Eclecticism

This editorial from Ha’aretz, while actually about the Fox News network’s approach to reporting the war in Iraq, could very well apply to the majority of U.S. media these days.

With effective, rapid and decisive rewriting of history, there is an impression that the network has erased past relations between Iraq and America. It is difficult to find any mention of the fact that the U.S. armed Iraq in its war against Iran in the 1980s, or that it turned a blind eye when Saddam Hussein brutally put down a 1991 uprising with chemical weapons after the first Gulf War. The argument about the connection between Saddam’s regime and Al-Qaida and the attack on the Twin Towers has disappeared, and the “axis of evil,” which also included Iran and North Korea, has evaporated. There’s practically no mention of the stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction and how they were hid from the UN inspectors as being the official reason for the war. There’s no reference to the American economic interests in Iraqi oil wells. Every operation to take over the wells and prevent their sabotage was altruistic, for the sake of the Iraqi people and preservation of its assets and resources.

Sometimes I think the only thing really standing in the way of a truly Orwellian society is our ability to find other sources of news and information via the Internet and form our own opinions. If all I got was the official propaganda, I’d probably be fairly satisfied with the world right now. Heh.

Okay — so everyone on the ‘net is linking to the pictures of Saddam’s statue in the middle of Baghdad getting yanked down by Iraqi citizens, helped by U.S. Marines.

Yes, it’s wonderful. It’s a high point for the campaign. Many Iraqis are thrilled. But this isn’t the end.

This exchange between Doc Searls and Shelley Powers, and this post from Phil capture my feelings on this precisely. What happened today was certainly a momentous and important event — but things won’t be “over” for a long time to come.

©2003 Bill DeOre (via Kung-Foo.tv)

There’s an excellent posting from Dru Blood today entitled “The Importance of Dissent“.

Many people are tempted to stop protesting now that the war is in full swing. Many other people debate the effectiveness of the usual protest tactics — what does bocking traffic or holding demonstrations here in U.S. cities do to stop the conflict in Iraq? However, these are important issues, and shouldn’t stop, for two reasons.

Firstly, we must continue to express our discontent with the tactics undertaken by our goverment. To stop now, to shrug our shoulders and go home, is just admitting defeat. We can’t change anything by staying in our homes and ignoring it, and when our government isn’t truly representing us anymore — well, to quote the Declaration of Independence, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall most likely effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Secondly, if we do nothing, we’re giving up our right to assemble, and in a day and age when more and more of our rights are disappearing, that’s a dangerous thing to do voluntarily. From Dru:

What protestors are doing is very important to the preservation of free speech. It might be annoying, it might be condemnable, it might even piss people off. But, damnit, it’s absolutely crucial that people continue to exercise their right to assemble and agitate peacefully as much as possible. If no one did, how easy would it be to erode that right and/or take it away altogether? In fact, many people say that there has already been a great deal of erosion in the right to assemble, considering protestors are forced to get parade licenses and have to work with the government and the police prior to being “granted” the right to assemble. There’s actually a great deal of red tape involved in exercising your right to assemble peacably, and that, I’m pretty sure, is different from the way it was during the Viet Nam war….which was the last time that protests were as large and as coordinated as they are now.

So… brave freedom fighters ? I guess that’s open to interpretation. However, protestors of any ilk are certainly doing a very important thing for the continuation of democracy. We are exercising muscles that, if left unused, could very possibly atrophy, leaving our democracy damaged and ineffective.