The sound of silence

Silence in America:

• Over four hundred American soldiers killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war — 283 since the Bush declared that the war was over. Silence.
• Constitutional rights being suspended via the Patriot Act. Silence.
• Bush urges us to support the troops, while cutting pay and benefits for the military. Silence.
• Prisoners detained and held indefinitely without charges in Guantanamo Bay. Silence.

Silence in Italy:

The sight was extraordinary, but less so than the sound, or rather the lack of it. Although thousands upon thousands of people filled one of this city’s most chaotic squares during the evening rush hour on Monday, the decibel level seldom rose above a whisper’s.

Silence was just one way in which those people sought to show their respect for 19 Italians killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq last week. Another was to wait two to three hours, in the drizzle and dark, for a chance to walk past the victims’ coffins, arrayed inside a palace that towers over the square, Piazza Venezia.

The line went on and on, just like Italy’s mourning.

Why can’t we as a nation honor our four hundred and twenty two dead as touchingly and honestly as the Italians do their nineteen? Of course, if behavior like that was sanctioned here — or, heaven forbid, encouraged — the public might just realize the extent of what’s happening in Iraq, to the US and to our allies. We can’t have that, now can we?

(To clarify, this is in no way meant to belittle the bombing of the Italian soldiers. Rather, it’s meant to belittle the lack of facts, knowledge, and questioning in the US media, who instead all too often seem to blindly accept the shameless posturing foisted upon us by our government.)

(via Atrios)