I remember hearing a long time ago that to generate public outrage at the beginning of World War I, American newspapers printed reports that German soldiers were going into hospitals and bayoneting newborn babies. At the beginning of the Gulf War I heard a report on a major TV news network that Iraqi soldiers were going into Kuwaiti hospitals and bayoneting newborn babies.
We've had the Ayatollah to Tojo, Castro to Kadhafi and the ever useful but expendable Saddam (the madman) Hussein. We demonize who we want and demons are mythological creatures, denizens of fables.
You can also demonize a group, like the Taliban. Our media attack dogs berated them for making their women wear veils. We make our women wear bras. Who's dumber? Of course nothing has changed with the Taliban ousted. I'd like to know how many Afghan women became "collateral damage" in order to "Democratize" them? Good thing it's a secret war or the Afghans would know what we're doing there.
In both WW1 and WW2 capturing the oil fields of the Middle East were prime objectives. DubyaDubya3 is no exception.
Thousands of America's best and bravest may soon die in a war for blood and oil soaked turf. It's a sacrifice Bush is willing to make. His concern over the safety of our troops is rendered crystal clear by how hard he has been trying to avoid this war.
What if there was a corporation that had an agreement with the country of Azerbaijan to market it's vast oil reserves in the Caspian sea? What if that sea was land locked and needed a pipeline to the ocean? What if the CEO of that company took leave to become Vice-President? Problem solved. Thankyou, Halliburton.
Here is a San Francisco Bay Guardian report on Dick Cheney and Halliburtons recent business dealings with Iraq. Prescott Bush might have gotten his wrist slapped by FDR for trading with the enemy but Dick is slick.
Leave it to those whining liberals at "Judicial Watch" to sue Cheney and Halliburton for it's ever Enron like behavior. Spoil sports!
Amnesty International reports how a subsidiary of Halliburton used the forced labor of men, women and children to construct a pipeline in Burma. Can we expect the same when the Afghan pipeline is built?
Don't expect our corporate media to cover the forced labor story anytime soon. However you can expect a nice warm bowl of news pabulum. Today's "Dupe de Jour", evildoer, Martha Stewart.
Today a "free press" is just another myth perpetuated by the media itself. Myths that are believed have power and they that create those myths wield that power. Make no mistake about it, the media conglomerates are corporations and as such they are an integral part of the corporate dictatorship. Like any other corporation, doors open for the most aggressive "team players" and slam shut for the dullards.
Information control is the most basic form of thought control. Case in point the "Bin Laden captured" rumor circulated the day of Pres. Bush's press conference. A good excuse not to ask Bush why we weren't still after Bin Laden. The kind of question that would make people think. Now why don't they want us to think?
Dirt napping, media guru, Marshal Mcluhan may have been right when he warned that technology run amuck could subdue us into another dark age. Another age of non-reason might make a good movie, I'd call it DA2. A dark comedy about commoners and peasants ruled, not by a merged "church and state" as in DA1, but by a merging of "corporation and state" (Think Shadow Government. Think Fascism.).
A world where everyone believes the earth is flat because that's what everyone believes and all of nature is ours to waste. Where mythology and reality often share the same space. Not under a one world government. How would the lead characters in this movie make their money? It will be an action movie of constant Orwellian, business friendly, war and Hegelian leaders. Wow! What a dramatic story!
As this mythological movie trespasses into reality there will be ever less freedom due to one crisis or another. Although as shrink and writer, Erich Fromm said in "Escape from Freedom", in fascist societies "freedom" is the most often repeated word.