WHY NO DEAD OR WOUNDED SOLDIERS ON TV?

Hesiod wonders: "Moreover, why don't they EVER show the injured or dead bodies of our soldiers or marines?"

For anyone who lived through the VietNam War years, that's the sixty-four thousand-dollar question. For years we ate supper while watching the news on TV, which EVERY NIGHT included reports from war correspondents, including showing real firefights, the wounded (and in color, the blood was very vivid) and dead being carried out on stretchers. Families would watch intently, hoping for a glimpse of a loved one. Remember "Summertree," the Michael Douglas film that at the end shows his mother (Barbara Bel Geddes, if memory serves) watching TV and seeing him carried off, bloody and maimed, on a stretcher?

It's obvious that BushCo doesn't want such vivid images disturbing the American public -- they might actually start to wonder if it's worth it! But what I'd like to know is, who makes the decision for the news bureaus? Can the military or the administration actually keep them from filming and displaying such shots? Is there a law supporting such censorship? Either way, what happened to a free press? If the news bureaus are self-censoring, WHY? Are they so cowed by their corporate owners? It's been more than sickening watching the way the SCLM (so-called liberal media) toadies to the Bush camp. Is their intention to turn all news outlets into subsidiaries of Fox News? God help us.