10.27 Update: My open letter to Congress in defense of Democracy and justice by clicking Letter to Congress.
This picture you see above was taken by a photographer named Kenneth Jarecke during the first Iraq war and then submitted to his editor. In the most shocking way, the executives of America’s mainstream media outlets colluded to keep this picture away from the eye of the public. The same fourth estate that was supposed to be speaking truth to power instead worked hand in hand with war mongers in our government in order to keep this most gruesome of images hidden from their audience? Why? Because wars are supposed to be entertaining and fun! Wars are supposed to be about fancy props and CNN style three dimensional graphics. Wars are cash cows for media, politicians and the military-financial complex alike. The yellow press hyenas don’t want to mess up this hustle by showing us the hell that wars really are.
What we get are wars that are sterilized; the death and destruction that is showered upon citizens through phosphorous clouds is overlooked and we instead see PlayStation version of wars. CNN, Washington Post, Fox News, and the rest present genocides as fun facts while mass murder is televised zoomed out far enough so that we see pixels being bombed instead of realizing that each dot is a mother, father, or child being snuffed out. This is how humanity is reduced and how true evil is normalized; we are so inundated with outrage and breaking news carnage that we have come to accept horrors as a water cooler chatter. Humanity eradicated on a day to day basis; we treat these things as quaint talking points over Starbucks lattes and gluten free biscottis as we partake in the next hashtag protest. #FreeInsertNameHere
The victims of these egregious wars are not just innocent people overseas; go to your nearest city and you will encounter the poor, the marginalized and one homeless veteran after another (read Silent Salute) who have been broken by endless policies of manifest aggression. Every 20 minutes, a veteran commits suicide unable to cope with the memory of death seared in his or her mind. The plight of veterans is turned into a means of selling cars and bumper stickers. “Thank you for your service” is uttered in passing as the citizenry continues shopping disconnected from the reality of never-ending hostilities. This depraved war against terror thus perpetuates itself; a thousand pigs eating at the trough of bloodshed—they are feeding on humanity.
What is done to others with bombs and bullets is done to us with disinformation and pervasive infringements on our rights. The National Defense Authorization Act that was signed by Barack Obama in the dead of night (Obama signs NDAA)–which empowered the Department of Defense to “counter disinformation and propaganda”–was a naked power grab usually pulled off by autocrats like Sadam Hussein. The NDAA is a poison pill that silences speech and restricts freedom of press. Keep an eye on this article on Facebook and social media; if this article is removed or flagged, take it as a sign that there is a concerted effort to sterilize truth the same way the picture of the Iraqi burned alive in the tank is rarely found on the internet. Our Corporate State Media and our cancerous government would make Joseph Goebbels proud.
I will let readers decide, is what you read here propaganda? Do I sound like a man who hates my nation or am I a person who cherishes the ideals enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights? The meme of “fake news” was meant to discredit people like me who try to expose the lies of the powerful. Freedoms don’t die overnight nor do they perish in one instant; our rights are bled away one small drip at a time. We have a choice as a people; do we want to keep being fed lies and propaganda and letting the notion of a free press be dictated by Wall Street and the moneyed gentry? Or are we better off seeking information from those who are not connected to a global system of greed and gluttony that is kneecapping humanity?
We as Americans need to say enough! If we keep looking away while profiteers and plutocrats keep declaring wars overseas, soon enough those wars will boomerang home. We are one bad decision and one false move away from all of us eating mushroom clouds for breakfast. Perhaps we need to stop focusing on the salacious and turning everything into a political sport and actually unite to reclaim our government from the hands of colonial neo-fascists who reside on both side of the political divide. Or we can continue down the path of the Germans in the 1930’s and refuse to speak up against thugs who are setting the globe on fire with their greed. That did not end well for Germans; it will not end well for us. Don’t let our future be that of Dresden or else the face of death our media never shows us will be made evident in high definition reality before US. #FaceOfWar
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” ~ Samuel Johnson
Check out the Ghion Cast below where I discuss the duplicity and mendacity of corporate journalism and present an alternative of independent citizen journalism.
Check out the Ghion Cast below where I discuss how war is manufactured not to defend freedom and Democracy but to perpetuate greed and gluttony.
Check out the Ghion Cast below where I discuss the shell game of politics that is used to hide the #FaceOfWar and keep us in perpetual conflict.
~ The two poems are excerpts from Serendipity’s Trace, a book I wrote while I was in a boot camp called life which led to a harvest called purpose. ~
Founder at Ghion Journal • Teodrose Fikre is the editor and founder of the Ghion Journal. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from a life of upper-middle class privilege to a time spent with the huddled masses taught Teodrose a valuable lesson in the essence of togetherness and the need to speak against injustice. Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power. 
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report