Not A 'Silly Season'

From California to the U.N. building in New York City to the sweltering heat of Iraq, the deadlyconsequences of entrenched power are anything but humorous.

Can you remember watching a movie when some calamity is happening on the screen, and laughter ripplesacross the darkened theater? You might wonder why people are chuckling at the grievous misfortunes of others.To comfortable viewers, a disaster can seem quite amusing.

The market is hot for Hollywood extravaganzas that fill screens at multiplexes. The spectacles of high-techweapons and cinematic bloodshed are experienced as just so much viewing pleasure. The unreality, we're told,is just for diversion -- people understand the difference between movie posturing and the real world.

But this summer, news outlets are agog with real-life versions of what could be called "PulpNonfiction."

Of course there are plenty of assurances that people with power, and those ascending to it, have theirheads screwed on right. But the line between make-believe and make-political-hay is so wispy that it has justabout disappeared.

"I don't run around every day with a gun in my hand," Arnold Schwarzenegger has said. "So Iwant kids to understand the difference." Fat chance, when plenty of adults -- including Schwarzenegger --don't seem interested in making the distinction.

In early July, with the Bush administration smoothing the way, the candidate-to-be went to Iraq and recitedlines from movies in front of cheering U.S. soldiers.

Stepping forward to entertain troops in a summer palace that formerly belonged to Iraq's dictator,Schwarzenegger had his opening line ready: "First of all, congratulations for saying 'Hasta la vista,baby' to Saddam Hussein." Not content to start with a phrase from "Terminator 2," the actorclosed with a line from his first Terminator movie: "I'll be back."

True to his word, a few weeks later Schwarzenegger was back -- again conflating movie dialogue with publicdiscourse. After announcing his candidacy for governor of California, he proclaimed: "Say 'hasta lavista,' Gray Davis!"

There's been plenty of media eye-rolling about the California recall, but much of the coverage actuallycontributes to the wacky atmosphere it vaguely decries. Time magazine's 11-page spread on Schwarzeneggerbegins with the headline "All That's Missing Is the Popcorn." Actually, from a media standpoint, allthat's missing is much discussion of the widespread poverty, transportation nightmares, unemployment,deteriorating health care and severe pollution that are integral to daily life in California.

With enough money and firepower behind them, we're led to believe, fantasies can become realities: oncampaign trails, in diplomacy and during military occupation.

After violating the U.N. Charter by invading Iraq, the U.S. government wants the U.N.'s Security Council tobless the occupation and the "governing council" that the occupiers handpicked. This is akin tosomeone murdering all siblings and then demanding special consideration as an only child.

Sure, some post-war difficulties in Iraq have gotten quite a bit of negative press (though U.S. coveragegenerally understates the misery and repression involved). But the American media spin does not acknowledgethe extreme arrogance of current U.S. proposals for U.N. backup of the occupation -- while the White Housewould still call the shots in Iraq.

After proceeding as though military might can solve just about anything, the Bush administration is nowtrying a new tactic. The effort is to involve the United Nations as a kind of air freshener for the stench ofa rotting occupation. In effect the manipulators in Washington want, retroactively, to get a "goodwar-making seal of approval" from the U.N. Security Council. But war, with continual deaths and seriousinjuries, is continuing in the form of escalating resistance and counter-insurgency.

In desperate need of public-relations cover from a U.N. mission in Iraq, the U.S. government is offeringthe United Nations a role of subservience to the conquerors. The message from Washington to the U.N. is: Wehave every right to make this disastrous mess and perpetuate it. And now you have every responsibility tofollow our orders while providing humanitarian assistance -- circumscribed, of course, by our priorities asoccupiers.

But we get little media scrutiny of the fact that U.N. involvement would be largely dictated by a roguesuperpower.

And so it goes: Why focus the media lens on reality when there's so much show-biz puffery to go around?

Courtesy, Znet. Norman Solomon is co-author of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't TellYou.