No More Learning

IS. Kayte Van Scoy, "How Green Was My Silicon Valley," PC/Computing, March I, 2000; Keith Perine, "Power to the (\Veb-Enabled) People," Industry Standard, April 1 0 , 2000. See also "Further Applications" below.
16. James Ledbetter, "Some Pitfalls in Portals," Columbia Journalism Review . ~ (November-December 1999)? 1 17. Quoted in ibid.
18. Alex Carey, Taking the Risk out of DemoCTa<:y (Urbana: University ofIlli~ . . nois Press, 1997); John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good 1
for "You. ' (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995); Stuart Ewen, PR'
A Social History ofSpin (New York: Basic Books, 1996).
19. Mark Dowie, "Introduction," Stauber and Rampton, Toxic Sludge. ? 20. See Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade:America and the Tragedy of Posr-Com- 1 munist Russia (New York: Norton, 2000). See also Thomas Frank, One Mar-
ker Under God (New York: Doubleday, 2000).
21. Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technocu1ture (London: Routledge, I999), p. 127.
22. Patricia Aufderheide, "Journalism and Public Life Seen Through the
'Net,'" in Aufderheide, The Daily Planet (Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press, 2000); Joseph Turow, Breaking Up Amen'ca (Chicago: Univer- siryofChicago Press, 1997).
23. Herman and McChesney, Global Media, chapter 5.
24. On the ideological messages borne in commercials, see Erik Barnouw, The Sponsor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), part 2, chapter t.
25. See Robert McChesney, 'Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy (New York: Oxford, 1993).
26. See Herman, Myth ofthe Liberal Media, pp. 32-33.
27. For some dramatic evidence on the mainstream media's neglect of these credible sources, see below, pp. 76-79.
28. Peter Galbraith, "How the Turks Helped Their Enemies," New lOrk Times, February 20, 1999.
29. During the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein was a u. s. ally and recipient of U. S. aid, his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in Iraq, which killed thousands in 1988, did not interfere with support by the Bush administration, which continued up to the moment of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 30, 1990. See Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq; How the u. s. and Britain Secretly
Built Saddam's war Machme (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997); Miron Rezun, Saddam Hussein's Gulf W&rs; Ambivalent Stakes in the Middle East (Westport Conn. : Praeger, 1992).
30. The CIA itself designated the 1965-66 slaughters in Indonesia as "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century" (quoted in Robert Cribb, ed. , The Indonesian Killings of1965-1966 [Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, no. 21,1991]). The figure of 500,000 victims in this slaughter, given by the head oflndonesian state security, must be taken as an absolute minimal figure. For other estimates that run up to 2 million, see Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, The W&shington Connection and Third World FasCISm (Boston: South End Press, 1979), pp. 208-9; Benedict Anderson, "Fetrus Dadi Ratu," Ne1JJ Left Review (May-June, 2000).
31. Former U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Patrick Moynihan brags in his autobiography of how back in I975 he protected Indonesia from any effective international action that might have interfered with its aggression: "The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly inef- fective in whatever measures it took [regarding the Indonesian invasion of East Timor]. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no in- considerable succeSs. " He added, without the slightest expression of regret, that within a few weeks 60,000 people had been killed in this aggression that he was protecting. A Dangerous Place (New York: little, Brown, 1978), p. 19. 32. For accounts of this shift, seeJohn Pilger, Hidden Agendas (London: Vin- tage, 1998), pp. 33-34; Chomsky, Necessary ntuslOns, pp. 109-10. For the ear- lier media treatment of Indonesia in East Timor, see Washington Connection, pp. 129-204.
33. John and Karl Mueller, "Sanctions of Mass Destruction," Foreign Affairs (May-June 1999), p. 43?
34. UNICEF, "Iraq Surveys Show 'Humanitarian Emergency,'" Press Release, August 12, 1999.
35. Leslie Stahl interviewing Madeleine Albright, "60 Minutes," CBS News Transcript, May 12, 1996.
36. Many KLA. and Serb fighters died in Kosovo, and civilians were killed by
lNTRODUCTIOK li
I i i I~TRODUCTION
NA TO bombs and military actions not aiming to kill civilians. See Jonathan Steele, "Figures Put on Serb Killings Too High," Guardian (August 18, 2000). For a fuller discussion, Noam Chomsky, A New Generation Draws the Line (London:Verso, 2000), chapter 3.
37. John Taylor, East Timor: The Price of FreerkJm (London: Zed, 1999). See also Arnold Kohen, "Beyond the Vote: The World Must Remain Vigilant Over East Timor," washington Post, September 5, 1999.
38. The source is Western investigators on the scene, including U. S. military personnel: Lnds! IY Murdoch, "Horror Lives on for Town of Lquica," The Age (Australia), April 8, 1999; Barry Wain, "Will Justice Be Served in East Timor? " Wall Street Journal (Asia edition), April n, 2000.
39. On the importance of Racak as a basis for mobilizing U. S. allies and the
public for war, see Barton Gellman, "The Path to Crisis: How the United I States and Its Allies Went to War," Washington Post, April 18, 1999; Madeleine
Albright referred to Racak as a "galvanizing incident" (quoted in Bo Adam,
Roland Heine, and Claudius Technau, "I Felt that Something Was Wrong,"
Berliner Zeitung, April 5, 2000).
40. See Edward Herman and David Peterson, "CNN: Selling Nato's War
Globally," in Philip Hammond and Edward Herman, eds. , Degraded Capabil-
ity:The Media and the Kosovo Crisis (London: Pluto, 2000), Pl'. 117-19. More
recently, three Finnish forensic experts, who were members of a panel that
examined the forry bodies found at Racak, disclosed that their team found
no support for the alleged mutilations by the Serbs, and the data presented
in the article casts further doubt on the claim that all the victims were exe-
cuted. 0. Raina et a1. , "Independent Forensic Autopsies in Armed Conflict Investigation ofVictims from Racak, Kosovo," Forensic SCience InternatIOnal,
vol. 16 (2001), pp. 171-85. ) It is a notable fact that the OSeE has not yet seen I fit to release the original forensic report from which this article's data is
drawn.
41. Herman and Peterson, "CNN: Selling Nato's War Globally. "
42. Editorial, "Election Risks in Cambodia," New York Times, November 28,
1997?
43. "Gathering Storm in Serbia? " editori! Il, washington Post, September II,
2000; "Repudiating Mr. Milosevic," editorial, New \0rk Time~,September 26,
2000.
44. Editorial, "Kenya's Flawed Election," New 10rk Times, December 31,
1997?
45. Editorial, "Mexico's Radical Insider," New \ilrk Times, July 3, 1988.
46. Editorial, "The Missing Reform in Mexico," New 10rk Times, August 24,
1991.
47. Editorial, "Turkey Approaches Democracy," New 10rk Times, November
II, 1983.
48. Editorial, "Victories for Voters in Latin America: Uruguay's Slow Boat to Democracy," New 10rk Times, December I, 1984.
49. Editorial, "A Victory for Russian Democracy," New 10Tk Times, July 4,
1996.
50. "And the Winner Is? " MOSCOUl Times, September 9, 2000. See also Matt
Taibbi, "OSCE-The Organization for Sanctioning Corrupt Elections;' The
Exile, Issue no. 18/99, September 14-28, 2000.
INrRoDucrlON ! iii
I
5I. Of the major mainstream media, only the Los Angeles Times addressed its findings, with the article "Russia Election Chief Rejects Fraud Claims in PresidentialVote" (September 13, 2000); a title that features the rejoinder of Russian officials, not the charges themselves. For a discussion of trus artide see Taibbi, "OSCE".
52. On the overall atrocious mainstream media reporting on the Russian eco- nomic and social collapse, as well as on the elections, see Stephen Cohen, Failed Crusade, chapter I.
53. The Soviet Union did undoubtedly mistreat its own and dient-state peoples, although the treatment of Russians by the Western-ba<:ked "refonn- ers" since 1991 has hardly been an improvement. However the charge of sponsorship ofinternational terrorism was inflated and hypocritical given the West's support of its own very impressive terror networks. See Edward Her- man, The Real Terror Network (Boston: South End Press, X982); Noam Chomsky; Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism in the Real WOrld (New York: Claremont Research, 1986).
54. See Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall ofthe Bul- garian Connection (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1986), chapter 5.
55. The only mainstream report on Weinstein's return with "no startling reve- lations" (i. e. , nothing), was R. C. Longworth, "Probe into '81 Pope Attack Shon of Funds," Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1994.
56. See "The Gates Hearings: Excerpts from Senate Hearing of Nomination ofC. I. A. Chief," . -"lewYork Times, October 2, I 99I.
57. See Edward S. Herman and Howard Friel, '''Stacking the Deck' on the Bulgarian Connection," Lies of Our Times (November 1991); Michael Ross, "Gates Corrupted CIA Intelligence, Ex-Officials Say," Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1991; Benjamin Weiser, "Papal-Shooting Analysis: Case Study in Slanting? " Washington Post, October I, 1991.
58. Editorial, "The Fingerprints on Agca's Gun," New YOrk Times, October 30, 1984?
59. Barbara Crossette, "Hanoi Said to Vow to Give M. I. A. Data," New York Times, October 24, 1992.
60. For many years U. S. officiaJs used the claim that VieOlam had noI ac- counted for all U. S. prisoners of war and M. I. A. s to justify hostile actions toward that country. This is discussed later in this Introduction, under "Re- writingViernam W'ar History," and in the main text, pp. 240-41.
61. Leslie Gelb, "When to Forgive and Forget: Engaging Hanoi and Other Outlaws," New YOrk Times, April IS, 1993.
62. Quoted in William Buckingham, Jr. , Operation Ranch Hand: TheAir Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 196I~I97I (Washington: U. S. Air Force, 1982), p. 82.
63. See Arthur Westing, ed. , Herbuides in war: The Long-Term EcologUal and HumcJ. n Consequences (Stockholm: SIPRI, 1984), pp. 5ff. ; Hatfield Consul- rants Ltd. , Development of Impact Mitigation Strategies Related to the Use of Agent Orange HerbUide in the Aluoi Hl:lley, Viet Nam, vol. I (West Vancouver, B. c. ,April 2000).
64. Buckingham, Operation Ranch Hand, p. 127.
65?
Cited in Seymour Hersh, Chemical and BiologUal Waifare (Indianapo- lis: Babbs-Merrill, 1968), p. 153. See also J. B. Neilands et al. , Harvest of
liv INTRODUCTION
Death: Chemical Waifare in Vl? tnam and Cambodia (New York: Free Press, 1972).
66. First use of chemicals is contrary to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, and food crop destruction violates numerous international rules ofwar. The latter was even illegal according to the rules lsid out in the U. S. Army's own field manual in use during the Vietnam war. See Edward Herman, Atrocities in Vietnam (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1910), pp. 81-83.
67. Harvard University physician Jean Mayer, "Crop Destruction in Viet- nam," Science (April 15, 1966).
68. Alistair Hay, The Chemical Scythe: Lessons O! 2,4,5-T and Dioxin (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1982), pp. 187-94.
69. General Assembly Resolution 2603A (XXIV), December 16, 1969, "viewed with horror" and strongly condemned the U. S. chemical war.
70. Peter Waldman, "Body Count: In Vietnam, the Agony of Birth Defects Calls an Old War to Mind," Wall Street Journal, December 12, 1997.
71. Barbara Crossette, "Study of Dioxin's Effect in Vietnam Is Hampered by Diplomatic Freeze," New 10rk Times, August 19, 1992.
72. Matthew Meselson, Julian Robinson and Jeanne Guillemin, "Yellow Rain: The Story Collapses," Foreign Policy (Fall 1987), pp. 100-117; Edward S. Herman, "The \XTall Street Journal as a Propaganda Agency," in Herman, Myth of the Liberal Media, pp. 103-10.
73. Peter Kann, "Clinton Ignores History's Lessons in Vietnam," Wall Street Journal, September 9, 1992.
74. 'When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran and his indigenous Kurds in the 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations made no protests and continued to treat him as a valued ally. It was only after he invaded Kuwait in 1990 that he became a menace and his possession of "weapons of mass destruction" was deemed intolerable. See citations in note 29 above.
75. In 1999, Uoyd Gardner found that the Barnes & Noble Web site con- tained 1,920 titles on some aspect of the Vietnam war and over 8,000 out-of- print and used books on that topic. "Going Back to Vietnam for a Usable Past," Newsday, November 14, 1999 (a review of Michael Lind's Necessary
War).
76. For this viewpoint, see Michael Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 1975).
77. Robert McNamara, In Rerrospect:The Tragedy and Lessons of Viemam (New York:Vintage Books, 1996).
78. For details and analysis of this onslaught on the people of South Vietnam, see Eric Bergerud, The DynamiCs of Defeat (Boulder, Colo: W'estview, 1991); Chomsky and Herman, washmgron Connection, chap. 5; Bernard Fall, "2000 Years of War in Vietnam," HorIZon (Spring 1967), reprinted in Fall, Last Reflections on a war (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967);Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971); Jonathan Schell, The Military Hall An Account of DestructIOn m Quang Nga! and Quang Tin (New York:Vintage, 1968).
79. H. Bruce Franklin, "Antiwar and Proud oflt," The Natum, December II, 2000.
80. Both Time and Newsweek, in their twenty-fifth-anniversary retrospectives on the war, featured the exit at war's end and the "desperate South Viet- namese" seeking escape from "the invading North Vietnamese. " Douglas Brinkley, "Of Ladders and Letters," Time, April 24, 2000; also, Evan Thomas, "The Last Days of Saigon," Newsweek, May I, 2000. A 1995 Wash- ington Post editorial speaks of the Vietnam war as a "defeat to the Vietnamese. They bled, died and finally fled in great numbers from a Communist regime. . . . " (April 30, 1995), characteristically not allowing the vast majority ofpeo- pie in South Vietnam to be "South Vietnamese. "
81. McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 319.
82. Full analyses of this history, and the lack of evidence, are provided in H. Bruce Franklin, M. f. A. , or, Mythmaking in America (Brooklyn, N. Y: Law- rence Hill Books, 1992), and Viernam and Other American Fantasws (Am- herst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
83. Franklin, Vietnam and OtherAmerican Fantasies, p. 183.
84. For a discussion, which stresses the underreported dissident movement within the armed forces, see ibid. , pp. 61-62.
85. M. ichael Lind, The Necessary war (New York: Free Press, 1999).
86. Gardner, "Going Back toVietnam for a Usable Past. "
87. Barry Wain, "The Deadly Legacy of War in Laos," ASian Wall StreetJour- nal, January 24, I997; Ronald Podlaski, Veng Saysana, and James Forsyth,
Accidental Massacre:American Air-Dropped Somblers Have Continued to Maim and Slaughter Thousands of Innocent Victims, Mainly Children, for the Last 2] %ars in Indochina (Humanitarian Liaison Services, Warren, Vr. 1997). These three authors, who have worked in Laos, believe the official figure of 20,000 annual casualties is too low.
88. Daniel Pruzin, "US. Clears Laos of the Unexploded," Christian Science Monitor, September 9, 1996.
89. Keith Graves, "US. Secrecy Puts Bomb Disposal Team in Danger," Sun- day Telegraph, January 4, 1998.
90. Quoted in Strobe Talbott, "Defanging the Beast," Time, February 6, 1989?
91. See Ben Kiernan, "The Inclusion ofthe Khmer Rouge in the Cambodian Peace Process: Causes and Consequences," in Kiernan, ed. , Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia (New Haven: Yale Council on Southeast Asia Stud- ies, 1993), pp. 199-272.
92. A study sponsored by the Finnish government was titled Kampuchea: Decade of the Genocide (London: Zed, 1984). It included the years 1970-74, when the United Stares was heavily bombing the Cambodian countryside, as part of the decade of genocide. This study was ignored in the US. main- stream media.
93. "Cambodia's Dictator," editorial, washington Post, February 10, 1998.
94. See Edward Herman, Myth of the Liberal Media, chapter 16, "Suharto: The Fall of a Good Genocidist"; Edward Herman and David Peterson, "How the New 'York Times Protects Indonesian Terror in East Timor," Z Mag- azine Ouly-August 1999). On the massive scale of the Suharto killings, see note 30 above.
95. For these and other citations, see Herman, Myth of the Liberal Media, chapter 16.
INTRODUCTIO:-l lv
Ivi I~TRODUCTlO~
96. Seth Mydans, "Indonesia's Rising Prosperity Feeds a Parry for Democ- racy," New York Times, June 21,1996.
97. Herman and Peterson, "How the New lOrk Times Protects Indonesian Terror. "
98. Ibid.
99. James Reston, "A Gleam of Light," New }&rk Times, June 19, 1966.
100? David Sanger, "Indonesia Faceoff: Drawing Blood Without Bombs," New 10rk Times, March 8,1998.
101. Thomas Ferguson, Golden Rule (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 28-29.
102. For a major study, see Steven KuH, "Americans on Defense Spending: A Study ofUS. Public Attitl,ldes, " Report ofFindings, Center for Study ofPub- lic Attitudes, January 19, 1996. On public opposition [0 excessive defense spending even during the Reagan era, see Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right Turn (New York: Hill & Wang, 1986), pp. 19"""24.
103. The two major parties offer voters "a clear-cut choice," so there is "no driving logic for a third-party candidacy this year," according to the editors of the New i0rk Times: "Mr. Nader's Misguided Crusade," June 10, 2000.
104. Especially after World War II, the military budget, and therefore the tax- payer, financed a very large fraction of the basic science that underpinned advances in the aircraft, computer, and electronics industries, the Internet economy, most of the biotech industry, and many others.
105. On the public opposition to the NAFTA agreement, see Herman, Myth of the Liberal Media, pp. 185-86. A Business week/Harris poll in early zooo revealed that only 10 percent of those polled called themselves "free traders"; 5I percent called themselves "fair traders" and 37 percent "protectionists. " "Harris Poll: Globalization: W'hat Americans Art Worried About," Business ~ek, Apri124, 2000.
106. For more extended accounts, see Herman, Myth of Ehe Liberal Media, chapter 14; Thea Lee, "False Prophets: The Selling of NAITA," Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute, 1995; John McArthur, The Selling of"Free Trade" (New York: Hill & Wang, 2000).
107. Thomas Lueck, "The Free Trade Accord: The New York Region," New York Times, November 18, 1993.
108. Editorial, "NAFTA's True Importance," New 'York Times, November x4, 1993?
109. On the refusal of the administration to allow any labor inputs in arriving at the NAFTA agreement, contrary to law, and the media's disinterest in this as well as any other undemocratic features of the creation of this and other trade agreements, see Noam Chomsky, WVrld Orders Old and New (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 164-78.
110. See Herman, Myth afthe Liberal Afedia, pp. 183-85.
I I I . Citations from Seth Ackerman, "Prattle in Seattle: W lO coverage Mis- represented Issues, Protests," EXTRA. ' Ganuary-February 2000), pp. 13-17. 112. Rachel Coen, "For Fress, Magenta Hair and Nose Rings Defined Protests," EXTRA. ' (July-August 2000). An exception at the time of the Washington meetings and protests was Eric Pooley's "IMF: Dr. Death? " Time, April Z4, 2000.
II3. See Walden Bello, "Why Reform of the WTO Is the Wrong Agenda" (Global Exchange; 2000).
114. Edward P. Morgan, "From Virtual Community 10 Vinual History: Mass Media and the American Antiwar Movement in the 1960s," Radical History Review (Fa112000); Todd Gitlin, The Whole WOrld Is watching (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1980).
115. Rachel Coen, "Whitewash in Washington: Media Provide Cover as Police ! viilitarizes nc. ," EXTRA. ' Guly-August 2000); Ackerman, "Prattle in Seattle"; Neil deMause, "Pepper Spray Gets in Their Eyes: Media Missed Militarization of Police Work in Seattle," EXTRA! (March-April 2000).
116. Coen, Ackerman, and deMause items cited in note 115.
117. Nichole Christian, "Police Brace for Protests in Windsor and Detroit," Nc-w York Times, June 3, 2000.
118. CBS Evening News Repon, April 6, 2000.
II9. Zachary Wolfe, National Lawyers Guild legal observer coordinator, con- cluded that "police sought to create an atmosphere of palpable fear," and that anyone even trying to hear dissident views ran a risk of police violence "just for being in the area where speech was taking place. " Quoted in Coen, "'Whitewash in Washington. "
120. See Rachel Coen, "Free Speech Since Seattle: Law Enforcement's Attacks on Activists-and Journalists~Increasing. "EXTRA. ' November- December 2000.
121. See Frank Donner, Protectors ofPrivilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in UrbanAmerica (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberal- ism, 1945--60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); William Puette, Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
122. Kim Moody, Wbrkers in a Lean llVrld (London: Verso, 1997), p. 24.
123. Aaron Bernstein, "The Workplace: Why America Needs Unions, But Not the Kind It Has Now," Business mek, May 23, 1994.
I24. See Jonathan Tasini, Lost in the Margins: Labor and the Media (New York: FAIR, I990), pp. 7-9?
125. Jared Bernstein, Lawrence Mishel, and Chauna Brocht, "Any Way You Cut It: Income Inequality on the Rise Regardless of How It's Measured," Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute, 2000.
126. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, The State of WOrk- ingAmerica, 2 0 0 0 - 2 0 0 1 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 20CI), p. 120.