Monday, February 21, 2005

Historical amnesia

How does thought control work in societies that call themselves free? Why are famous journalists so eager, almost as a reflex, to minimize the culpability of political leaders such as Bush and Blair who share responsibility for the unprovoked attack on a defenseless people, for laying to waste their land, and for killing at least 100,000 people, most of them civilians, having sought to justify this epic crime with demonstrable lies? Why does a BBC reporter describe the invasion of Iraq as "a vindication for Blair"? Why have broadcasters never associated the British or American state with terrorism? Why have such privileged communicators, with unlimited access to the facts, lined up to describe an unobserved, unverified, illegitimate, cynically manipulated election, held under a brutal occupation, as "democratic" with the pristine aim of being "free and fair"?

Do they not read history?

[...]

Only 10 years after the Vietnam war, which I reported, an opinion poll in the United States found that a third of Americans could not remember which side their government had supported. [...] The truth is that the longest war of the 20th century was a war waged against Vietnam, north and south, communist and noncommunist, by America. It was an unprovoked invasion of their homeland and their lives, just like the invasion of Iraq. Amnesia ensures that, while the relatively few deaths of the invaders are constantly acknowledged, the deaths of up to 5 million Vietnamese are consigned to oblivion.

What are the roots of this?

[...]

Good versus evil for untutored minds.
  John Pilger article at AntiWar

Read it. You may learn something about Vietnam. I did. For instance, I was unaware that we had set up a Vietnamese ex-patriot living in New Jersey to be the leader of South Vietnam in 1956. Reminds me of putting the Haitian ex-pat LaTortue (living in Florida) in the rightful president, Aristede's place.

John Pilger does some excellent reporting and investigation. A link to his early work on the invasion of Iraq is on my webpage here.

How many more innocent people have to die before those who filter the past and the present wake up to their moral responsibility to protect our memory and the lives of human beings?
My guess is there is no end to the number. The sleep is permanent.

But I have this fantasy, based in our modern scientific findings, that if enough individual people can awaken, there will be a human consciousness expansion (the hundredth monkey syndrome) - like a big bang, or a mass awakening. Otherwise, I wouldn't be blogging. All it should take is for that hundredth monkey to get the unaltered version of history and the news. There are many people who land on this blog, and many other blogs offering the unvarnished version of the news, simply by virtue of looking up something totally unrelated to the blog posts. (A nice little bonus of the inability of the engine to think.) Hopefully some of them are inspired to investigate.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Just had a look at The Daily Twain (in the sidebar) - today's quote fits in well here....

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so. --Mark Twain

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