Highlights and Headlines from “Democracy Now!” ...

* Today's Top DN! Stories (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/1548218):

* The Debunking of Cheney's Lies on “Meet the Press”:
- Justification of Iraq Invasion in First TV Interview in Over Six Months (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/1549258)
- Reassertion that Iraq Tried to Buy Uranium from Niger (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/1555209)
- Denial of Knowledge that, on 9/11,White House Evacuated 24 bin Laden Family Members (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/1559208)
- Attempt to Link '93 WTC Bombing to “Wanted” Iraqi-American (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/163200)
- Reassertion of Already-Debunked Atta-Iraq Connection (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/168251)

* WTO Talks Collapse Amid Rift Between Rich, Poor Nations (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/15/1448225)

* More Racist Dirt on the Wannabe-Governator (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/15/1450243)

* Israel Wants Arafat's Blood; Shimon Peres Accuses Israel of Destroying Hopes for Peace (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/15/1456245)

* Immigrant Detainees Spell Big Profit for Prisons (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/12/1741224)

Entertainment Media Campaign to “Put Women in their Place” Going Nicely, Executives Say

September 15, 2003. In a brief report to stock holders and stake holders in commercial corporate media, industry representatives outlined the process and progress of the campaign to keep women under foot.

“It's a subtle and multi-pronged attack,” explained spokesman Dicksen Power, “but its main thrust is to reduce women to their anatomy. The ultimate goal is to ensure that no American ever mistakes a woman for being an actual person. Y'know, a person with a brain, abilities, needs, desires, or anything reasonable or rational like a man.”

When questioned about the strategies of the campaign, Mr. Power responded: “Let's begin at the most fundamental levels: the entertainment industry's standards. Of course, we men have written all the self-serving standards that keep our precious, dignified penises hidden from view while flaunting breasts and bushes all over movie and television screens. It's no secret that there are just as many male actors out there who would stoop to showing themselves off for publicity or money, but we who write the standards conscientiously protect these media gigolos from themselves. Instead, we enlist the cooperation of female actors who are happy to denigrate themselves for a few peanuts, if even that much, just to be in the limelight. This has the effect of teaching other would-be-uppity females that the only value they have is to show off and jiggle their privates for men to ogle.

“With that mentality in place, it becomes easier to sell people on the idea that a man, no matter how fat, bald, ugly, slovenly, and stupid, is entitled to have Pamela Lee Anderson fawning all over him. And, no matter how fat, bald, ugly, slovenly, and stupid a man is, Pamela Lee Anderson should be grateful to get him and subjugate herself to him in every way in her deserved desperation to keep him—they both know that, while he's a precious individual, she's interchangeable with the rest of the sluts out there. They also both know that, when he gets tired of her, all he has to do is trade her in for a new model. It's all about consumerism—a woman is a consumable, just like a brand of beer or a shiny new sportscar. Men, just pick out and buy what you want—it's yours. It's part of the American dream.

“To round this out, we have taken one of our favorite old keep-uppity-women-down campaigns and added a new twist. Everyone has seen the plethora of feminine itching, tampon, and sanitary napkin commercials that make the American airwaves great, but has the average American noticed just how prevalent those commercials have become? In the olden days of television, we would direct those embarrassing commercials toward the focus buying audience by showing them only when women of menstruating age were likely to watch. Ah, yes, we've joyfully wrecked the mood of many a teenage date in our day! We revel in humiliating each and every one of those sluts—with their complicity, of course. I mean, if women were smart enough to refuse to take part in our feminine product commercials, then our male chauvinist empire could never thrive. Oh, it would survive to some extent ... but could you really imagine MEN making all those wonderful tampon, sanitary napkin, and feminine itch advertisements? But I digress. As part of this campaign, we have expanded: now, we show Tampax and Kotex and other impure-icky-nasty-itchy-menstrual-product ads all day every day, especially when children are likely to watch. We want to get 'em while they're young, you see—teach 'em from the get-go that a woman is nothing more than a vagina ... a vagina that bleeds once a month. Every innocent little girl can look forward to bleeding in her underwear, and every innocent little boy can look forward to feeling superior because he never will bleed in his underwear ... unless he's Cartman from “South Park.” Of course, if society were intended to treat women like people, we could tone down the ads. We could be dignified about it and use the ads to promote which product has a discreet, convenient mail-order service or offers free shipping without making the usual big fuss about how much unrealistic blue liquid you can pour onto this one or absorb with that one. If society were intended to treat women like people, we'd know that women can figure out by word of mouth or experience which products work best for them without rubbing their noses in their anatomy all day every day. If society were intended to treat women like people, then we in all the media would treat women with equal dignity to men—perish the thought. But therein lies the real point of the whole campaign: society does not treat women like people, nor can it afford to. If we treated women like people, then we wouldn't be able to exploit them for our own sensationalist purposes, and we'd have to pay them a lot more than we do now. Can't have that, now, can we?

“But I've digressed again. In short, the campaign to keep women down is going rather well—better than expected, in some ways. For one, nobody in the American viewing public seems to have noticed the rampant manipulation—the types of shows, the types and numbers of commercials—going on around them. The average American seems totally blinded to the subtle-but-sure devolution going on around them. And that is exactly how we in big corporate entertainment and the religious right—and, therefore, the government—intend it. But it will take a while to engineer the shift in the social paradigm—we have a lot of damage to undo from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. The next phase will largely be more of the same of what we're doing now: reintroducing more of the old shows, especially the old black-and-white programs that so lovingly treated women like the brainless empty vessels for men's seed they are. Yes, the American public can expect to see a lot more of the old demeaning shows in the future—and that saves on our expenses, as well. More for us rich white Christian men in the end, and that's just how we like it.”

9/11 – Was It a Success?

September 11, 2003. As America celebrates the second anniversary of the 9/11 attack on New York City and the Penatgon, it is interesting to consider whether the attack were a success—and, if so, for whom.

Was the attack a success for the terrorists?

Yes and no.

Americans will never forget how many innocent civilians died in the attack—where the goal of the attack was to take innocent lives, it surely succeeded. Yet, the attack was also a success for the terrorists in the sense that America was forced to reckon with how it as a nation could be so thoroughly hated in the world. For arguably the first time in their lives, average Americans had to come to terms with how, in blindly serving moneyed corporate interests, the nation's foreign policies had placed innocent civilians directly in harm's way. Those who reacted to the attack with reason rather than rage found themselves standing in front of the entire history of American foreign policy like a Pandora's box: if, in recent years, the government has behaved wrongfully enough toward the Middle East to merit—even slightly—such a vicious attack, then what other crimes has America committed against humanity? No longer seeing their homeland as the knight in shining armor rescuing the world's downtrodden, the nation's thoughtful re-examined other actions taken by the U.S. government in the past and reconsidered their motives. Thus, the attack had the benefit of driving many Americans to reconsider world history and their own part in it. Many of these individuals understood that the cycle of violence continued by the attack would not be broken by the further violence of invading Afghanistan—or, later, Iraq. Thus, the attack spawned a group of new, if unwilling, activists who, upon being jarred awake from the complacency of everyday life, joined the worldwide war against violence and injustice. So, assuming that the ultimate goal of terrorism is to send a message—to educate people, in a grisly sense—and stop further offenses, then the terrorist attack was successful at least in that it garnered a new population of Americans committed to fighting the injustices perpetrated by their government against relatively defenseless populations at home and abroad. The camaraderie created by the attack—the feeling that all Americans were now world citizens and that all world citizens were now New Yorkers—evolved as the mayhem from the attack died down. Americans on the path of peace became more sympathetic and involved with the struggles of their compatriots around the block and around the world: all the downtrodden subpopulations who had been seeking insular justice for themselves began to join together from the nation's grassroots into a common cause to effect peace and justice for the downtrodden everywhere. But does this positive, promising result of the attack count as a success for the terrorists? Only they themselves can say.

From the terrorists' point of view, the attack failed in the sense that, at least temporarily, it brought Americans together. Those Americans who reacted with rage over reason to the attack found themselves addicted to the tragic camaraderie. Many refused to consider the notion that America had ever been at fault over anything in its history—thus, the fanatics who perpetrated the attack spawned a race of fanatics among their intended victims. Does this count as a success for the terrorists? That depends on their goals. If they intended to mount a religious war of fanatic against fanatic, meeting violence with violence, then they may congratulate themselves upon this result of the attack, because many innocent Middle Easterners living in the U.S. have been victimized in the backlash. Innocent Muslim men and women have been discriminated against, ostracized, raped, beaten, brutalized, or disappeared as the nation continues to seek its revenge. Some of the luckier ones have been deported—banished from the country, away from their families who remain here, to foreign lands where they may not speak the language and have no way of supporting themselves or contacting their worried loved ones. Others have been relegated to Guantanamo Bay, where they languish indefinitely ... possibly until the American regime and mindset are changed into something more tolerant. So, if one goal of the terrorists was to create more Muslim martyrs, then they can count the attack a success from that point of view as well.

From the American government's point of view, the attack was a huge success. An illegitimate president reveled in the privilege of standing protected behind a podium, shaking his fist, gnashing his teeth, and spouting fighting words. He threatened to get Osama “dead or alive.”* These words he then backed up with jejune actions, which he then followed up with even more big words. He sent in the military to invade Afghanistan, leaving an already war-torn nation in even more desperate shape. He declared victory, claiming that the Afghani people had been liberated from the Taliban—yet he has since carefully omitted to speak the truth that today's standards of living are even worse for many if not most Afghanis. He then used the 9/11 attack as a convenient excuse for an already-planned invasion of Iraq, which has plunged that once-sovereign nation's population into deplorable conditions of poverty and disease—despite their lands' huge reserves of valuable oil. The same resident of the American White House has also exploited the attack as an excuse to divert billions of taxpayer dollars away from domestic needs and straight into the coffers of his corporate cronies. He has also used the attack as an excuse to foster fascism by outlawing dissent—both inside and outside his political party—and stifling opposition, with the media as a willing and able ally. He has effectively squelched all investigations into corporate wrongdoings committed by himself or his administration; he has shunted all investigations into whether he or his administration could have prevented the attacks; and he has successfully played the EPA—and, with them, all of America—for a fool. For him, so far, the 9/11 attack has been an unmitigated success. Interestingly, however, there has been a feeble backlash even in corporate media—perhaps a few uppity reporters have grown tired of the boy-who-would-be-king's bully tactics? But will it be enough to make America see how he and his administration have manipulated them, played on their fears with unPATRIOTic acts and orange alerts? Will enough average Americans wake up in time to smell the coffee and vote the usurper out of office? Will the increasingly fascist wealthy corporate powers that be—the true if de facto American ruling class—even allow a fair and honest vote, or will they chip in and buy their simian front man back into office to do another four years of damage to the nation and the world? From this point of view, it remains to be seen just how big of a success the 9/11 attack will have been for George W. Bush.

*See James Hatfield's “Fortunate Son” among other sources for exposition on the close relationship between the bin Laden and Bush families.