American public: do your homework

By Taylor Auclair
Collegian Reporter
August 30, 2006

This summer has seen an unprecedented amount of violence and carnage in the purgatory that Americans know as the Middle East. From escalating coercion involving Iran to the war between Israel and the Hezbollah, it has been a bloody and bleak season in the news. Unfortunately, however, thanks to both liberal and conservative news conglomerates, facts have been skewed and left out, leaving the freethinking and intellectual public left to interpret reality for themselves.

Those who rely on the Fox News Channel for their information watch extremists such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly feature selective coverage of political issues. I won’t even touch upon Ann Coulter. On the other hand, those who rely on publications such as the New York Times are likewise subject to adverse selective coverage where key issues are lost in grim images and stories of warfare and political dissent.

The fact of the matter is that Americans need to simply think for themselves; anything else is simply dangerous. Read both sides. Research what is presented as fact and draw your own conclusions. One cannot overlook the fact that Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist party in Lebanon, is not a valid political party which should be left alone, as many opponents of Israel’s attacks this summer say. They draw unprecedented parallels to the Nazi party just because it has deeply embedded hatred towards Jews and Judaism.

A major difference between Hezbollah and Iran in their views of the Jewish world is where they would like the community to reside. While Hezbollah wants them to stay in the confines of Israel (though they regularly attack and instigate the country), Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, simply wants the country eliminated. It is also no secret that Iran heavily supplied Hezbollah in their war against Israel this year.

Fundamentalist governments such as these play a crucial role in the future of both our country and the world itself. Individuals who believe that it is their God-given responsibility to defeat the west are no laughing matter. They must be taken seriously. That being said, it is still our responsibility to look beyond the stories that are being fed to us by the media.

Allow me to wrap up my point in the best way possible. In 1970, Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground sang, “I do believe / You’re all what you perceive,” in the song “I Found a Reason”. This is one of the most honest comments in music history. If you take what’s fed to you without question or hesitation, you are a fool, no matter what side of the issue you may find yourself on. But if you discern fact from fiction and think for yourself, even if you lose the fight or the argument, you hold true to yourself and win.

auclairt1@lasalle.edu