Media Meme Play: Time and Again. . .

I love seeing the subtle processes of propaganda being observed and explained. Truth in Advertising, no matter how deadly or mundane the product, almost always requires disclaimers and an understanding of the marketers' intentions.

People need to see the mechanism working before they can feel angry enough to admit how herded and penned into their "own" beliefs they have become.

From
Norman Solomon at Common Dreams
... when the media system undermines the free flow of information and prevents wide-ranging debate, what happens is a parody of democracy. That's what occurred four years ago during the media buildup for the invasion of Iraq.

Now, warning signs are profuse: The Bush administration has Iran in the Pentagon's sights. And the drive toward war, fueled by double standards about nuclear development and human rights, is getting a big boost from U.S. media coverage that portrays the president as reluctant to launch an attack on Iran.

Time magazine reports that "from the State Department to the White House to the highest reaches of the military command, there is a growing sense that a showdown with Iran ... may be impossible to avoid."

The same kind of media spin -- assuming a sincere Bush desire to avoid war -- was profuse in the months before the invasion of Iraq. The more that news outlets tell such fairy tales, the more they become part of the war machinery.

-- Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and the author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." E-mail to: mediabeat@igc.org.

Comments

  1. Everytime I read about the Iran thing, I get double vision, confused and disoriented. It's almost like someone asking a dead man to serve in the military - unless Bush intends to just bomb and harass. I just can not make sense of it one bit - but then that's Bush for you.

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  2. I still want to know how only 42% of Americans think Dum Dum has control of gas prices. Hence, why Bush makes no sense -- most of his constitutents are C students too.

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  3. It's all 'bout swallowing pride and acknowledging that, no matter what the offense or misapprehension one group has given or has for another, neither has a right to the other's Right To Be Alive.

    C students do seem to have more trouble than other folks do with this concept. What makes 'em so intractable is that they're Proud of that fact.

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  4. I swear, everytime I hear something Bush says, I drop no less than 10 IQ points! Then just when I recover, there he goes again.

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  5. Reagan used to do that to me for a different reason, with the same result.

    With Ronnie, I'd hear him speak and feel whatever he was pushing. It took a few minutes of thinking about what he'd said to realize how morbid or messed up it was.

    With Dub, the stupidity of it all is right out front and unavoidable.

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  6. Oh he's totally proud of the fact. I don't have a problem with a C student. I have a problem with one in power who is proud. It's like MBAs who pay people to write their papers!

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  7. Come on, AG! MBAs would never cheat that way!

    At least not and still be C Students, eh.

    Well, ok. Nevermind...

    {shakin'head}

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