Blog #7 - Antiwar

    Being antiwar is not uncommon in the United States, but it is extremely uncommon to hear about antiwar in media. Especially in mainstream media, many big corporations and platforms refuse to cover antiwar topics. Antiwar protests are seen nation and world wide, places like college campuses are becoming well known to host many protests about wars in Gaza and Ukraine. It can be assumed that a big reason that many major news corporations such as CNN, NBC, and FOX do not cover antiwar efforts is because they are, in some way, connected to supporting pro war efforts and costs. While it is not necessarily a bad thing to want to help people fighting in a war, by not covering antiwar protests, these platforms are essentially glorifying countries going to war and only making these wars last longer by not covering the people who want the wars to stop. 

    Antiwar protests have been seen frequently since the 1960s and the Vietnam War. While the news have always covered the physical protests, they never discuss what and why people are protesting. Instead, many platforms elect to make it seem as if these protests are a bad thing and hurting the American military and war efforts. In reality, the right to protest is a coveted American right granted in the First Amendment, and platforms should make an effort to cover why the people are protesting as it is patriotic to do so. 

   

    Looking at the websites The American Conservative and Antiwar.com, it is very interesting to have not heard of these platforms until just today. Likely pushed away from modern news sites and platforms, it is upsetting to just learn of these sites as a 21 year old when I feel so much pro war ideas and propaganda has been forced upon me through the news. Rather than discussing issues with the war itself, I feel Americans will typically be told how potentially dangerous other countries are and why they need to be stopped. One example of this was hearing about the weapons supposedly being held by the Middle East through the 2000s and 2010s. While we later found that these weapons never existed for the most part, it still pushed Americans to go to war overseas and occupy the Middle East; which we still do today nearly 20 years later. 

    To finish, its incredibly alarming that, for a person to hear powerful antiwar voices, they must search for obscure websites rather then be told this important information by the mainstream news. It is clear that many of these big platforms are connected to pro war voices and corporations in which they are entitled to cover what is so scary about this war and how America and it's people can help.