Silence of the Anti-War Voices

 By Chloe Brussard

    After all the conflict that this country has endured, wouldn't you think that political officials would want to do everything they could do to prevent more war outbreaks with other countries? The amount of lives that have been lost thus far should be an indicator that we should be striving towards peace, instead of continuing wars where more people are killed. The amount of money that is being funded into the military is almost a trillion dollars. Imagine what else could be done with all that money. It could be dispersed among cities to help prevent homelessness, or it could help less privileged kids attend college and receive a higher level of education. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.

    Anti-war journalists are being silenced. Their opinions and articles aren't being published in mainstream news. Instead, one of the most popular news topics that is broadcasted is war. They are not necessarily pro-war opinions, but they talk about what the U.S. military should be doing to gain advantages in the war, not what they should be doing to end it peacefully. 

    So if war is taking money and lives from the United States, why is it still promoted, unopposed? The answer is that it's not. There are plenty of anti-war sources but like I said before, they aren't in mainstream media. They are on obscure and hidden websites. Shouldn't the voices who are advocating for peace be the kinds of voices that people are hearing? Apparently not. 

    Looking back, it is not that difficult to find patterns within the U.S. economy. Maybe the greatest motivator of all time is (and probably will always be) money. With the amount of money that is being made from these wars, no wonder people want to continue promoting them. The money going being made from the creation of weapons and the money being filtered into 'special' U.S. government projects, people would think it absurd to stop these wars. But, people who think like that are valuing money over the lives of people. Not only their soldiers, but of innocent civilians who are being caught in the crossfires of these wars. 

    Mainstream media like social media apps, the news, newspapers, magazines, etc. are where people are receiving the majority, if not all, of their news. Those kinds of media are what influence peoples opinions. What they see and hear about the most is what they begin to believe and support. But if all they are seeing is news about creating weapons or training soldiers, then how would they know about the efforts of all these anti-war journalists? The answer is that they won't. Silencing these voices is like playing a card game. Except the dealer is showing and helping one player, while they are sabotaging the other player. In this case, the dealer is mainstream media, and the players are the pro-war voices and the anti-war voices. If we want to make a real difference and get anti-war opinions out, then we need to level the playing field, and deal each player a new hand.