| Number 235 | December 19, 2003 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, The entire issue this week is based on 128 words uttered by George Bush last month. This may seem a little obsessive, but the big point I’m making here is that it’s not enough to know that someone is lying. We have to understand HOW someone is lying if we want to effectively resist the propaganda. You’ll see what I mean. Next week will be the last Nygaard Notes of 2003, so I’ll try to do some kind of wrap-up, with perhaps a little mindless nostalgia for the bizarre year that we have lived through. I have a couple of new features in mind for 2004, and so many topics that remain unexplored! See, I’m already excited about the next year, which is the best way to deal with mindless nostalgia. See you next week, Nygaard |
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The New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of December 17th, ran a story headlined “U.S. Plans to Offer Official Coverage of Iraq Directly to Viewers,” reporting that the Pentagon has begun making briefings from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq directly available—“sometimes free, sometimes for a fee”—to network affiliates, cable stations and government agencies, bypassing the national news networks entirely. “The primary aim will be to broadcast the message of the top commanders” in Iraq, according to an anonymous “senior administration official,” who added that “"The American people need to hear good news from Iraq to supplement the bad news they get" from the established media outlets.” Among many remarkable comments, I think the following one stands out. It’s from Major Joe Yoswa, “a Pentagon spokesman,” and he’s speaking about the decision to funnel the Pentagon’s good news directly to the U.S. hinterlands:
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The author of the above paragraph, believe it or not, is George W. Bush. He was speaking to the National Endowment for Democracy on November 6th. The quotation is verbatim, and appeared in the 34th paragraph of this major address, as reported in the official transcript of the speech. Let’s have a look at each statement, in turn, with comments from Nygaard: “There are...essential principles common to every successful society, in every culture.” Maybe, maybe not. The important thing here is to realize that this is what the “President” wants us to believe. Or, more accurately, this is what he wants us to believe that he believes. “Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military – so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite.” Nygaard sez: The United States has the largest and most powerful military force in history, with a budget greater than the military budgets of the next 25 countries combined. “Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selectively applying the law to punish political opponents.” Nygaard sez: Let’s listen to the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a report issued last month: “The Government's position—that those imprisoned on Guantanamo Bay are protected by neither the Constitution nor international law—is fundamentally at odds with our commitment to the rule of law.” In addition, U.S. “intelligence” agencies collectively have a budget (called a “black” budget” due to the fact that it is not public information) amounting to tens of billions of dollars a year. These agencies have been used for decades to target and destroy political opponents of the government. “Successful societies allow room for healthy civic institutions—for political parties and labor unions and independent newspapers and broadcast media.” Nygaard sez: Let’s just focus on labor here. There’s a lot to say, but I will simply quote from a 2000 report by Human Rights Watch, entitled “UNFAIR ADVANTAGE: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards:” “In the United States, millions of workers are excluded from coverage by laws to protect rights of organizing, bargaining, and striking. For workers who are covered by such laws, recourse for labor rights violations is often delayed to a point where it ceases to provide redress. When they are applied, remedies are weak and often ineffective. In a system replete with all the appearance of legality and due process, workers' exercise of rights to organize, to bargain, and to strike in the United States has been frustrated by many employers who realize they have little to fear from labor law enforcement through a ponderous, delay-ridden legal system with meager remedial powers.” The Bush administration’s record of attacks on our already-weak system of labor laws is impressive, so long I don’t have room for it here. (I’ll try to publish it soon.) “Successful societies guarantee religious liberty – the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution.” Nygaard sez: As long as they are Christian, that is. According to Baptist Press, a news agency run by the Southern Baptist Convention, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige said this past April that he “would prefer to have a child in a school that has a strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community, where a child is taught to have a strong faith.” Mr. Paige is, of course, an appointee of the Bush administration. “Successful societies privatize their economies, and secure the rights of property.” Nygaard sez: No comment at this time. Let’s just say that this is highly debatable. I will be writing about privatization in the near future in these pages. “[Successful societies] prohibit and punish official corruption and invest in the health and education of their people.” Nygaard sez: Let’s just ignore corruption and health (although there is much to say on those subjects), and focus on education. Let me quote from a study of April of 2001 by the Economic Policy Institute, which looked at the effects of the first Bush administration budget when carried out over a ten-year period. Here are some of the things they found: * Head Start spending would be reduced by over $500 million relative to current services, lowering the number of Head Start slots by nearly 70,000 in 2011. * Title I, Education for the Disadvantaged spending would be about $400 million lower in the Bush budget, eliminating funding for more than 360,000 disadvantaged students. * The Bush budget essentially eliminates the class-size reduction program, consolidating it into a block grant along with teacher quality programs. If the program were continued, it would provide sufficient funding to pay more than 47,000 teachers, effecting smaller classes for over 140,000 children. The effects are strongest in inner-city schools with the poorest students. * The Bush folks proposed lowering spending by over $95 million for the After-school/Summer School Program, reducing extended learning opportunities in safe, drug-free environments for over 125,000 students. * The Bush plan eliminates the school repair program. If the program were continued at current levels, it would provide sufficient funding to repair over 1,600 schools in 2011. According to the General Accounting Office (report number HEHS-95-61, 1995-6), 25,000 schools—or one-third of all schools—need extensive repairs; the total funding needs are $112 billion just to repair existing schools across the nation. * The Bush plan essentially eliminates the technology training for teachers program, consolidating it along with a number of other education technology programs. If the program were continued as a separate program, it would provide sufficient funding to pay for over 225,000 technology training opportunities. * Lower Bush spending of nearly $120 million could reduce by over 480,000 the number of students participating in the GEARUP program, which provides disadvantaged youth early college preparation and awareness activities, including mentoring, tutoring, college visits, and financial aid information. |
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Groucho Marx once posed the question, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” Reading the transcript of a speech last month by the President of the United States, Mr. Marx’s question came to mind. What I mean is.... I said last week, speaking of the use of the Big Lie, that “It’s really about dogma and indoctrination. In the dominant dogma, the United States is Good, therefore what it does is Good. The alternative is not to show that the United States is Bad. The alternative is to provide a different way of understanding the world, one that doesn’t judge acts by looking at who did them, but that judges actors by what they do.” My point in presenting this particular breakdown of this particular part of this particular speech is that I think this set of comments by a major political leader is an almost-textbook illustration of how our political leaders have gone beyond simple lying to engage in sophistry. It’s not a common word, but a sophism, according to my Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, is “a fallacious argument; an argument that is not supported by sound reasoning or in which the inference is not justly deduced from the premises; also, an ingenious statement and arrangement of propositions devised for the purpose of misleading.” I maintain that the paragraph in question (see the beginning of the other article this month for the full quotation) illustrates the sophistry of our Chief Executive for three reasons. 1. Stating Only Dogma, Not Facts. I think it means a lot that the Commander-in-Chief of arguably the most massive military establishment in the history of the world (and certainly in today’s world) gets up and says “Successful societies limit the power of the military...” He’s certainly not inviting people to conclude that the U.S. is not a successful society, right? So he must be inviting people to do something else. And that something else is to remain focused on the mythology of the United States rather than the actual behavior. To say directly that “The United States limits the power of its military,” would be to venture into the realm of factual statement, thus inviting a look at the facts upon which this particular nation—and it’s current leadership—are to be judged. (Even for the sheeplike media that rule the roost in the U.S. such a statement might be a bit hard to swallow.) For the propagandist, direct statement of falsehoods might lead into dangerous territory, so is avoided whenever possible. Stay with dogma and insinuation. 2. The Idealized Father Syndrome. Think of a father who is caught lying by his young child. “Did you lie, Daddy?” asks the child. Knowing that he did, and feeling guilty and afraid of losing the respect of his child, the father responds, “Good people don’t lie, son.” The hope is that the child will perform the simple syllogism: Dad is good. Good people don’t lie. Therefore, Dad didn’t lie. (Actually, in the child’s eyes, Dad could not lie, so whoever says he did must be lying.) His response is, in effect, another lie, without the lie ever actually having to be spoken. When the President of the United States presents official dogma so
boldly—“Successful societies limit the power of the military”—Mr.
Bush is speaking to us as the hypothetical father speaks to his child,
with hopes that the aura of the presidency, like the aura of fatherhood
to a young child, will provoke a similar syllogism: The U.S. is good.
Good countries don’t have enormous militaries. Therefore, the U.S.
does not have an enormous military. (And whoever says our military is
too powerful is lying, or deluded, or anti-American, or SOMETHING!)
The one thing that the propagandist cannot allow is the suggestion that the U.S. is not perfect, as a child might see it, but is instead like any other country—that is, complex, filled with contradictions, imperfect, striving. Because then the acts of our leaders will be judged for what they are, and not be assumed to be Good by definition. More dangerous territory. 3. Truth By Association. Finally, the paragraph I cite is insidious because it places a highly-contested piece of dogma (“Successful societies privatize their economies.”) at the end of a list of widely-shared values (“Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military... Successful societies protect freedom ...Successful societies allow room for healthy...labor unions...Successful societies guarantee religious liberty” etc). The crucial piece missing is that the only value in the list that the Bush administration actually supports in word and deed is the highly-contested one. When it comes to the widely-shared values, the Bush administration has made serious attempts to undermine almost all of them, as I hope I made clear in the other article in this issue of the Notes. So, again, we are expected to make the emotional connection to the “feel-good” values like freedom and liberty, and refrain from looking at the facts. To the propagandist, the idea of citizens considering this country’s relationship to each value separately leads, again, into dangerous territory. As I said last week, the Big Lie as it was articulated by Hitler is fading in importance. Now we are in the age of Deep Propaganda and Little Lies. Little Lies rely on volume and repetition to overwhelm reality, and Deep Propaganda relies on widely-distributed sophistry. The good news is that the U.S. public is getting smarter, too smart for old-fashioned, simple propaganda. The bad news is that the propaganda techniques, in response, are getting more “sophisticated.” Look up the word “sophisticated” in your dictionary, and you’ll see what I mean. |