In my last post I wrote:
For instance, regularly the mainstream media subordinates climate change stories to what newspapers editors clearly think are more important issues - these issues can range from ‘celebrity bullshit’ to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
A perfect, crude example of such a thing occurred today.
At 11am this morning, the BBC News front page appeared like this:
How, I asked myself, could anyone think that Barbara Windsor quitting EastEnders is as important as “Six foreign UN employees and three Afghans” being killed. How could anyone think that the EastEnders story is of the same calibre as that of a car bomb killing scores of people in Peshawar, Pakistan, and therefore put the two stories on the same page?
As Bruce Jones said on Famous, Rich & Homeless, “society is fucked up”. Clearly the BBC is quite ‘fucked up’ too.
Iraq vs. Iran
If I was to moralise the BBC News site’s front page, the first recommendation I might make is that they replace the EastEnders story with a story that The Guardian newspaper covered on its front page today: Iraq goes nuclear with plans for new reactor programme.
According to The Guardian, the news in brief is that Iraq has approached France, the UN, and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to obtain nuclear power. Why this is a notable story, of course, is that Iran is ‘not allowed’ to have nuclear power. Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether Iraq is or is not ‘allowed’ to have nuclear power. When I say ‘allowed to’, I don’t refer to IAEA rights or international agreements, nor do I refer to moral law or economic practicability, but I refer to Western elites’ comprehension of a just world order.
If Iraq ends up with nuclear power, then an overt, crude case of hypocrisy will have developed. If they do not end up being allowed to have nuclear power, it will be very interesting to hear the elite’s justification for denying Iraq’s right. After all, the puppet government of Iraq was instigated by the USA. Iraq clearly isn’t a threat to national security since thousands of American troops are still in Iraq, parked there in psuedo-permanent military bases.
