Missing in Action

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>Gordon writes:
>>
>>>Yoshie Furuhashi:
>>>>  The POW/MIA propaganda that the U.S. government & corporate media
>>>>  have promulgated is ideologically similar to the propaganda put out
>>>>  by their Japanese counterparts that North Korea abducted Japanese
>>>>  individuals -- especially young girls -- for espionage & other
>>>>  purposes.  ...
>>>
>>>As I pointed out quite awhile back, the POW/MIA thing -- I
>>>don't know what, exactly, to call it -- was available for
>>>political exploitation by almost anybody.  As we know, certain
>>>parties on the Right exploited it; I said that.  I don't see
>>>the point of continuing to mention this, or to discuss it in
>>>general, because it's clear that in attempting to deal with
>>>it in other than the prescribed manner I'm speaking the
>>>unspeakable -- people can't handle it.  If there's nothing
>>>new to say -- the fact that one kind of propaganda is
>>>similar to another is hardly new -- we might as well set it
>>>aside.
>>
>>I don't know whether the myth of abduction of the Japanese by North 
>>Koreans is new or old to LBO-talkers, but it is quite intriguing 
>>that both in the Japanese abduction & American POW/MIA myths, 
>>citizens of imperialist nations (Japan & the USA) are believed to 
>>be "held captive" by (North Korean & Vietnamese) victims of 
>>imperialism.  The desire to believe that one is "held captive" by 
>>one's victim says a lot about how this genre of imperial ideology 
>>works.
>
>As in the false and fictitious claims by Swedes that Raoul 
>Wallenberg was held captive by Stalin after World War II?
>
>Seems to me that it has more to do less with "imperial ideology" 
>than with people extrapolating from the pattern of Stalin's Soviet 
>Union to the behavior of governments that took Stalin as a model...
>
>Brad DeLong

Brad, I don't know where you actually stand on the Japanese abduction 
& POW/MIA myths, but based upon my acquaintance with your posts here 
& on PEN-l (i.e., you may not agree with me on the history of 
formerly existing socialism, but you are not a credulous person), I 
think you don't really believe in them yourself.  (Maybe you do, 
though, for all I know!  If so, sorry for my false assumption.)

In any case, I'm afraid that a good number of true believers in the 
POW/MIA myth might think that Communists & liberal elite like you are 
secretly in cahoots, hiding the Truth from the People, as suggested 
by Chip.  :-)

At 10:29 AM -0400 5/10/01, Chip Berlet wrote:
>The version of the myth spread by the
>Prouty/Gritz/Perot/Sheehan alliance is that the CIA and its
>allies are a traitorous elitist faction of the true American
>government--a government which should be run "by the
>People." Typical populist rhetoric in support of an oustider
>elite faction. This is the basis of the Rambo narative in
>which wealthy college-educated liberal elites send
>working-class stiffs off to die.  Gibson in Warrior Dreams
>talks about this.

Yoshie