A-list message, [A-List] 'When will genocide end?'

...Any bets on whether they'll publish it?

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 2:40 PM

Subject: 'When will genocide end?'

To the editors:

In last Saturday's edition the Spectator ran an editorial bemoaning the seemingly endless procession of 'genocides' that have afflicted (especially) the last hundred years or so of world history. This world-weary sentiment clearly in response to the recently publicized human rights abuses committed in Iraq by American forces. When, it asked, will it all end?

Let me proffer a partial answer by first reminding the Spectator that in the weeks and months following 9/11 the Spec gave vent to such a sustained and grotesque outpouring of American jingoism, martial ardour and patriotic mass hysteria as to (in conjunction with the corporate media continent wide) create the very conditions for the prosecution of not one, but two illegal and immoral wars of aggression. Two lawless wars that have fostered, inevitably, two lawless and brutal occupations.

And yet the media now feign both surprise (as they did following the 'revelation' that Iraq harboured no WMD) and disgust at the results.

It was representative then that the Spec at that time (Sept./01), having published most of my previous article submissions, declined at this 'sensitive' moment to print an essay I submitted critiquing not only the mass hysteria they had created, but which also foreshadowed in almost every particular the likely consequences of the opportunistic 'policies' of Bush & Co. (i.e. the trashing of civil liberties, the attempt to cow and suppress critics of economic 'globalization', the cynical use of 9/11 as a pretext for American military expansionism, the destabilization of world security in a nuclear age etc.).

It is further worthy of note that my friends and family were actually frightened enough given the media-inspired climate of hysteria and fear...not from foreign 'terrorists' mind you, but from state security forces...to warn me against submitting the piece!

As Hermann Goering once said,

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

So when will it all end? Certainly not before the mainstream media, on which the 'people' are supposed to depend for real information, are transformed into institutions capable of delivering, on the fundamental issues of the day, something other than mere state 'manufactured consent' and elitist propaganda.

At the very least, not before that....

Antony Black