The Anti-War Talk I Never Made
Press Action
Friday, February 28, 2003
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mickeyz03012003/
By Mickey Z.
About a month ago, I was asked to speak at an anti-war event in the People’s Republic of Brooklyn. I immediately put together some notes but the event was subsequently re-scheduled and I was no longer able to attend. In the hope of provoking more thought, I decided to transcribe the anti-war talk I didn’t make:
We are meeting here today at a time of historic importance. As someone familiar explained: “Two worlds are in conflict - two philosophies of life - one of these two worlds must break asunder.” These are not the words of our un-elected president but rather Adolph Hitler, in the 1930s. I do not compare these two time periods lightly.
The decisions made about the current situation in Iraq will, one day, have many answering the question: Where were you during the build-up? What did you do? These questions will be asked of politicians, the UN, and others. But the same questions will be asked of us.
You are all part of something unique. The <formation you will not get from the corporate media, so when you make a decision on where you stand, you’ll be making an informed decision ... a decision you can defend and share with others.
To accomplish this in the little bit of time I have here, I will briefly address seven examples of corporate media disinformation.
1. Fundamentals: The US and UK are about to start a war against Iraq. Firstly, it’s not a war; it’s a slaughter. Second, no matter what you call it, this “war” began when the Security Council imposed comprehensive sanctions against Iraq on August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait ... and has continued unabated since then. The US and Britain bombed Iraq 62 times in 2002 and 13 times in January 2003. The ostensible reason for this bombing is Iraqi “violations” of the “no-fly zone.” However, no UN resolution mentions the creation of no-fly zones, let alone military enforcement of any such zone.
The war has also continued unabated since August 6, 1990 because sanctions kill 5,000 Iraqi children per month. That’s 166 per day ... about 1 every 10 minutes. Former Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, when asked to comment on the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of the US sanctions, answered: “We think the price is worth it.”
2. This non-stop war is, in part, possible through dehumanization. Aldous Huxley said, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” The dehumanization of Iraq began with a report that Iraqi soldiers had ripped Kuwaiti babies out of incubators when they invaded Kuwait in August 1990. In October 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti “refugee” named Nayirah tearfully described witnessing Iraqi troops stealing incubators from a hospital, leaving 312 babies “on the cold floor to die.” When the Senate voted to give support Daddy Bush’s war-by a margin of only five votes-seven senators recounted Nayirah’s story in justifying their “yes” vote.
Of course, it wasn’t true. Nayirah’s false testimony was part of a $10 million Kuwait government propaganda campaign managed by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. Rather than working as a volunteer at a hospital, Nayirah was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington.
“We didn’t know it wasn’t true at the time,” claims Brent Scowcroft, Bush’s national security adviser. But, he added, “It was useful in mobilizing public opinion.”
3. Another example of demonization are the endless stories about the Iraqi government deliberately withholding and stockpiling food and medicine ... and using money intended for humanitarian purposes to build palaces and enrich themselves.
While it is hardly beyond any State to cheat its populace in the name of self-interest, this is an easy case to investigate since funds from Iraqi oil sales are not at the discretion of Saddam Hussein, but are kept in a UN escrow account with the Bank of Paris in New York. In addition, the UN conducts frequent inventories and heavily monitors food and medicine stored in Iraq.
Tun Myat, humanitarian coordinator and head of the UN’s “oil-for-food” program in Baghdad from 2000-2002, told the
These experiments were not a momentary lapse in judgment: The declassified documents on US radiation experiments stretch three miles long.
If you were to add up the current war budget, nuclear weapons budget of the Energy Department, the military portion of NASA, foreign military aid, veteran’s benefits, and interest payments incurred by past military spending, you’d discover that the US spends close to $700 billion a year on war ... more than one million dollars per minute and they have to justify that spending. Iraq today. North Korea next. Colombia soon afterwards.
The US probably has one bomb for each person in the country so if you’re not careful, you may get yours soon.
More than one million dollars per minute spent on weapons ... one Iraqi children dies every 10 minutes: Go ahead, do the math, how much of our tax dollars were spent and how many children died while I stood up here talking?
How is all this possible? The answer, of course, is propaganda. That may not be a word we often use in polite discourse - we usually use “public relations” - but it’s still propaganda. I.F. Stone said, “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed,” so let me offer an illustration of life in a propaganda state.
I hold in my hand today’s corrections box from the New York Times. It contains a handful of items, so don’t let it ever be said that the corporate media does not admit its mistakes. But there’s a tacit message here: Besides these few minor typos, everything else in yesterday’s Times was correct, accurate, true, and “fit to print.” It has now passed on to become part of the official record. That is how propaganda works.
The Australian scholar, Alex Carey, once listed what he felt were the three most significant developments of the twentieth century.
Well, this new century may have just begun, but it’s not too early to have a say in what the three most significant developments of the twenty-first century might be. What can we do?
The great Indian writer, Arundhati Roy, suggests: “We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar.”
Antonio Gramsci suggested one maintain “Pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.” This means we must recognize reality but not be overwhelmed by it.
This also means standing up to and exposing corporate power and that can get you in trouble. Take it from me ... you will have people question your sanity. Some of the nicer names you’ll be called are paranoid and psychotic.
At moments like that, I find solace in the words of William S. Burroughs who defined paranoia as “getting the facts straight,” and said, “A psychotic is someone who has just find out what’s going on”
Once you’ve gotten your facts straight and found out what’s going on, you must come out again and again. Not one meeting or one rally, but over and over ... bringing more people. Let’s find out the answer to Abbie Hoffman’s rhetorical question: “What if when they called a war, no one went?”
One last warning: after a few of those protests or events, you may also find yourself called a “radical”—as if it were an insult. But I suggest you wear that label with pride. The Latin origin of the word radical is the same as the word “root.” In other words, a radical is one who gets to the root of things. As Martin Luther King declared, “When you’re right, you can never be too radical.”
Mickey Z. is the author of The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet and an editor at Wide Angle. He can be reached at: