The Long Road

04/02/2003 Archived Entry: "Peace: The New Taboo"

If there is one thing that the Bush administration has done better than anything else it’s the manipulation of public opinion.

Whenever something the administration wanted to do was criticized, they turned it around and made it seem as though the critic was looking down on something more pure.
A couple of examples. Criticizing the president was turned into criticizing your own country, or doing disservice to it. At one point, the Democrats (the opposing party) were told that they shouldn’t criticize Dubya because it gave the entire country a ‘negative feeling’ and the president needed their support at a moment like this. The whole point of an opposing party is basically to criticize the current government; different parties exist to have different perspectives.

The most current juxtaposition is that criticizing the war now means that you don’t support your country’s armed forces. Each time someone says that they don’t support the war, they’re bound to be asked something inane like “but how can’t you support your own countrymen?”. Anytime someone is going to criticize the war now they have to preface their statement with some kind of disclaimer to the tune of “I fully support our armed forces but…” lest they be called unpatriotic!

One example I can think of is the Dixie Chicks. One of the chicks made a statement during a concert that went something like “Just so you know, we’re ashamed that George Bush is also from Texas”. Their popularity took a big nose dive after that. People were calling in to radio stations to get Dixie Chick songs off the air, there was also at least one instance where people got together and burned all their Dixie Chick CDs!

Madonna has recently pulled her newest music video because it had a strong anti-war message. She (or her agents) felt that it wasn’t worth risking the public backlash.

One of the more ridiculous things I’ve heard is that Warner Bros. is changing one of their movie posters because the star on the poster is giving the peace sign! They felt that the poster might stir up negative feelings towards the movie or its makers. See the poster, and read the article here.

Now my question is, who is it that falls for these mind games so easily? Does the u.s. public just eat up anything their high-and-holy president says wholesale? Hook, line and sinker. I always just hope that it’s a very loud minority that falls for all this, but somehow I’m pretty sure that the majority of the u.s. populace hang on to each and every last word their president has to say and no one else’s because they’ve been conditioned to think that the office of the president is something that is meant to be highly respected, almost sacred. Why do they not realize that criticizing the government is not equal to being unpatriotic, and criticizing a war is not the same thing as criticizing those who have to fight it?

A new word that has popped into the administration’s lexicon is “regime”. I’ve noticed, especially this week, that whenever an official makes a public address, they always say “regime” at least once when referring to Iraq and Saddam’s reign. They’re trying to make regime synonymous with words like dictatorship. The next time the word “regime” is mentioned with some other country attached, the people of that country should be thinking “uh-oh”.

Replies: 2 comments

Honestly, every time I read something about the war, my mind screams, "BORING!" but I force myself to read it anyway. You know, trying to educate myself and be aware of what's going on around me (apparently this is important to me - who knew?).

In refrence to the burning of Dixie Chicks CDs, I was told to look into it and I found that this record burning was organized by Clearchannel, who has also been found to be behind the promotion of "pro-war" rallies in the US. How "Patriotic" of them.

Matt Good, who also tries to learn as much as h can about things such as this, said this in his journal on March 25th, "So the next time you turn on the radio and wonder why no one’s giving their opinion you’ll know why. It’s because if they do they could lose their job or be reprimanded. And that’s a fantastic way to have to live your life in a society that claims to be the pinnacle of freedom."

Posted by Romer @ 04/02/2003 09:31 PM EST

Whatever happened to Freedom of Speech...isn't that part of the U.S. Constitution? An interesting point to note is that before the War began, the public opinion of the President was low. All of a sudden the war begins and the public opinion rises dramatically. Makes you wonder whose opinions are being considered....

Posted by Jen @ 04/02/2003 10:31 PM EST