Widespread
Lies: An American Woe
By Emily Spence
11 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
While on a recent business trip,
I heard the jet's stewardess announce, "And we thank any American
troops onboard for their hard work to keep America free. We, especially,
thank them for doing this in dangerous, far away places. We appreciate
their honor and service on behalf of the great American way. They are
true heroes doing whatever it takes to keep our freedom truly free at
home."
In response, I felt like calling out, "Excuse me, but how is destroying
a country like Iraq keeping us free? How is warring to secure the ME
oil fields for companies like Exxon-Mobile keeping us free? How is slaughtering
countless civilians in dangerous, far away places (as you call them)
keeping us free? Were Iraq and Afghanistan dangerous to be as a tourist
before our country's initial aggressive assaults? Perhaps our invasions
fomented increased dangers from terrorists both abroad AND here. So,
please stop spreading dangerous propaganda. It does us all a disservice!"
Instead I kept quiet because in the land of the free, free speech is
curtailed. As a result, I'd have wound up arrested by airport security
forces for "creating a disturbance" were I to contradict the
flight attendant.
That perhaps would be ironically amusing if it weren't so emblematic
of the way that fostering of party-line lies and limiting truth generally
prevail in the US. In this vein, the falsehoods often are so illogically
absurd that they possess an Orwellian ring to them.
For example, many Americans (50% in 2006 according to a Harris Poll
*) still believe that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq and
provided a sufficient reason for US to preemptively attack. A considerable
portion, also, think that the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq and that
the Iraqi government had ties to Al Qaeda (64% according to same tally).
Yet, none of this has been proven one iota true. Indeed, evidence suggests
quite the contrary.
At the same time, 55% imagine that historical records will credit the
US with providing democracy and freedom to Iraq. In a similar vein,
72% have concluded that Iraqis have better lives now than they did under
the former regime.
While the judgment is still out on the first claim, the second is utterly
wrong as chronic malnourishment, a massive number (655,000+) of civilian
deaths, huge ongoing migrations (involving 10% of the prewar population)
into other lands, widespread poverty, declining literacy, as well as
lack of jobs, adequate housing, clean water, food, electricity, medical
supplies, medical staff, sanitation and other basic provisions have
impacted daily life in Iraqi. This is according to UN, Red Cross and
other surveys conducted by reputable sources**.
All considered, the gap between the facts and the misconceptions held
by a substantial number of hoodwinked Americans is, obviously, wide.
This is so even when we don't add in the outlooks of those amongst the
evangelical masses, such as the silly notion that ME warring should
be joyfully encouraged since it represent a sign from God that Armageddon
is at hand.
Yet, how could such an immense disparity exist? In addition, the discrepancy
begs other more critical questions: How could such a sizable portion
of US citizens be so easily duped and what agents are responsible for
such easy acceptance of erroneous conclusions? In other words, who created
these bogus sets of facts and, equally important, were they deliberately
crafted?
The answer is obvious. While fictitious interpretations of events are
clearly founded in misinformation, their prevalence is quite understandable
given that the US mainstream media is funded by advertising industry
whose puppet strings are, ultimately, yanked by big multinational corporations
-- the same companies that our government courts and woos by creating
expensive wars (in regions laden with resources coveted by those worldwide
businesses) and myriad laws favoring globalization at the expense of
American jobs.
So somewhere along the way, some devious group of people, both connected
to the government and big business, developed a plot to bamboozle the
American people to go along with the war, a not too difficult task following
9/11. This same group could have easily decided to not push for the
reinstatement of the draft in that a mandatory draft became the indirect
cause that led many Americans to protest the Vietnam War. (It got a
little too close to home when one's own middle and upper class sons
were called to arm.)
Consequently, life, all in all, goes simply onward with misguided factual
backdrops enduring intact because few reputable mainstream sources dare
dispute them. This is especially the case as most news programs simply
aren't going to get beyond such topics as the best ways to fix your
hair on high humidity days, the stores that have the cutest summer fashions,
the highest grossing movie of the week, ways to make vegetables more
appealing to children, the car accident in the next town, the foiled
robbery at a local convenience store and so on -- all making up the
bland harmless pabulum demanded by sponsors, and that we can watch day
after day if we choose such fatuous fare.
Meanwhile, oil's still plentiful despite its continual rising price,
which likely has, in part, resulted from the ME incursions. In addition,
there's, apparently, not too great worry about global warming (not enough,
anyway, to curb use in oil for overseas vacations, miscellaneous car
trips for ice cream and children's sports games, multitudinous excursions
to malls and myriad other incidental locations, as well as air conditioning,
which will be, increasingly, set on high as global warming takes its
toll).
Similarly not much thought seems to be given to the cost of the Iraq
war ($432,805,108,172 according to
http://nationalpriorities.org/
index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182), the national debt
at $8,844,982,217,061.83 as of June 9th, 2007 (source: www.brillig.com/debt_clock/);
the average household US deficit, in 2006, set at $7,200 in revolving
debt (largely due to credit cards) and $21,000 in accumulated debt (source:
Debtors
Search for Discipline via Blogs - New York Times); nor the total
US debt, much of which is held by Japan and China, currently poised
at $48 trillion and soaring (source: www.financialsense.com/editorials
/hodges/2007/0315.html).
However, it's not easy to give up comfortable delusions that all is
going great in "the land of the free, home of the brave."
As such, it's hard for many people to admit that US military incursions
are shameful, tragic and abominable while much in the rest of our collective
life revolves around inordinate and perilous overspending for much that
we do not really want, nor need.
All the same, there might exist a vague growing sense that all is not
well in America. Although with a convenient whipping boy (immigrants)
posed as the biggest immediate US problem, a convenient focus to redirect
attention off of the warring can be fomented. (Exemplary of this is
the assembled data in: Click
here: Illegal Immigration Counters - Home Page; N.B., The
extent of funds that the immigrants send abroad is a mere pittance compared
to the amount that our government deliberately squanders.)
In addition, there exists increasing discouragement amongst some Americans
about the ceaseless expansion of a US military presence despite that
not much is being done to end our assaults from spreading through Africa
and elsewhere across the globe. Nonetheless, this unease is shaping
into various related opinions:
For example, 68% do believe that America is less respected by the rest
of the world due to invasion of Iraq. 56% conclude that a stable democratic
Iraqi government will not be formed -- the same number that believe
that the money spent in this war has resulted in less money being spent
to guard the US from further terrorist attacks at home. Indeed, 61%
consider the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as a prime motivator
in further Islamic terrorists attacks against America while 58% do not
deem the invasion as helpful in reducing additional terrorist attacks
against the US. (This information is, also, from the Harris Poll.)
Meanwhile, what would happen if our troops were, gradually, brought
home to help with some of our most urgent homeland difficulties (the
reconstruction that still needs to be done in the aftermath of Katrina,
work in development of programs to take care of homeless Americans such
as the 80,000 that exist in LA alone and of whom a large proportion
are mentally impaired, and many other problem areas of serious import)?
What if they were, likewise, used to help with projects required in
other countries? Providing support in areas of need, rather than warring
to obtain whatever one wants, goes a long way in getting those goods
(such as oil) in return. At the same time, they can, boost economies
both here and abroad.
Yet, this is not the pattern in place. There seems simply not enough
interest on the part of most Americans to push for these sorts of positive
changes. In short, they appear, for the most part, largely passive and
indifferent to whatever US troops are doing (or not doing), the location
of US military incursions, the nature of US prison torture techniques,
increasing limits in Constitutional rights at home, most national events
(except sports related ones), and global affairs in general.
Instead, the here and now in daily personal affairs seems the overriding
concern for many Americans such that, if the little that they know about
Iraq comprises mendacious lies, what do they care as long as they have
their small transitory pleasures in everyday life. All the same, a few
do adamantly care.
So if you're a stewardess on a jet, please spare us from having to listen
to platitudinous fibs. We don't like them and just as you wouldn't,
necessarily, want to be subjected to our opinions, we don't wish to
hear yours. In short, please just keep them to yourself instead of trying
to create the perception that yours is a patriotic, pro-American airline
in an effort to drum up future business. I don't want such rubbish and
neither should you.
Instead please keep in mind: "For those who stubbornly seek freedom,
there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms
and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian
societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom'
to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling
instruments." - Noam Chomsky
* Cited from www.harrisinteractive.com/
harris_poll/index.asp?PID=684
** (For details, please refer to "Iraqis Endure Worse Conditions
Than Under Saddam, UN Survey Finds," by Chris Shumway located at
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?items=1816
and "War in Iraq Propelling A Massive Migration Wave Creates Tension
Across the Middle East," By Sudarsan Raghavan located at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/02/03/AR2007020301604.html.)
Emily Spence lives in MA and deeply cares about the future of the world.
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