Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Poof! They’re Gone!
Does the name Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa ring a bell? What about Noah Green? Only the true news junkies, with a gift for remembering trivia, will recall their names at this point. Which is remarkable, because Mr. Alissa killed ten people in a Boulder grocery store two weeks ago, and Mr. Green killed a police officer at the U.S. Capitol one week ago. Both crimes led to ubiquitous headlines, across all media platforms, as soon as they happened, as you might expect. But then, the strangest thing happened. They disappeared. Poof! They just vanished.
Both killers were Muslim, which prevents the stories from being covered. Leftist news sources like CNN ignored the stories, because they are unhelpful to our mass media’s stated goals of promoting the Democrat party. Right-wing news sources like Fox News ignored the stories, to avoid the appearance of discriminating against Muslims or other minorities. So guess what that means? That means that nobody can cover stories like this. So poof! They’re gone!
Imagine if the killers had been overweight southern Christian white male Trump supporters wearing red baseball caps? Those two killers would have been the most famous men on the planet, and would be front page stories for months. Possibly years. But no. The killers were inconsiderate enough to not fit the media’s preferred stereotype. So, poof! They’re gone. No more headlines. No discussion of their possible motivations (like, perhaps, their religion) – only the occasional brief mention of their emotional problems, difficult childhoods, struggles surviving American racism, etc. How sad it is that American culture breeds such hostility. What an awful society we live in. Really, it’s just awful. And then, * Poof! *
The media is rightly criticized for what they cover. Four years of endless stories about Donald Trump’s non-existent racism, until some people actually start to believe it. And yes, they control what people see, and they use it like a weapon against their political opponents.
But they also control what people don’t see. So we watch the shadows on the wall of the cave, and we think we are seeing reality. When there’s actually a whole world out there that we don’t see. Because those who inform us choose not to show it to us.
In the days of Walter Cronkite, there really was nothing that could be done about this. But the internet has made it more difficult to completely control access to information. For example, one of the things that put Powerline Blog on the map was their exposure of the Rathergate lies.
But the internet also allows us to choose our news sources. So a leftist can hear only what he wants to hear. This is more difficult for conservatives – they are immersed in leftism most of the time, but they can go search out other information if they like. But leftists are understandably content to sit in their cave, protected from ideas which challenge their thinking, as they confirm their biases with the shadows on the wall, which are pleasantly consistent.
And when one of the shadows goes * Poof! * and disappears, then it’s gone. Like it never happened. Which must be comforting, in a way, to the cave dwellers.
Americans are not united by a common religion, or a common race, or anything else. We are united only in that we are all Americans. Which once involved accepting a certain set of ideals, like individual liberty, restrained government, and so on. We were united by our ideas and policies.
It will be difficult to unite our country if we can’t even discuss ideas and policies. In this environment, that is nearly impossible. You can understand how difficult it would be to convince a cave dweller that everything he’d ever seen on the CNN cave wall might not be completely true. I’d probably dismiss such absurd challenges, too, if I were him. Such challenges would sound like the deranged ravings of a deplorable lunatic, who doesn’t understand reality. Such Neanderthals should be ignored, or perhaps expelled from polite society. Of course.
The media’s power of inclusion and exclusion, used only to their advantage, and without consideration for America or her citizens – this power is surprisingly destructive. You wouldn’t think it would matter this much. But in a country united only by ideas, this is incredibly destructive. Today, we can barely speak to one another. Our house is divided against itself. Which is the whole idea of those who seek to destroy America.
So here we are. Living together in the greatest country on earth.
Until * Poof! * – it’s gone!
Perhaps not physically gone, but fundamentally transformed, as Obama said. Into a shadow of its former self.
Just a shadow on a wall.
Published in General
You should write one, based on that brilliant comment! Really – please do. I’ll check the member feed tomorrow.
I forget where I heard or read this, but it’s called the shoe on the other foot test. Switch the political parties, switch the presidents or congressional member, and test how you would react to any issue/story – would you be as outraged or dismissive of the issue/story if the shoe was on the other foot? Or, test how the media would cover the story if the shoe were on the other foot. The media fails this test again and again, or gives obligatory coverage for as short a time as possible until they memory hole the story, as your post adeptly points out.
As far as doing a post on what to call Green’s attack, I don’t think I can. I’ve worked really hard to ignore and not feed the trolls. Doing an entire post on that means a level of dark satire I don’t think I’m up to.
In regard to my above comment, however, I just realized I should have added that Officer Billy Evans will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda (in all seriousness, he should, if dying while defending the Capitol is the standard for this honor) and President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer will be visiting to pay their respects and pose for politically opportunistic photos.
I remember when anti-fur protestors would splash people wearing furs with red paint. I can think of an even better use for blue paint.
There is an update in AP for 4/6:
Detectives finished collecting evidence for last two weeks and turned over custody of the store back but the supermarket remains closed. They had to pull out every item in the store in search for evidence. The investigation continues and no motive has been released. The accused has been charged with ten counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder. One of the public defenders told the judge they needed to assess Alissa’s mental health but did not provide details about his condition.
I’m surprised nobody else thought to do a search on this. I found this link by searching for <<ahmad al aliwi alissa update>>. It’s easy to gripe. But not much is happening at the moment and it’s not the news media’s fault. Just the long slow plod of police work and the due process for criminal defendents and building an criminal case.