• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2793 0

that it acquired would only be meaningful, if at all, for self-defense. But that cannot be acknowledged today as it denies the “existential threat” of an Iranian bomb that services war-makers today, just as Iraq’s non-existent WMD served them in 2002–3 (and of course the Iranian bomb doesn’t exist either and may never come into being). So the point is not made in the MSM, as they continue their state service.

Concluding Note

Regrettably, the propaganda model still works well, with the MSM performance before and during the Iraq invasion-occupation, and in readying the U.S. public for an attack on Iran, showing them to be reliable members of the war-making team, even in these cases where the wars are based on lies and threat inflation. As in the past, the MSM are members of the corporate community and serve that community and its elite. The “second superpower,” public opinion, and the dissident media, continue to grow and fight back, but at this point in history they are overmatched by the dominant media and have not been able to stop the militarization and serial wars, and neoliberal policies, now being pursued by the U.S. (and U.K.) establishment. We can only hope that that second superpower can organize and triumph before the establishment brings irremediable disaster (nuclear war, economic collapse, or environmental catastrophe).

Edward S. Herman

Appendix 1

THE U.S. OFFICIAL OBSERVERS IN GUATEMALA, JULY 1–2, 1984

For the July 1, 1984, elections in Guatemala, the Reagan administration sent an observer team, headed by Republican Congressman Ralph Regula, that also included Congressmen Jack Hightower (Democrat, Texas) and Mickey Edwards (Republican, Oklahoma); Secretaries of State Jack Brier, of Kansas, and Ed Simcox, of Indiana; Father Kenneth Baker, editor of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, New York City; John Carbaugh, a Washington attorney; Jesse Friedman, of the American Institute of Free Labor Development; Tom Kahn, of the AFL-CIO; Max Singer, of the Potomac Organization; and Howard Penniman, the election specialist of the American Enterprise Institute.1 This group, in Guatemala for a very brief stay, was transported around the country to “observe” on election day by helicopter, and made a brief statement and held a press conference on July 2. That statement and the press conference proceedings were released by the U.S. embassy in Guatemala City on July 18, 1984, and form the basis for the discussion below.

Although Guatemala had been assailed by human-rights organizations for years for political murder on a vast scale and record-breaking numbers of “disappeared,” the words “murder” and “disappeared” do not appear in the remarks of any of the ten observers who spoke at the press conference. Other words or phrases never uttered were: “National Security Doctrine,” “Law of Illicit Association,” “state terrorism,” “death squad,” “massacre,” “torture,” “forced relocations,” “civil-defense patrols,” “freedom of the press,” or “voting requirement.” None of the observers doubted the authenticity of “positive” responses by Guatemalan peasants to questions by non-Spanish-speaking foreigners flown in by helicopter in a country subject to military occupation. All of the observers felt quite capable of assessing the true feelings of the Guatemalan people on the basis of long lines, facial expressions, and a handful of responses to visitors under official protection. There was no dissent among the observers from the conclusion that the election was fair, inspiring, a testimonial to the eagerness of the Guatemalan people to participate and express their patriotic sentiments, and a first step toward democracy. No demonstration-election cliché was omitted—history was blacked out, and no basic condition of a free election was examined by the observers.

Let us sample a few of the clichés offered by these Guatemalan election observers:

1. People full of hope—very positive start. This was a “dynamic beginning, . . . a first step,” according to delegation head Ralph Regula. Father Kenneth Baker found a “great sense of