Legacy media, partisan media, media funded by the rich is—with notable exception—animated not by a desire to expose wrongdoing or produce useful information, but to manufacture talking points, nuggets of superficially-sounding truisms and thought memes about why politics is best left to the professionals. Most “foreign policy” reporters and pundits, especially, are motivated by the creation, repetition, and dissemination of these talking points, these thought memes, these Reasons Nothing Can Change and Nothing You Do Matters.
Don’t use the word genocide—it’s not technically accurate.
And even if it is accurate, Biden is working hard to get a ceasefire anyway.
And even if he’s not actually working for a ceasefire but simply renamed a “temporary pause” a “ceasefire” and still supports the vague objective of “eliminating Hamas” no matter the carnage, he can’t actually end the war anyway even if he wants to.
And even if he could end the war, it’s politically bad for him to do so. Wait, no, it’s politically unimportant.
And even if it’s not politically bad or unimportant, civilian deaths have reduced anyway, so what’s the point? Also, didn’t you hear the UN “lowered the count of women and children killed in Gaza”?
Wait, they didn’t actually do this? Okay, well it’s already out there so it doesn’t matter. It feels true, it feels like the number is too high and brown people are shifty and untrustworthy.
And even if civilian deaths haven’t gone down and the UN didn’t actually lower its count, Hamas can’t remain in power anyway. This is just a pat thing to say, right? Sounds anodyne enough? Okay, so you want Hamas to remain in power? You’re pro-Hamas?
There was a ceasefire on October 6.
Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.
Free the hostages.
Hostages.
Ceasefire on October 6.
How can Israel have a ceasefire with terrorists? Wait, it’s happened before, over a dozen times?
Look, Biden is doing all he can to broker a ceasefire which, I know I just said was impossible, and also said he was powerless to do. Unless he does it then he’s not. Look, we can’t really impact Israel, Biden is mostly a spectator, but also it’s important he and Congress send Israel another $26 billion in weapons.
What about Darfur? Haiti? Tigray? These are things, no? I just googled “war crimes going on rn” and this came up and despite never mentioning them before I think we should bring them up. But the US isn’t giving these genocidal regimes billions a year in weapons? Yes, but Hamas, Terror, Hostages, Darfur, Iran, Houthis are violating maritime law.
Shocked and horrified but what they see on their social media timelines on a daily basis, and the US’s direct role in it, there’s tremendous professional incentive in our media to come in and explain away, redirect, justify, and cast doubt on the obvious conclusion that this has to stop, that it simply cannot go on. Because it won’t stop, it’s bipartisan consensus—the powers that be decided it has to go on and there’s an election to win in November. There is thus a buyer’s market, and has been for the past seven months, for reporting and opinion pieces to explain why Nothing Can Change and Nothing You Do Matters.