MADE FOR T.V. WAR

      Not since the sixties have we had a war broadcast "truthfully" on the evening news. After Vietnam the powers that be realized that a relentless loop of flag draped coffins, black body bags and scruffy teenagers "shotgunning" billowing clouds of weed, between dropping napalm on thatch roof villages was not good for the ongoing business of death. Truth births protest. Combine that with the criminality of government (Nixon) and the Vietnam War became untenable. For those who weren't there - we lost. All other U.S. conflicts since, (Granada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and a myriad of minor engagements across the globe) have been "covered" by embedded media, restricted to access and reigned in by government censors. We only saw what they wanted us to see. Yemen, Syria, Somalia, DR Congo and uncountable regional conflicts followed the same paradigm. Nothing to see here. How's your cholesterol and leaf clogged gutters?

     Now that Putin's imperialistic empire has violated the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation the forces of good and evil can easily be compartmentalized and portrayed in simplistic terms of white hats vs. black hats. We are only two weeks in and cries of "war crimes" and "genocide" on the part of the Russians echo across the CNN newsroom. Easy does it Wolf. A recent edit of the transcript of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, removing her indictments of Russia's use of cluster bombs says it all. As the fat cats behind the scenes had to remind her, "We use them all the time. You can't say that." To any clear thinking person WAR is a crime. So parsing out specifically egregious atrocities like bombing maternity hospitals as "crimes," hoping for some redress from International judicial bodies like the ICC seems to be an exercise in futility. Genocide? Give me a break.            

gen·o·cide

/ˈjenəˌsīd/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

   "a campaign of genocide"

  As horrific as all of this is, it is not genocide. Christian Euro-Americans perpetrated genocide on Indigenous Americans in the western hemisphere from 1492- ?. Germans, with the help of Christian Eastern Europeans (Ukrainians included) perpetrated genocide on the Jewish people during WWII. The attempted extermination of the Armenians was a genocide. Rwanda was a genocide. To so cavalierly use the term in this context minimizes historical suffering under truly genocidal campaigns.

     So the Ukrainian war goes on - on T.V., on social media, on CNN, FOX, Al Jazeera and DW (Germany). The coverage seems unfiltered, but this too may be an illusion. False flags and accusations of "fake news" are rampant. Press is 24/7. We think we are getting the full story, but I'm sure we aren't. Enjoy your delusions while you can. If NATO gets involved the truth will be the first casualty. That much we've learned and come to expect from the good old U.S.A. How's your lawnmower? Spring is right around the corner.