G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
On disbelieving atrocities: The world is divided between screamers and
dreamers
By Alan Bisbort
Created Apr 17 2008 - 1:51pm
This week we officially learned what we already knew: Bush and his posse
authorized torture of terrorist suspects. Last Friday, Bush told ABC News,
"I'm aware our national security team met on this issue, and I approved."
The following people signed off on the torture and, henceforth, can't
pretend otherwise in an effort to airbrush their memoirs: Powell, Rice,
Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Cheney. These people conspired to approve of
behavior that constitutes war crimes under international law.
Sadly, this surprised no one. Americans, in fact, seemed to collectively
shrug. Either we're inured to it or we no longer care what has become of our
country.
Something about this episode was reminiscent of Arthur Koestler's reportage
for the New York Times Sunday magazine in January 1944. Back then, Koestler
was distraught over recent polls that showed 9 out of 10 Americans believed
Nazi atrocity stories were propaganda. "They don't believe in concentration
camps, they don't believe in starved children of Greece, the shot hostages
of France ..."
To disabuse his adopted country's somnolence, Koestler wrote "On
Disbelieving Atrocities" for the Times, clearly chronicling the already
well-documented deaths of 3 million Jews (to that point), the Nazi
concentration camps, forced labor of captured non-Jewish civilians, gas
chambers, firing squads and death trains. Up until then, perhaps - though
this is highly doubtful - most Americans could pretend such things were
propaganda, intended to generate group hostility toward an enemy during
wartime.
Koestler's was not the first account of extermination camps in the U.S.
media. On Nov. 24, 1942, the Allied Command released details to the press
about these camps, even providing names and locations of Belzic, Sobibor and
Treblinka. The next day, the Washington Post buried the story on page 6; its
front page contained a story about local traffic fatalities. The AP sent out
two briefs on the deaths of two million European Jews. The news, in other
words, was out there.
Koestler, in his Times report (later included in The Yogi and the
Commissar), divided the world into the "screamers" and the "dreamers." For
10 years, he had been among the screamers, detailing Nazi atrocities, and
had himself been a victim of Nazi torture. He learned that those not
directly touched were protected by an ability to "walk past laughing and
chatting."
Atrocity propaganda, he surmised, was not nearly as effective as propaganda
produced by dictators playing on nationalistic or ethnic prejudices.
"Clearly," he wrote, "we [screamers] must suffer from some morbid obsession,
whereas the others are healthy and normal." He then knocked this theory
down: "Perhaps it is we, the screamers, who react in a sound and healthy way
to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter
about in a screened phantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the
facts. Were it not so, this war would have been avoided; and those murdered
within sight of your daydreaming eyes would still be alive."
If this could happen with all of the events before and during World War II,
then it is little wonder it has happened under George W. Bush, Mission
Accomplished and Shock and Awe. Indeed, never has this nation been taken to
war under such flimsy pretexts, never have the people so timidly gone along,
never has the press been less skeptical and more eager to bang the war
drums. Now, we are stuck in this atrocity with no end in sight and no one
who wants to come to our aid.
Do we scream or walk past laughing and chatting?
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
dreamers
By Alan Bisbort
Created Apr 17 2008 - 1:51pm
This week we officially learned what we already knew: Bush and his posse
authorized torture of terrorist suspects. Last Friday, Bush told ABC News,
"I'm aware our national security team met on this issue, and I approved."
The following people signed off on the torture and, henceforth, can't
pretend otherwise in an effort to airbrush their memoirs: Powell, Rice,
Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Cheney. These people conspired to approve of
behavior that constitutes war crimes under international law.
Sadly, this surprised no one. Americans, in fact, seemed to collectively
shrug. Either we're inured to it or we no longer care what has become of our
country.
Something about this episode was reminiscent of Arthur Koestler's reportage
for the New York Times Sunday magazine in January 1944. Back then, Koestler
was distraught over recent polls that showed 9 out of 10 Americans believed
Nazi atrocity stories were propaganda. "They don't believe in concentration
camps, they don't believe in starved children of Greece, the shot hostages
of France ..."
To disabuse his adopted country's somnolence, Koestler wrote "On
Disbelieving Atrocities" for the Times, clearly chronicling the already
well-documented deaths of 3 million Jews (to that point), the Nazi
concentration camps, forced labor of captured non-Jewish civilians, gas
chambers, firing squads and death trains. Up until then, perhaps - though
this is highly doubtful - most Americans could pretend such things were
propaganda, intended to generate group hostility toward an enemy during
wartime.
Koestler's was not the first account of extermination camps in the U.S.
media. On Nov. 24, 1942, the Allied Command released details to the press
about these camps, even providing names and locations of Belzic, Sobibor and
Treblinka. The next day, the Washington Post buried the story on page 6; its
front page contained a story about local traffic fatalities. The AP sent out
two briefs on the deaths of two million European Jews. The news, in other
words, was out there.
Koestler, in his Times report (later included in The Yogi and the
Commissar), divided the world into the "screamers" and the "dreamers." For
10 years, he had been among the screamers, detailing Nazi atrocities, and
had himself been a victim of Nazi torture. He learned that those not
directly touched were protected by an ability to "walk past laughing and
chatting."
Atrocity propaganda, he surmised, was not nearly as effective as propaganda
produced by dictators playing on nationalistic or ethnic prejudices.
"Clearly," he wrote, "we [screamers] must suffer from some morbid obsession,
whereas the others are healthy and normal." He then knocked this theory
down: "Perhaps it is we, the screamers, who react in a sound and healthy way
to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter
about in a screened phantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the
facts. Were it not so, this war would have been avoided; and those murdered
within sight of your daydreaming eyes would still be alive."
If this could happen with all of the events before and during World War II,
then it is little wonder it has happened under George W. Bush, Mission
Accomplished and Shock and Awe. Indeed, never has this nation been taken to
war under such flimsy pretexts, never have the people so timidly gone along,
never has the press been less skeptical and more eager to bang the war
drums. Now, we are stuck in this atrocity with no end in sight and no one
who wants to come to our aid.
Do we scream or walk past laughing and chatting?
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
