RE: [microsound] [ot] Eno piece

[Ian Andrews <i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The thing that really bothers me about all this is how nearly every
>single media outlet was willing to go along with this, how obvious it
>was that press conferences were staged, and the hypocritical "outrage"
>that the press is expressing now that this manipulation is laid bare.  I
>also find it incredulous that there seems to be so little scepticism
>from U.S. citizens toward their government.

The media are so cynical.  First they participate in the hysteria, then
they condemn it by siding with the critics, and the next stage (as always)
will be to write off the critics as conspiracy theory nuts.  This (if it
hasn't started already) will go a little something like this:  " well if
the US Government's intention was to deceive the American public by going
to war on false grounds, what then was the real reason for initiating the
conflict?"   The problem is that there is no simple answer to this.  I
would argue that the US went to war in Iraq for a number of reasons.
Firstly as a show of retaliation (even though there were no links between
9/11 and Iraq, they had to do something), a spectacle for the masses to
feel avenged.  Iraq was a prime target because it was an easy target.  They
couldn't attack the stronghold of Al Queeda, the untouchable Saudi Arabia.
And the real threat to the region, the country with real weapons of mass
destruction, Israel, is more or less an ally.  So Iraq presented a good
target because not many in the Islamic world liked them much anyway, and
they were also a potential threat to Israel.  But this explaination,
whether it is true or not, is far to complicated for the media, so the
popular response to the above question will be one word: "oil." To which
the media will then respond (to their own concocted argument):
"ridiculous", and the cycle will be complete.

>Of course, as one person put it on the Tavis Smiley Show last week, and
>I paraphrase, "I don't know one person who approves of Bush...".  Seems
>to me that a good portion of the propaganda is a kind of "peer
>pressure", that one is in the minority to disagree with the U.S.
>administration.

Speaking as a non-US citizen (though many regard Australia as a mere client
state of the US), I have noticed a certain  "peer pressure"  among a few of
my well educated friends and colleges, to reject "anti-Americanism" even to
the extent of rejecting *any* criticism of the US Government.  This first
became noticeable shortly after the first Gulf War and was, I belive, a
kind of backlash against a "fashionable" anti-Americanism which had
prevailed since the Vietnam War.  This backlash has now become so ensconsed
in our society that it has become the official rhetoric of the Australian
Government.  Bush's "with us or against us"  is the cornerstone of this
rhetoric and I find this argument constanly repeated in various forms.
Typically,  if I am ever so bold enough to criticise the US, the response
will be something like "well what would you prefer: to live under the US,
or under regime X?"

Ian Andrews
Metro Screen
Sydney

Email: i.andrews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.metroscreen.com.au

Metro Screen
Sydney Film Centre
Paddington Town Hall
P.O. Box 299
Paddington NSW 2021
Ph : 612 9361 5318
Fax: 612 9361 5320

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