America Distracted: Focused on Miley Cyrus Twerking Instead of Global Crisis in Syria, Possible WWIII
Miley Cyrus' viral and controversial MTV VMA performance may distract Americans from noticing the critical situation in Syria that could suck the United States into another war, noted media experts looking at search engine analytics.
"It's not sexy to talk about missiles aiding Al Qaeda, and so thousands of websites around the country don't," explained Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture for the Media Research Center (MRC), to The Christian Post on Wednesday
After seeing Miley Cyrus' video pop up "at least 50 times in my feed," Michael Lotfi, a Persian-American political commentator and associate director of the Tenth Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., ran a Google search on internet interest for her compared to traffic focused on Syria, where reports confirmed the use of chemical weapons on August 21.
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On a scale of 1-100, Google tracks the search interest of certain terms. After Miley Cyrus' performance, her Google rating went from 67 to 100 in less than 24 hours, while "Syria" went from 4 to 3 during the same period. Rerunning the numbers Thursday, CP found Cyrus' Monday rating 100, with Syria down at 2. On Tuesday, Miley went down to 63, but Syria remained less than one tenth of that, at 6.
Media reports claim that only the Syrian government, which is fighting a deadly civil war against rebels, had the capability for such an attack. Speculation runs high as to whether or not President Obama will fulfill his threat to intervene if such weapons were used.
On Wednesday, Obama announced that he had not yet made a decision, but argued for the necessity of a "shot across the bow" to prevent further attacks. While Britain's hesitance in getting on board may stall a strike by the United States, sources have already hinted that U.S. involvement in Syria may spark another World War.
Dorothee Schmid, a research fellow at the Institut Francais Des Relations Internationales (The French Institute of International Relations) shared her concerns about a global conflict with CNBC, and conservative pundit Sean Hannity said, "you're seeing the formation now of what could very potentially be the next World War."
Lofti broke down the potential powers, "France, Great Britain and the USA are now aligning against China, Syria, Russia and Iran."
"With such massive military force beginning to mobilize dependent upon the supposed use of chemical weapons one would assume that the peak search value for chemical attacks in Syria would skyrocket," he said. What he found, however, proved exactly the opposite.
MRC's executive Dan Gainor called this phenomenon "lowest common denominator information," pointing to the plenitude of media stories focused on the White House dog. He even noted that CNN did a story about cat owners upset that the Obamas chose not to get a cat. And he complained that "we don't get the same kind of media devotion to telling us that when we attack Syria, we will be aiding Al Qaeda."
However, M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Syrian-American serving on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, disagreed and warned against characterizing the rebels as Al Queda. But in a Wednesday statement from Syria's Melkite Greek Catholic Church, it warned the West against attacking the Syrian government, saying it would cause "unintended consequences" for the already endangered Christian community. Many of the rebels who might come to power are anti-Christian, whether affiliated with Al Qaeda or not.
"The media don't want to give us the context here," Gainor alleges, while noting the complicated situation in Syria, because it might cause Americans to think about how dumbed-down their culture has become.
Gainor almost defended Miley Cyrus, "In reality, she's just one more screwed up product of being raised in Hollywood and put on the screen for American enjoyment." The fundamental problem isn't one girl's "twerking," but an environment that supports such low-class insanity, he said.
