Happy Propaganda Day
For Torture President, the whole point of Memorial Day isn’t really to remember our honored dead, to quote a phrase. It is, instead, yet another opportunity to shamelessly conflate the opportunistic, greed-motivated invasion of Iraq with the mythical and neverending War On Terror, all against a backdrop of red, white, and blue bunting.
It ought to be obvious to everybody what the Mass Murderer in Chief is up to, but it’s not — largely because our morally bankrupt press corps never bothers to point it out.
Today’s article in the New York Times is emblematic of the problem. I’ve reproduced it below, removing only a couple of paragraphs of color and detail about what else the president was doing today. The main reportage is intact. I’ve bolded the references to “terror” and “Iraq”; see for yourself how seamlessly they are melded:
President Bush paid homage to fallen members of the nation’s military on Monday, using his annual Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery to draw a link between those who fought in an earlier era and those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I am in awe of the men and women who sacrifice for the freedom of the United States of America,” Mr. Bush said, a remark that brought more applause than any other in his eight-minute speech. “Our nation is free because of brave Americans like these, who volunteer to confront our adversaries abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”
Mr. Bush spoke at the cemetery’s marble-columned amphitheater after placing a floral wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac. The president vowed to honor those who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan “by completing the mission for which they gave their lives: by defeating the terrorists, by advancing the cause of liberty and by laying the foundation of peace for a generation of young Americans.”
Seeking to draw a connection to wars past, the president quoted from two similar letters written more than half a century apart, the first by Second Lt. Jack Lundberg, who died two weeks after D-Day, the other by First Lt. Mark Dooley, killed by a bomb last September in Ramadi, Iraq. Lieutenant Lundberg wrote his parents to say, “The United States of America is worth the sacrifice.”
“That same feeling,” Mr. Bush said, “moves those who are now fighting the war on terror.”
Though polls suggest the public is uneasy about the war in Iraq, none of that unease was evident in Arlington on Monday. More than 4,500 people gathered in sweltering sun to catch a glimpse of the president, who was introduced by Defense Secretary as “an historic leader, a selfless leader.”
-snip-
Of more than 300,000 people buried at Arlington, more than 270 have been killed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Mr. Bush singled them out for particular praise. Nearly 2,500 Americans have died in Iraq, according to Pentagon statistics, and more than 18,000 have been wounded there since the invasion in March 2003.
“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly: because we know the costs of war,” Mr. Bush said. “We have seen those costs in the war on terror we fight today.”
Later, more than 600 members of the military who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan marched in a Memorial Day parade down Constitution Avenue in Washington. This was the first time that personnel returning from either of those two zones had participated in the event, which also featured veterans of other wars, high school bands, representatives of American Legion posts and banners promoting corporate sponsors.
-snip-
It’s remarkable, really. This is our nation’s “paper of record,” supposedly the best paper in the country, one of the best papers in the world. Yet they swallow and regurgitate the White House’s propaganda whole.
It must seem fantastic to young people today that for my generation, journalists once represented a force for truth and justice. After Watergate we thought of reporters as our frontline troops in the fight against totalitarianism and corruption. Journalists had never enjoyed such high public esteem — traditionally they’d been considered snoops and liars — and it now seems clear that the post-Watergate high was an aberration. Like water seeking its own level, the great bulk of the press corps has returned to its natural occupation: Sleaze Merchant, Corporate Lackey, Credulous Mouthpiece. Too bad about the country.
5 Responses to “Happy Propaganda Day”
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will says:
Excellent post. I completely agree with everything you wrote! Well done.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:45 am EST -
Paul Tergeist says:
Oh, good! Something we can all agree about. May I recommend, in addition to Dr. Socks’ excellent work, this?
http://onlinejournal.com/artma....._847.shtml -
GettingWarm says:
This is why I respect Helen Thomas and wish we had more journalists with her sense of integrity and obligation to report real information to the public. This “war on terror” has been our government’s excuse to hide, sneak, snoop, and deceive.
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Steve says:
Last night there was an especially objectionable broadcast on PBS, a Memorial Day celebration.
What was objectionable (to me) was not the honoring of war dead. I have a son roughly the age of many of the young men and women who are dying. One year ago in the Peace Corps, he lived through a civil war and dodged one too many bullets for my comfort. I briefly had to face the possibility of losing him and to this day I can’t adequately describe the horror.
And this doesn’t even come remotely close to the pain experienced by parents of soldiers in Iraq.
But last night on PBS was a pathetic, blatantly propagandistic attempt to find meaning and purpose in completely avoidable, senseless deaths.
It is horrible to have to deal with the possibility that a death might not have accomplished anything. To paraphase John Kerry’s statement of many years ago: How do you tell a family that their child died for a mistake?
But if there is a line between remembering those families who have lost loved ones and supporting a pointless and criminal war, I think it was crossed last night.
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appletree » Blog Archive » Insomnia Blog Links says:
[...] Reclusive Leftist chides the president for turning Memorial Day into yet another opportunity to shovel his propoganda, and she chides the New York Times for uncritically passing the propoganda along to its readers. [...]
