Lions for Lambs: Reflecting on Sixty Years of Lying Our Way into Wars

We saw Lions for Lambs Saturday. I spent most of the time watching the film thinking less about the war in Iraq, and more about the last sixty years of treachery, deceit, and treason by Republicans like Bush.

• If the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was still around, there would be an investigation. In light of the Hollywood Blacklist and what was done to so many writers, directors and producers, Robert Redford must be given credit for telling this story.
• Tom Cruise was despicable as Republican Senator Jasper Irving from Illinois. I wonder how much of that was acting and how much if that was my general distaste for him in recent years.
• As we learned in reading David Maraniss's They Marched Into Sunlight, the story of the soldiers risking their lives is far more compelling than that of those opposing war.
• The weakest of the three story lines was Professor Malley and student Todd Hayes' discussion.
• The film was O.K. but it should have been about Janine Roth (Meryl Streep). That is the compelling story. That was the most relevant in terms of figuring out how we keep getting manipulated and maneuvered into buying the crap the George W. Bush recycled from Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.
• I keep thinking about the trash-talking-right-wing-bobble-heads from Limbaugh on the national level to Belling on the local level who keep feeding us lines like, "Well, the Democrats are as responsible for this war as Bush. They supported it from the beginning." As though the Bush lies that manipulated and deceived are not to be factored into evaluating responsibility for this impossible disaster.

Comments

[Sven]

Paul, you might find this interesting: "Fixing the Meaning of 9/11: Hegemony, Coercion, and the Road to War in Iraq."(PDF)

http://www.polisci.umn.edu/~ronkrebs/Krebs%20&%20Lobasz,%20SS%202007.pdf

[Brian]

The thing about the Janine Roth angle is this: there were media professionals that told the truth and named the names prior to the illegal attack on Iraq. If you read counterpunch or the nation or listened to democracy now or regularly surveyed the lead pieces on commondreams from the period of mid 2002 right up to the attack, it was pretty clear that Saddam was no legitimate threat to anyone. Even newsweek had a bombshell of a story they hid in their periscope section right before the war. Should have been on the cover. They reported how Saddam's nephew had come clean with American and UN officials in 1995 detailing how the entire Iraqi WMD arsenal was completely destroyed and he was believed. That's the key. He was believed. You combine this was Scot Ritter's masterful command of the facts showing that Saddam couldn't have built anything after 95 and you've got a WMD-free bad guy. This was easy to piece together but you needed to be a consumer of independent news.

You don't need the corporate Janine Roths! You've got Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, Greg Palast, Jeremy Scahill, Christian Parenti, Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, James Ridgeway, Naomi Klein, John Nichols, Common Dreams, Mother Jones, The Nation, Air America, etc.

What would be best would be a world in which people would choose to stop cluttering their minds with information from the corporate media/publicity system. It's possible but you'd need a major change in socialization, particularly in schools which teach children literally nothing about media literacy, their time being spent mainly learning facts to remembered only long enough to fill in the appropriate bubbles on tests so newspapers like the Wisconsin State Journal can say there's some accountability.

[Lou Kaye]

I agree with Brian here and really like his view on the part education and media play into shaping and evaluating young minds.

My only addition to this is the "competition" mindset curriculum, not the one necessary to compete in sports or the personal inside gut one must dig out to overcome a crisis, but the "We're No. 1, We're No. 1" in economic growth or "we're the world leaders" while most of the world is in survival mode. This all seems to emanate from the fierce 'win - win' attitude that is taught beginning in simple spelling bees with second graders. One winner - a class full of losers. Unfortunately this evolves into a near gang mentality (the losing part) when it reaches maturity, we can only win as a team and therefore you must conform and think accordingly. Otherwise you're with the terrorists.

[somewhere in the middle]

Lou has some very good points, but the "team mentality" has to be taught in accordance with learning, for eg "the unexamined life is not worth living" (which is what we're saying in these comments).

Basically, kids need to know the difference when it's okay to have a team mentality (football, armed services) and the other times when you should never stop doubting who is speaking.

It's sad how people refuse to change habits and continue to watch the drama of the national news when you can get multiple, in-depth views on current events online - and reflects some individuals personality. Such as: baby boomers were taught to "be a man" and many cry a river when something doesn't go right.

[nonheroicvet]

Yours truly was born in 1945 and as a young lad I very clearly remember the fear that was being promoted by the people cited in your post. As a boy of about ten years old I didn't have a grasp of the issues, I only remember the attitudes adults in my community portrayed was dripping with fear and there were whispered accusations of so and so being a communist. In fact communist was the worst name you could call someone and be prepared for a fight (not an argument either).

I have seen this tactic used time and again by the Republicans, so when it is said they are fear mongering it is true but the stuff today is to be expected and is just a taste of how whacked these birds can be.