Murders vs culpable killings

The Boston bombers, which killed four people and injured scores more, are receiving obsessive media coverage. Every angle of their lives and motives are being examined.

Meanwhile, some corporate executives killed dozens of people and injured dozens more, yet the media are nearly silent about what happened there and why.

Except for the independent media, such as Truthout:

"It is certainly true that the Boston bombers intended to injure as many people as possible in the most public way possible. But while intent is more difficult to observe in the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion, there is no question that the injuries and deaths there are also the result of people's intentional acts."

That is to say that anyone in Texas intended to kill people, only that they made intentional decisions that directly caused deaths--many, many deaths.

This is a company that has a long history of breaking the law and that is grossly negilgent and quite possible reckless, which is enough to make them culpable or responsible for these deaths.

So why are the media disinterested in murders committed by the wealthy? Or for profit?

Read more here:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16101-death-in-boston-and-west-texas-intent-hidden-in-plain-sight

This is getting ridiculous

From CNN:

Female DNA found on bomb fragment

Traces found on piece of pressure cooker

• Sources: DNA may be from victim or accomplice
• Suspect's widow tested for match
• Tamerlan Tsarnaev's cause of death determined FULL STORY

• Dzhokhar arrived 'covered in blood'
• The 'black widows' of Dagestan  
• See suspect play with niece  

See suspect play with niece? What does that have to do with anything or add to our understanding of the case?

 

 From Fox News:

• STATE SPONSORED:
  Suspect's Family Allegedly Collected $100G in Welfare

  
  • Anti-Death Penalty Lawyer Joins Suspect's Defense Team
  • Source: Female DNA Found on Boston Bomb
  • VIDEO: Judge Jeanine to 'Mother of Jihadis': We Don't Want You Here

 We don't want you here? What is that about? Why is that news?

The mainstream media are engaged in a "feeding frenzy" about this case, and yet there is nothing about hazardous workplaces, which in the past two weeks have killed more people than terrorism has all year.

CNN: Be afraid, be very afraid

We all witnessed the horror of the Boston bombings.

And we've been told, consistently, that two men acted alone. This was not an international conspiracy like, say, the 9/11 attacks. And al-Qaeda had nothing to do with it.

Yet, remember after 9/11, anytime an attack was launched anywhere around the world, the media would report about possible "links" or "ties" to al-Qaeda. It would often turn out in those cases that there was no link or tie to al-Qaeda, or that the link or tie was perhaps a single email exchange or that an attacker had once met a member of al-Qaeda or something like that. Having an interaction with someone means you are linked or tied to them does not make it a meaningful link or tie.

Yet, with the Boston bombers, CNN is at it again. Today, CNN reported, live on the air, that a raid in Russia was possibly connected to the Boston bombing. The reporter repeatedly said they were showing images of a violent raid by the Russian military today (where a man was killed) because it was the latest image and information they had on the Boston bombing. In this context of tanks rolling in and a building being exploded on the air, the reporter repeated that this may be linked or tied to the Boston bombing.

Going to a reporter live elsewhere (but strangely not on the scene of the raid), the CNN reporter asked the other man about this supposed connection. Astonishingly, the other reporter indicated that the older Boston bomber (now dead) had posted a video of a man on his YouTube page, a video supposedly promoting some kind of jihad. So that is the link or tie to this group in Russia now being raided by the military there? Got that, the Boston bomber was linked or tied to this group because one of them posted a Youtube video about them?

Wow, CNN, given this, I guess it is also fair to say that you are linked or tied to the group as well.

What, exactly, does this supposed news report have to do with the facts? And what value does it add to the discussion of the Boston bombings?

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-23/world/38763717_1_u-s-agencies-u-s-wars-u-s-officials

  

THIS is news .... THIS is not.

Check out the front page of CNN. THIS is news.

Boston suspect: It was just us

Little brother: Big brother planned it

A source says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicated his brother wanted to defend Islam and followed no international groups. FULL STORY

• Transcript of hearing | The charges
• What they found in Dzhokhar's room
• Heat on FBI over handling of suspect
• SWAT team: How we 'rushed' him
• 5 key questions about the case

BOSTON BOMBINGS: AFTERMATH

• State senator: I'd torture him
• What was older brother doing in Russia?
• A rush to save limbs -- and lives
• Dancer loses foot, vows to join race
• Boxers: Attack suspect 'a beast'
• How a pressure-cooker bomb works
• Week in Boston | All galleries
• Your images from Boston | How to help

 

Widow 'very distraught'

Katherine Russell learned through news reports that the father of her 2-year-old daughter was suspected in the Boston attack, her lawyer said.
FULL STORY

 

THIS is CNN's top story. An entire volume of information about a single bombing, a horrible event that killed three people.

 

But THIS is not anywhere to be found on CNN:

 

"What BP Doesn’t Want You to Know About the 2010 Gulf Spill"

 

"The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was even worse than BP wanted us to know."

 

This article is about the crimes of BP, which even after killing eleven people once, and fifteen people just a few years ago, is NOT news on CNN. 

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/04/22/what-bp-doesn-t-want-you-to-know-about-the-2010-gulf-spill.html

 

And experts believe they will do it again!

 

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12815-bp-will-kill-again-former-epa-officials-attorney-says

 

Even so, it is NOT news on CNN.

 

BP is, in the opinion of this humble criminologist, a serial mass murderer. That is, they kill people over a long period of time like a serial killer. And they kill lots of people at once like a mass murderer. Thus they are a serial mass murderer.

 

Yet, that is not enough to make the news. Not when there is a young bomber who killed three people.

 

So, stay afraid. Just make sure you are afraid of the things least likely to kill you and not afraid of the things that are most likely to kill you.

 

 

The news today

After the bombing in Boston and the surrounding events last night, of course THIS is the lead story in the news today:

1 MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT DEAD

Manhunt on for Suspect 2

• Suspects identified as brothers
• Much of Boston on lockdown
• Residents told to stay in, lock doors
• Chaos overnight: Bullets, bombs
• 1 officer killed, 1 hurt | FULL STORY

• While you slept: Developments
• LIVE BLOG: Mass transit shut down
• Video may show shootout
• Cops move in, families flee
• Photos: Chaotic night in Boston

 

AP/FBI

BREAKING NEWS: Boston on Lockdown as Authorities Hunt Remaining Bomber

Entire neighborhoods in Boston on virtual lockdown as law enforcement zero in on second suspect in marathon bombing who was identified as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and believed to be brothers with the other bombing suspect who was killed in a shootout with police.

VIDEOS: Police Release New Image of Suspect #2 | Cops Swarm Suburb | Residents Warned to Stay Inside

Witness Describes Police Activity | Bomb Probe a Game Changer | PHOTOS: Cops Swarm Boston Suburb

FBI Releases Video, Photos of Suspects | FBI Releases Video of Bombing Suspects | FBI Press Conference

PHOTOS: FBI Releases Suspects' Photos | WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES: Twin Blasts Rock Boston

US Seeks Information from Pakistan on List of Names Possibly Linked to Boston Marathon Bombing

Obama Honors Boston Victims | TRANSCRIPT | They Were Just There to Watch Race, But Gained Internet Notoriety

Now, clearly this is an important story.

Having said that, all of this is over the deaths of three people (now four after the killing last night of a police officer). I wish the news would keep that in perspective and ask whether that justifies such coverage (maybe it still does, I'm just pointing it out). 

Here is an example of what I mean. During all this there was an explosion in Waco, Texas at a fertilizer factory. Many more people died there, and of course it has been in the news.

Yet, the issue of such hazardous workplaces has not been in the news. At that particular factory, the last time it had been inspected by OSHA was in the 1980s. Serious safety violations were discovered there. The company paid a fine. Wait for it. $30!

The company told OSHA there was no risk of fire or explosion at the plant. And so OSHA just believed the company. And now hundreds are injured, more than a dozen are likely dead, and property is destroyed all over the town.

So, which is a greater threat--terrorism or irresponsible businesses? If the latter, why not more media coverage?

We have to rely on a comedian for the truth?

It is a sad time when we as citizens and consumers of the news have to rely on a comedian to set the record straight about how the media cover crime and why it matters.

Yes, Jon Stewart does it again.

Last night on The Daily Show he illustrated, using humor, something that is actually quite outrageous--CNN falling all over itself to bring us BREAKING NEWS about the Boston bombing attack.

Here is part one:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-17-2013/the-most-busted-name-in-news

Here is part two:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-17-2013/the-most-busted-name-in-news---exclusive-and-first

Watch both and see that CNN's obsession with the story and its strong desire to be first led it to be wrong, all day long. My question is, why must we rely on a comedian to show us what is wrong with our news?

And oh yeah, Jon Stewart also illustrated another important reality that has been largely ignored by the media now and that was ignored in the past, too. See it here:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-17-2013/zero-dark-hurty

My question is, since torture is ILLEGAL under both US and international law, when will we hold those responsible for it accountable?