Last post I think (before I find another post from joseph to me about me).
As I told you everyone I participate in a soccer referee discussion over the Web. We have refs all over the world and the US. We stick to soccer but, of course, we started talking about the tragedy. What most people in the US lack is a knowledge of the perception other people in the world have of us (especially the Muslims in the Middle East). We also do not understand what our fellow Arab Americans are going through. We must understand that BEFORE we have a chance to fight this problem, IMHO. So, an Arab American ref posted his very short views expressing his grief mostly and included an article he thought will explain the situation a bit more. Of course, we had some ugly fellow refs moronically questioning his citizenship, his allegiance and his status as a spokesman for Osama (sounds familiar?). At the bottom there is a response from a fellow ref hitting the nail in the head IMHO. So, here is the article, I hope someone learns something new:
Terrorism, Television and the Rage for Vengeance
Copyright: iviews.com
Published Thursday September 13, 2001
By Norman Solomon
We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering in the
aftermath
of terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all too real; terrible
anguish and sorrow.
At the same time, we're witnessing an onslaught of media deception.
"The
greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing
something, but by refraining from doing," Aldous Huxley observed long
ago.
"Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is
silence about truth."
Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the media coverage of recent
days.
For policy-makers in Washington, the practical utility of that silence
is
enormous. In response to the mass murder committed by hijackers, the
righteousness of U.S. military action is clear -- as long as double
standards go unmentioned.
While rescue crews braved intense smoke and grisly rubble, ABC News
analyst
Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in perspective for millions of
TV
viewers. Cannistraro is a former high-ranking official of the Central
Intelligence Agency who was in charge of the CIA's work with the
contras in
Nicaragua during the early 1980s. After moving to the National Security
Council in 1984, he became a supervisor of covert aid to Afghan
guerrillas.
In other words, Cannistraro has a long history of assisting terrorists
--
first, contra soldiers who routinely killed Nicaraguan
civilians; then, mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan ... like Osama bin
Laden.
How can a longtime associate of terrorists now be credibly denouncing
"terrorism"? It's easy. All that's required is for media
coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone that has no use for
any
facets of reality that are not presently convenient to acknowledge.
In his book "1984," George Orwell described the mental dynamics: "The
process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with
sufficient
precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it
a
feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while
genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become
inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it
back
from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence
of
objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality
which one
denies -- all this is indispensably necessary."
Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced "people who feel that with
the
destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow
achieve a political purpose." He was describing the terrorists who had
struck his country hours earlier. But Powell was also aptly describing
a
long line of top officials in Washington.
It would be very unusual to hear a comment about that sort of hypocrisy
on
any major TV network in the United States. Yet surely U.S.
policy-makers
have believed that they could "achieve a political purpose" -- with
"the
destruction of buildings, with the murder of people" -- when launching
missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade.
Nor are key national media outlets now doing much to shed light on
American
assaults that were touted as anti-terrorist "retaliation" -- such as
the
firing of 13 cruise missiles, one day in August 1998, at the Al Shifa
pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That attack, depriving an
impoverished country of desperately needed medical drugs, was an
atrocity
committed (in the words of political analyst Noam Chomsky) "with no
credible
pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably
killing
tens of thousands of people."
No one knows the exact number of lives lost due to the severe
disruption of
Sudan's meager drug supply, Chomsky adds, "because the U.S. blocked an
inquiry at the United Nations and no one cares to pursue it."
Media scrutiny of atrocities committed by the U.S. government is rare.
Only
some cruelties merit the spotlight. Only some victims deserve empathy.
Only
certain crimes against humanity are worth our tears.
"This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil," [Coke vs. Pepsi] President
Bush
proclaimed. The media reactions to such rhetoric have been
overwhelmingly
favorable.
But the heart-wrenching voices now on the USA's airwaves are no less or
more
important than voices that we have never heard. Today, the victims of
terrorism in America deserve our deep compassion. So do the faraway
victims
of America -- human beings whose humanity has gone unrecognized by U.S.
media.
Underlying that lack of recognition is a nationalistic arrogance shared
by
press and state. Few eyebrows went up when Time magazine declared in
its
Sept. 10 edition: "The U.S. is at one of those fortunate -- and rare --
moments in history when it can shape the world." That attitude can only
bring us a succession of disasters.
====================
There's a good deal of frightening rhetoric out there. That's
understandable at this time. Mr. XXXXXXXX raised many points that help
illustrate the many perspectives held by intelligent individuals regarding
history and current events. To fail to examine other perspectives with care
and an open mind, including one's own perspective, is to avoid
important opportunities to discover new and possibly better ways of addressing
even seemingly insurmountable disagreements.
The simple-minded, hate infused, and shallow rhetoric being shouted
from many quarters, including from within this soccer referee-oriented
list, advances no worthy cause. It does not do justice to the dead. It
does not promise a bright future for the living. I hope clear minds
will prevail on this list and elsewhere. |
