:
: SDF:
: Let's be clear about this -- war propaganda is standard stuff. After all, one of the main reasons nations go to war is to achieve national solidarity within a nation. Neither the Serb media nor the US media can afford to look unpatriotic. If you don't expect war propaganda to accompany wars, you're either too young or you're not paying attention.: bill:
: I assure you I am not too young. The entire thrust of my post was the consideration of the destructive aspects of propaganda - not whether it is something to be expected in times of war. The insidious use of what are essentially lies, as I tried but apparently failed to make clear, is an assault on those traits that make us human - including the power to reason.
SDF: Sure, propaganda is trash. But let me suggest a more basic philosophy -- the "assault on those traits that make us human" is achieved by the assault on the human body, and zillions of those assaults are going on now.
As far as I know, the US media have been putting out a selective version of the truth, not "essentially lies," and it's as if everyone in the elite cadres knows that Clinton is behaving foolishly with this "bombing only" policy of his, but nobody in such cadres wants to appear unpatriotic. Read TIME Magazine's veiled criticisms of the status quo, for instance.
: Therefor I think it particularly important to expose such propaganda wherever possible. One good site is http://www.fair.org/activism/peaceful-solution.html.
: Another source from a Serbian perspective can be found at http://www.srpska mreza.com/ddj/Kosovo/articles/Repo1.html. "...another American PR
: firm, Ruder Finn, working for the Croatian and Bosnian separatists, publicly bragged that it had been able to turn world opinion against the Serbs ."
SDF: Partial perspectives, but useful ones.
:
: SDF:
: I have withheld judgment about this conflict because it's still possible for the US/NATO to do something good; so far, however, they've made a big mess of a big mess, and added a bit to the death toll in the process.
: Bill: And What in the world might that be?
SDF: The US/NATO might invade, and establish a regime based on mutual tolerance, and provide a Marshall Plan for the area. Questions are going to be raised after the Serbs start dying en masse of starvation, which should happen if the bombing continues as expected into the summer. Note that I didn't say it was LIKELY, just that it was POSSIBLE.
: Do you have precedent examples?
SDF: Well, there WAS the Marshall Plan...
: Isn't it obvious by now that the intention is to produce another Iraq (which we continue to bomb at this present moment)?
SDF: No, it isn't obvious, since WE DON'T KNOW THAT YET. Nevertheless there are lots of reason to distrust the US/NATO.
: There were, and are, solutions to the present crises that are NOT military ones. In fact it is difficult for me to come up with examples where the "military option", (initiated by the State) has produced anything but a lot of grief and destruction.
SDF: Yes, I'm clear on the fact that current policy has failed. But Clinton seems to have some interest in selling the Warfare State to liberals, you know, for all that financial support he got from Barbara Streisand etc. back in '92 and such -- after all, this is what he tried to do with the pretense of "humanitarian warfare" in Somalia. Of course, Somalia was the former site of a Soviet ally regime, and has obvious strategic value, as it is true that the energy with which I type this message was made available to me partly with oil and natural gas that had to go through Somalia's Red Sea oceanic corridor. Perhaps Slick Willie will try a harder sell on the warfare thing this time, though I doubt it.
