A day or two ago while I was watching CSPAN I sat and listened to a reporter ask the White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleisher, about a request by the Bush administration that the television media refrain from broadcasting whole segments or parts from bin Laden’s taped press releases over concerns that these videos may contain ‘hidden messages’. This seemed to me a completely unfounded concern and I supposed that the goverment was more inclined to make this request out of a desire to control the propaganda. Namely because if there were ‘hidden messages’ these broadcasts are easily available through other means. This shows the extreme sensitivity that our government has towards supporting its war cause by controlling what we see and hear. As this article shows, fears of ‘hidden messages’ were merely an excuse by the government to control what we see and hear. When video is shown the networks must add to it the official party view: “They agreed to accompany the tapes with reports providing what they called appropriate context.” The responses of the Taleban and bin Laden have been censored even though it may provide the only glimpse Americans see of the other party. I think they didn’t want any Americans to see what bin Laden was saying for fear that people might take that and actually think about this situation with that in mind. Also on video, bin Laden doesn’t seem like the lunatic that he is painted to be. If he is responsible for the WTC crash the US has failed to present evidence of this. I find his rationale to create violence dispicable but to me it is not much different from the same rationale used by Bush to wage the US war. Both parties have identified themselves as the representative of Good in a battle for Good and Evil.
As evidence of this new attitude towards free speech, the FBI has been busy closing down websites for ‘terrorist organizations’. A New York based website, iraradio.com accused by the FBI of supporting the IRA has been closed at the government’s request. Terrorist organizations, as defined by our government, are basically any group or individual that advocates a position opposite that of the government especially when advocating resistance to the government. By the current definition, the Boston Tea Party is an example of a terrorist act. The government now has broad powers to seize the assets of companies and individuals THEY regard as supporting ‘terrorism’. From the website in question: President Bush recently signed a new law that lets the FBI, CIA & OHS seize assets “without any notice and/or any real un-reasonable evidence of ANY company or person that helps, supports, or does anything that can be called or labeled terrorism or is found to be connected to terrorism in any way or means possible”. Word has spread about several Internet companies that have had their assets seized using this new law.
I might add that an official declaration of war has not been made by our president even though the rhetoric of war is being tossed around with reckless abandon.