Arrrrgh!

I woke up this morning and my blog counter had reset!

I went from 6,000 and some hits to 3. (Not that 6,000 is a lot, but it's better than 3!!!)

Blackwater in the Shadows

Often, when you talk politics, there's a certain disinterested glaze that comes over the eyes of the majority of people. Granted more people are interested these days; more people are seeing the connection between the politics in Washington and their own lives. Still, politics may be considered by many to be a boring subject.

But I can honestly say that I've never seen that glaze come over anyone's eyes when I mention Blackwater. As a matter of fact, I would argue that Blackwater, a private mercenary force hired by the US government that is in the midst of a serious investigation, is a subject that most Americans find very interesting.

I would even go so far as to say that if the government's renewal of Blackwater's license in Iraq were on the front page of a newspaper today, that company would sell more newspapers.

So the facts that a) Americans are interested in Blackwater, and b) the US has renewed Blackwater's license in Iraq, and c) you won't find that information in any major American news publication (let alone on the front cover) lead me to declare that this is a blatant case of censorship in the American news media.

Of course, we don't need an official policy of censorship like North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Fortunately for Bush and his cronies, all the major media outlets in this country are owned by six corporations.

So when something important happens, like the US renewing the license of a private militia that many Americans feel has too much power and too little oversight, where are Americans supposed to get that information? Fortunately for the American people, the government has not yet found a way to censor the internet. You could go to Al Jazeera English and find the Blackwater story on the front page under "Americas".

You could also find this information an at The News is NowPublic.com, MWC News, or Newstin, though it's worth noting that all these sources got the story from Al Jezeera.

So, what I would like to know is why a foreign newspaper is a more reliable source of important information than all our news outlets put together??

Oh, right; because ALL OUR NEWS OUTLETS ARE PUT TOGETHER!