Here Goes Nothing ...

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by Daseal

I don't think Americans can take the morale high ground about not getting kicks watching people die. What country televises high speed car chases which generally end in death or at least lots of destruction, who gets people gathered around a chair to watch someone have thousands of volts sent through their body? Americans and Christians (if we want to make this a religious thing) have long histories of watching death and torture for fun, closure, whatever.

I didn't mean to imply that we Americans, Christians, etc. do not find fascination with violence, car accidents, etc. But there's a big difference between the kind of violence we watch (e.g., Jerry Bruckheimer films or Cops) and the kind of violence large segments of the Iraqi populace indulge in (e.g., an innocent journalist's head is slowly sawed off with a knife). It's a matter of degree; watching "The Terminator" is different from watching what amounts to a snuff film from Baghdad.

*I obviously am not saying that all Iraqis, Muslims, Middle Easterners, etc. indulge in such sadistic stuff. I am positive that the majority of Iraqis, Muslims, etc. do not agree with such violence, want to live in peace, and raise nice families just like you and I.

As for the news reporting, I don't understand how you say that news agencies do report positive stories about Iraq and then turn around and say that positive stories don't sell papers and that positive stories are not as easy to report as bad ones since progress occurs over time.