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RedditIn 2005, Norman Solomon released his book, War Made Easy, which exposes the manner in which US presidents manage to sell war, like clockwork, through the same fallacious arguments, largely with the help of a compliant media.
Two years later the Media Education Foundation's Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp have adapted Solomon's book into a documentary film. The movie features footage of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and our current president making frighteningly similar arguments about the motives for wars. All claim that violence is a means to peace and that war is the last resort. "We still seek no wider war," said Johnson. "The United States does not start fights," said Reagan. "America does not seek conflict," argued George H.W. Bush "I don't like to use military force," said Bill Clinton. "Out nation enters this conflict reluctantly," says George W. Bush.
As the movie points out, the mainsteam media only turn against war when it is too late. "News media, down the road, will point out that there were lies about the Gulf of Tonkin or about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," notes Solomon in the film. "But that doesn't bring back any of the people who have died … when it comes to life and death, the truth comes out too late."
It is a chilling and persuasive movie. Solomon hopes it can serve as an organizing tool --and a call to action. "In my 40 years as a journalist and activist I have learned that it is important to see grassroots activity as central and not as peripheral" he says.
In that spirit the filmmakers are helping to organize screenings around the country in the hope that it will spark anti-war activity. So far there have been dozens of screenings of the film -- in churches, at meetings, and in people's living rooms. The meetings have been organized by various groups committed to peace, such as the Progressive Democrats of America and Veterans for Peace.
These grassroots screenings, says Solomon, offer people ways to see the film--and, perhaps even more important, help spark a dialogue between activists. "The most common reactions to the film have been feelings of grief and anger, as well as a heightened resolve to end this war and to prevent future ones," said Solomon. A recent screening in California, for example, prompted discussions on how to advance legislation to call for bringing California National Guardsmen home from Iraq. "Activists are making the film their own … it's a sharing process that moves us forward in the directions we need to go," said Solomon.
The Nation plans to screen this film on next week's Nation Cruise, and those interested in attending or hosting a screening of War Made Easy in their town can find details at the film's web site.
This post was co-written by Michael Corcoran, a former Nation intern and freelance journalist residing in Boston. His work has appeared in The Nation, the Boston Globe and Campus Progress. he can be reached at www.michaelcorcoran.blogspot.com. Please send us your own ideas for "sweet victories" by emailing to nationvictories@gmail.com.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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The greatest weapon against un-necessary and doomed-to-failure wars is to have a preponderance of folks who have a good memory from the last un-necessary and doomed-to-failure war....
and few of the kind who think "If we had only done THIS" or "If those damn peaceniks had let us do THAT"..."we could have won it!"
Posted by Mask at 07/27/2007 @ 10:12pm
wow mask!!!
welcome to earth
Posted by frosty zoom at 07/27/2007 @ 10:34pm
Hey, did all UN-civilized, UN-democratic countries see "Tyrany Made Easy"? If so, we can disarm 100% and declare ourself Neutral!
Heck of a job, Norman!
Posted by is is IS at 07/27/2007 @ 11:56pm
and few of the kind who think "If we had only done THIS" or "If those damn peaceniks had let us do THAT"..."we could have won it!"
Posted by MASK 07/27/2007 @ 10:12pm
THE OLD "STAB IN THE BACK" ARGUMENT...
This has always struck me as the most egregiously fallacious trope of all, since the people usually uttering it are supporters of administrations that pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted in the furtherance of a war and were, by and large, deaf to the public's stated wishes in the matter. (If we think Iraq is bad, Vietnam actually WAS much worse and, at one point, the U.S. has nearly half a million troops stationed there.)
Posted by w_m_bear at 07/28/2007 @ 01:06am
here's how you start a war
(fill in the blank) ARE COMING....
(select one of the following or mix and match)
1.TO GET US!!!
2.TO KILL US!!!
3.TO DESTROY OUR WAY OF LIFE!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Posted by Will C. at 07/28/2007 @ 02:39am
rinse lather repeat
Posted by Will C. at 07/28/2007 @ 02:39am
from Katrina:
It is a chilling and persuasive movie. Solomon hopes it can serve as an organizing tool --and a call to action. "In my 40 years as a journalist and activist I have learned that it is important to see grassroots activity as central and not as peripheral" he says.
Outstanding stuff. Incidentally, I was curious how Norman Solomon could have been a journalist and activist for "40 years" since he doesn't look like he's old enough for that claim.
Here's an interesting excerpt from Wikipedia:
Solomon came under FBI scrutiny after he picketed for the desegregation of a Maryland apartment complex at age 14. As a high school senior, he drew further FBI surveillance for his efforts on behalf of the Montgomery County Student Alliance activist group. He became aware of their surveillance later, through a Freedom of Information request. In Portland, Oregon, he was an activist against nuclear power and nuclear weapons and was a researcher for the Committee for U.S. Veterans of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.....
Where's the Dateline, 20/20, 60 Minutes or CNN profile of a heroic figure along these lines?
Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/28/2007 @ 04:12am
Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 07/27/2007 @ 10:34pm
I've been here. Of course it's the "real world" Earth, where the OPPOSITE side of the spectrum needs to be equally avoided. That of naive, kumbaya-can't-we-all-just-get-along'ism.
Somewhere in the sane and intelligent Middle would be nice.
Posted by Mask at 07/28/2007 @ 08:20am
Speaking of War Made Easy.
Here's one for the record.
Click here [theonion.com]
Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/28/2007 @ 08:39am
Speaking of War Made Easy.
Here's one for the record.
Sorry, the link failed.
Cut and Paste this --it's worth a look:
www.theonion.com/content/point/this_war_will_destabilize_the
Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/28/2007 @ 08:42am
Posted by B_KOOL_66 07/28/2007 @ 08:42am
"Bob Scheffer"? Is that HAPPY's real name?
heheh
Posted by Mask at 07/28/2007 @ 08:49am
It wouldn't surprise me, Mask, it wouldn't surprise me.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/28/2007 @ 09:01am
Notice, of course, the dateline of that piece was March 26, 2003.
A good case can be made that American's should just disable their cable and subscribe to The Onion for their news.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/28/2007 @ 09:06am
"Bob Scheffer"? Is that HAPPY's real name?
Posted by MASK 07/28/2007 @ 08:49am
???????
Posted by Happy at 07/28/2007 @ 11:57am
Posted by HAPPY 07/28/2007 @ 11:57am
Just funnin', HAPPY.
Posted by Mask at 07/28/2007 @ 1:14pm
I find it strange that a lot of people would find it strange for others of us not to be pro-war and believe whatever MIC war profiteers in elected office have to say. Is there ever really 'good marketing'-- if it's based on lies and mass propaganda ala our MSM? Yet, I cannot believe the US citizenty are as easily passified, dumbed down, or numb to the death and distruction that acquincence to this hsuB/cHeney war admin or any of our past elected governments has brought. I see this as another cog, one with of all the others, a turning wheel that's speeding up, it's the mechanations of the impeachment process that is readily accessible for negatition of this and any admin misleading us in several wrong directions-- but most of all to war unnecessarily. It is necessary to begin impeachment now than in some fictional future when we may no longer have the current constitution that calls for it. For now and for our the future.
Posted by hsuBfools at 07/28/2007 @ 1:54pm
er, machinations
Posted by hsuBfools at 07/28/2007 @ 1:56pm
er, For now and for our future.
Posted by hsuBfools at 07/28/2007 @ 1:58pm
War Made Easy, which exposes the manner in which US presidents manage to sell war, like clockwork, through the same fallacious arguments, largely with the help of a compliant media.
Has anyone here seen this film yet?
If so, does it expose the influences on the media and government that get us into and keep us in these wars?
Posted by Metteyya at 07/28/2007 @ 3:03pm
Posted by B_KOOL_66 07/28/2007 @ 08:42am
...thanks for the laugh!
Posted by elziax at 07/28/2007 @ 3:47pm
I will answer to ZERO that I agree totally. The culture of war is heavily rooted in the country and we need to counteract it with a permanent anti-war movement.
But this kind of movement should be associated with a lot of civic action (example Peace Corps, international aid, within the nation aid, for example a group helping in Katrina could have been such a success, etc) to help it not be chastised as anti-patriotic.
A well planned, pro-active permanent peace movement is long overdue.
Posted by Frank42 at 07/28/2007 @ 9:44pm
A bunch of Islamists marching down main street USA shooting infidels, outlawing music, throwing women into burkas and shutting down free speech and I imagine you and WillC will be ready to kick some ass with firearms.
Posted by FREIHEIT 07/28/2007 @ 11:18pm3.
(A bunch of Islamists) ARE COMING....
2.TO KILL US!!!
3.TO DESTROY OUR WAY OF LIFE!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Posted by Will C. at 07/28/2007 @ 11:45pm
the hamster mind doesn't have much depth past shallow
Posted by Will C. at 07/28/2007 @ 11:46pm
Frei,
As you can see, Will would not help out in the situation you described...that is why he is marginalized on the far left as a kook favtion and has to be assumed useless in our nations defense. as is most his ilk...and dismissed out right...
The only ones safe with views...are the guys you mentioned marching down the street...Hitler could have marcherd down his street with no problems...
Posted by john maasch at 07/29/2007 @ 01:42am
I seen this push in the MSM to make the Iraq occupation seem as though it's only a year old ala the surge is not that old... I heard it repeaded on CCN and now in the NY Times. Notice the last sentence in the paragragh:
"Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government, which is frequently criticized for inaction on matters relating to the American intervention, took office in 2006."
Shouldn't it read:
'Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government, which took office in 2006, is frequently criticized for inaction on matters relating to the American intervention.'
Pretty subtle but isn't that the way inconsistent ideas are projected by subtle manipulation. Thus people still believe Saddam bombed the WTC and not OBL... So now people are supposed to start believing the war hasn't been going on THAT long. And listening to Frita and her fellow new cons, impeachment is 'toooo hard' to do, it's ok if it does, but remember 'it's 'toooo hard' to do, it's 'toooo hard' to do....
XXxxxXXXXxxXXXXXxxxXXXxx
The New York Time/Middle East
As U.S. Rebuilds, Iraq Won't Act on Finished Work
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: July 28, 2007
The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal oversight agency, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq's national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million. Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government, which is frequently criticized for inaction on matters relating to the American intervention, took office in 2006.
(And the rest of the story. er, last few paragraphs. Bold mine.)
The report says that of the 2,797 projects declared completed, besides the 435 projects formally accepted by Iraq's central government, 1,141 have been transferred to local Iraqi authorities. American government entities in charge of those projects include the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the American-led multinational forces in Iraq, the United States Embassy and the United States Agency for International Development. In letters attached to Mr. Bowen's report, several of those entities largely concurred with many of Mr. Bowen's findings and said that new agreements were being hammered out with the Iraqi government to smooth the transfers.
A spokesman for the development agency, David Snider, said in a statement that work now being undertaken by the agency "helps address the concerns" raised in the report. Mr. Snider said that the agency was seeking to formalize an agreement with the Iraqi government that would protect the American investment there.
The agency "usually secures these commitments from recipient governments before the initiation of a project," Mr. Snider said. But in the case of Iraq, he said, the American rebuilding effort "began before the current Iraqi government was established."
(Can one say 'assbackwards', but then didn't we just start doing this like just last year... yeah right.)
http://tinyurl.com/yuo5zo
Posted by hsuBfools at 07/29/2007 @ 08:47am
As you can see, Will would not help out in the situation you described...that is why he is marginalized on the far left as a kook favtion and has to be assumed useless in our nations defense. as is most his ilk...and dismissed out right...
Posted by JOHN MAASCH 07/29/2007 @ 01:42am
My apologies if I don't pee the bed during your nightmare. But then you have all of hamsterland for that maasch.
Posted by Will C. at 07/29/2007 @ 11:50am
Hey Will! How 'bout this?
(GLOBAL WARMING) IS COMING....
2.TO KILL US!!!
3.TO DESTROY OUR WAY OF LIFE!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
:-)
Posted by FREIHEIT 07/29/2007 @ 02:57am
Ok how about that. Who are we going to war with?
Posted by Will C. at 07/29/2007 @ 11:51am
the hamster mind doesn't have much depth past shallow
Posted by Will C. at 07/29/2007 @ 11:51am
"My apologies if I don't pee the bed during your nightmare."
Posted by WILL C. 07/29/2007 @ 11:50am
Hah!
(I am stealing that.)
Posted by drhammer at 07/30/2007 @ 08:52am
From Wikipedia, circa 2057:
Inspired by the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War, Middlemen is a name given to teams of brokers and sales representatives, who vowed to be ready for bloviating battle at short notice. These teams constituted about a fourth of the entire militia, and generally were the older and more opinionated, serving part of network for early verbal response to any threat. Despite being considered expendable by most of the citizenry, the Middlemen nonetheless employed several very effective tactics, incapacitating invading forces with foul gaseous excretions, and riding through towns on their small carts wielding clubs and screaming their frightening war-whoop, "Get a job!".
Posted by drhammer at 07/30/2007 @ 09:22am
Posted by DRHAMMER 07/30/2007 @ 09:22am
They also paid the bills for everyone else, until they were taxed into poverty, when they simply picked up and move somewhere else..those remaining,..starved and surrendered...in the middle of un cut wheat fields...
Posted by john maasch at 07/30/2007 @ 11:00pm
The culture of war is heavily rooted in humanity, Frank. War is not an American characteristic. And war is sometimes necessary. Slavery, nazism, aggression, oppression have all been stopped before using warfare as a tool.
Freiheit, I agree with some of your assertions, not all of them of course, and it is good to have debate.
War is heavily rooted in the majority of humanity. Yes, but not. It happens that a nation will always want to dominate another, or want some thing that the other has, and will be tempted to do war, as one may be tempted to take a neighbor's car...but there are consequences to that actions. And for nations is the cost of the war, the disuasive force the other country may have.
It is my assertion that history teaches us that high powers, or for that matter super-powers' grade of temptation to do war is so much higher when they correlate their own force with that of the possible contender (victim??). From the Babilonians, to the Romans, to the turbulent Middle Ages, to England and its effort to keep a worldwide empire, to Germany's nationalism - "superior feelings", it was always about cold calculations when to smash and apparently inferior antagonist.
If we look at the history of US wars from the 2nd.World War to present, every next war is so much less justifiable than the prior one clearly showing a loss of legitimacy. World War II was totally justifiable, then came Corea that could have been handled differently, then Vietnam totally mishandled and very much questionable until our present state where the Neo Cons have come up with concepts such as "preemptive war".( A concept totally extraneous to our Founding Fathers philosophy.} We conclude that not only is very easy now to engage in a war, but that the legitimacy of it is quite dubious.
Wars also have been sold to the public very easily initially by the political-military complex. Appealing to a misled nationalism and to a distorted evaluation of the real costs of the war, the public has supported them. Afterwards, when the real causes are known and the real costs are shown, opposition has been the golden rule.
We are in Irak because we wanted to topple Saddam for his weapons and what he did to his people. If that were a legitimate justification, then we should had toppled Stalin and Mao for their crimes against their own people and their weapons of mass destruction. But alas, the USSR and China had such disuasive force that the cost of engaging for the USA was totally prohibitive. We conclude then, that a war is a cold calculation of what we gain and the cost of gaining it, and it is not about principles.
I agree 101% with you that a war may be legitimate, especially if it is for strict defense purposes, first and foremost our homeland security. A state of affairs where extremist Muslims would do what they want in any of our cities is a total invention of Reps to scare us, because if US intelligence comes to be just passing with grade "C", that should never be the case. In fact, terrorists should be pursued with 99% intelligence, and 1% "force brute", our President has selected the inverse mathematical relationship.
We conclude therefore that the US should resist the temptation of using its super-power might to engage easily on any war. We have several problems in Irak, we have not even decided a fairly reasonable conclusion or course of action. We have this tremendous national dilemma, and now several interested journalists (as maybe some politicians) are already talking about spanking Iran with some bombing. Do you realize that even with all our loss of lives, still there is such great temptation because (remeber our "shock and awe"??) we feel so immensely superior with our weaponry that we cannot resist but to do it instead of doing diplomacy and economic pressure with the international community.
We must restrain the USA from becoming a "de facto" empire with its military interventions and therefore political pressure all over the world. Wars should be avoided almost always because in the final balance they bring so much more bad than good. We would want on the contrary that the opinion of the world about our country be totally positive by it being a strong but very humane leader in the world that lets every country have a voice and personality. Because errors that end human lives can not be corrected ever.
Posted by Frank42 at 07/31/2007 @ 12:13am