Last week, with the release of the summary of the CIA torture report, one
“expert” after another was trounced onto every television news agency in America. Even Dick Cheney got his chance to defend the CIA and its practices on NBC’s Meet The Press. The soft questions set up by Chuck Todd gave Cheney the perfect outlet to defend American Exceptionalism, torture, (though Cheney outright refused to call it such, instead insisting that the only instance of torture was the 9/11 attacks themselves) and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.
Meanwhile, 25,000 protesters marched up and down New York City streets chanting, “I can’t breathe” the now famously quoted last words of Eric Garner, victim of a banned choke-hold by New York’s finest. Soon after, two officers were killed by a mentally ill man, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot his girlfriend in Maryland before driving to New York City and murdering the two officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
Almost immediately after the officers were killed, the television news narrative changed. No longer were the protesters victims of state sanctioned police brutality, suddenly they were all potentially murderous “thugs” and “demons,” as police officer Darren Wilson described another unarmed black teen whom he shot to death earlier in the summer, sparking the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.
Furthermore, over the last couple years it has become common knowledge that America has been engaged in a near constant battle in the Middle East using drones, unmanned aircraft that function as virtual killer flying robots. The only difference being the lack of A.I., with someone controlling the aircraft from as far away as Nevada while striking at potential targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. Small comfort for the families of innocent victims often killed by such strikes.
The common thread in all of these incidents is the complicity of the news media in perpetuating a defense of State Sanctioned Violence, heavily defended by all levels of Government, while almost a complete lack of coverage of the victims of such violence. In many cases, the television news media offers no coverage of the victims, usually viewers are left without the name of a single victim of violence while official after official defends American Exceptionalism and the right of State Sanctioned Murder and other forms of violence.
In some cases, like the drone strikes, dozens of people are murdered, yet not a single victim’s name is mentioned. In the cases of police brutality, the nation was brought to the attention of the victims through social media sites. It was only after the cases had gone viral that the television news media started picking up, rather grudgingly, the individual cases of brutality and the victim’s name, but as soon as the two officers in New York were killed, the narrative completely changed and the focus was immediately turned onto the officers as victims, ignoring the dozens of names of black victims of police brutality.
In fact, had it not been for social media, there’s a good chance that none of those victims names would have ever been mentioned in more than passing. The common theme being, if Americans don’t hear names or have faces to put them to, than they are not actually seen as victims. So then when one official after another defends State violence, their narrative becomes the only narrative. We come to accept the official explanations. When in reality, thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people become victim to the various forms of American State Violence. Whether it’s the police state at home, or the war machine in the Middle East, the names and faces of the dead fade into the noise that is the American television news media.
Change will only come when those responsible for endorsing state violence are held accountable. They will only be held accountable when the television news media starts providing equal coverage to the victims as to the officials defending the state. But the fact is, if the news media were actually balanced, then the voices of the tens of thousands of victims of “American Exceptionalism” would drown out the few who endorse such actions. Remember, ordinary victims of state violence far outnumber those who perpetrate such crimes and the Government Elites who defend them. When those voices of the dead and tortured can finally have a proportional platform to state their case, there will be only one narrative to survive, that of the victims, not the elite who brutalize them.