Not that I ever doubted it. This time the world’s smartest blogger looks at our military’s PsyOps — psychological operations, and how they were applied to create illusions to keep us all behind the war, from the toppling of Saddam’s statue to — well, he can say it better than I can.

We have in fact known from even before the outset that the war against Iraq would prominently feature psychological warfare. Most people have assumed that this warfare would be directed against the enemy and the subject citizens. They have not stopped to consider that, by definition, it would also be directed toward the American public as well.

This reality raises a serious concern about the fragility of democracy during wartime. Because under the aegis of a seemingly eternal war, the American government has clearly been involving the public in its psychological combat, and has hijacked the nation’s press in the process. The entire meaning of the Iraq war — and by extension, the “war on terrorism” — is inextricably bound up in the psychological manipulation of the voting public through a relentless barrage of propaganda.

This is why the both the runup to the war and its subsequent mishandling have been so replete with highly symbolic media events — many of them played repeatedly on nightly newscasts — that have proven so hollow at their core, from the declarations of imminent threat from Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, to phony images of Saddam’s statue being torn down, to flyboy antics aboard aircraft carriers, to meaningless “handovers” of power. It also explains why certain important and humanizing symbols of wartime — civilian casualties, the returning flag-draped coffins — have been so notably absent from our views of the war.

The role of the media in this manipulation cannot be overstated. The abdication of the media’s role as an independent watchdog and its whole subsumation as a propaganda organ bodes ill for any democracy, because a well-informed public is vital to its functioning.

Brilliant. And it correlates perfectly with my post yesterday about America’s “gag rule” and the book of that name by Lewis H. Lapham. This is Lapham’s premise in action — not necessarily repression, but manipulation of the media resulting in its failure to hold the government to account. A malleable press is just another tool of the government, exactly what a free press is not supposed to be.

And the never-ending war is an invitation to endless meaningless photo ops and BS to keep us hypnotized, mesmerized, pacified in our contentment that things are going as promised. Never mind that it is a choreographed illusion. And the media know it.

Dave Neiwert (aka Orcinus) never fails to amaze me. You should make it a daily read. Or twice-daily.

I sure hope not, since Cheney’s on his way to becoming a major liability to the ticket, especially when compared to the sunshiny, lovable Edwards. Just imagine 230 million people watching the two of them side by side debating. Which one will make a better impression and win their hearts? (Here’s a hint: If the answer were Cheney, there’s no way the GOP would be flooding the airwaves and the Internet with non-stop attacks on Edwards.)

One well-known Silicon Valley voice contemplates this issue today and tries to determine which ways the political winds are blowing. I like her humor.

Talk of Republicans changing vice presidents in mid-stream is making the rounds. The boys at Unfogged put their version up yesterday. Everybody agrees that Cheney’s failing health is a good excuse. The FogHeads like Condi, not Colin. But even Deb Saunders – who holds down the moderate to conservative corner at the Chron – thinks Cheney oughta go.

It’s more of a problem now that John Edwards really is John Kerry’s running mate. What’s Cheney going to do? Refuse to debate? Stand there and say “Go Fuck Yourself”? every time Edwards says something about Haliburton? Or the CIA? Or those elusive weapons of mass destruction? Or Neocons? Or out-sourcing? [Emphasis added.]

I can’t really see much advantage to bringing Condi on the ticket, especially after she lost so much credibility during the 9/11 hearings, not to mention the build-up to Iraq (remember her “mushroom-cloud” warning?). Now, if Bush could get McCain on the ticket, then we would have a race to savor. McCain doesn’t cut it with the religious right, however, and I’d like to think he would just say no.

No matter who the potential replacement might be, I think we’re going to see the Dump Cheney movement pick up a lot of momentum. He simply scares people, and with damn good reason.

Update: Wow! It looks like influential Republicans are reading my blog.

Please see Stephen Frost’s horrifying post on what coal miners in China are subject to. You may not believe it. And you certainly won’t forget it.

China is a vast mosaic of a country with many, many different sides to it. This is one of its very ugliest sides.

This has been discussed here before, and it’s good to see that Amnesty International is giving it greater play.

China is using the global war on terror to justify repression of its Uighur community who face torture and execution when forcibly returned from neighbouring countries, Amnesty International said.

“China has repackaged its repression of Uighurs as a fight against ‘terrorism,'” Amnesty said in a new report.

“Since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the USA, the Chinese government has been using ‘anti-terrorism’ as a pretext to increase its crackdown on all forms of political or religious dissent in the region.”

The rights watchdog said many Uighurs have fled to neighbouring countries, but growing numbers “were being forcibly returned to China where they face torture and execution”.

Read the whole horrifying article to see just how acute the Uygurs’ plight is; it’s not pretty.

I was lucky to find this slender little book; I’ve been taking it with me everywhere I go, reading and re-reading it in restaurants or while standing in line at the supermarket. Lewis H. Lapham is the editor of Harper’s, a prolific writer and a sort of 21st century Tom Paine. His new book, Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy is his first in 10 years. My guess is that he was so appalled at the course on which America had embarked after 2001 that he simply had no choice — he had to write this book. You can tell with every paragraph, Lapham is a man who is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it any more.

Lapham is a reporter of the old school — brash, skeptical, cynical and not satisfied with political hacks who say, “Trust me.” The sheer energy and passion with which he has infused this short but weighty book is remarkable. With ruthless logic he exposes how the Bush Administration has indoctrinated the nation on a diet of fear and pseudo-patriotism, creating a sheepish, dissent-averse populace the likes of which would have made our Founding Fathers wince.

Lapham is masterful at delivering his points with blunt eloquence. He is obviously exasperated, furious, and he can’t quite fathom what he is seeing. I take that back; he can fathom it, and that’s why he’s so upset. He is witnessing, live and in color, a nation that is giving up its critical faculties and acquiescing to its leaders’ demands to surrender its freedoms in the name of a “war on terror,” a war on a noun that no one can even define.

An example of Latham’s pithy wisdom:

“President Bush likes to tell his military and civilian audiences that, as Americans, ‘we refuse to live in fear,’ and of all lies told by the government’s faith healers and gun salesmen, I know of none so cowardly. Where else does the Bush administration ask the American people to live except in fear? On what grounds does it justify its destruction of the nation’s civil liberties? Ever since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, no week has passed in which th government had failed to issue warnings of a sequel. Sometimes it’s the director of the FBI, sometimes the attorney general or an unnamed source in the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security, but always it’s the same message: Suspect your neighbor and watch the sky, buy duct tape, avoid the Washington Monument, hide the children. Let too many citizens begin to ask impertinent questions about the shambles of the federal budget or the disappearance of a forest in Montana, and the government sends another law-enforcement officer to a microphone with a story about a missing tube of plutonium or a newly discovered nerve gas.”

My favorite part of the book is Lapham’s description of how journalism in America changed over the past 45 years. He traces the beginnings of our “new journalism” back to President Kennedy, when journalists ascended their traditional role of cynical observers to become celebrities, and even to participate in government. As we all know, many attain rock-star status, and the TV talking heads can earn as much money in a single day on the lecture circuit as many of us make in a year. Lapham’s not happy about this — and if you read the book, you won’t be either. (How can you be a good journalist when you are so beholden to corporate interests? Answer: You can’t.)

Gag Rule is a jewel, and I am delighted I found it. While it’s certainly a polemic, it’s also a page-turner. Lapham’s style has a bite to it, but it’s always engaging and often downright poetic. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. A sublime antidote to Fox News.

From George Orwell’s 1984:

“In accordance with the principles of double-think it does not matter if the war is not real. For when it is, victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, but it is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance, this new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

These are also the closing lines of Fahrenheit 9/11, read aloud by Michael Moore.

Only a couple of posts so far, but definitely looks promising!

Things have gotten better — but not much. Victims are still stigmatized, even by the medical community, which treats them almost as if they were SARS patients. After a flurry of good news this year about Bill Clinton and Dr. David Ho helping to stimulate awareness, this article is a grim reminder of just how uphill China’s battle against AIDS really is.

An outrage, I tell you! Blatant, shameless duplicity and deceit. Rep. Henry Waxman in today’s WaPo:

Republican leaders in Congress have refused to investigate who exposed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged the administration’s claims that Iraq sought nuclear weapons. They have held virtually no public hearings on the hundreds of misleading claims made by administration officials about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.

They have failed to probe allegations that administration officials misled Congress about the costs of the Medicare prescription drug bill. And they have ignored the ethical lapses of administration officials, such as the senior Medicare official who negotiated future employment representing drug companies while drafting the prescription drug bill.

The House is even refusing to investigate the horrific Iraq prison abuses. One Republican chairman argued, “America’s reputation has been dealt a serious blow around the world by the actions of a select few. The last thing our nation needs now is for others to enflame this hatred by providing fodder and sound bites for our enemies.”

Compare the following: Republicans in the House took more than 140 hours of testimony to investigate whether the Clinton White House misused its holiday card database but less than five hours of testimony regarding how the Bush administration treated Iraqi detainees.

Of course, my Republican friends will find a way to justify this. But we all know something’s simply wrong with the US government as it now stands, and that there’s got to be a change. A fundamental overhaul. A major recalibration.

Via Tapped.

That sure didn’t take long. Kerry named Edwards as his running mate a few hours ago and entire new websites dedicated to slandering the guy are up and running.

You have to check this site yourself — it was obviously all set up in advance. They are slick, and they are mean. A mean, mean slime machine.

Politics is a dirty, ugly business. But how come those awful libruls play so much nicer than their conservative brethren? Whatever happened to Bush Sr.’s vision of “a kinder, gentler nation” and “a thousand points of light”? Do they think they look better going into instant smear mode, when they had the opportunity to congratulate Edwards and appear just a bit gracious, if only for a few seconds?

But no, we’ll have none of that in this election, at least not on the Republican side. It’s kill or be killed, a vicious, no-holds-barrred fight to the bloody finish, in which any trace of sportsmanship or geniality may be misconstrued as a sign of weakness. So go straight for the jugular.

It’s going to be a long 4 months. But now that Kerry has shown he can make the right decision, I’m more energized and optimistic than ever. Smear away, Karl and Karen — it says a lot more about you than it does Kerry or Edwards.