[news] Brainwashing America: THE MEDIA MENTALITY OF OBEDIENCE & CONSENT

[Gordon Flett]

Subject: Brainwashing America ::: Perpetual War Portfolio
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 10:33:26 -1000
From: "MUTANEX Communications" <mutanex at wildmail.com>
Organization: FutureWorks Earth Portal 2002
To: "TheDailyWorld" <letters at thedailyworld.com>

THE MEDIA MENTALITY OF OBEDIENCE & CONSENT 

"To sin by silence when they should protest
makes cowards of men." - Abraham Lincoln

By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate

As the possibility of a U.S. invasion turns into the reality of massive
carnage, the war on Iraq cannot avoid confronting Americans with a tacit
expectation that rarely gets media scrutiny. In a word: obedience.

When a country -- particularly "a democracy" -- goes to war, the passive
consent of the governed lubricates the machinery of slaughter. 

Silence is a key form of cooperation, but the war-making system does not
insist on quietude or agreement. Mere passivity or self-restraint will
suffice to keep the missiles flying, the bombs exploding and the faraway
people dying.

On the home front, beliefs are of scant importance. Antiwar sentiment is
necessary but insufficient to halt a war. Much more is needed than
expressions of dissent that stay within the customary bounds.

Daily media speculation about the starting date for all-out war on Iraq
has contributed to widespread passivity -- a kind of spectator
relationship to military actions being implemented in our names.

We can't just blame the media conglomerates and Washington spinners for
the prevailing stupor. After decades of desensitizing propaganda, we
routinely crave the insulation that news outlets offer. We tell
ourselves that our personal lives are difficult enough without getting
too upset about world events.

The conventional wisdom of American political life has made it
predictable that editorial writers and politicians cannot resist
accommodating themselves to expediency by the time the first missiles
reach Baghdad. Conformist behavior -- in sharp contrast to authentic
conscience -- is notably plastic.

A pathetic case in point is Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat
who voted for the congressional war resolution last October while trying
to pass himself off as a critic of President Bush's enthusiasm for war.
While campaigning in Iowa the other day for his party's presidential
nomination, Kerry told a New York Times reporter: "When the war begins,
if the war begins, I support the troops and I support the United States
of America winning as rapidly as possible. When the troops are in the
field and fighting -- if they're in the field and fighting --
remembering what it's like to be those troops, I think they need a
unified America that is prepared to win."

Prepared to win. Such a phrase rolls off an oily tongue with ease. As a
consequence, of course, many blameless people must die.

Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont, is supposedly an antiwar
candidate for the Democratic presidential slot. On the campaign trail in
Iowa, he "stopped short when asked what he would say if there was a
war," according to the Times.

"You know, I don't know the answer to that yet," Dean said. "Certainly
I'm going to support American kids that are sent over there. Obviously,
I'm going to wish everybody well. You know, you root for your country."

You root for your country. No matter how horrific its actions.

Billions of buds on countless flowers and trees will wondrously open
across the United States during the next weeks. Meanwhile, the
Pentagon's firepower will destroy uncounted human beings in Iraq during
what will be, to put it mildly, a war of aggression.

Judgments at Nuremberg and precepts of international law forbid
launching aggressive war -- an apt description of what the U.S.
government has in store for Iraqi people this spring.

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen
leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they
started it," said Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson, a U.S.
representative to the International Conference on Military Trials at the
close of World War II. He added that "no grievances or policies will
justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned
as an instrument of policy."

Last November, more than 300 law professors in the United States signed
a statement pointing out that "the international rule of law is not a
soft luxury to be discarded whenever leaders find it convenient or
popular to resort to savage violence."

The deadening lockstep of obedience is easier to fault in other
societies. Close to home, as the adrenaline of unfathomable violence
pulses through the televisions of America, the siren of deference to
authority may seem irresistible. But it isn't.

###

Norman Solomon is co-author of the new book "Target Iraq: What the News
Media Didn't Tell You," published by Context Books
http://www.contextbooks.com/newF.html


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Bombs and Blood

They seemed like very nice people, the men and women, some with
children, who dropped by to see the Liberty Bell, which is housed in a
one-story shedlike pavilion with large windows in the roof.

My mind wandering, I imagined the visitors as casualties of war. I
glanced up at the sunlight streaming through the roof and could
visualize an incoming warhead, a missile that perhaps had strayed off
course and was heading toward us. It wasn't hard to imagine the damage.
The pavilion and everyone in it would be obliterated.

This is the fate soon to be visited upon a certain number of innocent
Iraqi civilians (no one knows how many) if the president goes ahead with
the war he has pursued so relentlessly. We should outlaw the term
collateral damage. Above all else, the damage done by the weapons of war
is to the flesh, muscle, bone and psyches of real people, some of them
children. If we're willing to inflict such terrible damage, we should
acknowledge it and not hide behind euphemisms.

I interviewed a number of people in the vicinity of Independence Mall
about their views of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. No one I spoke with
was particularly well informed. But what struck me about those in favor
of invading Iraq was the cavalier way in which they talked about it.
Their message, essentially, was: "Saddam's a bad guy. It's time for him
to go." I got no sense that they thought of war as a horrible
experience. No one mentioned the inevitable carnage. No one spoke as if
they understood that war is always hideous, even if it's sometimes
necessary.

The children in Iraq are already in sorrowful shape. The last thing in
the world they need is another war. More than half the population of
Iraq is under the age of 18, and those youngsters are living in an
environment that has been poisoned by the Iran-Iraq war, the first gulf
war and long years of debilitating sanctions.

One out of every eight Iraqi children dies before the age of 5.
One-fourth are born underweight. One-fourth of those who should be in
school are not. One-fourth do not have access to safe water.

This generational catastrophe is the fault of Saddam Hussein, no
question. But those who favor war should at least realize that the
terrain to be invaded by the most fearsome military machine in history
is populated mostly by children who are already suffering.

The American military has significantly improved the accuracy of its
weapons, and the U.S. has gone to great lengths to develop war plans
designed to minimize civilian casualties. But war, as anyone who has
been in the military knows, is about killing people. Gen. Richard Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has already made it clear that
the U.S. is planning to deliver what he calls a "shock" to the Iraqi
system.

That shock reportedly will be delivered by 3,000 precision-guided bombs
and missiles in the first 48 hours. The children of Iraq won't be the
targets, but that is what their country will face if America attacks.

(On Tuesday the Air Force tested the country's largest nonnuclear bomb,
the 21,000-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, gleefully nicknamed the
"Mother of All Bombs.")

After the war will come the humanitarian crisis. There will be the dead
to bury and the sick and wounded to tend to. And hundreds of thousands
of refugees.

Two-thirds of Iraq's 24 million people are entirely dependent on
government food rations, and the remaining 8 million are dependent to
some degree. U.N. officials have said plans by the United States to feed
the population after the war are inadequate, and food supplies could run
out in a matter of weeks.

Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, told me: "The area we're
very concerned about is water and sanitation. There's very little ground
water in Iraq. At least half the water has to be treated. So if the
major power facilities and water treatment plants were knocked out,
there would be very significant consequences, and the children would
generally be the most vulnerable."

Most Americans will watch this war from the comfort of their living
rooms, well out of harm's way. These are a few of the items they might
consider as they make up their minds on whether an invasion is a good
idea, or whether a search for a better alternative is still in order.

Published on March 13, 2003 in The New York Times

 

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Stepford Citizen Syndrome: Top Ten Signs Your Neighbor is Brainwashed 

By Maureen Farrell

Though much of the world is convinced the 2000 election was a coup
d'etat, and many believe we're being lied to regarding 9/11, we
Americans are unaware of how numb we seem. Not only are we being coerced
into World War III, but at this very moment, unnamed souls are secretly
locked away, the Army's drafted plans for civilian detention camps and
there's a shadow government buzzing beneath our streets. And yet, we
continue to ignore the oily elephant in the living room. 

The administration's Iraq war dance is likewise baffling, particularly
when Dick Cheney says Saddam can't be trusted - even though, not too
long ago, he was trusted to the tune of $73 million during
Halliburton/Iraq transactions. Moreover, newly discovered memos reveal
that Cheney was also involved in a 1975 cover-up involving the CIA's
mind-control experiment, MK-ULTRA. Back then, the government paid
$750,000 restitution to Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson's family, after
admitting the CIA slipped Dr. Olson LSD days before his 1953 fall from a
New York City building. When the Ford administration finally came clean,
they promised they'd revealed everything. Yet according to an article in
the "Mercury News," (Scientist's death haunts family, August 8, 2002)
key officials, including White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld pushed to continue to conceal information.

But not only has the government tried to control people's minds, they've
copped to controlling the media, too. Operation Mockingbird, the CIA's
plan to infiltrate America's newsrooms, was such a success that former
CIA director William Colby boasted, "the Central Intelligence Agency
owns everyone of any major significance in the major media." Carl
Bernstein substantiated this, revealing that hundreds of journalists and
news organizations were involved in this subversion. And though
officials have admitted to planting fabrications in the past, it seems
they're still at it. Remember the story about the terrorist's passport
surviving the fiery crash into the World Trade Center? What could that
be but government-issued pabulum? And what else but full-scale public
brainwashing accounts for the rash of Stepford Citizen Syndrome
spreading throughout the country? 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/09/05_stepford.html

Brainwashing America

The puppet Bush regime is using new, aggressive forms of brainwashing to
change the very way Americans think and feel. 

This is the psychological dimension of the "High Cabal's" general
onslaught against American workers, just as the "war on terrorism" is
the military dimension and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich
comprise the economic dimension. 

We are living under the beginning stages of a military dictatorship in
precisely the same way that 1930s Germans suffered under the Nazi
regime. 

As in the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored propaganda
(brainwashing) is a vital part of the Bush regime's strategy.

New propaganda slogans are being overtly and subliminally implanted by
Bush and his gang through their speeches and actions:

·        dissent is treason

·        Constitutional liberties are less important than security

·        the "war on terrorism" excuses any attack on civil liberties 

·        the Bush administration has the right and the duty to bring
about "regime change" in any nation it chooses 

·        the economy is basically sound 

·        only a few bad apples are found in the corporate barrel, which
requires no new oversight laws 

*   if Bush and Cheney say they're not guilty of corporate crimes, then
believe it and shut up

Propaganda American Style

Some of these mind programming tactics are so subtle that they can be
overlooked in the hubbub of everyday life. For example, have you been
aware that the very way in which the "public discourse" is being carried
on is a subtle brainwashing strategy? The Congress, the media, the man
and woman on the street are encouraged to ask only this question: How
should the U.S. conduct its war against Iraq? 

What about the questions: 

·        Should the U.S. start a second war with Iraq? 

·        Does an unelected American president have the right to force a
"regime change" on another nation? 

·        Why aren't Americans up in arms about Bush starting a second
battle in his "war against terrorism?" 

Why should American military personnel die merely for Bush's insane
quest for world domination and oil? 

The Bush puppet regime is engaging in other rather subtle brainwashing
tactics: 

·        an elaborate ruse as to who was to blame for 9/11 

·        psychic and political numbing in preparation for war 

http://www.hermes-press.com/brainwash1.htm

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poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected
on the basis of popular product lines, strong political connections and
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decision-makers.

See here.. http://www.dack.com/war/portfolio

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be
dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War
is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies,
and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many
under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of
the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors,
and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds,
are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same
malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of
fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of
war . . . and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by
both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual
warfare." 

James Madison, April 20, 1795
 
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"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made
to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are
men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They
promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." 
-- Daniel Webster
 
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to
pause and reflect."
--Mark Twain
 
"Governments arise either out of the people or over the people." 
--Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man", 1791 
 
"The will to be stupid is a very powerful force . " 
--Bujold
 
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and
catastrophe."
--H. G. Wells
 
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