John Berger, 1991:
".. a scenario of lies can be written for the media which will then transmit it, with excitement, commentary, analysis, etc., as if it were the truth."
True, but at least some are listening. (Yes, I know its been linked to a hundred places elsewhere. Note incidentally, that rhetorical 'logic of accumulation' which we find many other places in American literature - Whitman and Dylan, for example -
I saw a new born baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with hammers-a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.
And speaking of broken tongues, a word on Iraq. It is not that one wishes to 'deny the people of Iraq' their day of democracy (oh, the choral security of such formulas). It is sufficient to note that the celebration of this day is readily available everywhere, that echoing what is readily available everywhere and rounding on those who do not echo what is everywhere readily available is hardly very interesting or challenging. Also, that there are substantial reasons for not merely joining the chorus, unless of course you work for the mainstream press and are renumerated for this spontaneous assent, and - because you are so renumerated -have installed a firewall against any residual scepticism. So, this questioning would concern the following: 1. Given that our access to these elections is mediated through reporters and journalists, what are the conditions under which these people are working. What are their conditions of access to the electoral process. 2. Given that we are dealing with an invading and occupying power, what is the history of elections managed by occupying powers and does this history shed any light here? 3. Given that it has by no means been proved that the occupying power's chief motive for occupation was the restoration of democracy, how might the elections figure in the occuping power's other plans? And so on..
A certain critical distance regarding the actions of the extremely powerful, a scepticism regarding the readily available representation of events of which we have no direct knowledge. Outrageous proposals perhaps. The blogger known as Lenin has links to a few who have dared entertain questions, as well as a few of his own.