Starting Sunday night and going into Monday, the most viral trend on all social media networks in the United States was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. Smith reportedly became offended when Rock compared his wife to the very lovely 1997 shaved head Demi Moore in G.I. Jane — hardly dicey material.

In what appeared to be an entirely staged event, Smith first chuckled at the joke before walking on stage and slapping Chris Rock across the face as Rock leaned forward with his hands behind his back. Smith then went back to his seat, with a smile on his face, before he yelled at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your f**king mouth!”

Remarkably enough, instead of being arrested for assault, just moments later, Will Smith went on to win an Oscar for Best Actor. Immediately after, the internet erupted. Many are pointing out that this was a staged event, and given that the Oscars have watched their viewership decrease by over 50% in just the last two years, it would make sense for them to create a stunt like this one — and it also explains the lack of charges for Smith.

But perhaps even more insidious than staging a fight to boost viewership, is the fact that millions of people have been shown on their televisions that not only is it acceptable to assault a comedian who offends you, but that you can get away with it, without facing consequences.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that anyone in the mainstream corporate press will be asking these questions as it is their job use things like this to keep the public distracted from other, far more important issues, like the expansion of the US empire.

Which just happens to be killing untold numbers of innocent human beings across the planet.

One example of this empire expansion is the US support for the terrorist nation of Saudi Arabia in Yemen. This week marks the beginning of the 8th year since the US began their support for the Saudi invasion.

Imagine for a moment that the mainstream media focused just half of the attention given to the “Oscar slap” on war. Americans would be waking up left and right to all wars and demanding their end, saving hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. But this simply does not happen. Instead, the US remains silent.

Since March 2015, over 23,000 airstrikes have been launched by the coalition in Yemen, killing or injuring over 18,000 civilians. Living in a country subjected to an average of 10 airstrikes per day has left millions feeling far from safe,”  the UN Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen stated in a recent report.

While there have been thousands slaughtered with US-backed airstrikes, the blockades imposed by the US and its allied states are wrecking far more havoc. As Antiwar.com reported last month, humanitarian groups agreed that the air war conducted by the KSA and UAE caused the most civilian damage and casualties. Along with the de facto blockade imposed by the royal states and their hireling “coalition” partners, the result has been horrific. Nearly 400,000 civilians, an astonishing 70 percent of them children, have died, most from disease or malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the US media is a broken record of fluff, distraction, and divide.

It is also worth noting that President Joe Biden called for a regime change in Russia which can only be achieved by through covert means or by direct military action — meaning it is an act of war. Either way, his comments were interpreted by Russia “loud and clear.”

“Putin heard loud and clear a call for regime change,” Rebekah Koffler, a Russian-born former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, said.

Although his handlers came out later and stated that this was not, in fact, a call for regime change, the damage had been done. According to Koffler, the backtracking shows that the White House is not fully in control of their messaging.

“I would be interested in knowing whether that was in his TelePrompTer or not, because people who create his speeches have a responsibility for the American people to minimize security threats,” Koffler said. “And if they put something like that in his TelePrompTer, that means those people are incompetent.”

Regime changes, sanctions on Afghanistan and Yemen that are laying waste to the lives of children, the US telling Ukraine to hold off on reaching peace because they are needed for a proxy war, and the continuous threat of global nuclear war, are all extremely important issues facing Americans currently, yet the corporate press, whose job it is to sell war to the masses, remain largely silent on all of them.

We need to do better humanity.

There will be millions of posts and thousands of memes about Will Smith smacking Chris Rock.

If we put a fraction of that energy into exposing the current genocide in Yemen instead of feeding drama and distraction we could evolve as a species but most aren't ready for that yet.

— Jason Bassler (@JasonBassler1) March 28, 2022

Article posted with permission from Matt Agorist