Down South Perspective

This is another chapter from CYGAWA that was cut in the edit and likewise re-titled to help Bob Woodward promote his new book.

STATES OF DENIAL (Part Three)
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
–George Orwell

Today as I write, March 20, 2006, is the third anniversary of the start of Bush’s Iraq war. Dubya, as he’s affectionately referred to by certain journalists that maintain the illusion of taking issue with him, held a press conference today, wherein he answered questions. A press conference? Answered questions?

Here’s a question: Where were the journalists at the press conference?

There weren’t any. It’s now gotten to where Dubya’s perception management machine doesn’t even trust the usual toady-journalist plants to ask the agreed-upon puff questions that allow the shitball motherfucker to answer with talking points. The questions were from the likes of local high school students (plants, every one) reciting talking point queries Dubya already knew about, plus a couple morons asking how they can help him spread democracy.

Hold on. This is too easy.

The good stuff was in V.P. Cheney’s little speech today, timed to complement Dubya’s debacle, his insult to your intelligence, his utter contempt for your intelligence. But Cheney: Cheney –who gets to shoot scumbags with a shotgun (a lawyer) and face no repercussions – tells us that the war in Iraq is being misrepresented by the media because the media shows the violence over there. Listen: I’m not going where you think I’m going with this. Again, too easy. Where I’m going is more to the root of why the world is so fucked up than Cheney’s latest relatively minor a priori insult to your intelligence, utter contempt for your intelligence.

Where I’m going is to the subtext of Cheney’s insult, which subtext being that in the U.S. of A. we have an adversarial media. This is the complaint put forth by Dubya and his gang of sociopaths, no? The media are biased. That the media are indeed biased there is no doubt. I believe I’ve pointed this out ways that are inarguable: They are biased in that they don’t question anything about motives, about the real agenda of the administration — not just the current one, but, say, the last five, all of which are guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and outright aggression. Crimes for which Nazis were executed at Nuremberg. *  (Please scroll to the bottom to read the footnotes as you go.) 

But: “The media are biased against this administration.” This is the claim, right?

Perception Management Commandment 8: When the truth or image of a situation is a problem, claim the reverse, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, and if at all possible try to muster outrage and/or moral indignation, as you do so. If you’re not up to outrage or indignation, beleaguered sadness will do.
           

Since the truth/image problem for Dubya and his gang is that the media are biased for them (meaning not challenging them on their motives and Big Lies), they just claim the reverse, i.e., that the media are biased against them. And the media love this since it sounds like they’re doing their job, i.e., questioning the fuckers. (Which is the media’s job in a democracy.)  Boom, everyone’s happy. (Except maybe George Orwell, embarrassed from the grave for his excess optimism.)

In order to see how Perception Management Commandment 8 works, lets imagine How It Went in a few other situations where there was a truth and/or image problem for Bush and a couple of his predecessors. (There are so many choices here that I’ll just do this off the top of my head):

The 1989 invasion of Panama was not only illegal according to UN resolutions and international treaties solemnly signed by the U.S. (and therefore are “supreme laws of the land”), but was outright aggression. So let’s listen in on Bush I’s perception management gang debating how to solve this truth/image problem:
            “Our problem is we have no right to invade Panama.”
            “No just cause, eh?”
            “None whatsoever.”
            “So how about if we call the invasion ‘Operation Just Cause.’”
            “Great.”**

Another truth/image problem, this one for Junior, for Dubya: The environmental amendment he wants to push through will increase rather than decrease air pollution:
            “The amendment will dirty the skies, turn it brown.”
            “The amendment will turn the skies brown, huh?”
            “No question.”
            “How about we call it ‘The Blue Skies Amendment?”
            “Great.”

Education:
            “The legislation we need to push through will result in a lot of children being left behind in their education.”
            “We’ll call the legislation ‘No Child Left Behind’.”
            “Great.”

Iraq.
           “It’s obvious that the last thing we’re going to do is give the Iraqis any freedom.”
            “‘Operation Iraqi Freedom?”
            “Great.”

My favorite, though, the one near and dear to my heart, goes back to the Reagan Administration’s perception management of their terrorism in Nicaragua. In order for the American people to accept the death, misery, and horror perpetrated in their name the CIA helped set up a domestic propaganda operation to lie about everything (by the way, CIA involvement in domestic operations of any sort is illegal). The name of the operation that would lie about everything?

“Project Truth.”***

The media, of course, are old hands at this. Let’s imagine How It Went when Fox was setting up its cable news network.
            “What about our problem of us having to go along with Rupert Murdock’s lunatic right wing politics?”
            “You mean our reportage not being fair and balanced?”
            “Right.”
            “How about we come up with a catchy slogan?”

You get the idea: Billy O’s “No Spin Zone” spun off from “Fair and Balanced”

 And so forth.

A couple of concepts come to mind in all this.

Contempt is one. Not so much contempt for truth, which is a given, but contempt for our, your, intelligence.

Contempt. What else?

To once again plug fellow journalist Bob Woodward’s latest effort: State of Denial, which is the only explanation for why so few people (including Woodward himself) see the contempt for what it is.

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