:: groupthink ::

:: Sunday, March 30, 2003 ::

Hari, glad you're in the middle of the Chomsky Reader. I first started reading him before Latha and I ventured into East Timor in 2000 while working for MSF. He had single-handedly kept the issue of Indonesian atrocities alive in the Western press for fifteen years, and I was startled to see how right he had been. There is a good profile of him (by Larissa McFarquhar) in the current issue of the New Yorker.
:: Sukumar 11:12 PM [+] ::
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worthy of attention: Christopher Dickey, NEWSWEEK's Middle East regional editor - just caught him on CNN the other night, the consultation was a breath of fresh air, he didn't sugar-coat his answers...Dickey may not be correct about everything (is anyone?), but what i appreciate is that he doesn't shy away from challenging the prevalent viewpoint(s) that our media has donned. here are some of his perspectives: http://www.msnbc.com/m/nw/talk/archive.asp?lt=031203_dickey
:: anjali 9:41 PM [+] ::
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i can't help but remember that first night, -the night when the two leaders made their pitches to their masses- being struck by something one of my communication profs. ray preiss used to hammer into us- the basic delineations of aristotelian forms of persuasive argument- ethos/pathos/logos roughly translated to mean character-credibility/passion or emotion/logic. bush's words were calm, somewhat cold and calculated, imploring listeners to believe and support his thoughts based on the power of his office, and his credibility that comes with the opinion polls. also deep into the speech is the notion that "conflict has come" implying that the fight has come to us, very carefully chosen words. just before that is the notion that free nations are choosing not to live at the mercy of a regime- implying what? that we are now under the mercy of saddam? the thing that sticks to me most is what i had just read across in a book i'm borrowing called Understanding Power - the indispensable Chomsky. its a fascinating read so far and i'm less than 50 pages through it. he was the first guy to make the observation for me of how politically charged simple words can be. for example the US tried to "contain" the Soviets in the early part of the century even though the soviets had never tried to invade anyone back then, we were defending s. vietnam instead of admitting that there was US motivated aggression there, and now we go into DEFEND something.

saddam's words to the contrary were those of a man trying to ignite that fire in the belly, or heart, pulling at every emotional string from religious references to fighting the good fight, the holy fight, asking for people to reach for their swords, that this would be the battle of all battles. i can't unfortunately find a single translation or transcription of his speech, i'm going off memories of what i heard on NPR that rainy night in SF. but it was remarkable how different the styles of oratory were.

coverage has been eerie to say the least. i agree that pixilated images from moving tanks border the video game warfare level. there are several images i've seen already that make me think this to be some sort of large scale "theater" a word even the defense dept. is comfortable using. (they always reference the world as the theater that gen. tommy franks is concerned about etc.) there are so many faces, so many networks camped out in kuwait city, in quatar, at the borders, then there are those unilaterals sneaking back and forth where they can find holes in the burms, and then of course are the embeds- a set i don't feel all too comfortable with. i like the nightline pieces including koppel but i can't say much for several other embeds that are proud of all the jargon they picked up and are probably sneaking emails to their agents for a solid round of renegotiations upon their safe return. i think it would be hard not to see your traveling companions as buddies after a while, and not empathize with them on their cause- and maintain some notion of objectivity. otherwise i'm also not a big fan of walking into some place with a bunch of people who are carrying guns. as sep. 11 showed what the national anchors were made of, this one is showing that some are not made of the same stuff. aaron brown for example is goin' off the deep end- see the blogged transcipt of an interview that brown did with the washington bureau chief of al jazeera. the rep comes back at cnn with quite a few stark pieces of evidence which points to how cnn plays the same game- violates the same rules and still considers themselves holier than the non-western media. it was this past sat. night when i saw him just sucking- talking about how 80 countries around the world were watching this same video- how historic it was, this was over the long drawn out skirmish at the road to umm qusar (sp). he had very little to say- but he kept talking. i'm sure its not an easy situation, and its easy for everyone to armchair anchor, but its one of those scenarios where you cut in once every couple of minutes and tell the viewers who are just joining- what’s going on- what you know- no more. while there is so much info. coming out, the diversity of opinions is a bit frightening.

issues of censorship- are a bit disconcerting these days.
the site yellowtimes.org has had its plug pulled by the ISP that hosts it- because it displayed pictures of the POWs on the site. check out a column by one of the individuals who runs the site .

a rather large list of sites being shut down etc. in the war against terrorism has been compiled by the eff. check it out.

aljazeera gets kicked out of the NYSE- a fresh little article in the globe and mail points out how the NYSE says they've gone through a reorganization of broadcast positions and well they simply have run out of room- and al-j reporters had to turn in their badges- while nobody else did. cutting down the ability for INVESTORS in the arab world to hear benign 2 minute liveshots every morning regarding what one of the world's major stock markets is up to is a petty response to the media network's choices in coverage of the war. it feels rather dangerous to think that a reporter in an unrelated beat may be penalized for actions their network takes. applying that same logic would mean that stock exchange officials in Europe should be able to kick out cnbc reporters based on how MSNBC or NBC chooses to cover the war. i'm sure investors here have email- and voice mail and every other contraption to keep track of the cac or the dax- but where would we be w/o our favorite smiling faces that deliver the info."LIVE"? another version of the story on cnn money- we'll see if lou dobbs picks up on this or not tomorrow.

twill b tomorrow in a few minutes- till then dreams of last fri. night's on-the-run-last-second-one legged-one-armed-3-point-buzzer-beating shot by maryland to win and advance. ahhh the madness of it all.

:: h 11:52 PM [+] ::
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linkfest-
attended some recent lectures at the University of Washington given by some some of the authors of an atlantic monthly feature done for the jan/ feb issue. essentially its an attempt by a group called the new america foundation at a sort of new social contract for the next century. the articles can be accessed here-. i
speaking of new ideas- anyone remember that tv show called kate and allie- about two single moms and their kids? well the real life version is on.

nice little explainer re the UN security council sitch...

for quasi- spiritual links... was jesus high article in high times... ? also- keeping your car in good spiritual shape. an article in beliefnet on car pujas.
:: h 1:15 AM [+] ::
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Have been reading a recent novel by Pico Iyer called "Abandon"; it deals with Sufi poetry, of all things. I have been a great fan of the writer from his travel books (like Paul Theroux, he writes fiction and travelogue in equal measure). This one is slow-moving, pensive, and quite open-ended. I published a longer review of it in this month's "India Currents" magazine.
:: Sukumar 4:06 PM [+] ::
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Lobbying by Family Members

Okay, couldn't resist one more article from the commondreams website. This one is a reprint of an article in the LA Times which discusses how many lobbyists in Washington are related to influential politicians and hw this may have influenced resolutions and laws being passed, contracts being given, etc. I'm losing all my illusions of democracy.

:: Seema 11:27 AM [+] ::
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Interesting website and article on NSA spying on UN delegates

Here's an interesting website to check out: Commondreams.org. It is a compilation of liberal articles, mostly from reputable publications such as the UK Observer and the International Herald Tribune, but also many articles written by their staff.

A couple of articles discuss how the coalition will be built - either coerced or promised economic /military aid.

An interesting development on this website, however. They had posted an article from the UK Guardian/Observer that alleged that the NSA is spying on UN delegates to figure out ways in which they could be influenced to vote yes on Iraq. They then posted a follow up article over the weekend from Agence France Press saying that Chile, for one, was taking this very seriously and had called their UN delegate and US ambassador to discuss it. Today, both these articles have disappeared from the CommonDreams website and from their archives. I just spent five minutes looking for them but inexplicably they're gone. I'm wondering if their lawyers decided not to take a chance or whether they got leaned on. But given the tone of their other articles, it seems odd they would cave in on just the one issue. Anyway, it's a mystery!

In either case, check out the article on the Observer. They also have a copy of the actual memo for your reading pleasure. :)

:: Seema 10:59 AM [+] ::
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