Governments manipulate mind

Governments manipulate mind

Propaganda creates biased image of enemy

"As long as there are sovereign nations of great power, war is
inevitable."

– Albert Einstein, November 1945

I dreamt of Jesus Jones last night. It was just like their
video, "Right Here, Right Now." There were visions of the
collapsing East bloc, along with the words, "Watching the world
wake up from history." I thought to myself: Now that all those
dirty Commie bastards are gone, we can have peace and freedom. Then
my alarm clock rudely woke me up.

After another day of drudgery and errands, I stopped by the
arcade in Ackerman to play my favorite game, "Total Carnage." The
opening of the game shows a map of Iraq. The mad, evil dictator,
Akhboob, has taken hostages, who happen to be journalists and
beautiful blondes in bikinis. It was somehow satisfying to rack up
points for killing Arabs and other monsters.

It is really bizarre how during the Gulf War, a public made up
of people who didn’t even know that Iraq and Kuwait existed was,
almost overnight, turned into a mob calling for blood.

One very successful tactic was the demonization of Saddam
Hussein by presenting him as irrational and associating him with
Hitler (Time’s man of the year for 1938). They both were insatiably
aggressive dictators who had thousands of tanks and gassed people.
(The gassing of the Kurds in 1986 was done at a time when the
United States unflinchingly supported Iraq, support which continued
until 1990. It’s also interesting to note that the Americans
decided to save the Jews only when Hitler had, for entirely
different reasons, made himself an enemy of the United States.)

The hysteria of the religious right was by far the best: Saddam
Hussein could be the Antichrist, and after all, Babylon is right
there.

But the burning question is why common civilians go along with
the aggressors. One reason might be fear: Recall the case of Eddie
Slovak, a draftee who was shot for "cowardice" during World War II.
Otherwise, the key to convincing the intellect that one must fight
is to assert firstly, that some force is determined to do wrong and
secondly, that it will not listen to reason.

A glimpse at how a people can be manipulated is provided by an
article about Serbia written by Andrew Phillips in Maclean’s June
7, 1993 issue:

Characterizing Serbia as the "political equivalent of fantasy
island," the writer comments, "Paranoia runs deep." The latest pop
songs in Serbia, he says, include "Everything for Serbia" (cf.
Deutschland uber alles) and "This People Will Live." The "Museum of
Applied Art, known locally as the Genocide Museum," displays photos
of the "mass slaughter of Serbs during the Second World War by
Croats … High school classes are paraded through the museum,
implanting the victim mentality in a new generation. Much of the
Serbs’ odd world view lies with the state-run television, the
country’s most important source of information."

However, what is truly odd is how today, Americans look down so
smugly on the "barbaric" Yugoslavians, especially when the Soviets
and the Americans were ready to fight World War III in Europe just
a decade ago – and basically for the same reasons: for "freedom"
(or empire), because the state said so, or because the state wanted
more power. One forgets an earlier comment of former presidential
hopeful Colin Powell to the effect that in a nuclear war, if one
Russian and two Americans were left, we’ve won.

Some of the more ethical minds in government resigned in 1993
over American policy in the former Yugoslavia. One of them,
Marshall Harris, in an interview in the November 1993 issue of the
Foreign Service Journal, said that "Throughout this administration,
Secretary Christopher and others have manipulated public opinion
and tried to convince the American people that Bosnia is a
potential quagmire, that all three sides are guilty in this war,
that it’s a problem from hell and it’s an ancient ethnic feud. I
agree that we have influenced the public debate by trying to come
out from the inside and say to the American people, ‘What you hear
Secretary Christopher and others saying is not true.’"

In the same interview, George Kenney, who resigned a year
earlier, said, "The media has no way of knowing what’s going on
inside the mind of an administration, unless somebody from the
administration steps outside and says, ‘Here’s what people are
thinking. Here’s what’s behind the policy.’"

On the whole, the government seems to have as little place for
conscience as corporations. According to Richard Gabriel, author of
"No More Heroes," " … the military research medical
establishments of the world have set for themselves the task of
abolishing fear in the soldier and making him a more efficient
killing machine … The U.S. military has already developed three
prototypes that show great ‘promise.’ One of these drugs may be a
variant of busbirone."

Until the drugs are developed, there is policy. During the
American occupation of Haiti, American policy was not to intervene
as Front for the Advancement of Progress in Haiti (FRAPH) militias
were detaining, torturing and murdering Aristide supporters.

According to the L.A. Times, a Buddhist American soldier
registered complaints about the well-known, extant human rights
abuses to superiors and was completely ignored. One night, he
slipped out of the barracks and appeared at a FRAPH detention
center, demanding the right of inspection. The guard called his
superiors who court-martialed him and discharged him from the Armed
Forces.

Actually, detention camps, torture and disappearances are quite
common in history and in the present. (One might check out Amnesty
International’s annual reports.) Human rights abuses are so endemic
and systematic that one cannot come to the conclusion that they are
the result of irrationality, barbarism or simple race prejudice
(though these sometimes make abuses easier to justify). Abuse seems
to be the standard way in which nation states treat their
enemies.

Another standard procedure in states is to fight wars, apologize
to the citizens, promise it was the last war and then repeat the
procedure. This was done through both world wars. We are in a
similar process with regard to what was the Cold War.

Nonsensical theories of "interdependence" (which put forth
salvation through world trade), of the peaceful democracy (as if
there was never a popular war), and ironically enough, of the
threat of thermonuclear apocalypse, have lulled us into a
comfortable slumber, promising us that large-scale conventional war
is impossible.

If such were the case, one wonders why all major nations still
maintain vast conventional armies and why all – even post-World War
II – wars were fought conventionally. One wonders why governments
continue to consciously concern themselves with strategic
industries and resources so that they will be able to make war in
the future.

No move has been made to dismantle the nation-state system,
which is the core of the problem. The United Nations (or the
servant of the national interests of the five permanent members of
the security council) only poses as the "world community."

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon, an
"aggressor" will come to your theater and demand the blood of your
firstborn child. Then, it will be up to us, citizens of the most
free and most powerful nation, to meet the aggressor with superior
force and bring peace back into the "free world."

Then, the enemy will perhaps be big enough to require the
reorganization of the economy on a wartime basis and the
conscription of civilians. Ration cards will be issued as
employment falls below 1 percent. Border controls will be again
loosened to ameliorate a labor shortage. Freedom of expression will
become severely curtailed in the emergency, and the press will fall
into line with government prerogatives. A "Ministry of Information"
will be started up again to more directly handle propaganda needs.
More women will go to factories as the men receive draft cards. At
the same time, the government will set up internment camps to deal
with its perceived internal enemies.

It will all come just like a James Bond movie; the title will be
"Never Say Never Again." The ticket will be bought for you, and
attendance will be mandatory. Booing will not be tolerated while
the film is rolling.

Here is the rough draft of my script: The army’s function must
be overtaken by a people in arms. The United Nations must be made
to represent populations rather than governments (many of which are
corrupt), and only then be given certain powers. The gospel of some
kind of human brotherhood must be preached throughout the world.
Lastly, the economic system must address social justice. Rather
than a system based primarily on armed might and on economic
blackmail, it should be based on the pride of a just society.

However, whatever you do, don’t hit the snooze button.

Osman is a fourth-year history student.Comments to
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