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NOVEMBER 13,2008
 
Appearance And Reality In The Relaunch Of Brand America
In 1997, the British media filled with talk of "historic" change. Blair's victory that year "bursts openthe door to a British transformation," the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, 'Through the doorhe can begin to create a freer land,' The Independent, May 4, 1997)A Guardian leader saluted the nation: "Few now sang England Arise, but England had risen all thesame." (Leader, 'A political earthquake,' The Guardian, May 2, 1997)The editors predicted that, by 2007, Blair's triumph would be seen as "one of the great turning-pointsof British political history... the moment when Britain at last gave itself the chance to construct amodern liberal socialist order." (Ibid)The Observer assured readers that the Blair government would create "new worldwide rules on humanrights" and implement "tough new limits on arms sales." (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5063)This, after all, was the dawn of Blair's "ethical" foreign policy.It was a dawn of the dead - Blair left behind him the almost unimaginable horror of Iraq andAfghanistan.A rare poll conducted by Ipsos last January of 754 Iraqi refugees in Syria found that "every singleperson interviewed by Ipsos reported experiencing at least one traumatic event in Iraq prior to theirarrival in Syria." (http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/ vtx/iraq?page=news&id=479616762)UNHCR estimated that one in five of those registered with the agency in Syria over the previous yearwere classified as "victims of torture and/or violence." The survey showed that fully 89 per cent ofthose interviewed suffered depression and 82 per cent anxiety. This was linked to terrors enduredbefore they fled Iraq - 77 per cent of those interviewed reported being affected by airbombardments, shelling or rocket attacks. Eighty per cent had witnessed a shooting... and so on.(Ibid)John Pilger was a lonely voice in 1997 warning that Blair was a dangerous fraud, a neocon in sheep'sclothing. As Pilger later pointed out, the media could hardly plead ignorance"Blair's Vichy-like devotion to Washington was known: read his speeches about a neworder led by America. His devotion to Rupert Murdoch, who flew him and CherieBooth around the world first class, was known. His devotion to an extremeneoliberal Thatcherite economics was known..." (John Pilger, Blair's bloody hands,'March 4, 2005;http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5063 Over the past two weeks - one decade and three wars later - the same media have been insisting, asone, that US president-elect Barrack Obama is another "new dawn". A Guardian leader observed:"They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the Americanpeople yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice forchange for themselves and the world..."Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory. Savour thosewords: President Barack Obama, America's hope and, in no small way, ourstoo." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ 2008/nov/06/barackobama-uselections2008)In the Guardian's news section, Oliver Burkeman described the victory as "historic, epochal, pathbreaking". But there was more:"Just being alive at a time when it's so evident that history is being made was elatingand exhausting." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ 2008/nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama)In 2003, the Guardian's foreign editor, Ed Pilkington, told us:"We are not in the business of editorialising our news reports." (Email, November 15,2003)Someone forgot to tell Burkeman, indeed the entire Guardian news team. At times like these, themedia's claims to balanced coverage seem to belong to a different universe. Over the last two weeks,the public has been subjected to a one-way delusional deluge by the media. The propaganda is suchthat comments made by independent US presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, appear simplyshocking:
OBAMA - WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN
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"What we're seeing is the highest level of resignation and apathy and powerlessnessI've ever seen. We're not talking about hoopla. We're not talking about 'hope'. We'renot talking about rhetoric. We're not talking about 'rock star Obama'. We're talkingabout the question that is asked everywhere I go: 'What is left for the Americanpeople to decide other than their own personal lives under more restrictivecircumstances year after year?' And the answer is: almost nothing." (Interview,RealNews.com, November 4;http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2717)Nader says of Obama: "This is show business what you're seeing." The crucial point: "Obama doesn'tlike to take on power." (Ibid)But our media, passionately committed to 'balance' though they claim to be, are not interested. Theirview (or so they claim): Obama's victory is a wonderful, transformational moment for the world.The message is enhanced by precisely the abandonment of any pretence of impartiality. This mightbe termed the 'Get Real!' stratagem of propaganda swamping. The suggestion is that the truth is soobvious, so marvellous, that it is churlish to be concerned with balance. When the whole mediasystem is screaming at us to be overjoyed, something is wrong - life is just not that straightforward.The same version of events has been repeated right across the media. The Times's leading warmongerunder Bush-Blair-Brown, Gerard Baker, commented: "there haven't been many days preceded by moreenergy and freighted with much greater historic significance than this one". (Baker, 'Amid the silence,citizens will make history with their sacred rite,' The Times, November 4, 2008)The BBC's Justin Webb wrote:"On every level America will be changed by this result - its impact will be soprofound that the nation will never be thesame." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/)David Usborne gushed for the non-editorialising news pages of the Independent:"As tears wetted a thousand cheeks in the Chicago crowd, it was clear that thesignificance of Mr Obama's victory may take some while to sinkin." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ barack-obama-wins-his-place-in-history-992750.html)
How to communicate the impact?
"Call it the demise of cynicism or the end of apathy. The country that pretends to bethe standard-bearer of the democracy and presumes, indeed, to export it to theother countries around the world was living up to its own standards."Jon Snow of Channel 4 News did not disappoint:"Hello history (to use the word of the times). What a staggering and indescribablemoment this is. Barack Obama's graceful acceptance of what had seemed bothinevitable and impossible is up there equalling any political event since the downingof the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela." (Snowmail, November 5,2008)And the basis for this staggeringly important moment?"Even after so many months of speech-making it's still not clear what are theconcrete changes that may now ensue and in particular, there are some big foreignpolicy areas where Obama is not promising a hugely different tack fromBush..." (Ibid)As we will see below, the amazing fact is that this eruption of media hype is based on essentiallynothing. Obama has had little to say about what he will do, and what he has said has been depressingfor anyone hoping for genuine change. Matthew Parris summed it up in the Times:"Here we have a handsome, dashing and intelligent man, a man with generousinstincts and a silver tongue; but a man with no distinctive plan for government thathe has seen fit to share with us; a daring opportunist; somebody we may one dayjudge as a sort of Tony Blair with brains. And here we go again, all over again, hook,line and sinker." (Matthew Parris, 'Calm down! He's not President of the World,' TheTimes, November 8, 2008)The former Europe minister and arch-Blairite, Denis MacShane, also unwittingly supplied a note ofcaution:"I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy [Obama] and it could be Tony. He is doingthe same thing that we did in 1997." (Tom Baldwin, 'Blair team look in mirror ofhistory,' The Times, November 8, 2008)
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Obama And Iraq
As discussed above, the media's propaganda swamping on Obama - of which we have sampled only afraction - is based on almost nothing at all. Tariq Ali commented on Democracy Now"As for what the policies are going to be, the situation is pretty depressing. I mean,Obama, during his campaign, didn't promise very much, basically talked in clichésand synthetic slogans like 'change we can believe in.' No one knows what thatchange is. In foreign policy terms, during the debates, what he said was basically acontinuation of the Bush-Cheney policies. And in relation to Afghanistan, what hesaid was worse than McCain..." (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/6/president_elect_obama_and_the_future)Andrew Rawnsley wrote in the Observer:"Iraq and Afghanistan are the sharp end of the partnership between Britain and theUnited States. Senior members of the British government quite candidly confess: 'Wedon't have a particularly clear view about what they want todo.'" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ 2008/nov/09/obama-administration-brown-cameron-sarkozy)And yet, in the face of Obama's silence, and flat rejection of progressive policies, the media hassought to portray him as an all-new "dawn". Thus, Jonathan Freedland wrote in his open letter toObama:"You have promised to... end the war in Iraq." (Freedland, 'A few thoughts on how tohandle the world's most potent political weapon,' The Guardian, November 5, 2008)In the same newspaper, Julian Borger described Obama's goals: "US troops will be pulled out of Iraq inthe next 16 months..." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/ nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama6)A Times leader asked: "How quickly can the United States military withdraw fromIraq?" (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/ leading_article/article5084156.ece)We doubt any journalist on the Times actually believes Obama is intending to withdraw US troopsfrom Iraq (in the intended meaning of the term).In the Guardian, Jonathan Steele supplied a more realistic appraisal:"... his position contains massive inconsistencies... he has not repudiated the war onterror. Rather, he insists that by focusing excessively on Iraq, the Bushadministration 'took its eye off the ball'. The real target must be Afghanistan and ifOsama bin Laden is spotted in Pakistan, bombing must be used theretoo." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/06/barack-obama-war-on-terror)Steele commented on the number of troops Obama is planning to keep in Iraq:"Officials on his team say it could number as many as 50,000 troops. Even if much ofthis force remains on bases and is barely visible to Iraqi civilians (much as the 4,500British at Basra airfield are), it cannot avoid symbolising the fact that theoccupation continues." (Ibid)
Obama - Hawk
John Pilger - who was right about Blair in 1997 and who is surely right about Obama now - also rejectsthe mainstream consensus:"Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and anexpansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition, as the war-makingof presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clintondemonstrates." (http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=492)Obama, after all, has supported Colombia's "right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across itsborders." (http://www.newstatesman.com/media/ 2008/06/pilger-obama-truly-bush) He haspromised to continue America's fierce economic strangulation of Cuba. He has promised to support an"undivided Jerusalem" as Israel's capital.In August, Obama said he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from thePakistani government:"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and PresidentMusharraf won't act, we will." (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0132206420070801)He has also said: "We will kill Bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida." (http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24464976-912,00.html)
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