President and Mrs. Bush went on a tour of Africa from February 17-21 - by the few accounts I heard of, it was incredibly successful. Where's our mainstream media coverage? Not too many places.

And you think there is no bias? If Bush were a Democrat on a goodwill tour of Africa being received well, do you think our mainstream media would ignore it? No.

What is the basic problem here? Americans are not being informed of the really good things our president is doing. Whether we like it or not, we are the world leader and when our president makes a point of carrying representative democracy to nations craving for something besides a tribal mentality and our media ignores it, that is plain wrong.

President Bush has done more to alleviate the scourge of AIDs in the African continent than any one else, including all the do-gooders in Europe. A total of $15,000,000,000 has been allocated to help Africans with this disease. Coverage? None.

The U.S. is the largest donor to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with more than 40 percent of that funding going to Africa in 2007. Coverage, none. (from White House memo)

Here are a few of the notices I found about this trip, nothing major.

NPR mini report - Note the snide, nasty remark in the second paragraph. Of course, this is NPR, funded by our tax dollars.

Rwanda: We cannot be everywhere but also must recognize that tribal conflicts too often are alive and well in many African nations. The US never colonized any nation in Africa. The Arabs and Europeans did, big time. Both groups, Arabs 700 years before the Europeans, engaged in pitting tribes against each other, originally for a source of slaves, later for other reasons. The Europeans left conflicting boundaries but based on my students, they also left decent school systems for boys and girls. The Arabs wiped out cultures, languages, etc. Schools appear to be for boys only. The US has provide far more hope, support, and direction than any other nation on the planet. Are our students taught this? No.

This unclear article in an unknown paper, includes this comment: "But as far as the international activist community is concerned, Bush's remarks fall on deaf ears." Part of the reason Bush's comments "fall on deaf ears" is because too much of the world's media likes to ignore Bush and any good done by the US while blaming us for any and all problems. They refuse to help, really help.

The list goes on - you get the picture. We need our media to we tout what we do right - which is a lot. When we and others on the planet only hear bad, incorrect, or politically negative news about the US, we all lose. Our children have nothing to believe in when they are shown and taught only the negative. Just ask yourself - what could or would you do if your parents and grandparents only told you what you did wrong? You would have no faith in yourself. A nation can only do good as long as it believes in itself - once that is gone, basic tribal (in the general definition of tribal) instincts take over - it's not pretty.

Labels: education, Media