CNN: Don’t Adopt Brown-skinned People
If CNN can twist a headline, so can I :-)
This morning’s front-page online edition of CNN has the following headline:
Guatemalan army stole kids for adoption, report says
For the majority of Americans who only scan the headlines, the seed has been planted: Brown-skinned babies adopted by foreigners are stolen.
As the parent of an adopted Guatemalan-born child, I know firsthand the many safeguards required today to adopt a child from Guatemala, inluding multiple DNA tests verified by labs in the USA, and sometimes years-long verification processes after which the DNA-certified mother of the child has to sign off on the adoption four times throughout the process.
Nevertheless, there are those who don’t want Americans adopting foreigners, or whites adopting brown-skinned children, or foreign-born supposedly less-human savages gaining American citizenship and growing up to vote the good-ol boys out of office.
Today CNN played to the good-ol boy mentality with their propaganda-like headline, only mentioning in the fine print that these “stolen kids” were taken during the Guatemalan civil war, and that the 333 cases of stolen children occurred over a period of 36 years:
A presidential ministry has determined that about 45,000 people disappeared during the nation’s civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. About 5,000 of those were children, the ministry said. Another 200,000 people died in the conflict between the leftist guerrillas and right-wing governments.
So, given that sometime last century 200,000 people were murdered, 45,000 disappeared, and 5,000 children disappeared, CNN emphasizes the fact that foreign-adopted Guatemalan children are stolen?
That’s why I say CNN is being irresponsible, surreptitiously racist, and along with most of the Main Stream Media in America, a proud practicing proponent of the worst type of yellow journalism.
As long as CNN is going to headline a 30-year-old issue, the bigger truth advertised in the headline should be that 200,000 parents of these “stolen” children were killed during a civil war whose roots began when the USA overthrew the democratically-elected president of Guatemala in 1954 and replaced him with a dictator.
Why did the USA replace a democratic representative government with a dictator? Because the democratically-elected President of Guatemala took unused farm land owned by corporations and gave it to peasants to farm, and this pissed off the United Fruit Company. So the USA media spread propaganda that the Guatemalan democracy was turning communist and wiped him out.
God bless the people in other countries who adopted these war orphans whose parents were murdered because of the paranoid corporate-owned CIA.
More about the USA overthrowing the Guatemalan democracy here: 1954 Guatemalan Coup d’état.
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Right on, Joe!
I’m a blood brother with you on this subject.
Thanks, Xman. I also noticed this slant in another headline concerning the Joe Wilson fiasco. CNN ran a headline, no longer available, but it was something like this: Congressman Wilson raises $250,000 after saying Obama lied. Then, in the last paragraph of the story, it said that his Democratic opponent had raised over $1 million in the 24 hours after the “you lie!” fiasco. The point is, all the people not knowing the second fact about his opponent buried in the article (and every journalist knows the headline is read most and the last paragraph least…) will probably assume that Wilson’s actions drew widespread mainstream support, when in fact, at least 4 times as many Americans supported his opponent because of his actions.
Since then, the headline has been changed to Wilson funds reach $1 million after ‘you lie’ cry, aide says, still ignoring his opponent. Most other smaller news outlets are running the headline: Rob Miller, Wilson’s Opponent, Raises Over $1 Million Off “You Lie.”
So, to me, CNN is clearly showing a strong bent toward supporting the corporate right lately (no big surprise, really.) Wish we had Cronkite back.
It’s the story of the Indian and the Rattlesnake all the time.
It is just the nature of corp. media to lie.
Funny how most people keep thinking they can trust the rattlesnake.
It’s amazing how we allow ourselves will be spun, just punch the right buttons and send us hurtling forth in a stampede of emotional, propaganda guided folly.
Just as we were kept “safe” by sacrificing our morals and ethics by torture and brutality in trumpted-up war frenzy. We were spared another “attack”, regardless of the innocent lives lost or ruined by our reactionary policies and our determination to exact revenge on the terrorists. Neither were we hit by a life-ending asteroid, invaded by space aliens, or forced to watch another Republican song and dance act guide us from the White House. All because of Cheney’s satisfied lust for torture.
I want Cronkite back, too.
I loved Cronkite too…but that was before I became aware.
Jerry Spence wrote a book on how to speak in a way that made people believe anything you said.
I think Cronkite had that talent.
I’d like another look at him…with my new eyes, ears and my BS detector.
I’m not inclined to assume anyone is a God unless he can sand and paint my house while I’m sitting on my deck.
Cronkite spent a lot of time in this area, and is often spoken of in hushed, reverent tones. I never thought of him as God, but he could sand and paint your house while you sat desckside. Not that he would.
What ever happened to Gerry Spence, anyway? I used to wish the trouble I managed to stir up would someday rise to the level of meriting his taking my case.
Gerry Spence still has his law office on the square in Jackson, Wyo.
Was just across the street at Jackson Hole Coffee Roasters the other day.
He must be getting real old by now.
Yeah, he must be getting up there in age. Quite a guy, that fella.
The first time I saw the elk antler archway in the Jackson Hole square, I thought I’d found paradise. I was just a kid and that place just knocked me out. We spent a while there, I made some local friends who took me to some fine fishing holes, full of fat trout.
I’ve been back a few times, but not in a long time. I’m sure the town has really changed, but that area is really something special. Timeless.
We don’t deserve Cronkite, anymore. People insist on being stupid and uninformed. I’m feeling cynical about it today because I foolishly watched the Sunday morning news shows. Why does a certain sector in this nation right now insist on believing that access to health care will make the baby Jesus cry?
What happened in Guatemala was truly tragic. In 1996 I worked in community mental health program in Chicago. There was a program working with victims of torture — therapy, employment assitance and help navigating the US immigration beauracracy. Most of their slinets at that time were Guatemalan or Bosnian. I knew one of the guys from Guatamala. He was very conflicted about living in the US, given that he was tortured with US funds, etc. but had escaped here around 89 - 90 and lacked the werewithal to go home again. What strange relationships we create in this country.
Amazing how our media looking for a sensational headline, will tarnish people with big hearts like yours that adopt children and give them a wonderfull home.