The transmission of information took a little time. For one thing, it physically took time for it to travel.
For another, large media organizations had to carefully consider what they could and couldn't publish.
There were certainly media workers in this world who exposed the truth out of conscience, but in the end, the biggest media organizations-the ones that fared best-each had their own way of surviving.
Five hours after it happened, the attackers were still an unknown armed force. By the tenth hour, the media had already decided how to define the incident!
The front-page headline read:
"Shocking! Somalia Pirates Sink America's Frigate! One Sunk, One Missing!"
People clicked in to take a look and were surprised to find that the media wasn't making things up this time. It wasn't clickbait. Except for the word "Shocking," which was pretty useless, not a single other word needed to be removed!
That explosive headline spread around the world in a single day.
"What year is it?"
"I woke up too soon. Somalia Pirates blew up an American Warship. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was the eighteenth century."
"That's not what taxpayers' money is for!"
"How much tax do you even pay? Is military spending something you can criticize?"
People could argue about anything on the Internet, but generally speaking, that was because the real-world conflicts were right there for all to see. There were plenty of supporters on both sides, for and against war.
But this really did give the anti-war side an excuse to establish the Funding Committee. For a while, it would be harder for the abundant military funding to flow out as it had before.
And Carter.
When this centenarian veteran woke up, the news she saw was, "Somalia Pirates Sink America's Frigate!"
She jolted