Good on the Dixie Chicks & the Corrupting Influence of "24"

The best brainwashing is always wrapped in an exciting, attractive package. How many people realize that 24 is MSM conditioning project, further demonizing the Middle-eastern Other?

The Dixie Chicks on the other hand, are a shining example of sticking to principles and prevailing over the hysteria of war-mongers. Good on them.

Blue Ibis

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Propaganda and Conscience

Patricia Goldsmith
Opednews.com
Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:05 EDT

Watching Shut Up and Sing took me right back to the national dementia of 2003, when the Bush administration worked the country up into a war frenzy with lies, innuendos, and delusional images of mushroom clouds ascending from the ruins of American cities. BushCo was so confident, the propaganda was so overwhelming, that even people who knew better had occasional spasms of doubt.

The corporate media were nothing less than reverent as Colin Powell, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld did whatever it took to sell the war. And it worked.

New York City restaurants poured expensive French wines into the sewer, while the congressional cafeteria started serving "freedom fries." UN weapons inspector Hans Blix was a spineless fool who didn't know what he was talking about. Scott Ritter was accused of being a spy. The UN was a bunch of timid old ladies whose time had passed. Diplomacy itself was reviled as nothing but a euphemism for appeasement.

Even when the war propaganda failed to convince, it intimidated. In my own little village on Long Island, I saw a bumper sticker that said "War Protesters Makes Great Speed Bumps," and a diner with a sign in the window that said "No War Protesters Welcome."

Enter the Dixie Chicks. The great pleasure of the movie was seeing these three young women grit their teeth and get through a radio blackout, CD bonfires, the over-the-top invective of the rightwing attack machine, an anti-Chicks song by Toby Keith, and even death threats. [for a country girl group? What were they afraid of?] Four years down the road, their honesty and courage come across, while the pro-war fanatics look . . . foolish. And not in a good way.

It brings to mind Hannah Arendt's comments on the banality of evil. Viewing the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, Arendt saw not a monster but a horrifying clown. A conformist, a true believer. Someone who would feel guilty for being late to work, but not guilty for the work he did-supervising the transport of countless Jews to the death camps.

In Arendt's view, Eichmann-and the millions of other Germans who acted as human cogs in the Nazi war machine-were triumphs of propaganda. Propaganda's purpose is to replace rational thought with slogans and clichés. It works steadily to grind down the individual conscience and replace it with loyalty to a group-which Eichmann called duty. Only failing to do his duty could make him to feel guilty.

In that he sounds suspiciously like Joel Surnow, co-creator and executive producer of the hit show 24 - and, as it happens, a good friend of Rush Limbaugh. [hardly a character reference for Mr. Surnow . . . ]

According to a recent article by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, a delegation of experts from West Point, the US Army, and the FBI went to Hollywood recently to complain that the way torture is portrayed on 24 is undermining their ability to train troops and agents in professional interrogation techniques. Trainees simply refuse to believe that torture doesn't work.

Not only does torture not generate actionable intelligence, but according to FBI interrogation expert Joe Navarro, torture is especially ineffective in the case of the ticking time bomb-the favorite scenario of torture apologists and the main plot device on 24-because the person being tortured knows he only has to hang on for a limited amount of time.

They also made it clear to writers and producers that in real life no one can torture and remain rational and reliable the way Jack Bauer does. Says Navarro, "Only a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don't want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy, and tend to have grotesque other problems."

Both points are pretty obvious, once you think about it - which shows how seldom we do.A brilliantly crafted, suspenseful program like 24 is damaging precisely because it preempts rational thought, making reason seem somehow unworthy of the values at stake.

That's certainly the position taken by Surnow, who says, Eichmann-esque, "If someone had one of my children, or my wife, I would hope I'd do it. There is nothing-nothing-I wouldn't do." Nothing, apparently, except listen to the warnings of people who actually know what they're talking about.

Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Jack Bauer, does not defend the show's representation of torture. Instead, he hopes that people are able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Talk about wishful thinking. Clearly, people are not able to make that distinction, particularly in an environment where there is no consensus on what constitutes a fact.

We Americans like to think we're somehow morally superior, not just to other nations but to something like propaganda, which, to a lot of people, sounds like some kind of lame excuse. We have such complete faith in our grounding in right and wrong that we think we're immune to evil. We put our faith in fundamentalist religious leaders who tell us that good and evil are unchanging, eternal verities-unlike mere facts.

But looking back, it's clear that what divided the country so deeply before and during the early stages of our unprovoked attack on Iraq was a simple question of fact: were George W. Bush and his minions telling the truth or not?

A connection between al Qaeda and Iraq; WMDs; yellow cake from Niger; bringing freedom and democracy to the country and the whole region: it was all a pack of lies.

And if we have such a totally immovable sense of right and wrong, one wonders why we've so blandly swallowed the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If torture isn't absolutely evil, at all times and in all places, then what is?

Or do we play with words to fool our consciences, and, like Alberto Gonzales, simply define torture out of existence? Gonzales' updated definition, replacing that of US law and the Geneva Conventions, is that torture is inflicting pain equivalent to major organ failure or death. Sounds more like attempted murder to me.

The fact is most people in most places tend to go along with conventional wisdom and comply with authority. It's not generally a bad thing. It predisposes us to be law-abiding and makes peace possible. But when the same powerful interests control both government and the media, then we are all vulnerable to propaganda, and under the influence of propaganda, ordinary people are capable of doing very great evil without even feeling guilty.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities".

Lt. Ehren Watada Has Friends - Ones Truly Worth Listening To . . .

When the men and women considered to be the cream of Military Excellence begin to criticize the Bush Reich, we MUST be seriously hooped. Kudos to them for speaking out, likely for many at the risk of their careers.

Blue Ibis

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West Point Graduates Against the War Thank Lt. Ehren Watada

West Point Grads Against The War
Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:57 EST

Dear Lieutenant Ehren Watada:

We are pleased to write to you to express our profound respect and gratitude for your refusal to participate in the illegal war in Iraq. We stand with you regarding the illegality of the orders issued to you and fully support your exercising your conscientious duty to refuse to obey them.

As graduates of the United States Military Academy and former officers in the armed forces of this nation we are enormously encouraged by your example. We too have served our country during war and during peace and we agree with your honorable and courageous decision. Your refusal to fight this illegal war in Iraq has heartened us. It is our hope that your example will encourage others to re-examine their own principles of truth, personal honor and the rule of law that are the founding precepts of our democracy, and act as their consciences dictate as you did.

Instilled by the Cadet Honor System with a fundamental, longstanding respect for truth, we believe that honor is a basic attribute of character, a requisite for leading the men and women of our country. We are appalled by the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States. The lying, evasions and quibbling has demeaned not only those who utter them and the United States of America, but has placed vast numbers of innocent people in deadly peril. We will not serve these lies and deceits, nor should you.

The last article of the Code of Conduct for the American Fighting Man states "I will never forget that I am an American fighting man, responsible for my actions and dedicated to the principles which made my country free." Your decision illustrates the broadness of scope of an officer's responsibility and highlights the difference between an American servicemember and any other. We share your desire to elevate mere obedience to orders to a higher duty, one unequivocally declared at Nuremburg, in the Geneva Convention and by the United Nations Charter.

Like you, we academy graduates swore to support and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We also swore to bear true faith and allegiance to the same Constitution. The illegal policies of the current administration have resulted in a war catastrophic to our nation's interests: politically, economically, militarily, and morally. We now stand to protect our nation from these deceptions. We seek justice for all victims of this illegal war, both servicemen and servicewomen, and the citizens of Iraq, and we support you in your quest for justice.

To this purpose we invoke the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence whereby we too "mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor."

With greetings of comradeship and deep respect,

West Point Graduates Against the War