OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE:

Why we still don't get it, one year on: Americans are badly served by semi-official media propaganda (Mark Hertsgaard, September 11, 2002, The Guardian)

Perhaps the greatest lie told to the American public about the September 11 terrorist attacks is that they prove the outside world hates us. President Bush, for example, has repeatedly warned Americans about foreign "evil doers" who loathe everything we stand for. The US media has been no less insistent, referring time and again to "Why they hate us", as one Newsweek story put it.

But the world doesn't hate us, the American people. It is our government, our military, and our corporations that are resented.

Talk about not getting it? Mr. Hertsgaard--whose equally risible book, The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, I'm reading now--seems oblivious to the fact that America is a democracy, has a civilian-controlled military and has publicly-owned corporations. Hatred of our institutions is inseparable from hatred of our people.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2002 7:20 AM