17 March 2003
I am writing from America on the eve of war. This is a terrible night, the eve of a tragedy, one that we might have predicted as a nation, had we watched carefully enough over one of our greatest treasures, far more valuable than oil or armaments. I am speaking simply of American democracy, including our freedom to think independently and creatively, to reflect seriously on national issues, to engage each other in wide ranging dialogue in an effort to reach the deepest possible truths and understandings about what course of actions we as a nation, as a people should take.
Over the last decade I have seen the state of my country in this regard decline. In one sense the change has been alarmingly rapid but in another sense the degradation of democracy has been slow enough. Like the proverbial frogs who, as they constantly adjust to the raising temperature of water allow themselves to be boiled to death, we have failed to notice the severity of our situation. Even before the Supreme Court, in a decision respected by almost no scholar of jurisprudence, handed over the last presidential election to George W Bush, the press gave him the presidency by constantly repeating (and indeed hammering forth) the mainly concocted idea that Americans were tired of waiting for a decision: that counting the votes was bad for the state of the economy and might lead to unrest; that the contest was mainly a personal affair between two men, a kind of sporting event, rather than a question of serious issues, including respect for due democratic process.
Though spokespeople from the Democratic party were to some degree represented on television, the Republican party and its spokespeople were given preferential treatment on nearly every television venue. Moreover with a frightening consistency, facts were withheld, news stories distorted and reports of voter fraud perpetrated against the African American community that has now been amply proven, censored.
Throughout the Bush presidency, the same pattern has prevailed in the media. Though television commentators and print media reported every subtle detail of President Clintons sexual peccadilloes ad nauseam, Vice President Cheneys connections to Halliburton and the Bush administrations many connections to Enron were reported only briefly and quickly dropped. These serious conflicts of interest and evidences of corruption were, in short, prevented from becoming a major issue in American public discourse.
For several decades American media have failed to represent progressive views. Now even liberal views are rarely represented. During the months that the administration has been preparing for war, almost no airtime on network television has been given to the countless experts, political leaders, religious leaders, scholars, writers, diplomats and economists who have been making reasoned and persuasive arguments against the war. Moreover disinformation of all kinds has become common. Though certain arguments made by the Bush administration, photographs, documents have been revealed in various places in the press to be misinterpretations, forgeries, exaggerations, these exposures have been consistently underplayed or gone unreported on television.
Demonstrations have been so consistently under-reported that the media failure to accurately estimate the numbers of demonstrators or to report protests at all has become the butt of popular street humour. Yet even despite a bias so consistent that it amounts to brainwashing, until very recently the majority of the American people have been against war.
And even now, though 52% of Americans, according to one poll are supposedly now in favour of a war, by contrast, as evidenced by demonstrations, marches, petitions, poetry, art, newspaper advertisements taken out by community organizations, statements by religious organizations, events and meetings of all kinds, the current movement for peace and against this war is one of the strongest and largest movements against any war that has ever existed in this nation.
Yet tonight after Mr Bush announced that in 48 hours he intends to launch an attack against Iraq, an event of world shattering significance, I watched as CNN interviewed a series of politicians and spokesmen without presenting a single spokesperson who is against this attack. The considerable number of Americans who remain strongly against this war have been hence disenfranchised as surely as were so many voters in the last presidential election.
As a writer who loves and values American democracy, I am deeply saddened to write now that just as my government is about to wage what I regard as an immoral war aimed in the main against innocent civilians, just as my government threatens to perpetrate a reckless and foolish act of aggression, one that threatens to escalate violence, taking us all perilously close to a third world war, an act of unprovoked aggression justified in part as a defence of democracy against a dictator, American democracy and freedom are also under assault, not just from the Bush administrations incursions against the Bill of Rights but from the very press whose ultimate responsibility it is to protect American freedom.
As I write this tonight, I find myself wondering if I will be included in a blacklist that, according to a rumour I hope is untrue, the White House is assembling. Though in fact that blacklist already exists. The author of a book about weapons of mass destruction which was both a finalist for a Pulitzer prize and a New York Times notable book, I am just one of countless commentators who have effectively been excluded from television coverage of the issue of war. Though I am filled with dread and grief over the prospect of this war, I feel a certain fear rising in me as I write these words. Will my livelihood be cut off because I am speaking out? To a writer who has lived all her life in a democracy, this is a sickening worry.
Yet not as fearsome in the end as other things that frighten me. Indeed tonight, if courage compels me to speak out now, it is because I find myself trembling with fear for the future of truth in my country, with fear for all I hold dear in America, with fear for all those I love, for all that is fragile and kind and ingenuous and bright in humanity, if not for the future of life itself.
20 March 2003
Today in Northern California as the sun dances in and out of clouds, the moment I arise, I turn on the television and then the radio. I strain to listen through the reports for news of what is actually happening. There are speculations about whether Hussein has died. The gruesome term decapitation is used casually. At some point I hear missiles are being fired at Baghdad. How many? Where? The question that is foremost on my mind is never addressed. Mr Bushs promise that every attempt is being made to spare civilian lives is run over and over as ticker tape under the TV screen. But in interview after interview with military experts, no commentator asks about the apparent contradiction of this claim. How will civilian lives be spared if 3000 missiles rain down on Iraq in 48 hours, as has also been promised? Nor does any commentator ask where the MOAB bomb, with its poison gas and capacity to create a firestorm, will be used. Against whom will it be aimed? Who will die in those fires? None of the reporters ask if depleted uranium is being used either. Nor does any pundit dare question if Mr Bush meant to include protection from toxic radiation in his promise to civilians.
Right now, as I strain to listen for any shreds of truth in the constant stream of reporting over television and radio, I am keenly aware that I am a civilian, aware that, wherever in whatever country I happen to live, as the failure by the media to consider the question of civilian casualties continues, my life too is being made negligible, a pawn of propaganda, invisible.
21 March 2003
Late last night I watched the evening news for reports about demonstrations in San Francisco. A strange catch-22. Peaceful demonstrations are often ignored or under-reported. But any form of violence, to property or people, is sure to get a privileged position. Some demonstrators have taken to pulling newsstands out into the streets to stop traffic, an act which, in any historical account of social change would hardly qualify as serious violence. But this has caught the attention of the media.
The way they report this last night, however, was hardly unbiased. Over and over the message was hammered home that this will cost the city of San Francisco lots of money, in overtime pay for police, in damages to the newsstands, money the reporter claimed, that could be used to feed the homeless. (Though the same station has not made the homeless a central issue of their daily reporting.)
The problem is not with the reporters themselves. Many individual reporters have told me that stories they file about demonstrations are rejected. And when a demonstration is reported only certain approaches to the story are acceptable. The censorship comes from many directions at once.
On 8 March, while I was being arrested for protesting the war by standing in front of the White House, reporters from several newspapers and television stations, including the Washington Post, were denied entrance through the police blockade of the area. A few got through only after Claire Greensfelder, a long time activist, went out beyond the barricade and after arguing the first amendment with police, brought some reporters past their cordon.
I understand the dilemma. So easy to intimidate a writer or journalist. Censorship is rarely stated as such. The implication is that your writing is problematic, that you lack professionalism. The jobs are few. One fears, as well as the blacklist, unemployment or even the loss of press credentials, and the contacts and good relations with officials reporters need.
But where does this lead us? As, increasingly, media reports sound more and more like recycled releases from the White House, where will it end? In this land that claims to be the home of the brave and the free, who are we becoming?