The Daily Grasshopper

The title I chose for my last essay ("Is It Fascism Yet?") actually came from a handmade sign I saw at the February 15 antiwar demonstration in New York City. Longtime readers know that the 'F' word doesn't crop up that often in my writing. I respect language, and try not to debase the power of words by abusing them - especially words with strong connotations, like 'fascism.' In fact, I think there have only been one or two mentions to date, such as when I noted that Paul Krugman of the New York Times almost used the 'F' word in a column of his, but pulled back. However, it's important for us to understand the potential that exists in the world right now for a shift toward fascism, not just here in the U.S., but in other countries as well.

An interesting study of the hallmarks of fascist regimes was recently done by author Laurence W. Britt and was published in "Free Inquiry" magazine. You can read the entire article here (it's short):

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

Of the fourteen characteristics that Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Papadopoulos's Greece, Pinochet's Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia have in common, I've tended to focus in these essays on "a controlled mass media." Britt explains it this way:

"Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes' excesses."

(As for Britt's eighth characteristic, "Religion and ruling elite tied together," you may want to take a peek at the website for the "National Day of Prayer" that I told you about last week. The artwork that ran on the full page ad in the Globe - with General Washington praying opposite an anonymous U.S. soldier in desert camouflage - is featured prominently on the homepage at http://www.nationaldayofprayer.net. I have not been able to find out which organizations are bankrolling the cost of the newspaper ads, which, if they ran all over the country, would be many millions of dollars. But a story that ran last month in Harper's Magazine, "Jesus Plus Nothing," provides some intriguing clues as to who might be behind the ads. You should read that article, too, if you have time, to get a sense of how closely the "ruling elite" and "religion" are tied together in our country. It's online here:

http://www.harpers.org/online/jesus_plus_nothing/?pg=1

If you're really curious, there's a good follow-up interview with the article's author here:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/counter_intelligence/doc1760.html)

To better understand the "subtle power" that is used to "ensure media orthodoxy" in the U.S., where "strict direct control" hasn't yet been achieved, you should read this recent interview with scholar and media critic Edward Herman, "Propaganda in the 'Free Press'":

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=36&ItemID=3563

In the interview, Herman describes five "filters" that are applied to mainstream media reporting in the U.S., in order to keep out information on the "regime's excesses." You should make yourself aware of all of them, but the one we will concern ourselves with is the third one, which Herman calls "sourcing," and describes this way:

"The media needs sources of news. The big media want sources that will supply them with news on a daily basis that's credible, reliable and doesn't cost too much. Where do you get that kind of news? You get it at the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, or you get it at the local city mayor's office, the police department, or the General Motors Corporation. These are the prime decision makers who make news."

A good example of the "sourcing" filter popped up in yesterday's Boston Globe. On the front page of the paper, there was an article by Globe "correspondent" Bryan Bender entitled "Trained by US, Colombia unit gains." In the opening paragraph, Bender explains that "American military and intelligence officials" are the source of his story. You can read Bender's article here:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/125/nation/Trained_by_US_Colombia_unit_gains+.shtml

It's clear from the first couple of paragraphs that Bender (or his editor) hasn't done adequate research into the situation in Colombia. Here is Bender's description of the actors involved in South America's longest-running civil war: "the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials as the FARC; the rightist National Liberation Army, or ELN; and the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces, or AUC."

The ELN, or Ejército de Liberación Nacional, is not a "rightist" group. They came into being in the 1960s, in the wake of student demonstrations that were ruthlessly put down by the military. To give you an idea of how poorly Bender's article was researched and edited, I found this description of the ELN on the U.S. Navy's website after entering the words "ELN" and "Colombia" into a Google search:

"Marxist insurgent group formed in 1965 by urban intellectuals inspired by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Began a dialogue with Colombian officials in 1999 following a campaign of mass kidnappings - each involving at least one US citizen - to demonstrate its strength and continuing viability and force the Pastrana administration to negotiate. Peace talks between Bogota and the ELN, started in 1999, continued sporadically but once again had broken down by year's end."

So we know right away that Bender is not a reliable source of information. The rest of the article provides ample further evidence. As is usually the case with the "liberal" media, it's not that Bender includes outright lies or fabrications. It's that he omits critical pieces of the story, and relies almost entirely on the military and intelligence officials for his facts. Although the article starts by talking about the FARC, the ELN, and the AUC, the entire rest of the story is devoted to the gains that U.S.-trained Colombian forces are making against the leftist FARC. Of course, the source for all this information is the U.S. Southern Command, providing the crucial filter. That, combined with Bender's sloppy reporting, guarantees that no unflattering details about the U.S. government's involvement with Colombia's ongoing human rights catastrophe make it into the Globe article.

Bender doesn't investigate the fact that, despite their involvement in more than 80 percent of Colombia's war-related casualties, the right-wing paramilitary AUC is rarely targeted by the Colombian military. He doesn't investigate the fact that, according to the U.S. State Department and every human rights body in the region and around the world, the Colombian military continues to work closely with the right-wing paramilitaries on behalf of the state and its wealthy patrons, including U.S. corporations. That's one way that "filters" work, and an easy way for Bender, and his editors, to cover up a regime's "excesses," to use Britt's phrase.

Bender writes: "Bush's initiative, supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in new military aid for Colombia, has given new legitimacy to counterinsurgency operations, which were discredited during the Vietnam War and again in the 1980s when Washington provided support to military proxies in Central America."

The reality is that even in a fervently pro-war, majority-Republican Congress, the recent attempt by the administration to salt an additional $105 million for Colombia into its $75 billion Iraq war appropriation passed with a margin of only 4 votes (209-216 in favor, compared with 192-243 a year ago). "Counterinsurgency operations," which consistently target union leaders, university professors, human rights activists, and civilians living in resource-rich areas, have not gained "legitimacy," contrary to what the flacks at Southern Command are whispering to Bender. Even U.S. congressmen are starting to realize what a mess our involvement in Colombia is creating. One can only hope that it won't be too long before "correspondents" for the "liberal" media undergo a similar awakening.

Bender also writes: "The administration has found a willing partner in Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president who took office last year and promptly shelved the previous administration's peace strategy and escalated the war against the rebels."

What Bender fails to write about is Uribe's close, longstanding ties to the right-wing paramilitary movement in Colombia. In fact, Uribe was "governor of Antioquia province in the mid-1990s, when he set up numerous so-called 'Special Vigilance and Private Security Services' or 'CONVIVIR' units. Many Convivir units committed serious abuses and routinely collaborated with -- or were even absorbed by -- Colombia's murderous paramilitary groups," according to Global Exchange (http://www.globalexchange.org/colombia/20020619_169.html).

Bender doesn't tell us anything about Decree 128, which provides impunity to the right-wing paramilitaries, who have been the authors of the most horrific violence in Colombia in the past decade.

Bender makes no mention of the recent State Department report, or UNCHR findings, or annual human rights surveys. He just listens to what the men in uniform at South Command have to say, includes a one-line quote at the end from a Democratic Congressman who disagrees with the Bush administration, and that's the story.

Bender tells us nothing of General Carlos Ospina Ovalle, who was the commander of the Colombia Army's IV Brigade in 1997 and 1998, when his troops were involved in the massacre of civilians in the village of El Aro. The troops worked closely with paramilitary forces responsible for the killings. Despite this fact, General Ospina has been promoted to commander-in-chief of the Colombian Army, with no formal investigation against him ever undertaken (http://www.colombiareport.org/colombia49.htm).

Last year, before Uribe was elected, I met and interviewed the president of the food and beverage workers union in Colombia, SINALTRAINAL. His name is Luis Javier Correa Suarez, and he told me "[Uribe] is going to apply the all-out war formula. If he wins the election, the very few chances the country has for a democratic future will be unreachable." He said Uribe was going to return fascism to South America, with the help of military aid provided by the U.S. under "Plan Colombia."

One last thing - President Uribe was in Washington, D.C. last week, on Friday, asking President Bush to send troops and materiel from Iraq to Colombia. The visit wasn't reported in either the New York Times or the Boston Globe. As most of you know, Colombia is the third-leading recipient of U.S. military aid, and was recently classified by the State Department as having a "poor" human rights record. The filters appearing to be working just fine.

PK
http://www.dailygrasshopper.com