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Thursday, August 30, 2007

War Fatigue

A new study by the project for Excellence in Journalism reveals that not only is war hell, it’s downright uninteresting. Or at least, it is not nearly as newsworthy as it was even a few months ago. Depending on the media source, war coverage dropped by up to 40 percent in the second quarter of 2007. It seems that coverage fell off after Congress approved war funding without withdrawal time tables.

So, that’s it then? Congress approved the President’s request, and everyone fell into line? “Hey George, heck of a job. Let us know when Iraq is a peaceful functioning democracy and the troops are home.” We’re not interested in the details of an endeavor where we spend $200 million a day, a place where thousands of soldiers have died and continue to die and be injured.
What in the world could be so important that it has caused us to turn our attention away from Iraq?

For instance, during the week of August 12 to 17, 2007, the Utah mine disaster was the subject of 16 percent of the stories on cable TV news shows, while Iraq came in at six percent. As of August 17, there had already been 47 US combat deaths in Iraq. At the same time in the US, six miners were trapped in a collapsed coalmine. As sad and horrific as the mine disaster is, isn’t Iraq worth at least equal time? Aren’t the lives of 47 men and women bravely dying while they perform their duty to the nation as noteworthy as the poor miners trapped while performing their dangerous labor?

It is interesting that the two stories are in many ways about the same thing. They are about people, mostly poor people, who risk their lives to give the rest of us access to fossil fuels to power our lives. Whether it is by extracting coal from 1500 feet underground to power our air conditioners, or soldiers fighting in the Middle East in a misguided attempt to monopolize control of oil pipelines to power our Hummers, we are the recipients of the miners’ and soldiers’ sacrifices and labor. When miners are trapped underground, or soldiers die in helicopter crashes, we turn on our televisions, powered by electrical plants that likely are fed by coal. We watch for a while, then switch the channel to a sports or entertainment show when the news becomes too depressing or monotonous.

If suddenly the lights flickered and the television went off, we would be more disturbed by that then the news we had just seen. We would no more imagine for a second that the power plant had run out of coal than we would imagine showing up at the gas station to fill the tank, only to learn there was no more gasoline to be had.
Unfortunately, except for the people whose lives are directly affected by the war, our interest level will continue to wane, unless it somehow alters our daily life in some dramatic way.

We should have a day every month where all the electricity and all the gas pumps are shut off. Let’s sweat on a summer day with no air conditioning, like the soldiers do in Iraq. Let’s walk to work to help keep our wandering minds on the fact that our country is at war, our young men and women are getting maimed and dying, our national reputation is in tatters, and we’re spending millions a day while our economy, schools, infrastructure and society suffer. Maybe that will be worth a minute or two on the news that night.

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