Judging by the recent news headlines, you'd think nothing of real consequence is going on. After all, we've heard no end about the Colombia Secret Service prostitution scandal and the uproar over Hilary Rosen saying that Ann Romney "has never worked a day in her life." While controversial, these topics are actually superficial given the real news that has been going on. Yet the news media doesn't focus on these things at all, not even NPR or PBS.
Even the news that does matter is cloaked in propaganda. For example, Obama visited a leadership summit with other American, mainly South American, leaders. He negotiated a "free trade" deal with Colombia that was described as helping to "create American jobs." It may create jobs, but certainly not for U.S. citizens. In fact, this type of "free trade" really exists to help American corporations offshore more of their labor to save on costs at the expense of American workers. Yet the media doesn't even bother to mention or analyze this. It's just taken for granted that "free trade" is a good thing. In other circumstances, free trade means that American agribusiness can flood Third World countries with American grain which is subsidized by the government. This then leads to the local population losing its ability to maintain local farming and economic collapse. But this is profitable to American business, so if a few people starve, that's not a problem.
Another essentially buried story is that the South American leaders were strongly opposed to the United States demanding that they continue the "War on Drugs" which is causing untold suffering to their populations. This war has become a means of the U.S. having control over these nations in a futile effort to stamp out drug production. Mexico is currently being torn apart by drug lords and cartels going to war with one another. It is like Prohibition only much, much worse.
The other nations on this continent (apart from Canada) are opposed to the continued U.S. embargo on Cuba as well. While done supposedly to fight communism, this effort reeks of hypocrisy. We do business with Red China every day. We do business with Vietnam as well. So apparently fighting communism has nothing to do with it. It has already been estimated that thousands of children have died from malnutrition and lack of medication caused by the embargo.
What matters in the news is often all that is not promoted. The media is too busy worrying about the horse race between Romney and Obama, focusing on superficial qualities while refusing to open up the real issues behind the race.
Maybe we are all just better of mindlessly texting on our iPhones and updating our Facebook pages and letting the world go to hell. It's certainly easier that way.
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