Pack a Picnick and a Blanket, It's Millitainment!

First off, let me apologize for creating the new blog at the top of the first screen. This is my first blogging experience, and I'm mildly tech challenged.

More importantly, I want to reflect on the class discussion for this week.


Militainment should frighten us all. Anyone who has ever sat down with a a veteratin should know that we who haven't served in the military don't have a clue what it's like to be in a war zone. The reluctance that many vets have to discuss their experiences in detail should be enough for us to pick up on that.

Video games and cooperate driven reporting encourages us to buy into the idea that war isn't gruesome. It's something that we should pack a picknick basket and grab a blanket to watch in front of the television in primetime. This indicates that history does repeat itself.

In the early days of The Civil War by standers to battles would pack picknick baskets and go out on the hill and watch the battle down in the valley. There was a general belief that battles would be entertaining, and miilitainment was born!

Taylor made the point in class that the media wouldn't produce video games and TV programming if we didn't eat it up, and I agree with her. Our purchasing habits incourage the cooperate media to sell us a picknickable war which we have continud to pack in our baskets next to the raisons. The branding of this war by the mainstream media and US government has worked for our most recent conquests in the middle east. We will have to wait and see if similiar tactics are utilized by the mainstream media and our government in future conflicts to encourage citezens to pack a picknick basket that will make Yogi druel.