Left wingers who write against attacking Syria (or on any other topic for that matter) should show more respect for their readers. I have no idea just who it is that reads Chomsky, Urie, Solomon, etc. I suppose, mostly, they are preaching to the left-wing crowd, of which I am proud to claim membership. I certainly don't pretend to be speaking for anybody but myself, but surely the readers of this blog have noticed that the writers mentioned above are often prone to making sweeping generalizations (which may well be true) which presuppose too much knowledge on the part of the reader and therefore demand the premise support that is not there.
In a post just made I gave Uribe as an example. I won't repeat it here, but suffice to say that the CIA is still a moral monster today in torturing, raping, and killing innocents around the world, that requires proof. Below is Norman Solomon's latest post on Z net. He argues that during the Viet-Nam war and the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media idolized Pentagon weapons of war. That's certainly true. But he also argues the media is doing the same today in preparation for a war on Syria. The only evidence he offers is a clip from CNN which supposedly shows such idealization. When one views the clip the inevitable conclusion is that, not only does it fall short of Solomon's claim, it is unsupported.
Not only does this kind of blunder discredit the left, it is insulting to progressive readers who expect much more from writers who express their views.
The Repetition Compulsion for War -- and How It Might Fail This Time
Saturday, September 07, 2013
No matter how many times we’ve seen it before, the frenzy for launching a military attack on another country is -- to the extent we’re not numb -- profoundly upsetting. Tanked up with talking points in Washington, top officials drive policy while intoxicated with what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism,” and most media coverage becomes similarly unhinged. That’s where we are now.
But new variables have opened up possibilities for disrupting the repetitive plunge to war. Syria is in the crosshairs of U.S. firepower, but cracks in the political machinery of the warfare state are widening here at home. For advocates of militarism and empire by any other name, the specter of democratic constraint looms as an ominous threat.
Into the Capitol Hill arena, the Obama White House sent Secretary of State John Kerry to speak in a best-and-brightest dialect of neocon tongues. The congressional hierarchies of both parties -- Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, John Boehner, Eric Cantor -- are on the same page for an attack on Syria. And meanwhile, the U.S. mass media have been cranking up the usual adrenalin-pumped hype for war.
More than 10 years ago, American media outlets were filled with breathless idolatry of the latest U.S. weapons poised to strike Iraq. Now, the big TV networks are at it again – starting to hype the Pentagon’s high-tech arsenal that’s ready to demolish Syrian targets. Of course the people at the other end of the weaponry aren’t in the picture.
The Media Education Foundation has just posted a two-minute montage of coverage from MSNBC, Fox and CNN idolizing the latest Pentagon weaponry for use in the Iraq invasion a decade ago -- as well as Walter Cronkite doing the same on CBS during the Vietnam War. As a present-day bookend, a CNN clip from a few days ago provides a glimpse of how little has changed (except for slicker on-screen graphics).
But the usual agenda-building for war may not work this time.
The first week of September has stunned the military-industrial-media complex. It began with a familiar bellicose call for action from the president, seconded by leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill and echoed by mass media. And yet by the end of the week, grassroots opposition had interrupted the war momentum.
Senators and members of the House are being overwhelmed with anti-war messages via email, fax and phone. People are rising up to demand that Congress vote against launching a war on yet another country.
Whether Obama would actually abide by failure to gain congressional “authorization” to attack Syria is by no means clear. But our immediate task is to create such a failure.
This is a pivotal juncture of history in real time, an “all hands on deck” moment to exert enough public pressure to prevent a war-on-Syria resolution from getting through Congress. Such an outcome would thoroughly delegitimize any order from Obama to attack Syria. In the process, we would make real progress against the masters of war.
There’s an antidote to the repetition compulsion for war. It’s called democracy.
Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” Information about the documentary based on the book is at www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.
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