Don’t Believe the Hype…

I really should start reading some lighter stuff. Maybe, The Ya-Ya Sisterhood or Confederate Dunces would bring a smile to my face but I am not one for fiction unless it has to do with “tending ones own garden” ala Candide (it is really quite relevant today). No, I would much rather read the non-fiction. In particular, Norman Solomon’s War Made Easy. I laughed, I cried, I loaded a gun.

Basically, you can not trust anyone affiliated with the government. This includes, but is not limited to, pundits, media sources, political leaders, community activists and congressional representatives. Solomon sites copiously (on one page alone he wrote less then two sentences) the train for misinterpretations and misguided assumptions from the Vietnam War through the current debacle in Iraq. However he does have some interesting prescriptions and passages which I will site:

“When a country – particularly a democracy – goes to war, the tacit consent of the governed lubricates the machinery. Silence is a key form of cooperation, but the warmaking system does not insist on quietude or agreement. Mere self-restraint will suffice.” (236) The winter frost of apathy seems to be thawing. As seen with demonstrators in 10 major metropolitan cities throughout the world this weekend.

Solomon also quotes a Nazi (H. Goering 1946 – his equivalent would be K. Rove – not in action but in influence) with a flare for groupthink. This quote needs to be put to memory in today’s media numbing blitz:

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war … But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy (Hitler was popularly elected) or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship … [V]oice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” (233-234) Please see all ideologues denouncing the war protesters.

The last quote is lengthy but it is needed to fully capture the gap between knowledge, truth, real understanding, perspective on one hand and desperate misinformation, apathy, blind allegiance on the other:

“In 2004, the U.S. public was not very knowledgeable about global views of the war. At the Program on International Policy Attitudes director Steven Kull said: “Despite polling showing the majority of world opinion is opposed to the U.S. war with Iraq, only 41 percent [of Americans] were aware that this is the case. Among those who knew that world public opinion opposed the U.S. going to war with Iraq, only 25 percent thought that going to war was the right decision.” Ignorance or unconcern about the opinions of people elsewhere in the world seemed to make it easier for Americans to support U.S. military action. And in some instances, we can assume, supporting the war was a disincentive to learn or care what others on the plant thought about it all.

A follow-up study found that most Americans who got their news from commercial TV harbored at least on of the three “misperceptions” about the Iraq war – that weapons of mass destruction had been discovered, that evidence closely linking Iraq to Al Qaeda had been found, or that world opinion approved of the US invasion. Fox news viewers were the most confused about key facts, with 80 percent embracing at least one of those misperceptions. The study found a correlation between being misinformed and being supportive of the war.” (154)

My criticism of the book is short. Do not read the book in its entirety. Just read the notes section (239-291). There you will find the truth and at your own pace, research the massive stores of information which are carefully guarded from you.