NationStates Jolt Archive

Los Angeles Times | June 29, 2005

Does the unspooling Iraq saga fill you with a disquieting sense of déjà vu? Feel like you've been there, done that, been lied to and spun in this manner somewhere else, at some other point in time? Well, that's because you have.

Norman Solomon, a longtime media critic, lays out the elaborate hustle in his new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." It's all there — Vietnam, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the first Gulf War and more. (Including a first chapter about the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, an unfortunately labored and obscure choice to lead off an otherwise compelling read.)
...
One insidious whopper — that American war leaders always yearn for peace — runs counter to such evidence as the Nixon tapes, in which the president, who publicly expressed concern about the Indochina carnage, is caught on the White House recording system discussing with Henry A. Kissinger an extension of the bombing to new targets in North Vietnam:

Nixon: "I still think we ought to take the dikes out…. Will that drown people?"

Kissinger: "About 200,000 people."

Nixon: "No, no, no…. I'd rather use the nuclear bomb…. I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ's sakes."

http://www.coldtype.net/war3.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5CF5pfVzLI
http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/
in-bed-ed Journalists indeed..

The US media became -nothing less than- a propaganda machine helping Bush to make a case for War on Iraq.

On topic, the U.S. media has always been a propaganda machine.

Off topic, why do you always add ## before your topic titles?

Off topic, why do you always add ## before your topic titles?More off topic, how long before this get's answered in the FAQ? :p

Nixon was such a potty mouth.

Anyways, no surprise here.

More off topic, how long before this get's answered in the FAQ? :pLOL,


indeed.
I have answered that question -like- a few hundred times.

Off topic, why do you always add ## before your topic titles?a long.. long time ago.
In a galaxy far.. far away.
there was a young Jedi Farmer, who wanted to be an astronaut..

Considering Journalists are the reason Vietnam ended with us leaving the South Vietnameese to hang while we ran, and that American Media has almost been uniformly against Iraq from Day One...

I don't buy the thesis you cut&pasted there...

American Media has almost been uniformly against Iraq (war) from Day One...is that sarcasm?

Well, could you please give me a link? I've looked all over the forum and I couldn't find an answer.

Well, could you please give me a link? I've looked all over the forum and I couldn't find an answer.its to facilitate my own searches.. for all my former nations (OceanDrive/2/3/etc) killed on thunderDome-like MortalKombats against the all-mighty mods ;)

I still feel the scars of my last "meeting" with my good-old friend Mirth. :D

Considering Journalists are the reason Vietnam ended with us leaving the South Vietnameese to hang while we ran, and that American Media has almost been uniformly against Iraq from Day One...

I don't buy the thesis you cut&pasted there...

Who is pulling your strings?

DCD? MTAE? DK? The FBI? WHO!!?

is that sarcasm?

Nope. I'd concede to maybe week two or three, perhaps given a good argument. Given a time span over a month, and the media starts declaring it a "Failure" and agitating for us to yank the troops home.

You may not see it, but they can pull off "The Big Lie" with great ease. Mass Media is our culture, our way of life. Most of the sheep out there base their lives on what they watch on TV, from fashion to political opinions. If the media wants to portray something as "Bad" they'll do it and most people would believe it.

Given a time span over a month, and the media starts declaring it a "Failure" and agitating for us to yank the troops home.

A month? OK, give me some examples of that. I want to see media not just reporting things, but "agitating" to yank the troops home and declaring it "failure." I want to see it done nice and early too.

You may not see it, but they can pull off "The Big Lie" with great ease.

Yeah, and they did. That was why hardly anyone opposed the wars they lied to support.

Mass Media is our culture, our way of life. Most of the sheep out there base their lives on what they watch on TV, from fashion to political opinions.

But not YOUR culture. Not YOUR way of life. YOU are not a sheep. YOUR opinion has no influence from Mass Media. Right? Am I interpreting the essence of your unique superiority correctly?

What, Dick Nixon was a douchebag and a criminal who plotted with his notoriously amoral sidekick Hank to blast the North Vietnamese? What a shocker.

First off, though, the media loves nothing more than spectacle, and the lead-up to war is spectacle of the first order. It's got drama, violence, suspense and all the other factors that draw in viewers, and as such, it is in the nature of a free, competitive media to be willing to home in on the people in power during the leadup to a war. It's not necessarily that they want the war to happen, but that they tend to show the government's side of the argument, because folks inside the government tend to be the big players.

On the inverse, it is in the basic nature of a free and competitive media to slowly tip to the other side of the spectrum as the war carries on. If it goes quickly and well, then it's rapidly forgotten and the process is never carried through to its conclusion, if it goes poorly, though, then the media will tip. It's a fascinating element to such a media as the one the US has.

More than that, people regularly broadcast one image, and actually represent another one in real life. That politicians do so should come as no shock to anyone. In fact, it should be expected, as they try to please all of the people, all of the time. Something that cannot simply be done, so they inevitably wind up with nasty little contradictions.

Who is pulling your strings?

DCD? MTAE? DK? The FBI? WHO!!?

I do feel that this little habit of some on these forums to always claim that there's a single right-wing puppetmaster is quite lame. Can't you all just accept that there are multiple people who have roughly similar beliefs out there?

I think he means "up against" in the sense of a subway pervert who rubs up against women in a form of perverse affection that only serves to traumatize the subject of their desire and further alienate themselves from the rest of humanity. In that sense it was very much up against Iraq.

Aye, just don't resist and be glad their not naked.

I do feel that this little habit of some on these forums to always claim that there's a single right-wing puppetmaster is quite lame. Can't you all just accept that there are multiple people who have roughly similar beliefs out there?

I accept the fact that people have beliefs other than my own, but it just seems like whenever there is a new right wing member; it ends up becoming a former member who left and started over.

American Media has almost been uniformly against Iraq (war) from Day One...

is that sarcasm?

I think he means "up against" in the sense of a subway pervert who rubs up against women in a form of perverse affection that only serves to traumatize the subject of their desire and further alienate themselves from the rest of humanity. In that sense it was very much up against Iraq.

I do feel that this little habit of some on these forums to always claim that there's a single right-wing puppetmaster is quite lame. Can't you all just accept that there are multiple people who have roughly similar beliefs out there?

I don't understand why everyone assumes it must be the same guy either. There are thousands of lunatics who each believe themselves to be Napoleon, Jesus Christ, Barbara Streisand or some other implausible figure. None of them coordinate this before hand, it's just that when the human mind snaps, it tends to do so in fairly predictable ways.

It doesn't snap like a twig, wherever the pressure is applied creating an object that is clearly the damaged version of a pre-existing whole.

It snaps like a diamond, along pre-existing facets that, when struck, end up with a new item which may look better or worse, but still looks complete. As though it was always supposed to look like that, rather than simply being broken.

It's the same with conservatives. Just because they all end up thinking the same, doesn't mean they've all been struck with the same hammer. It can be a different hammer to just the same affect.

None of them coordinate this before hand, it's just that when the human mind snaps, it tends to do so in fairly predictable ways.

It doesn't snap like a twig, wherever the pressure is applied creating an object that is clearly the damaged version of a pre-existing whole.

It snaps like a diamond, along pre-existing facets that, when struck, end up with a new item which may look better or worse, but still looks complete. As though it was always supposed to look like that, rather than simply being broken.

It's the same with conservatives. Just because they all end up thinking the same, doesn't mean they've all been struck with the same hammer. It can be a different hammer to just the same affect.

That was... beautiful.

Most of the sheep out there base their lives on what they watch on TV, from fashion to political opinions. If the media wants to portray something as "Bad" they'll do it and most people would believe it.I agree
.

Nope. ???

So what was -in your opinion- the big US media "portraying" at the beginning of the War ?

That was... beautiful.yeah. nice read.

a poem.

To be more precise, and to state a generalizable, testable hypothesis, I would argue that, in all things (matters of war and peace included):

The media will focus on the newsmakers. They will focus on the dynamic individuals who are in favor of altering the status quo, not the protectors of it.


I believe the application of this hypothesis to various matters can clearly illustrate what so many consider to be "media bias".

I don't understand why everyone assumes it must be the same guy either. There are thousands of lunatics who each believe themselves to be Napoleon, Jesus Christ, Barbara Streisand or some other implausible figure. None of them coordinate this before hand, it's just that when the human mind snaps, it tends to do so in fairly predictable ways.

It doesn't snap like a twig, wherever the pressure is applied creating an object that is clearly the damaged version of a pre-existing whole.

It snaps like a diamond, along pre-existing facets that, when struck, end up with a new item which may look better or worse, but still looks complete. As though it was always supposed to look like that, rather than simply being broken.

It's the same with conservatives. Just because they all end up thinking the same, doesn't mean they've all been struck with the same hammer. It can be a different hammer to just the same affect.

That was nice, thanks for elucidating it so fully.