War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

[951-Riverside]

http://vimeo.com/56524653

Governments lie to justify wars. Newspapers and TV News programs assist governments by forwarding those lies to the American public.

The US Government has gone to war over and over based upon lies. This video focuses upon the deceit used by the government and the news media to sell wars to the American public since the end of WW2.

That includes the Korean War, the war on Vietnam and Cambodia, the embargo/sanction against Cuba, the invasion of Panama, the invasion of Iraq (Desert Storm), the invasion of Serbia, the invasion of Afghanistan, the second invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of government of Libya, U.S. bombing and killing in Pakistan, the U.S. arming and funding of rebels in Syria, the U.S. embargo and sanctions against Iran … to name a few of the more well-known illegal wars waged by the U.S. Government. All of these military operations, as well as the many others not named here, were sold to America by lies and misinformation.

The question is: Why do Americans continue to believe what they are told by their government or their news media?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1015246/

[KurtNYC]

1. Watched parts of this

I think I disagree with a basic implied premise here -- the consent or approval of Americans is needed for wars to be initiated or to continue. That just isn't true. The last 3 major wars have been initiated by Washington and the MSM covers them like they are covering a football game. The choice for Americans is whether to watch or not -- but to be clear: we are spectators. And MSM isn't selling wars so much as pacifying us to something that feels inevitable.

This film focuses pretty narrowly on TV news media and I saw little in it that lays that against poll numbers. The numbers don't move much. It is hard to see much impact from media in this graph:



The biggest bump there is Colin Powell going to the UN. Gallup started asking the question with different criteria and found that shutting the world and the UN out of decision took the approval number below 50%:

If the United States decides not to offer any new resolutions on Iraq and goes forward with military action without a new U.N. vote at all, half of Americans would oppose an invasion of Iraq, while 47% would be in favor.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/7990/Public-Support-Iraq-Invasion-Inches-Upward.aspx

This seems to show that Americans are more influenced by events than by rhetoric and that there was respect for the opinion, consent and participation of the world community in confronting Saddam.

I would note in the current situation, Obama has not gone to the UN for a resolution. It would seem they are not trying as hard to sell the current war as they have in the past, perhaps this is because the public has no input anyway and will likely state much higher approval once troops are committed. The role for the MSM, especially TV, is increasingly limited in part because viewership declines steadily and in part because, after 13 years at war, war is the new normal.

As TV viewership, especially news, declines we see ever lower trust in MSM. Embarrassingly that trust is significantly higher among self-identified Democrats than other segments:



http://www.gallup.com/poll/164459/trust-media-recovers-slightly-time-low.aspx

Unexamined in this documentary is the role of TDS and Colbert in selling wars. Generally perceived as left leaning, both TDS and Colbert use Fox News as the frame for issues. TDS/Colbert have the youngest audience in TV news shows but it isn't all that low at an average viewer age of 58. TDS attracts a left leaning audience and puts RW and military guests in front of them. For example one of the most common guests on TDS is John McCain who has been a guest more than 10 times now. Colbert answered Glen Beck's DC rally with one of his own but Colbert's was totally without any political goal or call to action. So we have this narrow Fox-centric spectrum where the viewers choice is to watch Fox and get angry at everything and everyone, or to watch TDS/Colbert and get angry at Fox, but ultimately opposing viewpoints and ill-fitting facts are unexamined in MSM.