Civilians: The Second Class Citizens

I can't say that I have dabbled into pacifism seriously up until the present. Having become a student of the Austrian School over the past year-and-a-half I have come to realize the utter and complete nonsense of militarism of any sort. Those that have known me for a long time, though, have been aware of my distaste for "our men and women in uniform"--and that goes for any uniform. 

Firefighters in particular. Their post 9/11 gouging of the taxpayer while tugging the public's emotional strings sometimes has me wondering if the Firefighters' Union wasn't the actual mastermind of the infamous event.

However, until recently I had not paid attention to the way the media lionizes and justifies anything and everything that has to do with the Military-Industrial Complex. For one reason or another, such instances have been burning my eyes of late: be it PBS's series WWII in Color HD or Discovery and History Channel's multitudes of death-machine extravaganzas.

Yesterday's headline from Yahoo (below), though seems to escalate the warmongering indoctrination to a new level:

Navy F-18 jet crashes into building in Va.

TV footage shows black smoke billowing from an apartment building where the craft went down. Pilots ejected

I believe it's not hard to miss the fact that even though the story concerns a jet crashing into an apartment building, the headline and accompanying blurb make no mention of the possible civilian casualties--rather they rush to calm our fears by informing us that the pilots were safe!

Only after clicking on the headline do we find out that 9 civilians were taken to hospital:

• Nine people taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries; all but one have been released

• Search for victims is about halfway complete

• Pilots reportedly safe and conscious

And of course we are told of the heroism of the pilots who "kept their cool in a time of despair":

Virginia Beach EMS division chief Bruce Nedelka said several witnesses saw the pilots dumping fuel from the jet before ejecting, which likely avoided a massive fireball and fire.

Is Yahoo implicitly putting the civilian in "his place" as a second class citizen? It certainly feels that way to me.

P.S.
This isn't the first time I've been infuriated by the collectivist fervor of Yahoo. As this thrashing of Lululemon due to an Ayn Rand inspired bag shows, this online outfit is solidly in the fascist camp.