JINGOES, MEDIA JUNKIES, AND THE WAR AGAINST THEIR IGNORANCE
Julie
November 2001

America was wrong. Osama bin Laden did not lead the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11.

If this headline were true, would the mainstream media be willing to run it? More importantly, if this headline were true, would the American public be willing to believe it and thus willing to end violent strikes against Afghanistan?

Robert Kennedy once told Americans, "The victims of violence are … human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one … can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on … Why? What has violence ever accomplished?” We are so willing to become unremittingly militant, believing that somehow violence will show our true patriotism. If patriotism in the United States is devoting oneself to American ideals, brutality should be the antithesis of patriotism. And this “patriotism” is overwhelming.

The New York Times reports that “More than seven in 10 Americans in a recent poll said they support military action against the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks even if it means thousands of American military personnel are killed.” America’s willingness to drop the bomb as a solution has shown adverse effects. Recently, a bomb that was “misguided” killed four civilians and injured eight in Afghanistan. We must convince ourselves that violence is wrong - that we can serve the United States better by being neither aggressors nor pacifists but by acting peacefully.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate John Hume explains, “It is absolutely right that in the defense of [freedom and democracy] the U.S. should seek to bring those responsible to justice, but they must do so without causing suffering among innocent people.” With the recent retreat of the Taliban from Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, it is evident that citizens of Afghanistan by no means support the Taliban. However, with the anti-Afghani sentiments infiltrating the minds of Americans, killing anyone who lives among the Taliban hardly seems a crime, regardless of either innocence or ideals. Despite numerous Afghani citizens chanting “Long live America!” after the Taliban’s retreat, many Americans remain unwilling to end the air strikes. Perhaps the greatest threat to America’s acting violently is simply that its people think rather than unknowingly believe.

If we continue to follow what the conglomerated media is telling us, we will not question its truth. We will become enraged when as we watch over and over again isolated incidences of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan that do not reflect the ideals of the entire Pakistani people. CNN headlines, “Pakistan placed three Muslim clerics under house arrest Tuesday to prevent more anti-American demonstrations during the Afghan bombing campaign,” clearly emphasizing the word “more.” However, CNN also reports that Pakistan “support[s] … possible U.S. military action against Afghanistan.” Clearly, the United States has recently secured a bond with Pakistan, so it must be asked why the atypical scenarios are repeatedly shown and if total information is being provided to the general public.

According to noted historian Howard Zinn, “The slavishness of the major media to the power and the bullying of government goes a long way toward nullifying that right declared in the First Amendment, ‘the freedom of the press.’” In many instances, the American public is denied total information, or given as little information as possible, about “secure” issues. Zinn explains that when a documentary film about the effects of the Hiroshima bombing was made, it was not allowed to be viewed by Americans until 1967. If we do not question what the media is or is not telling us, we cannot be confident that we are not in the center of a similar circumstance. The voices of the dissident media offer another outlook but are frequently unheard.

Again, Howard Zinn asserts that a dissident media is present in the United States; however, “they are starved of resources, their circulation limited.” Mainstream newspapers such as The New York Times are simply reluctant to run anti-war editorials. A website (http://www.antiwar.com) does exist that publishes various works of dissident writers who are clearly against the continuation of air strikes in Afghanistan by the United States military. But often people fail to read these editorials and instead submit themselves to the patriotic editorials commonly found in the mainstream news. Therefore, it is not a matter of there being select individuals who do question the system; rather, it is a matter of Americans listening to those who are searching so desperately to provide truth and insight.

As the United States engages itself more intensely in air strikes, moving further and further away from its original plan of merely bombing the “enemy” Taliban sites, we as a nation must question whether what we read, what we hear, and what we see is truth. And if what we read, hear, and see is true, what can we do to change it? Though it may not be an end to violence, a solution to battling the ignorance of the jingoes and the media junkies is simply the denial of the mainstream media. Rejection in itself could prove to be a radical way to rebel against the false ideals that are mutual among many Americans. For now, we can take the advice of six-time presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche and “turn off CNN.”