Terrorism, television and the
rage for vengeance
By Norman Solomon
We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering
in the aftermath of terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all
too real: terrible anguish and sorrow. At the same time, we’re
witnessing an onslaught of media deception. “The greatest triumphs
of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by
refraining from doing,” Aldous Huxley observed long ago. “Great
is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence
about truth.”
Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the media coverage of recent
days. For policy-makers in Washington, the practical utility of that
silence is enormous. In response to the mass murder committed by hijackers,
the righteousness of US military action is clear — as long as double
standards go unmentioned.
While rescue crews braved intense smoke and grisly rubble, ABC News
analyst Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in perspective for
millions of TV viewers. Cannistraro is a former high-ranking official
of the Central Intelligence Agency who was in charge of the CIA’s
work with the contras in Nicaragua during the early 1980s. After moving
to the National Security Council in 1984, he became a supervisor of
covert aid to Afghan guerrillas.
In other words, Cannistraro has a long history of assisting terrorists
— first, contra soldiers who routinely killed Nicaraguan civilians;
then, mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan ... like Osama bin Laden.
How can a longtime associate of terrorists now be credibly denouncing
“terrorism”? It’s easy. All that’s required is for
media coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone that has no
use for any facets of reality that are not presently convenient to acknowledge.
In his book 1984, George Orwell described the mental dynamics: “The
process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient
precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with
it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies
while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become
inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it
back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence
of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality
which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.” Secretary
of State Colin Powell denounced “people who feel that with the
destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow
achieve a political purpose.” He was describing the terrorists
who had struck his country hours earlier. But Powell was also aptly
describing a long line of top officials in Washington.
It would be very unusual to hear a comment about that sort of hypocrisy
on any major TV network in the United States. Yet surely US policy-makers
have believed that they could “achieve a political purpose”
— with “the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people”
— when launching missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade.
Nor are key national media outlets now doing much to shed light on American
assaults that were touted as anti-terrorist “retaliation”
— such as the firing of 13 cruise missiles, one day in August 1998,
at the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That attack,
depriving an impoverished country of desperately needed medical drugs,
was an atrocity committed, in the words of political analyst Noam Chomsky,
“with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies
and probably killing tens of thousands of people.”
No one knows the exact number of lives lost due to the severe disruption
of Sudan’s meager drug supply, Chomsky adds, “because the
US blocked an inquiry at the United Nations and no one cares to pursue
it.” Media scrutiny of atrocities committed by the US government
is rare. Only some cruelties merit the spotlight. Only some victims
deserve empathy. Only certain crimes against humanity are worth our
tears. “This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil,”
President Bush proclaimed. The media reactions to such rhetoric have
been overwhelmingly favorable. But the heart-wrenching voices now on
the USA’s airwaves are no less or more important than voices that
we have never heard. Today, the victims of terrorism in America deserve
our deep compassion. So do the faraway victims of America — human
beings whose humanity has gone unrecognized by US media.
Underlying that lack of recognition is a nationalistic arrogance shared
by press and state. Few eyebrows went up when Time magazine declared
in its Sept. 10 edition: “The US is at one of those fortunate —
and rare — moments in history when it can shape the world.”
That attitude can only bring us a succession of disasters.
Source: FAIR (Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting)
Sherman Austin of raisethefist.com
sentenced to one year in federal prison
By R.
Aug. 5— Sherman Austin, webmaster of raisethefist.com,
was sentenced today, Aug. 4, 2003, to one year in federal prison, with
three years of probation. Judge Wilson shocked the courtroom when he
went against the recommendation of not only the prosecution, but the
FBI and the Justice Department, who had asked that Austin be sentenced
to four months in prison and four months in a half-way house, with three
years of probation.
Austin’s probation stipulates, among other things, that (1) he
cannot possess or access a computer of any kind without prior approval
of his probation officer, (2) if his probation officer gives permission,
the equipment is subject to monitoring and is subject to search and
seizure at any time, without notice, (3) he cannot alter any of the
software or hardware on any computer he uses, (4) he must surrender
his phone, DSL, electric, and satellite bills, (5) he cannot associate
with any person or group that seeks to change the government in any
way (be that environmental, social justice, political, economic, etc.),
and (6) he must pay over $2,000 in fines and restitution. Austin must
surrender himself to the Federal Bureau of Prisons by Sept. 3, 2003.
Austin writes of his experience:
On Jan. 24, 2002, my home was surrounded and raided by approximately
25 heavily armed FBI and Secret Service agents in one of the governments
first attempts to exercise the new US Patriot Act. I was interrogated
for several hours while they ransacked my room and they seized a network
of computers which I used to run my web site raisethefist.com. They
also seized protest signs, and political literature. Their excuse was
a protest guide (which I didn’t author) that was posted to my site
in which a small portion contained information on explosives. The FBI
had been monitoring the site long before this was ever posted, and long
before Sept 11. The “explosives information” on my site (again,
which I didn’t author) doesn’t compare to what you can find
on other web sites such as howthingswork.com, Loompanics.com, Bombshock.com,
Totse.com, Amazon.com, or the many neo nazi web sites which cover everything
from assassinations, explosives, fraud and firearms. It’s obvious
a web surfer interested in making a bomb or taking part in other extra-illegal
activities would not have to rely on raisethefist.com. So how could
the “bomb making information” on raisethefist.com be a concern
to authorities? It wasn’t a concern, it was simply used as an excuse
to exercise the new Patriot Act and take down the site. And that’s
what they did when federal agents spent five or six hours interrogating
me while they disassembled each computer one by one , mirrored each
hard drive, then loaded everything into a big white truck. During this
whole process I was told I wasn’t going to be arrested, and that
I could even leave if I wanted to. Once the agents finished packing
everything up, Special Agent John I. Pi, who was conducting the investigation
and raid said that I had crossed a line, and as long as I got back on
the other side of that line I’d be okay.
A week later, despite what happened, I still continued with my plans
to attend the demonstration against the World Economic Forum in NY.
As I was waiting for the march to begin, a swarm of NYPD officers rushed
straight at me and scooped up about 26 people, one of which was me.
[...]I was [at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Jail] for about 30 hours before
I was taken out of my cell and put into a backroom in handcuffs and
interrogated once again by the FBI and Secret Service for several hours.
They asked me questions such as if I was a terrorist or involved in
any terrorist organizations. During the interrogation I noticed more
and more agents walking through the room. I was told I wouldn’t
leave custody unless they searched my car. I said I had nothing to hide
and simply wanted to go home. Stressed and aggravated, I signed over
my keys. A few minutes later I was driven to the court and released.
As I was waiting for someone to pick me up, about five FBI agents entered
the court and said I was arrested for “distribution of information
related to explosives over the internet.” One of the agents grabbed
my neck and told me to shut the fuck up while I tried to tell one of
the legal observers I was being arrested. I was hurried out of the court
house into a black SUV where I was driven to a federal building. I was
then taken to lower Manhattan MCC maximum security 24-hour lockdown
federal jail facility.
At my bail hearing the FBI called me a “man on a mission”
and said I drove 3,000 miles to carry out my alleged “plot.”
The judge said I was a “threat to the community” and denied
me bail, and I was to be extradited back to California to face my charges.
After 11 days I was shackled and taken to an airforce base where federal
inmates are boarded onto planes surrounded by guards with M16s and shotguns,
like prisoners of war, and flown to a federal jail “hub” in
Oklahoma. Once I got there, I learned the next day that the prosecutors
decided not to file an indictment. I was released after spending 13
days in custody.
When I got back to Los Angeles, I put raisethefist.com back up almost
immediately. I continued my political organizing within the community,
as well as my work with Raise the Fist which developed into a Direct
Action Network with chapters set up around the world.
Six months later, prosecutors contacted my lawyer and said they found
nothing to prosecute me for on my computers, but didn’t want to
“let me off the hook.” They offered me a pre-indictment binding
plea agreement which was initially one month in jail, and five months
in a “community corrections facility.” I rejected the plea
at first, wanting to go to trial, until we discovered the case was eligible
for a terrorism enhancement, which could have added 20 years to my sentence.
I therefore decided to enter a plea. I played months of legal limbo
until I finally expected to get sentenced to four months in jail and
four months in a community corrections facility based on the final pre-sentencing
report written by the USPO. The judge rejected the four months, saying
what kind of an example would it set for “future revolutionaries”
wanting to act in the same manner. He stated he wanted to give me at
least 8-10 months but first wanted the opinion of the Justice Department
and the Director of the FBI in Washington, DC (Robert Mueller). My sentencing
was rescheduled several times until Aug. 4. I was convicted for felony
distribution of information related to explosives with intent, and sentenced
to one year in federal prison with three years supervised release.
Distribution of information related to explosives is not illegal. What’s
illegal is the INTENT part. They have to prove you have intent to use
the information to cause the further crime of violence ... and how do
they prove intent? I think Bush made it clear when he said “you’re
either with me or against me.”
Remember, fascism and a police state doesn’t come all at once,
it comes piece by piece.
How far will we allow it to go? Until we are all locked up in concentration
camps?
If we don’t take matters into our own hands and do something about
this now, then we are already prisoners of war.
Raisethefist.com is not shutting down, and the RTF Direct Action Network
will continue to grow and remain active. A one-year sentence is not
the end of this. It’s just the beginning.
Source: Los Angeles Indymedia
Media Watch Brief
Pentagon moves to contain US troop complaints
After several troops made some highly publicized negative comments to
the media about the war effort in Iraq, the Pentagon has taken steps
to keep the frustrations of both soldiers and their families out of
reports, PR Week reports. “According to a story in the July 25
edition of Stars and Stripes, the military appears to be curtailing
its much-touted embedded-journalist program, which has allowed reporters
almost unfettered access to military units throughout the war and occupation.
The 3rd Infantry Division, from where many complaints have arisen, has
expelled many of its embedded reporters, and its troops are no longer
allowed to talk to the media outside of pre-approved news features.
Soldiers’ families are also being advised not to complain to the
media, according to news reports,” PR Week wrote. (PR
Week)
