>
>That "justice system" is interested in Bill Clinton's semen only for its
>publicity value in partisan campaign politics, in a country where
>political ideas are trivialized down to the Jerry Springer level.
>"Honesty" and "truthfulness" have nothing at all to do with the Kenneth
>Stare sex inquisition, all that's important is appearances - it's got to
>make Jean Baudrillard too happy to see his theory displayed so much
>larger than real life, months on end.
>
>But for it to benefit the Republicans to question a Democrat President's
>actions on behalf of U.S. imperialism, you'd have to envision a voter
>saying, "Dear me, that Clinton sure plays fast and loose with the lives
>of foreign civilians. Imagine walking down the street, minding your own
>business, and having a Tomahawk cruise missile fall out of the sky onto
>your head.
Yes very interesting point. A lot depends on how things are presented and how they are perceived. At present it will be a very small proportion of the population in the USA or Britain that wants to oppose the terror war. As I have argued in another post parts of the financial constituency may be relevant and potentially influential for shifting the terms of the debate.
But as you say there is a mismatch of human perceptions. Jerry Springer, who has now become popular in Britain presumably for the raw emotions, although the cultural gap sometimes seems strange, does have the great merit of being non-racist. There is a democracy of suffering and struggle for human dignity.
I was struck by how well the Sudanese came over on CNN, which is not generally available in the UK, except by satellite. The most telling image for me was the owner of the sweet factory who was just shot simply and without effect outside the rubble, saying quietly, without any sort of class-based power issues intruding, words to the effect of "We were just making sweets, and all of a sudden this happened. It really is too much." He could have been my brother, except for the colour of his skin. And of course in any important political sense he is my brother.
The media was very important in the final result of the Vietnam war. There is a contradiction here. The technology has just got to the point where Jerry Springer and Monica Lewinsky can be world wide, but the well educated and reasonable petty bourgeois in the streets of Khartoum is not yet world wide, but could be.
There are reasons for this in terms of who owns the means of media means of production, but it is a highly competitive area and there are contradictions, eg between Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch.
What are the best sources (images and analysis) available in the USA? Can anything be done to help them? To amplify their message, including through the internet?
Chris Burford
London.