The biggest danger in the world, is not the average American who might be in favor of war in order to “liberate” another country. No, the biggest danger in this world is the education system that produced that American. Because it was that system, those schools, that curriculum, and those teachers, who gave that person the tools he would use to interpret the world around him, for the rest of his/her life. Sure, parental figures are important, but reality is, whoever your guardian, they’re probably working 1 or 2 jobs just to keep that roof over your head and the clothes on your back, etc. Your real education today, when its not coming from your loved ones, is coming at you from all sides when it comes to TV and school. And if that school doesn’t teach a person to ask questions, to ask how things work, to seek more information than that which is spoonfed to them, then that person may never learn to do so.

Never has this been more apparent than now. Tabloid newspapers publish embarassingly ignorant headlines depicting the French as the culture which America saved and died for which now turns their back on the United States. With a large photo of Normandy to boot. CBS’s Andy Rooney, who has already received piercing criticism from this journalist, in his old wise age, still has his own program on that network, where he presents news to the public, with his own commentary mixed in. This week Rooney decided to “englighten” the viewers about the French. This man who neither speaks French or has ever lived there longer than his tour of media duty in the 40’s, told millions of CBS watchers about how the French “Have no right to an opinion” because they “owe” the United States for having saved their country and defeated the Germans in WWII.

This same idea has been spreading like wildfire throughout the American media. Whats alarming is not that it’s spreading in a populist, racist, ill-informed, and attention seeking media environment. Rather, it is that so many Americans read this and it appeals to this sensitive memory or this national pride, it touches of some misplaced anger, and the result is poor humor like “Surrender like the French.” This is poor humor because it ignores the sufferring and starvation endured by France during the occupation, and it negates the enormous resistance movement and all those who died for it. It ignores that fact that untold millions of Russians and Germans had already died long before Normandy. It ignores how many millions of innocent Polish, Russians, Germans, Czechs, French, and British died before America finally decided to get involved.

Rooney has a right to his opinion. But once he gets in front of millions to put forth information, he then has a responsibility, to the public. If he presents one side of an arguement or opinion, he must present the otherside, otherwise he’s nothing but a propaganda producing would-be journalist. Furthermore, if he is indeed a journalist, then part of his job is to question public officials and government decisions.

It is not for the journalist or any media to promote or support the decision of elected officials, they have media people to do that for them. No, it’s the media’s role to keep them in check, to make sure their information isn’t full of holes and half-truths. But alas, that’s what a media is supposed to do, it hasn’t been doing that in America or several other countries for quite a long time. There’s a long overdue reform that the people must demand of the very media that seek their attention. Trouble is, if people aren’t educated properly, only schooled in “their” national history and never told the other side of the story, never shown the other truths that are out there, they’ll just keep eating the same spoon-fed government propaganda… and they’ll even say thank you.

Anti-Americanism. If you’re reading newspapers or watching the so called “news” on TV, you might have heard this term. More and more lately, mainstream media loves to mention France or Germany’s “Anti-American” sentiment. And many Americans read this and say “Yeah! Those bastards, they’re anti-american!”

Let this journalist be the first to clear up something: Anti-Americanism is a made up word. It’s a politicians word and a media word, used to get you angry and feel betrayed, and therefore to support the very leaders that are doing things that are hurting your well-being (say spending your tax money on war or tax breaks for polluting companies for example) They point to Europe and shout “look, look, they hate Americans, they are evil!” This of course is sheer bullshit. Whats more, it’s being swallowed up by many in the US.

“Why then do so many people hate Americans?” You might ask with anger. Well first, let’s make a separation: Government – Citizens. These two entities are not the same. And Europeans are quite good at separating the two. Now, what does hold truth is that a majority of Europeans are completely frustrated and angry at the American government. This has first and foremost to do with this spirit of “with us or against us, we’re going to do what we want”and then theres the completely anti- international agreements like environmental, international law, and open trade policies, all of which the Bush administration has completely turned its back to. These are things which are important to Europeans and most of the world, hence, a hatred of this rogue American government. This says nothing of American people. Except that many world-wide are baffled as to why the American public goes along with this government? But what should be said, is that actually, many Americans do not want to go along with this government insane and criminal policies, the trouble is, to go against it is quite difficult and in many cases harmful to one’s political/social/legal and physical health.

Next time you hear anti-American in the news, turn it off, put the newspaper aside, don’t be distracted by political manipulation that tries to play on your emotions.

Neo-colonialism can take many forms. Normally, it’s capitalist style.. with a Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Nike or Phillips flag instead of a national flag. However sometimes, neo-colonialism looks like traditional colonialism, for example: FRANCE AND Cote D’Ivoire.

Admittedly, these two nations have or had a special relationship. And yes, France in many cases, has worked to aid and assist democracy and developement that nation. However what does not fall under this category is ARMED OCCUPATION! And furthermore an armed occupation that takes sides! Which side is France on? Why big French business of course! How many Euros are being lost in multi-nationals because of this “civil war”. Nevermind the people who are caught in the middle… this is business! And who’s leading the way? The corporatist conservatives Raffarin, Villepen and even Chi-Chi himself. While it is horrible that government and rebels can’t agree to a peace accord, it is also quite horrible the way the French government has orchestrated this like their own school play. Meanwhile hate, xenophobia, and violence, grow in Cote D’Ivoire. Where’s the UN and the US led international community now? Oh yeah, this part of the world isn’t “a vital U$ interest”.

I once again refer to the Asia Times for a most excellent commentary on patriotic stupidity. Remember, friends don’t let friends, be patriotic. Like Ho Chi Min said as his country was being colonized by France, “Patriotism is ignorant and dangerous.” (he said something to that effect)

COMMENTARY

Press the patriotism button, baby

By Sreeram Chaulia

In George W Bush’s America, it is the season for political dolls to again become big hits with shoppers, reminding toy market analysts of the Saddam Hussein “action figures” that stole the Christmas sales in the winter of 1990-91. A small firm in the state of Connecticut, Herobuilders Inc, is raking in fabulous profits generated by unique 12-inch talking world figures that utter politically correct dialogues when the button on their heads is pressed.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein comes wrapped in a pocket-sized sado-masochistic outfit, holding nukes and germs in either hand, threatening to blow up the “free world”. Herobuilders’ figure of the US president, spouting 17 tough-talking Bushisms, sold out its inventory of 50,000 dolls in less than a week in early December 2002. Among the doll’s aphorisms are Bush’s landmark declaration made at Ground Zero in New York after the twin World Trade Center towers were destroyed, “The people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon.” This dialogue is followed by raucous background cheering of construction workers and rescuers: “USA! USA! USA!”

The piece de resistance of Herobuilders’ repertoire is the talking doll of Osama bin Laden, costing US$36. Press down on his white turban and he squeaks in a rather Yankee-doodle style, “I suck! Would you stop bombing me? You’re killing me. I suck! My turban is too tight, I made a big mistake, all jihad go home. I was just kidding. I suck. Oohoohoohoohoo!” Toyshops claim that this doll has beaten all previous action figure sales records and that makers are planning a second version programmed with even more funny quotes from the sheikh.

Toys of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani are struggling to compete with this all-star lineup, but they, too, have interesting comments to make. Blair convinces buyers that it is in the “interests of world peace that Saddam is disarmed”. Giuliani praises the “spirit of New York which can never be cowed down by mad terrorists”.

What is to be made of all this? One way of looking at the phenomenon is to argue that Americans are a very informal, sporty people and enjoy spoofs of politics and politicians. Ever-popular WWF wrestlers mimic the president and wear underwear with the stars-and-stripes on it. “Dubyaman” comics and pictures of Bush reading “Presidency for Dummies” circulate with rapidity. Talk show comedians come on television and rubbish Kim Jong-il as a dissolute dimwit. Irreverence and casualness, according to this line of thought, is endemic to the American way of life and no icon is too big to be spared some debunking in popular culture.

The alternative view, which I hold, is that Herobuilders company is nicely buttressing the Bush doctrine of preemptive war to “extend the benefits of freedom across the world”. (See The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002). When legendary trainer Nick Bollettieri was asked the secret of America’s monopoly of world tennis champions, he replied, “We catch them young.” Political dolls do a similar service – they capture and color the psychology of American youth at a formative and impressionistic age. The norms and ideas the Bush, Saddam and bin Laden dolls impart are far more effective than what children learn in school textbooks.

As subtle carriers of propaganda, a-la James Bond films during the Cold War, the dolls help shape a new generation of proud, nationalistic and president-saluting citizens. They sow the seeds of a peculiar American morality whose first canon is “we” are good and “they” (“Russkies”, “commies” or “jhadis”) are evil. The simplistic dichotomy of good against evil, which the Bush doctrine reiterates, does not raise eyebrows in average American homes, thanks to the groundwork laid by action figures and Superman cartoons. It is the same spadework that results in a singularly American trait: “flag patriotism”, which far supersedes the occasional underwear buffoonery of wrestlers. In no other country does one get to see the national flag so profusely exhibited in front of homesteads, on motor vehicles, in shopping malls and on school bags of tiny tots.

These visual symbols collectively assist in inculcating the unquestioning sense of loyalty toward a regime that is waging war after war after war. Latest opinion polls conducted earlier this month reveal that 87 percent of Americans consider Iraq a “threat to national security”. That such an overwhelming majority has bought the Bush line – without conducting any objective analysis or common sense thinking – is living proof that the business of “getting folks to rally behind the flag” is roaring in America.

Noted historian Tariq Ali has likened Bush’s Americanism to another form of religious fundamentalism that thrives on whitewashing domination, manipulation and extermination, and relying on the good-evil paradigm to prepare domestic constituencies for foreign misdemeanors. Taboo questions that are not encouraged in this “religion” range from “Why are we going after some evil, and ignoring or mollycoddling other evil?” and “Did you know that the US air force used chemical and biological weapons extensively in the Korean War?” to “Why do we spuriously parrot that our actions always defend democracy and liberate oppressed people when we know that it is a lie?”

The most that adherents of this religion are willing to acknowledge, as the character named “Control” does to Richard Burton in the classic Cold War flick The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, is that “we” sometimes use “evil methods” to counter evil, thereby preserving good in the end.

A tiny segment of American civil society, located in university campuses, church dioceses and human rights organizations, is without doubt vibrant and vigilant, organizing peace marches and asking the taboo questions. But their efforts are largely met with apathy, or worse, antipathy from the mainstream. Last month, I marched in a peace rally in Syracuse, a small New York town, and found to my consternation that the 50-odd banners we planted on the grass along pavements near the city center were crossed out with red paint the morning after the demonstration.

Our script had read “No blood for oil in Iraq”. In red sanguine-looking paint, someone had retorted: “Be American. God Bless.” Only a religion, thoroughly internalized, can propel citizens to brave the cold of snowy nights simply to overwrite a few taboo questions on innocuous placards. Here was a first-rate illustration of Tariq Ali’s “clash of fundamentalisms”.

In 1988, John Mackenzie published Propaganda and Empire. The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, a remarkable history of ideas and norms that formed the societal consensus behind the last round of British worldwide expansionism. Glorification of martial virtues and the persona of Queen Victoria, backed by misinformation about the civilizing mission of colonizers like Cecil Rhodes, spread to all layers of British society from the 1880s onward. Textbooks, imaginative brochures, advertising, theater, radio and institutions like the Boy Scouts were used by the crown to trumpet the “liberation” (more accurately, the selective genocide) of the “heathen lands”. No room was left for doubt whether the colonial project was causing irreparable human and psychological damage to the subject peoples.

The air in America these days is a lot similar. The Cold War ended de jure in 1991, but the glory and religious fervor of unipolar empire is sinking in only after September 11. More and more common citizens are getting touchy about “pacifists” who oppose the Bush doctrine. More and more school kids are punching the plastic helmet on Herobuilders’ Saddam Hussein toy to hear the Iraqi dictator guffaw and warn, “America, I’m coming for you with all my germs.” More and more children, asked what they want to be when they grow up, say “Real American Hero”.

(?2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies, or to submit a letter to the editor.)

Kim Loves Pizza

MY thoughts on North Korea can be summed up by the final paragraph of an article By Francesco Sisci of the Asia Times. It reads:

A couple of years ago Western intelligence discovered in Rome that North Korean intelligence agents were busily buying kitchen utensils and microwave ovens. The Western agents became suspicious and investigated the matter. They found out that some parts of microwaves oven could be used to build triggers for atomic bombs. They thus thought that the North Koreans were about to build an atomic bomb and were purchasing the components of its trigger in the form of innocuous kitchenware. They were about to act and stop the traffic, when they came across another piece of information: The utensils were connected with some Italian chefs hired to go and cook for a period of time in Pyongyang at Kim Jong-il’s court. So the Western agents dropped the matter – apparently Kim was simply fond of Italian food. Perhaps he is fonder of pizza than of atomic bombs.

Whenever there is a crisis in Europe – BAM Here comes the US and Europe with troops, and equipment, money, and newscrews. You never hear the end of it. They even stay and police the country while in the Hague they hold a war crimes tribunal to find out who is guilty and who is not. Its a real example of 21st century international intervention – when you see a horrible situation, go in, and stabalize it.

This is also an example of first world racism.

When thousands upon thousands in Rwanda were being butchered, the UN sent a little plane filled with bureaucrats, who left as quickly is they came. When Palestinians and Jews kill each other and the entire region is one giant war crime, they never think to send their troops, equipment, money, …. maybe the newscrews. When Cote D’Ivoire…. formerly the French Club Med of the 80’s, is about to break into civil war… again… no troops no intervention…. coincidence? Nah… just good ol’fashion racism. (OH, sorry… France sent some legionaires into the country to “evacuate the French citizens”… how kind of them to not interrupt the civil war that their multinational companies benefit from.