by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
July 14, 2003 Through a Glass Darkly PBS’s Wide Angle offered a fine documentary this week, Exclusive Al Jazeera, which examined the growing role of Al Jazeera in the international media and the network’s struggle covering the invasion of Iraq including the bombing of it’s own headquarters in Baghdad by the US military. PBS offered an unexpected and awful segue from the film to a patronizing sermon by Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations on why the Islamic world would be so much better if it were more like us, meaning the Connecticut yacht clubs or Beltway social affairs that Haass and his fellows liken to America. I had to chuckle at his plea, reminded of Professor Higgins’ ridiculous lament over Eliza Dolittle, “why can’t a woman be more like a man” except the stakes in this current era of self congratulation aren’t the improvement of manners but the destruction of civility and cultures of which the United States and its supposed allies remain grossly ignorant. Donald Rumsfeld, the current World Double Speak champ addressed the death of the Al Jazeera photographer in the bombing as an unintended consequence, that the US never intentionally targeted civilians, despite the fact that civilian deaths in the ongoing war are 7000 and climbing. This set off my personal fuse for this column which was abetted by a memorial service I attended for a very young man where the words death, tragedy or sorrow were omitted in favor of a “celebration of life.” I sat dumbfounded. What opened for me was the stark umbilical connection between politics and culture, each feeding darkly off the other. Whatever happened to accountability, to personal responsibility? The President’s spin doctors busily attempt to rinse the stains of guilt from the lies he told to confirm the nation in his invasion of Iraq, that Vice President Cheney told, that Condoleeza Rice told, that Colin Powell told, that every voice in the Administration told. On Page 1 of today’s Oregonian a photo shows a US soldier in full body armor with his knee in the back of an Iraqi man, his hands (gloved with some kind of surgical plastic) probing the man’s mouth while another soldier points an automatic weapon complete with scope from three feet away. In the background another soldier in body armor leads a man in traditional mid-eastern dress with his hands cuffed behind him and a paper bag over his head. The caption reads: “Operation Ivy Serpent, meant to block attacks against Americans.” Wonder if it’s working? Wonder what proportion of the population will have to be killed or incarcerated to “block attacks”? The reason these questions aren’t being asked goes back to our culture. It seems we don’t want to ask the difficult questions, deal with the painful issues. We want to believe that President Bush, who got a reservist rich boy appointment to avoid the war in Vietnam and then went AWOL, can become a military hero through a staged for TV costume drama on an aircraft carrier. We used to believe, or at least Disney Studios did, that Michael Jackson was the Small World ambassador for youth, before his proximity and devotion to children became suggestive of a distortion hidden on Disney World’s main street but supposedly present in Jackson’s Never Land. And then there was Elvis, still being sighted and referred to as “the king”, who died from a drug-induced heart attack, yet improves each year as a cultural icon as if his life was something to revere. (Save the Elvis emails. Heartbreak Hotel is a personal favorite.) As a culture we started opening the basement door of psychology in the eighties, but the brief hint we got of forces that weren’t operative by our couch side remote controls closed that frightening aperture with the late night jokesters poking fun at denial as a "river in Egypt” and Seagram Distillery’s advertising that “real men” drink their product. The President might have mis-led the electorate or perhaps mis-spoke, the children dead and dying are unfortunate collateral damage but what we intend is truth, justice and freedom. President Bush and his speechwriters are masters of debilitating language, and truth, justice and freedom are the last thing on the President’s mind or the billionaires who support his presidency and campaign for 2004. The tragedies of this Administration are not only the ruthless militarism to force an economic agenda abroad, the stripping of civil rights and the punishing of the poor and vulnerable at home, but the head in the sand quietism of the general populace. We think we can continue to believe the lies that are leading our nation because we can be safe within the matrix of supposed protection that our government provides, but there is no safety in deceit, no security in belligerence, no happiness in fantasyland, and a hard awakening is coming to our culture that no amount of insulation can prevent. WMD-Gate and Iraq, Month Five The dam of intelligence community silence broke with this Op-ed article in the NYT by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and followed by a memorandum to the President from a consortium of retired intelligence officials, revealing the WMD deceit and phony accusations of Niger uranium. Internet journalists continue to actively take on more than their counterparts in the mainstream media, with Josh Mitchell at Talking Points dogging the yellowcake and aluminum tube frauds. Senator Robert Byrd continues his eloquent activism in the Senate, William Rivers Pitt calls a spade a spade, Matt Bivens tracks the latest Daily Outrage for the Nation, the Intelligence community airs its dirty laundry, Greg Palast investigative journalist for the BBC seriously questions the President’s recent AIDS offer, Paul Rogers writes for OpenDemocracy of the growing insurgency in Iraq, the cost of the war and military occupation is rising dramatically and even Donald Rumsfeld is acknowledging the potential for more troops, WorldWatch reveals the other looting going on in Iraq, Iraqi destroyed or missing antiquities are back in focus, and in Afghanistan our attack and war of liberation has resulted in worse than third world economics with vastly increased drug agriculture and traffic. Important Reads turningtables is a forthright web log by an American GI on the ground in Iraq. A Nation that Closes It’s Eyes is Sure to Stumble Sometime by James DePriest, former director of the Oregon Symphony. Bush’s War Against Evil by James Carroll, originally for the Boston Globe. One of America's great singer songwriters Steve Earle writes on another American hero Woody Guthrie. Global Warming Warning from the World Meteorological Association as published in Britain’s Independent. The Last Word interviews Wesley Clark. Ways to Help Stay in touch with Common Cause’s campaign on Medicare Prescription Drug Benefits where the Senate Majority leader’s family owns one of the largest privately held HMOs in the US. Join MoveOn.org campaign to mobilize a Congressional inquiry into the WMD scandal. Help the Campaign for Wilderness in it’s fight to preserve public lands from more roads and despoiling intrusion. Peace. *** |
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