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A week or so ago I read about a poll of United States residents' opinion of – and grasp of facts regarding – the U.S. war on Iraq.

News (Opinion?) Flash: "77% of Americans find the level of civilian deaths in Iraq unacceptable."

This is a U.S. public that (according to the same poll) thinks the number of Iraqis killed is oh, just under 10,000 people– not, say, more than 600,000 mostly noncombatants.

And another recent study, which I thought I blogged about somewhere, but probably just read about in the NewStandard, indicated that people's level of empathy for the suffering of another human drops off sharply when the number of people suffering increases to just two.

I don't know of a single news story in the establishment media, and actually none I can think of offhand in the independent media, that conveyed the suffering, in a reasonably complete manner, of a single Iraqi or one Iraqi family.

Instead, the media have so completely failed to provide basic facts of the invasion and occupation, let alone present their human impact, that months after Bush admitted 30,000 deaths or some ridiculously low number (to great media fanfare), the median estimate for the more than four-year slaughter is minimized to what is more likely to have been the death toll in the first hour.

The present media attention to the shockingly poor treatment of veterans in outpatient housing at Walter Reed army hospital is instructive. Among some activists and others who heard the NPR story a year ago or read commentary on the internet or did basic math on what an inadequate budget for veteran care would inevitably mean– it was known. Then it's on the front page of a few newspapers for a few days, with detail. With people's stories.

Almost immediately, the government made at least surface changes as a result of largely unexpressed public anger.

Imagine what even a little coverage like that of the human pain, suffering, and loss caused by U.S. military attacks and government policy.

Would the illegitimite (and already broadly hated) President Bush still be in office?

Would the first so-called Gulf War have happened? Would Clinton's murderous sanctions and bombing have been allowed?

People can only be moved to action by knowledge, emotion, and to some extent reasons to believe that their actions will change what they know is wrong and causing pain.

That's what People Who Give a Damn promises to provide: a flow of information mediated by we the people, not elites; information that includes broad facts and individual stories; and the bare beginnings of ways to take collective action.

Soon. Help wanted.

In the meantime, get on the bus with me for March 17's march on the Pentagon. Go early and stay indefinitely to camp in protest in D.C. if you can (that stuff really scares elites). Get on the streets and protest in your city. Daniel Ellsberg argues persuasively that massive protest is what stopped the Nixon administration from using nuclear weapons against Vietnam– and these protesters didn't even know their government was thinking the unthinkable. Meanwhile, we have the present regime that has repeatedly signalled a willingness to use nuclear weapons against Iran.

Bus tickets here.