Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
May
4, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations
and Responses
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
David
Peterson
CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq
Barry
Lando
CACI's Private Torture Chambers
Patrick
Cockburn
Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised
Dr.
Susan Block
Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say
Fidel
Castro
A Mindless, Unnecessary War
Mike
Whitney
Empire of Torture
Sonali
Kolhatkar
How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against
John Kerry
Josh
Frank
The Lost Sierra Club
Stan
Goff
The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq
Agustin
Velloso
Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics
Stew
Albert
American Know-How
Website
of the Day
Scenes from a Cover-Up
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
May 15 / 16, 2004
Taking a Closer
Look at the Patriot Act
Where Are You
Heading, America?
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
The parallels with 1930s Germany are
ominous . . .
Have you read the USA PATRIOT
Act right through, and examined every one of its amendments to
existing legislation? Has anyone done this, apart from its authors
and a few agitated souls in media, academia and some Congressional
offices? It is 342 pages long, and went through the legislative
process of the United States like a hot knife through butter.
Senators voted 98 to 1 for the Act, and the House endorsed it
by 357 to 56, but not one of those who approved its terms could
possibly have had time to read it and cross-reference its details
before endorsing it. This was governance by misplaced trust,
because the Patriot Act is potentially the most dangerous piece
of legislation in US history.
The Act alters 15 Statutes.
The prerogatives, personal authority and dominance of the president
of the United States have been extended to include drastic and
quasi-imperial powers that threaten the liberties of all Americans.
One reason the Patriot Act
is worrying for foreigners is that US military expansionism and
economic domination are drastically affecting the entire world.
What is decided in Washington today is immensely important for
every other capital tomorrow. We are all dependent in one way
or another on US policies. Therefore it is appropriate rather
than impertinent that the rest of the world should comment on
US domestic matters that inevitably impact on every person on
the globe.
Another reason for concern
is that there are alarming echoes of the 1930s, when a semi-elected
and eventually-appointed national figure amassed such power as
to be unaccountable to the people of his country, and went on
to create mayhem and chaos to the extent that the entire world
was shaken to its foundations.
You question or deride the
notion that there could be parallels between Bush and Hitler?
Very well. But please read the Act before you finally make up
your mind.
The Patriot Act is hideously
reminiscent of the "Decree for the Protection of Nation
and State" that became law in Nazi Germany in February 1933.
Its provisions were described by John Toland, in his masterly
"Adolf Hitler", as ostensibly innocuous while in practice
destroying every reasonable humanitarian right formerly possessed
by the German people. There were "Tribunals set up to try
enemies of the state", and Toland observed that Hitler made
his legislation (the "Enabling Act") "sound moderate
and promised to use its emergency powers "only in so far
as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures"."
Does that sound horribly familiar? And who would decide whether
a measure was "vitally necessary"? " Why, the
man wielding total power, of course. ("Trust me!" is
ever the cry of the incipient dictator.)
So Hitler"s Decree and
the Reichstag"s subsequent Enabling Act were never modified
or repealed, because they gave the man who was served by a compliant
and intensely patriotic legislature the instruments he needed
to keep him in total control. This is the reason for Bush"s
energetic campaign to prevent the Patriot Act being subject to
the existing "sunset clause" whereby most of its more
despotic provisions should lapse next year. It was passed by
a compliant and intensely patriotic legislature : will it be
repealed by one?
It is far from irrelevant that
Hitler was appointed Germany"s Chancellor, in legal accord
with the Weimar Constitution, by President Hindenburg in 1933,
just as Bush was appointed president of the United States by
the Supreme Court in December 2000. Shortly after Hitler came
to power the chamber housing the Parliament, the Reichstag, was
set ablaze. Hitler thought this an excellent opportunity to consolidate
his dominance. As Toland records, he declared : "Now we"ll
show them. Anyone who stands in our way will be mown down".
Nobody died in the Reichstag fire, but it was Hitler"s 9-11,
and it spawned the Patriot Act of its era.
Hitler"s sweeping Decree
provided that ". . . restrictions on personal liberty, on
the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of
the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association,
and violations of the privacy of postal, communications, and
warrants for house-searchers, orders for confiscations as well
as restrictions on property, are permissible beyond the legal
limits otherwise prescribed."
The USA Patriot Act also restricts
personal liberty "beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed".
Every provision of the 1933 Protection of Nation and State Decree,
save that of speech and press freedom, is mirrored in the Patriot
Act which permits investigators, without having to show "probable
cause", to obtain a subpoena to search anyone"s personal
details held by their library, bank, credit card and insurance
companies " in fact by any organisation or institution that
keeps records.
This is Orwell"s Big Brother
at work " but the Act is relished by those who advocate
more and more state supervision and investigation of the private
lives of ordinary US citizens. The Ashcroft Act (as it should
be named) is accepted and even welcomed by countless millions
of Americans who are kept totally unaware of its terms.
The Senate and House approved
colossal extension of state control without any debate of consequence
on the dangers to ordinary people posed by this modern version
of the "Decree for the Protection of Nation and State".
Only a tiny number of citizens have the remotest notion of the
Act"s contents, because it is the intention of state-control
freaks to avoid explanation and to repeat endlessly the mantras
that "The Patriot Act defends our liberty" ; "It's
essential law" ; "It's a law that is making America
safer . . . It doesn't make any sense to scale it back,"
all of which comforting slogans were uttered by Bush in the Chocolate
Ballroom in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on April 20.
But if an American dares criticize
the president in vehement terms, and that fact is recorded in
the minutes of a private meeting, then the FBI can place such
information on a citizen"s action file. The citizen will
never know about this, because the FBI"s subpoena cannot
be challenged in court " and the target, the victim, to
put it bluntly, is legally kept in ignorance about its ever being
served. How"s that for a slam dunk against civil liberties?
It is not only in the Patriot
Act and the Decree for Protection of Nation and State that the
regime of Hitler and the administration of Bush strike parallels.
There is the business of God :
"God heard the nations,
scream and sing and shout :
"God punish England! God
save the King!"; And God this, and God that, and God the
other thing. "Good God!" said God. "I've got my
work cut out"."
And there is no doubt God has
got his work cut out, because some of the people who have quoted
Him and assured the world that His support for them is their
. . . well . . . God-given right, have been somewhat presumptuous
in their approaches to the Deity.
Take Hitler, on February 1,
1933 :
"May God Almighty give
our work His blessing, strengthen our purpose, and endow us with
wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting not for
ourselves but for Germany."
And Bush on January 28, 2003:
"We do not claim to know
all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing
our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all
of history. May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless
the United States of America."
Or Nazi propaganda master Goebbels
on December 31, 1938, when he asked "May God hold His hand
of blessing over Germany in the future."
Then there is the serving US
army three star general Boykin who announced, without censure
by his superiors, that ". . . our spiritual enemy [Islam]
will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of
Jesus". NBC News reported on October 15, 2003 that "Boykin
routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President
Bush. [Boykin asks] : "Why is this man in the White House?
The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there?
I tell you this morning [at a prayer meeting] that he"s
in the White House because God put him there for a time such
as this"." Politicized to his revolving eyeballs, and
energized by militant religious fundamentalism, Boykin would
have fitted well into Hitler"s scheme of things. And how
many followers does he have in the army?
Doctor Johnson observed pithily
that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel",
but he might have added that Christian piety is the first recourse
of the western politician with tendencies to totalitarianism.
It is, after all, a weapon against which it is difficult to argue
in a Christian country in which many millions regard the man
at the top as little short of a deity. Remember Britney Spears"
loyal declaration that "I think we should just trust the
president and go along with whatever he says"? This is what
many millions of Americans support, without doubt or question.
Just as Hitler rejoiced to
the sound of thousands of happily-duped citizens screaming "Sieg
Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!", so did Bush last week welcome
the orchestrated chants of "four more years! four more years!"
during his recent political tour, during which the Winona (Wis)
Daily News of May 8 reported that : "Hundreds of soldiers
from Fort McCoy, all wearing white T-shirts with an American
flag on the front, enthusiastically cheered the president, especially
his remarks about the war on terror. "I will never relent
in bringing justice to our enemies. I will defend the security
of America, whatever it takes," Bush said to enthusiastic
chants of "Four More Years!""
Who sent these soldiers to
cheer for Bush? Were they on official duty at the time of their
attendance at a political function? Who provided transport for
them to go to the Republican rally? If Bush visits soldiers on
duty, as commander-in-chief, then it is proper they should pay
respect to him. And if soldiers want to attend a Republican Party
supporters" mass meeting as individuals, that is their right
as citizens. But when they are publicly and jubilantly highlighted
as soldiers by the organizers of a partisan electioneering jamboree
it appears that they are being used in a political propaganda
operation, just as was the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Mission
Accomplished.
According to the La Crosse
Tribune: "Servicemen and women from Fort McCoy filled an
entire bleacher section. The soldiers, who wore T-shirts with
American flags on the front and the wording, "I am an American
soldier" on the back, drew lots of applause from the rest
of the crowd. When Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers stopped
to let the soldiers sing a line of "America the Beautiful"
solo "America, America, God shed His grace on thee"
people responded with huge applause.
It"s back to Boykin"s
militant God, again, and this time linked with stage-managed,
football-game, strident patriotism to get votes for Bush. You
might think that the Bush vote-shenanigan was appropriate use
of the time of American soldiers (and of US taxpayers" money),
but, even if you believe that it was, you may care to bear in
mind sinister memories of other places, years ago, when massed
ranks of soldiers behaved and chorused in similar fashion.
Have you seen the film of Hitler"s
1934 Nuremberg Rally made by Leni Riefenstahl? (It was a classic
of its time. She died last year, aged 101.) The Nazi Storm Troopers
wore crisp brown shirts rather than casual white T-shirts, of
course, but the same enthusiasm, the same emotional, excited,
starry-eyed devotion, was on public display. The army was politicized,
and followed the chief politician, the charismatic Adolf Hitler,
whose soldiers sang the Horst Wessel Song ("Flag high, ranks
closed, the Storm Troopers [Brownshirts] march with silent solid
tread"), which is set to the tune of the Christian hymn
'My God, How Great Thou Art'.
What goes around, comes around,
and reappears in the enthusiastic chorus of "America the
Beautiful, God shed His grace on thee" by hundreds of happy-clappy,
US soldiers at a party political rally arranged to whip up support
for a travelling politician. Sure, they were wearing T-shirts,
not Brown Shirts, but just like the young Storm Troopers of seventy
years ago they cannot differentiate between a commander-in-chief,
in which appointment the incumbent is deserving of deference,
and a cheapjack gobbet of political slime who was taking them
for a ride in the interests of maintaining power. And why should
they? How could they? They are, after all, taught to revere the
great leader, and when their superiors encourage them to join
in politics, who are they to question them? (Orders are orders
. . . )
The American author William
Shirer lived in Germany in the 1930s, and produced his definitive
and terrifying "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
in 1959. Among other things he traces the policy of Hitler regarding
the German army in which "it became obvious that Nazi propaganda
was making headway . . . especially among the younger officers."
Before Hitler came to power the German defence minister, General
Groener, "requested soldiers to refrain from politics and
to serve the state aloof from all [political] party strife."
No chance, of course, because Hitler knew he could expect absolute
obedience from all sections of the military, to whom he promised
glory in patriotic defence of the interests of the Nation.
Hitler relied on the discipline
that is instilled in all soldiers to ensure that their loyalty
centered on him, and him alone. In an uncanny replay of history,
the 21st Century US military is being manipulated through its
members" instinctive patriotic feelings to believe that
it is Bush and only Bush who can save the nation from unknown
horrors. The strategy is identical : link patriotism and religiosity
with the loyalty of gullible people who are inherently deferential
to authority, or have been encouraged to be so, and you have
the recipe for power, especially over those who know nothing
about the outside world.
Do you think that the average
American is well-informed about the world? It appears not to
be the case. In fact it seems that the average American citizen
has been thoroughly deceived by the very person they have been
taught to revere.
It is terrifying that millions
of down-to-earth, ordinary, decent people in the US believe that
torture of Iraqis is permissible and even admirable, because
of "what happened on 9-11". Take, for example, one
particular supporter of the woman soldier, Lynndie England, who
was photographed grinning at a heap of naked Iraqis. The Independent
(UK) reported that the justifier of torture was "Mrs Gainor,
[a] good-natured woman [in Lynndie England"s home town],
who works for an internet company". She was "even more
explicit in her defence of Ms England. She said: "We are
not there [in Iraq] for a tea party. We are there because they
blew up 5,000 of our people." She was then asked if she
believed Iraq was involved in the terror attacks of 11 September
2001, and replied "They were definitely involved . . . "."
In that ignorance we see an
eerie and disturbing picture of compliance with authority and
unquestioning acceptance of what the powerful ones " the
all-knowing, the benevolent, far-sighted Big Brothers of the
masses " desire to be seen as a threat to complacency and
normality. It is not just that the figure of 5000 is wildly wrong,
it is that the statement "[the Iraqis] were definitely involved
[in 9-11]" is contrary to demonstrable fact. But the continual
linking by Bush, and his supporting propagandists, of 9-11 with
"the just war" on Iraq has convinced half of all Americans,
including this poor benighted soccer-mom defender of US torture,
that the war on Iraq was necessary to punish those responsible
for 9-11. Selling of the attractive lie about Iraqi responsibility
for terrorism directed against America has become more urgent
since it became obvious that other justifications for war, such
as tales of "imminent threat" from nuclear weapons,
"thousands of tons of chemical agents" and so forth,
have been shown as the product of the Bush administration"s
group psychosis, which is defined as "severe mental derangement,
especially when resulting in delusions and loss of contact with
external reality".
Enormous damage has been done.
Much of the American public now begs to hear such declarations
as "I will defend the security of America, whatever it takes"
that Bush makes, time after time, to emotional audiences. A cheerleader
for torture such as the seriously psychopathic Senator James
Inhofe is considered patriotic when he declares "these prisoners
[tortured in Abu Ghraib], they're murderers, they're terrorists,
they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood
on their hands, and here we're so concerned about the treatment
of those individuals. I am outraged that we have so many humanitarian
do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking
for human-rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are
fighting and dying." Little wonder Mr and Mrs Average American
are attracted to the notion that true patriotism and moral decency
are exemplified by the grotesque amorality preached by such as
he. Inhofe is in need of urgent psychiatric treatment and a dose
of morality therapy, but this does not alter the fact that what
he says has a great deal of appeal to a surprising number of
people.
The willingness of millions
of Americans to believe what is comfortable and good and patriotic,
in defiance of evidence that what has been taking place in Iraq
is uncomfortable and evil and nationally disgraceful, is shown
by the supportive yellow ribbons displayed in the hometown of
the grinning sadist, Lynndie England. Direct, undeniable evidence
of wickedness is ignored, derided or explained away. The facts
are not patriotic ; they are not what America should be about
; they are not NICE; therefore they cannot be accepted. The Nazi
propaganda chief, Goebbels, was an expert at such manipulation.
He and Inhofe are a lovely pair.
It is in the interests of furthering
state control over any population that a threat to the nation
be presented and described, repeatedly and in simple terms (soundbites
; quick video clips), with the overlying message that the looming
menace can be neutralized and "normality" restored
only by constant vigilance and action on the part of a kindly
and all-seeing " and all-powerful " overlord. Of course
it is the responsibility of government to deter, detect and neutralise
threats to the citizenry, but it is not the responsibility of
government to indulge in willful misrepresentation in order to
achieve its aims. Suspension of belief in morality is not usually
enforceable. But it can be willingly embraced, just as it was
by ordinary, decent people in Nazi Germany, who were encouraged,
at first gradually and then by a mighty propaganda campaign,
to believe that minor and defenseless nations presented a threat
to their personal security and to their country.
Germans lost their freedom,
beginning with the Decree for Protection of Nation and State.
If the Patriot Act is not repealed, Americans will lose their
freedom, too. The parallels with Nazi Germany are too close for
comfort.
Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs.
He can be reached through his website www.briancloughley.com
Weekend
Edition Features for May 8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
|