Mr. Bush. But
where is the soldier’s voice on cable every night? Instead we get Bill O’Reilly
railing at liberals. Brit Hume targeting Nancy Pelosi. John McCain buying rugs
with his sidekick Lindsay Graham, all the while saying Democrats don’t “support
the troops” because we want to find a way out of Iraq, which is what America
wants, too.

Michael Ware does what he can.

John Roberts of CNN did it for a while.

Lara Logan tried.

Keith Olberman ends his show every night with a nod to how long it’s been since
Mr. Bush proclaimed “mission accomplished.”

The murders in Virginia were a horrible waste of beautiful lives. The cable
news shows couldn’t show enough, invade the privacy deep enough, or get enough
people on camera, while competing for what cable network could out grieve the other.

The deaths of our soldiers have passed in silence for years. No faces. No flag
draped coffins. No families. No services. No grieving. No public displays. That
wouldn’t be dignified. It’s war. Soldiers suffer in silence. It’s the military’s way.

What better way to serve the politicians?

I dare the corporate hack pack to start covering the soldiers deaths with the
open abandon they offered in their voyeuristic Virginia orgy that allowed no one
in the Virginia Tech community any peace or privacy. They won’t. But if they
would it would end the war. Televise that.