Saddam is dead and the 3000th US soldier is about to be killed. The US continues it’s global imperialist war. For those who think it’s truly a war on terror I suggest watching this film.
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419806/
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Jim Zackey // Jan 16, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Some media outlets and their pen soldiers have a long tradition of
keeping the spectre of war vivid by stoking fears and harping about
some real but many more imaginary threats. TV channels have a long tradition of popular series about official agencies, from the police and the military to the secret services featured as headstrong mavericks who refuse to play by the rules, they’re still public employees who work for the state. Hence, the viewer can’t help being manipulated into a kind of complicity with the machinery of officialdom, warns Adam Sweeting and asks: “So are TV’s legions of secret operatives, surrogate outriders for official government policy, warning us of the bottomless pit of horrors lurking within the global anti-terror struggle? As surveillance and state intrusion soar to disturbing new levels, are the telly-agents helping to soften us up for further systematic repression of personal freedoms?”
After Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and White House guidelines about what kinds of torture are officially acceptable, many have been struggling with the realization that the use of torture is no longer one of the ways by which you can recognize the bad guys. Not for Fox’s super spy opera star Sutherland’s Jack Bauer and his fellow agents, there’s never any question of civil liberties or other liberal wimpishness taking precedence over the urgency of their mission. For Surnow, there’s no question that torture can be a legitimate counter-terrorism tool. It’s shocking to find this once-deplorable practice embedded in a TV drama, as if it’s routine enough to serve as a mere strand in TV’s entertainment mix. Interestingly, self-appointed media activists such as Cliff Kincaid do not elaborate if their fondness for the serial is also an endorsement of the approaches advocated in pursuit of its objectives?
Mainstream press points at a flawed tendency that is increasingly visible recently. According to New York Times, the U.S. has imposed more restrictions on reporters in Afghanistan than in any previous U.S. war, but Hollywood has carte blanche to make feel-good “reality TV” shows about the adventure as in ‘24′. Maureen Dowd notes that that the Pentagon is teaming with Jerry Bruckheimer, for producing a TV docudrama about the war on terrorism. “I’m outraged about the Hollywoodization of the military,” says Dan Rather. “Somebody’s got to question whether it’s a good idea to limit independent reporting on the battlefield and access of journalists to U.S. military personnel and then conspire with Hollywood.”
Instead of taking notice of how “entertainment is being metamorphosed into propaganda, daydreamers like Kincaid wish to see an episode of ‘24’ where Jack Brauer will take out the real enemies i.e. Television channels like Al-Jazeera English ….players in the global information war whose work, when taken seriously, results in America letting down more of its guard.”