Arthur Silber: Monsters in Our Midst

MONSTERS IN OUR MIDST: DESTROYING THE WORLD FOR YOUR OWN GOOD — AUGUST 6, 1945

August 6th, 2005

Because I have written about these psychological and cultural dynamics at great length, I had thought my capacity for numbed astonishment was close to exhausted. I was wrong.

A few months ago, I noted the conclusion of an Ivan Eland column. After his discussion of how the Downing Street Memo story and its many implications had largely escaped scrutiny by the American media, Eland wrote:

The British memo is only one of many pieces of evidence pointing to deliberate threat inflation by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq War. Deep down, the American public knows that President Bush and his minions were deceitful about the need for the invasion, but they don’t seem to hold him responsible. ...

Less a shaper of public opinion in a market economy with many sources of news, media coverage largely reflects what people want to see, hear and read. People choose media outlets based on their preconceived notions. And they want to see, hear and read about what the imperial president and his celebrity advisors, such as Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are saying and doing. The U.S. presidency has become so powerful compared to what the nation’s founders had intended that the public has come to expect that the chief executive and his entourage will lie to us for our own good—even on issues as vital to the republic as war and peace.