Think Big, Henry!
Nixon: "I still think we ought to take the dikes out…. Will that drown people?"
Kissinger: "About 200,000 people."
Nixon: "No, no, no…. I'd rather use the nuclear bomb…. I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ's sake!"
(from the Nixon tapes, in which the president, who publicly expressed concern about the Indochina carnage, is caught on the White House recording system discussing with Henry A. Kissinger an extension of the bombing to new targets in North Vietnam)
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death is a book by Norman Solomon, which Russ Baker reviews in the L.A. Times on June 29, 2005:
"Does the unspooling Iraq saga fill you with a disquieting sense of déjà vu? Feel like you've been there, done that, been lied to and spun in this manner somewhere else, at some other point in time? Well, that's because you have.
Norman Solomon, a longtime media critic, lays out the elaborate hustle in his new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." It's all there — Vietnam, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the first Gulf War and more. (Including a first chapter about the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, an unfortunately labored and obscure choice to lead off an otherwise compelling read.)
The villains are the government and the media: the government because time and again it remorselessly falsifies the reality of war, and the media because major press and broadcast outlets can't seem to wriggle free from self-interest long enough to speak truth to power.
Solomon offers 16 brutally persuasive chapters, each centered on a perennial falsehood, such as "If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It," "This Is About Human Rights" and "This Is Not at All About Oil or Corporate Profits"."
Have your grains of salt ready and hop over to war made easy . com to at least see another point of view on the other side of reality.
Related links:
• Institute for Public Accuracy
• Russ Baker
• Coldtype Net
Note: I added a permanent link to AlterNet to the links section to the right.
(from the Nixon tapes, in which the president, who publicly expressed concern about the Indochina carnage, is caught on the White House recording system discussing with Henry A. Kissinger an extension of the bombing to new targets in North Vietnam)
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death is a book by Norman Solomon, which Russ Baker reviews in the L.A. Times on June 29, 2005:
"Does the unspooling Iraq saga fill you with a disquieting sense of déjà vu? Feel like you've been there, done that, been lied to and spun in this manner somewhere else, at some other point in time? Well, that's because you have.
Norman Solomon, a longtime media critic, lays out the elaborate hustle in his new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." It's all there — Vietnam, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the first Gulf War and more. (Including a first chapter about the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, an unfortunately labored and obscure choice to lead off an otherwise compelling read.)
The villains are the government and the media: the government because time and again it remorselessly falsifies the reality of war, and the media because major press and broadcast outlets can't seem to wriggle free from self-interest long enough to speak truth to power.
Solomon offers 16 brutally persuasive chapters, each centered on a perennial falsehood, such as "If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It," "This Is About Human Rights" and "This Is Not at All About Oil or Corporate Profits"."
Have your grains of salt ready and hop over to war made easy . com to at least see another point of view on the other side of reality.
Related links:
• Institute for Public Accuracy
• Russ Baker
• Coldtype Net
Note: I added a permanent link to AlterNet to the links section to the right.
posted by bunka @ 14:32
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