The Other American

masadi #9

`` A common tendency of the American media and US propagandists is to turn every negative into a positive, every atrocity into the ``Great American Celebration``. This tendency is witnessed here on chowk among US cheerleaders as well. For example #4 Kulharee writes ``

Why shouldn`t a negative be an incentive for a positive thing ? If people made use of their poverty as an incentive to work harder and smarter maybe things could be different in a lot of places. You would think poor Pakistanis have plenty of incentives to improve their lot.

`` If the reporting of the My Lai massacre by the American media is something to celebrate America over, what should our reaction be when the US corporate media deliberatly avoids stories or pushes them to the background because it does not fit in with the elite agenda?If you were to weigh these ``positives`` with the ``negatives``, the negatives far outweigh the positives. So, if one leads to admiration should not the negatives lead to total disgust? ``

American media was heavily critical of the Vietnam war.

`` Now, it has also been documented that elite preference was turning against the war when this massacre was reported. So what happened after it was reported? Did the US elite apologize and change their foreign policy, stating that the war was an inhumane barbaric endeavour. Not at all, in fact even today this media has not apologized on behalf of the elite: look at what the media did in this past election. It picked up on Kerry`s opposition to such atrocities in that era and labelled him unpatriotic. It then went further by giving the ``swift boat veterans`` excessive coverage to prove the same point. ``

Nixon is regarded as a ``bad president`` by left-wing critics for pursuing the war. Even though he created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

`` Let`s look at Abu Ghraib: how has the media presented it? It was presented as isolated cases of individuals and not something that had institutional precedent that required institutional restructuring. The people at the top whose policies led to such atrocities, none of them took consequential responsibility. The reporting of these incidents also fulfilled another function for the US elite, it sent their ``private`` message, based upon their stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, that they consider all these Muslims hold sacred to be ``sh**``. Part of their psychological warfare. The recent cartoons can be seen in a similar light as well. ``

`` The American media has two duties to fulfill on behalf of the corporate elite, unlike the media of most third world countries:
1. domestic agenda to pacify the masses
2. International agenda to justify the empire . ``

Most Americans do not follow the news. You can forget about world news. Media reports what people are interested in. Don`t blame the media elite. If CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS were moderate in their views Fox fills in the vaccum.

Re: # 15

Asadai, that’s your uneducated perception. Trust me. No matter how hard you try, you still come across as a racist and a bigot. Keep harping about your American Elite mantra and hope that someone will heed to it. You really are a pathetic case.

#14 Kulharee, the ones you love have perfected ``hate and hating``, look at their global adventures, they ruin human beings, they consider their tiny group human and all others as disposable. Going against them, opposing them, shows love for humanity and not hate. As usual your thinking is lopsided.

Re: # 13

Asadi.. I can live with poor comprehension and my love for the American elite. Thank god I am not a bigot and someone motivated by hate.

#12 Kulharee your power of comprehension is quite weak. I have not suggested that Volpe is a member of the elite. Your comments, sarcasm, suggests your blind support of and justification of atrocities of the elite- as stated in the article on which you were commenting.

Regarding my background, it has nothing to do with this article and you have no clue about it, so I suggest you stay with the topic.

Re: # 11

Asadi Sahib, you make me laugh. You think Justin Volpe is an American elite? I think, if anything, you are an Islamic elite. You yourself indicated in your last article how big your grandfather’s reclining chair was. You must come from a very Elitist background.

#10, yes I know who he is and I know why you put your comment as you did, and I am well aware of your worship of the American elite as well. You think, as your comment reflects, that all the atrocities committed by the US elite are well justified.

Re: # 9

Masadi, your idiocy has absolutely no limits. Do you even know who Justin Volpe is? I wished he did a job on you instead of Amado Dialo. Man, you are a thick moron.

Respectfully submitted.

A common tendency of the American media and US propagandists is to turn every negative into a positive, every atrocity into the ``Great American Celebration``. This tendency is witnessed here on chowk among US cheerleaders as well. For example #4 Kulharee writes

(quote)<<< Subhash Ji, A very nice read. I keep the photograph of Justin Volpe on my desk to remind me the greatness of America >>> (end quote)

If the reporting of the My Lai massacre by the American media is something to celebrate America over, what should our reaction be when the US corporate media deliberatly avoids stories or pushes them to the background because it does not fit in with the elite agenda?If you were to weigh these ``positives`` with the ``negatives``, the negatives far outweigh the positives. So, if one leads to admiration should not the negatives lead to total disgust?

Now, it has also been documented that elite preference was turning against the war when this massacre was reported. So what happened after it was reported? Did the US elite apologize and change their foreign policy, stating that the war was an inhumane barbaric endeavour. Not at all, in fact even today this media has not apologized on behalf of the elite: look at what the media did in this past election. It picked up on Kerry`s opposition to such atrocities in that era and labelled him unpatriotic. It then went further by giving the ``swift boat veterans`` excessive coverage to prove the same point.

Let`s look at Abu Ghraib: how has the media presented it? It was presented as isolated cases of individuals and not something that had institutional precedent that required institutional restructuring. The people at the top whose policies led to such atrocities, none of them took consequential responsibility. The reporting of these incidents also fulfilled another function for the US elite, it sent their ``private`` message, based upon their stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, that they consider all these Muslims hold sacred to be ``sh**``. Part of their psychological warfare. The recent cartoons can be seen in a similar light as well.

The American media has two duties to fulfill on behalf of the corporate elite, unlike the media of most third world countries:
1. domestic agenda to pacify the masses
2. International agenda to justify the empire .

Merely because control has shifted from explicit, coersive control to implicit bureaucratized/cultural domination control makes the emergence of so called ``whistle blowers`` an effective propaganda tool. They can be nothing more than propaganda tools if their blowing is producing nothing but warm air in the response that occurs as a result of the blowing. Now if these whistle blowers were having consequences that we could see in institutional restructuring then that would be something to celebrate. Has there been any debate stating that the Iraq war is barbaric and illegal, on the US media after the reproting of Abu Ghraib, none whatsoever. So what purpose has that reporting fulfilled? Every night we still hear about ``mission Iraq``, ``Iraqi Freedom``, democracy and all the other BS slogans that they repeat day in and day out. It has achieved zero change in the US foreign policy.

Don`t celebrate this BS, oppose this elite and their subtle games on every forum and upon every occassion.

Yeah, yeah – there is a big bad wolf called USA and that Saddam was your very own red riding hood – too bad the rest of the world knows he was a plain old hood!

It is truly touching how your heart bleeds for the criminals who inhabited those Iraqi prisons – your very own epitomes of virtue!

And in hitting out at Uncle Sam, why stop at Vietnam – take it back to the treatment of minorities, the slaves, and if that does not work – hey don’t stop, take it all the way to the Native Americans!

You know what, all the whistleblowers have been AMERICAN!

Now let’s see you name a bunch of Pakistani generals who squealed on their bosses and their institutions during all those usurpations of power and that Bangladesh fiasco. There must be a bunch, right? A handful? One? What’s the matter – cat got your tongue – or is it in violation of SOME chowk guidelines?

So when are YOU going to start your journalistic investigation of the Godhra events? Oops, I forgot – you prefer to do it from an arm-chair.

Just a correction. Guernica was not flattened by the Nazis in the second world war. It was done by them in 1937 during their support of Franco`s fascist regime, and to see for themselves what the Luftwaffe was capable of. Testing for future wars so to speak.

I have been to Vietnam and have visited the War Museum. Even as back as 1952 (if I am correct), Graham Greene wrote an interesting book, The Quiet American. Isnt it relevant even today?

Subhash

have you forgotten the crimes your army committed in Sopore, baramula, nagaland etc. All those rapes committed on innocents merely for asking freedom. when will a Hugh Thompson be born in India?

Subhash Ji, A very nice read. I keep the photograph of Justin Volpe on my desk to remind me the greatness of America.

there are many anomalies with the greatest democracy of the world, which has earned her many enemies but no reprisal on its values which go against the humanity at large.

why this silence?

Interesting. And well written.