"all theater, all just to keep the people distracted"

[pynchonoid]

"It means this War was never political at all, the
politics was all theater, all just to keep the people
distracted . . . secretly, it was being dictated
instead by the needs of technology . . . by a
conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by
something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying,
'Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of
Nation] is at stake," but meaning, most likely, dawn
is nearly here, I need my night's blood, my funding,
funding, ahh more, more. . . . The real crises were
crises of allocationa nd priority, not among firms--it
was only staged to look that way--but among the
different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics,
Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by
the ruling elite . . . " 
(Gravity's Rainbow, p. 521)

"[...] The networks don’t like to talk about how much
they actually spend, but one veteran of the media
scene here estimated the cost for a major TV network
at about $100,000 a month. Others say that is a low
estimate. Almost all of this cash (except a few “tips”
here and there) goes directly to the Iraqi government.
Once you add up the bill for the TV networks alone,
we’re talking perhaps millions of dollars in revenue a
month for the government. 

There is a joke here that the major media outlets are
now competing with oil smuggling as the number one
money-maker for the Iraqi government. It is
particularly ironic that while Rupert Murdoch’s
'troops' from FOX News Network rally for the war,
dismissing antiwar activists as dupes of the Iraqi
regime, the “network America trusts” is paying
'Saddam' (as they refer to Iraq) hand over fist tens
of thousands of dollars every month. But stroll down
the halls of the press center and you’ll see that
Rupert’s troops have multiple battalions. He also owns
Sky News (the British version of FOX), as well as the
Times of London. A bit of research would probably find
that Murdoch owns other publications operating here as
well. 

FOX News reporters (and others as well) like to say
'for the benefit of the viewers' that their broadcasts
are being monitored by the Iraqi government. Fair
enough. But perhaps the Murdoch Empire should begin
each of its reports or dispatches from Baghdad by
disclosing how much money they paid “Saddam” today. " 

-Jeremy Scahill, reporting from Iraq 
IraqJournal.org, 1 February 2003
<http://www.Iraqjournal.org/journals/030131.html> 


....as multinational corporations prepare to rebuild
-- reaping fabulous profits in the process -- what the
US prepares to destroy.... 

-Doug


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<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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