Will the United States ever have a foreign policy that is not shot through with utter hypocrisy? In the Cold War era, we propped up a variety of brutal dictators, from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet in Chile and Somoza in Nicaragua, in ostensible obeisance to the domino theory and containment doctrine. Now the cast of characters has changed a little, and we claim to be warding off a different, insidious threat to liberty. But we remain a life-support system for regimes that do not practice what we preach.
We enjoy telling ourselves that we are an exceptional nation, a shining city on a hill, casting a thousand points of light upon the sky. We are in fact an exceptionally hypocritical nation, governed by a tarnished city in a swamp, conducting our murderous affairs in the shadows.
It is all very well for President Obama to lecture the Egyptians about turning the internet back on, while his own government uses extra-legal means to suppress a global news organization and seeks to prosecute its founder for espionage. (Will deaths in Egypt and Tunisia now be blamed upon Wikileaks by the Vice-President? It would not be surprising.) We, the great American people, smugly satisfied with our own exceptionalism, see no inconsistency here. For we set the standards by which the rest of the world shall be judged. Only God himself may judge America, and He has already pronounced us his chosen people.
I am somewhat bemused by all this hand-wringing about possible societal causes for the Tucson massacre. We seem to care a great deal about the death of six civilians and the injury of 14 others, yet we care not one whit for the daily deaths of many more civilians in the foreign lands we have occupied.
Where is the memorial service for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed as a direct result of our brutal sanctions regime against Iraq? Where is the Sixty Minutes documentary on the birth defects in Fallujah, which occur at roughly 14 times the expected rate thanks to the use of depleted-uranium shells and a variety of chemical concoctions against civilian areas? When will our glorious leader visit the orphans of Afghanistan to console them for their loss?
I'm sorry, but a country that can turn a blind eye to human suffering on such a huge scale has far larger psychological and moral issues to resolve than those presented by Murdoch's morons. We must face the ugly, fundamental truth that America specializes in death and destruction. It is what we do; it is who we are; and everybody knows it but us.
Glenn Greenwald had a wonderful interview with Nir Rosen, an anti-imperial journalist who has just finished a book on the horrific human cost of our exploits in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Rosen notes that our stated objective of routing al Qaeda from Afghanistan was essentially achieved by 2002-2003. Since then, we have succeeded mainly in creating a "conflict economy" in which American money ends up funding the Taliban we are told we have to crush. An Iraq-style surge could never work in the rural areas of Afghanistan (and didn't really work in Baghdad, either). We are squandering huge sums for essentially no tangible security gain.
Rosen's book deserves a wide audience, but it is not what the love-it-or-leave-it crowd wants to hear. As always, the destruction of civilian lives and livelihoods is conspicuously absent from our nightly television screens, to say nothing of Sunday sermons in conservative churches all across this "Christian" country. The poor Iraqis and Afghans are simply today's Plains Indians and negro slaves - mere roadkill on the highway to Manifest Destiny.
As sympathetic as I am to your concerns, yanking Fox's license is obviously unconstitutional and would be greeted by howls of protest from the GOP. Having said that, since this Administration and many legislators of both parties are apparently entertaining the thought of prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917, perhaps anything is now possible. Of course, it hasn't dawned on the highly-paid talking heads calling for Assange's prosecution that they are opening the door to future attacks on any hitherto protected speech, theirs included.
I believe it was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who opined that, in the marketplace of ideas, the truth can be expected to prevail. If the truth is having such a hard time prevailing in modern America, then either Holmes was wrong or the whole marketplace of ideas is malfunctioning. In this case, I prefer the latter explanation.
The real problem here is not Fox News. It is that the opposite of Fox News - genuine journalism that seeks to inform, educate, and expose - does not reach the masses. To the extent it exists at all, such journalism is to be found primarily on the internet. The truth is out there, but it must be actively sought by an energetic news consumer. And that brings us to the ultimate problem: the average consumer doesn't care enough to make the effort.
So, Dale, you are quite right to be concerned about net-neutrality, the "issue that wasn't" in the last election campaign. But even with net neutrality on our side, we're not doing too well, are we? And even if, as Ralph Nader muses in his latest book, some super-rich person comes to our aid - perhaps by funding a counterweight to Murdoch's machine - when the final consumers of news want the intellectual equivalent of burgers and fries, that's what they will vote for in the marketplace of ideas.
Poor Chalmers Johnson must already be turning in his grave. Here we have yet another marker on the road to imperial overstretch and national collapse.
If the recent election results are any indication of the American electorate's willingness to mistake cynical manipulation for a patriotic defense of American values, we have to face the very real prospect of another bellicose Republican executive branch just two years over the horizon. The neocons couldn't find WMDs in Iraq, but they've spent several years trying to convince the world that they are likely to exist in Iran. If we were stupid enough to elect George W. Bush twice (well, one and a half times), we might just be stupid enough for deja vu all over again. Support our troops. Keep us safe. Fight for freedom. God bless America!
I don't think Chalmers would have said this, but sometimes I think we really deserve to end up on the scrapheap of history.
Will the United States ever have a foreign policy that is not shot through with utter hypocrisy? In the Cold War era, we propped up a variety of brutal dictators, from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet in Chile and Somoza in Nicaragua, in ostensible obeisance to the domino theory and containment doctrine. Now the cast of characters has changed a little, and we claim to be warding off a different, insidious threat to liberty. But we remain a life-support system for regimes that do not practice what we preach.
We enjoy telling ourselves that we are an exceptional nation, a shining city on a hill, casting a thousand points of light upon the sky. We are in fact an exceptionally hypocritical nation, governed by a tarnished city in a swamp, conducting our murderous affairs in the shadows.
It is all very well for President Obama to lecture the Egyptians about turning the internet back on, while his own government uses extra-legal means to suppress a global news organization and seeks to prosecute its founder for espionage. (Will deaths in Egypt and Tunisia now be blamed upon Wikileaks by the Vice-President? It would not be surprising.) We, the great American people, smugly satisfied with our own exceptionalism, see no inconsistency here. For we set the standards by which the rest of the world shall be judged. Only God himself may judge America, and He has already pronounced us his chosen people.
I am somewhat bemused by all this hand-wringing about possible societal causes for the Tucson massacre. We seem to care a great deal about the death of six civilians and the injury of 14 others, yet we care not one whit for the daily deaths of many more civilians in the foreign lands we have occupied.
Where is the memorial service for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed as a direct result of our brutal sanctions regime against Iraq? Where is the Sixty Minutes documentary on the birth defects in Fallujah, which occur at roughly 14 times the expected rate thanks to the use of depleted-uranium shells and a variety of chemical concoctions against civilian areas? When will our glorious leader visit the orphans of Afghanistan to console them for their loss?
I'm sorry, but a country that can turn a blind eye to human suffering on such a huge scale has far larger psychological and moral issues to resolve than those presented by Murdoch's morons. We must face the ugly, fundamental truth that America specializes in death and destruction. It is what we do; it is who we are; and everybody knows it but us.
Glenn Greenwald had a wonderful interview with Nir Rosen, an anti-imperial journalist who has just finished a book on the horrific human cost of our exploits in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Rosen notes that our stated objective of routing al Qaeda from Afghanistan was essentially achieved by 2002-2003. Since then, we have succeeded mainly in creating a "conflict economy" in which American money ends up funding the Taliban we are told we have to crush. An Iraq-style surge could never work in the rural areas of Afghanistan (and didn't really work in Baghdad, either). We are squandering huge sums for essentially no tangible security gain.
Rosen's book deserves a wide audience, but it is not what the love-it-or-leave-it crowd wants to hear. As always, the destruction of civilian lives and livelihoods is conspicuously absent from our nightly television screens, to say nothing of Sunday sermons in conservative churches all across this "Christian" country. The poor Iraqis and Afghans are simply today's Plains Indians and negro slaves - mere roadkill on the highway to Manifest Destiny.
Dale:
As sympathetic as I am to your concerns, yanking Fox's license is obviously unconstitutional and would be greeted by howls of protest from the GOP. Having said that, since this Administration and many legislators of both parties are apparently entertaining the thought of prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917, perhaps anything is now possible. Of course, it hasn't dawned on the highly-paid talking heads calling for Assange's prosecution that they are opening the door to future attacks on any hitherto protected speech, theirs included.
I believe it was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who opined that, in the marketplace of ideas, the truth can be expected to prevail. If the truth is having such a hard time prevailing in modern America, then either Holmes was wrong or the whole marketplace of ideas is malfunctioning. In this case, I prefer the latter explanation.
The real problem here is not Fox News. It is that the opposite of Fox News - genuine journalism that seeks to inform, educate, and expose - does not reach the masses. To the extent it exists at all, such journalism is to be found primarily on the internet. The truth is out there, but it must be actively sought by an energetic news consumer. And that brings us to the ultimate problem: the average consumer doesn't care enough to make the effort.
So, Dale, you are quite right to be concerned about net-neutrality, the "issue that wasn't" in the last election campaign. But even with net neutrality on our side, we're not doing too well, are we? And even if, as Ralph Nader muses in his latest book, some super-rich person comes to our aid - perhaps by funding a counterweight to Murdoch's machine - when the final consumers of news want the intellectual equivalent of burgers and fries, that's what they will vote for in the marketplace of ideas.
Poor Chalmers Johnson must already be turning in his grave. Here we have yet another marker on the road to imperial overstretch and national collapse.
If the recent election results are any indication of the American electorate's willingness to mistake cynical manipulation for a patriotic defense of American values, we have to face the very real prospect of another bellicose Republican executive branch just two years over the horizon. The neocons couldn't find WMDs in Iraq, but they've spent several years trying to convince the world that they are likely to exist in Iran. If we were stupid enough to elect George W. Bush twice (well, one and a half times), we might just be stupid enough for deja vu all over again. Support our troops. Keep us safe. Fight for freedom. God bless America!
I don't think Chalmers would have said this, but sometimes I think we really deserve to end up on the scrapheap of history.