You Cannot Turn it Off: News Addiction 487
BizangoBob writes: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help. There's a great piece about news addiction in the Washington Post. It made me feel I'm not the only one."
called in sick (Score:1, Insightful)
Treat Arab-Americans with respect. Treat terrorists with disdain, etc. Let law enforcement agencies decide who is suspicious and who isn't.
I know what you mean!! (Score:3, Insightful)
We endlessly follow every possible civil liberties encroachment though
I read Slashdot compulsively. I also read Slate, Salon, and the NYT daily. Have I really learned anything important, or am I just wasting time? I tend to think more towards the later.
This is a timely topic in wake of the recent tragic events. I have been refreshing CNN and MSNBC's website obsessively searching for the latest (often wrongly reported) news.
OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.
Religion is to blame (Score:1, Insightful)
A suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
- Please consider making a "permanent" story -- or call it a forum. When i
want to post something about the tragedy, i'm forced to choose between three
options, none of which is great: I can submit a story, and odds are great
that you will have to reject it. I can post a comment to an old story, where
it will likely be missed since the story is off the front page and will
certainly be missed when the next update is posted. Or, i can wait for the
next update and hope i hit it early.
If you had one huge permanent story instead of lots of smaller ones, people
would sort by "Newest First" to get news, which is what they should do
instead of just waiting for the next story to be posted. It lets new +1 and
+2 comments have a chance regardless of how early they're posted.
Also, raising the maximum comment rating above 5, if technically feasable,
would really help in these stories, where dozens and dozens of comments are
rated at 5...
Jeremy Glick, from Dateline (Score:5, Insightful)
Please read. Please mod up so people will see.
You can go back to sleep now. Here's why: (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who think we can't afford to kill innocent civilians there too, though, please take your rose-tinted glasses off. This isn't grade schoool and everything has a price in the real world. Freedom from the creeping tyranny of terrorism, though -- teaching those people that this is NOT the way to make friends and influence people -- requires some struggle and loss.
I am confident that, in the end, the good will far outweigh the bad in this thing. But it's going to take time.
- A.P.
Religion is NOT to blame (Score:2, Insightful)
No true Christian could ever possibly bomb a hospital. No true Muslim could ever possibly commit a terrorist act. Anyone who would do such a thing is a murderer, not a Muslim or Christian. The two concepts are not mutually compatible.
In order to end the senseless killing, we as a society need to do two things: Stop teaching hate, and effectively deal with mental illness. No other remedy will succeed. Well, maybe one other. We can always exterminate ourselves.
Manufacturing Consent (Score:5, Insightful)
The talk is of reprisal, and how the United States is going to respond to the attacks. Granted, nothing can justify what has happened, and there is no rationalization for what was done. However, could we perhaps get a bit wider perspective or perhaps even some critical thought/discussion regarding what has happened from CNN?
Today there was a poll on CNN.com that makes my point perfectly: "If Afghanistan refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S. bomb Kabul?" 79% of respondents said yes, we should bomb Kabul.
Hello, my fellow citizens! The people of Afghanistan are currently living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban, having just come out of a long and very punishing war with the former Soviet Union. Not only has all the major infrastructure *already* been bombed, but the people are suffering tremendously as it currently stands.
Even more to the point, what could "we" possibly gain by bombing Kabul, which is a CITY full of CIVILIANS, after all? Does it make any difference whether it's a cruise missle or jetliner causing the explosion? Do you think the Taliban government, the only ones with access to food and equipment, will still be in Kabul when the bombs start to drop? Hardly--they'll be off in the hills with bin Laden, and the only people left to suffer the brunt of such an assault would be the civilian population.
The point I'm trying to make is that the mainstream media is so caught up in the idea that we could bomb Afghanistan that they've forgotten whether or not we should. After all, the only real way that we'll get bin Laden (or whomever is responsible for these crimes) out is by _going_in_after_them_. That will cost American and NATO lives. And, it can be aruged that it runs the high risk of polarizing other Muslim nations against what they could only perceive as an invasion by the West.
And if you've actually read anything about what bin Laden is trying to accomplish with his terrorist agenda, it's EXACTLY that--a world war between Islam and the West. And remember, Pakistan has nuclear bombs at their disposal.
Where is there any discussion of these facts in the mainstream media? That is what I truly fear, more than anything else. The manufacturing of our consent to what amounts to acts of genocide against civilian populations--and that ultimately leads to only greater and greater violence.
Try: http://www.zmag.org [zmag.org]
Re:Religion is to blame (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You can go back to sleep now. Here's why: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and we'll see if this item of "Breaking News" is true for a change.
we have to go in and take out the Taliban "government" but do it in a way that doesn't kill many Afghani people, since they're not the ones who did this either.
The reason the Taleban is in power is because there are significant numbers of Afghanis who support it. And even the factions that are opposed to it detest the US just as much. If we go to war against Afghanistan, we have to accept the fact that lots of people who were not involved in terrorist activities are going to be killed. If the government is destroyed, what replaces it might be just as bad. I'm not saying we shouldn't attack if that's what needs to be done, just that we have to be prepared for the consequences.
The Taliban is a fundamentalist regime, and those are bad and need to be dealt with.
I hope we don't have to deal with all fundamentalist regimes. They're not the only one.
Look at Iraq for an example of what happens when we don't and/or can't.
Iraq does not have a Islamic fundamentalist regime, if that's what you meant to imply.
Going in and carpet-bombing the country isn't gonna be the way to do it though.
Afghanistan is a particular problem. If you count the invasion by the Soviet Union, and the civil war that ensued after they sent the Soviets home with their tails between their legs, Afghanistan has been at war for 22 consecutive years. There's little there to bomb. The cities are full of rubble, and roads are muddy ruts. There are thousands of experienced and fanatical guerilla warriors. If we attack Afghanistan, we have to be prepared to get our hands much dirtier than we did in the Persian Gulf.
I think that's why you haven't heard much about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan
I think the reason we haven't heard about how or when or why we're going to attack parts of Afghanistan is that it's just not good military strategy inform the enemy of your battle plans.
Having been there -- Cannot turn it on (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess this is me still in shock and denial
Sorry if this is offtopic or whatever
I still don't know what I'm doing since I saw this
U.S. government average killing: 100,000/year. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm feeling really uncomfortable with the lack of logic in valuing the lives of people, who happen by chance to have been born in the U.S., so much more highly than people who were born elsewhere.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and an estimated 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed in any way directly threatened the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, wives and families and friends.
The average killing by the U.S. government in the last 30 years has been about 100,000 people per year.
The recent terrorism is, like all violence, reprehensible. I grieve for my country, and I grieve for the people lost. However, if 5,000 people have been killed in New York and Washington D.C., that is only 5% of the U.S. government's yearly average.
I grieve for those killed by the U.S. government, also.
The Bush Administration was requesting $343.2 billion for the Defense Department in Fiscal Year 2002. Now the budget will be much more.
Would it be too much to ask to spend 1% of that amount on an initiative to try to discover how the U.S. could live in the world without killing? I've tried to pull together some ideas about relating to other people in a non-violent but powerful way in an article called, "What should be the response to violence? [hevanet.com]"
This Slashdot story begins: "In this time of madness, I find myself staying up later than usual, watching more tv than ever before, tracking more channels, with more open browser windows than even I did before. As though KNOWING more will somehow help."
Perhaps if this person had been aware of what his government was doing, he would have lost much more sleep. Knowing more will help.
Re:VERY Addictive (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe you should have used the time you wasted with watching the same stuff over and over again, hearing the same emotional hypocrisy bullshit again and again, for READING UP on the last 50 years. Might help you understand where all this hate is coming from
News Addiction != Knowledge Addiction
Re:I know what you mean!! (Score:2, Insightful)
That's tragic, because the answers will come from anywhere BUT the TV.
TV News is Junk (Score:2, Insightful)
Peter Jenning's network had to pay Richard Jule millions of dollars for their irresponsible reporting of the 92 Olympics. Remember him?
After the Oklahoma bombing, tv news focused on Middle-Eastern terrorists. Later it was found that Timothy McVeigh was the real culprit.
To me, TV news is there to keep its audience and make money via ads. To make you loyal they must make you happy. So they are often saying and reporting things in such a way as to mislead the American people into believing what the viewers want to believe in, NOT what reality truly might be.
But, they can't lie. So that's why they always use crafty and clever language, such as "alleged" or "might". After using words like to to qualify what they're about to say, they then spend the next hour on these "alleged" theories, until your mind reaches satisfactory orgasm.
Re:Religion is to blame (Score:2, Insightful)
If there were no cops, there would be no cop-killers.
parade of maudlin moments (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Religion is to blame (Score:2, Insightful)
People can *know* that they are doing the right thing even while doing things like raping or killing; their proof is in their heart.
Umm, maye you should think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Manufacturing Consent (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but if you'd been watching the news carefully, instead of getting hysterical buried in counter-culture spinlications preaching their own brand of hate, you'd know that he's failed.
This is not a war between Islam and the West, but it is war.
This is a war in which you have to choose sides: do you support state-sponsored terrorism, or don't you? It is a war between those who do and those who don't. It is a war in which there is little conflict of interest between the U.S. and Jordan, Isreal, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, France, Britain, or any other government that has suffered at the hands of terrorism sponsored by outlaw states.
You've gotten too far from the news--using phrases like "genocide" and "nuclear bombs" marginalizes you. In case you didn't watch, even when a more convential air war was used against Serbia, most bombs did not fall on civilians.
Before you think yourself cluefull and everyone else in the world Pollyanna, let me state that most other people know that there will be civillian casualties in the coming war. But the main difference you fail to grasp is that it will be something we seek to minimize rather than the central goal, and that is the central difference this war is about. We will also ally with governments who do not have the respect for human rights that we have. It will be necessary to win the war.
Also, if you had been following the news, you would have learned that Pakistan is cooperating--contributing intelligence, allowing overflight, cutting off aid and supplies to the Taliban. If you knew more about the tensions in the region, you would know their nuclear bombs a) can't reach here, b) aren't enough to take us out and prevent retaliation even if they were smuggled in, and c) will be held on to because India has them, too, which is why they are there in the first place.
This is not a war in which sanctions will be allowed to work. They are, ironically, the non-war alternative proposed by the same left wing that complains about their effects on civilian populations. And they are historically ineffective.
This will be a war with few examples of Baghdad-like bombing runs. When we punish, or hopefully eliminate, the governments that sponsor terrorism, there will be such things. Occasionally a terrorist camp will be eliminated, at least in part, by such methods. They will be directed against government or terrorist facilities and with every attempt made to avoid places where civilians congregate--but only insofar as that attempt still allows us to remove assets that government uses in its campaign of supporting terror and repressing its citizens.
Most Muslims, even those in the Middle East, are not fond of terrorism because in the main, it has made life worse for them rather than better. What Western and left-wing press alike fail to realize is that they are frequently the victims of such things, as the terrorists decide that a certain government isn't "Islamic enough" for them. As long as we are careful to go in and get, as you suggest (and I agree) terrorists and punish or destroy the governments that give the succor, and as long as we then, AFTER we remove the threat, resume the long, painful path to peaceful co-existence, there will be no Islam-West conflict beyond the multifaceted but usually peaceful conflict of values we have now.
Re:U.S. government average killing: 100,000/year. (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowing more would help, yes:
The CIA trained Osama bin Laden.
False. Widely-spread untruth by terrorist sympathizers, but false.
Once again, intelligence agencies were useless.
By not training him? No.
By enabling the Afghani people to kick out Soviet invaders? Last time I looked, the Soviets withdrew.
George Bush had increased U.S. support for Israel.
He reduced support for both sides as tensions increased.
Violence is assumed. An NBC poll says 83% of Americans want military action.
Violence has been committed. However, you notice there was no reflexive bombing campaign.
Weapons indicate weakness, not power. The best protection is being truly powerful.
To you, yes. To most people around the world, sadly, no. Would it were so but it's not, and that determines the nature of the conflict. Study the history of terrorism in the 70's and early 80's.
The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer.
No, sometimes a part of the answer. Most of that time was spent in the Cold War, which by the way, did not finally become World War Three.
The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,300 years.
Finally, you got one right.
Violence is caused by mentally de-centered people.
No. There are reams of psychological research on this subject. Any arguments based on this premise are therefore wrong.
Does the U.S. really have a place in a dispute that began 3,100 years before the founding of the country?
They seem to think so. And much as I'd like to move the Jewish state to Florida, it won't happen. As long as you deal with reality, the U.S. is always asked to go into places we have no direct involvement. The alternative, isolationism, has not been successful and is also the coward's way out of not trying to influence the world to something better. The fact that we haven't been perfectly successful means we're still human.
The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries.
Most of which happened 30 years ago. We have a history of wearing powdered wigs, too.
There is in the U.S. very little attempt at understanding other cultures.
Yes. Like all things, that varies by individual, but then I've been called a fascist for suggesting we overturn the government educational system that creates it.
Under the stress of conflict, people show how they truly think.
No. They react more extremely than they normally would. Both to the good (Red Cross donations) and bad (bomb now). On sober reflection, they go back to donating less and not wanting indiscriminate conflict. You'll notice the government you condemn did not take the easy bomb them the first night and make ourselves feel better route.
Answers?
True power is not adversarial.
Check. But if you don't include some ability to threaten those who threaten you or others, things turn out badly. Try living in a place without police if you don't believe me.
Don't let personal anger be a problem.
Our government is doing better than our people here.
The average American cannot be held responsible for the violence of the U.S. government.
And you propose letting people who do so get away with it. Bringing them to justice in any form will require force.
The bottom line
...is that we live in a world, not a college classroom. It can be a harsh and brutal world sometimes. What's coming will not be good, but it will be less bad than the alternative. Study world history 1976-1980 for an abject lesson.
Re:Umm, maye you should think (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but it's quite possible that Commander in Chief George W. Bush might. Don't forget, ultimately, the military gets their orders from Congress and the President.
Basically, Congress has to give permission for the President to use military force (which I believe has already happened), and once that has happened, the President is in basically complete control over the direction the military compaign goes. Which means that it's quite possible that the politicians will decide that bombing Kabul is the best choice of action to please the people.
Which would be a very bad thing indeed; although if we're all lucky, Bush's advisors will direct him in a less severe course of action.
Re:Religion is to blame (Score:3, Insightful)
Skyshadow's implication here is spot-on. Fundamentalism in any form is dangerous... the arrogance that comes from believing that your way of life is so much superior than mine that it gives you the right to impose it on me often turns deadly. I don't suggest for a moment that we should launch a pre-emptive strike on those two gentlemen's persons.... but bombing the bejeezus out of their credibility is something every sane American should do every chance they get.
Let'em talk... but make sure they're the poster children for the Fool of the Month Club.
Re:called in sick (Score:2, Insightful)
I have lived over twenty years in the U.S. and Hamburg is my hometown. I asked all of my nieces and nephews, if they believed they could have recognized that this friendly person could have been engaged in some meticulous preparation work to participate in the WTC attack. If Mohammed Atta would have been a student here in the U.S., it would have been exactly the American Muslim you would want to protect from retaliatory reactions of Americans, who are not capable to resolve their emotions.
It would be easy, if we just could through some magic device see into the soul of a terrorist. Unfortunately we can't. They hide very well behind a split personality, IMHO.
How do you sincerely think the law enforcement agencies could probably recognize a potential terrorist among the American Muslims or for that matter any other group of people (including their own American terrorists) in this country or overseas any more easily than everybody else ?
Of course I would always urge anyone to not live out their anger against people, who have not engaged in any hostile activities against them.