WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
by Danny Schechter
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Maurice Hinchey, Nicholas Johnson, Peter ArnettDirector: Danny Schechter
Brand: CINEMA LIBRE DISTRIBUTION
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Cinema Libre
Movie Reviews of WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
Movie Review: Depressing, but oh, so true
Summary: 5 Stars
When the US's present "war" began, I was working out at a gym. On the gym's television, Wolfe Blitzkrieg sang the Bush administration's tune eagerly, he was such a cheerleader I expected him to slip on a short skirt. On another network, some "correspondent" claimed that the troops had found some chemical weapons, and implied that the UN inspectors had been looking for years and hadn't found them while the diligent and competent US troops found them in days. When it turned out later that they were going through a fertilizer factory, the "correspondent," who should have been locked up, never came out and said, "What I said was false, and stupid." So his bosses should be locked up too.
This "war" has now been going on for substantially longer than WWII, its support has dwindled to maybe 25 percent of the voters, yet we're still there. Americans and Iraqis are still being killed. Why is this true?
Danny Schecter really comes through with a well-produced indictment: the the US media aren't worth the paper or the air they use to spread their words.
I began taking notes on this DVD, but it was getting too depressing. I mean, the Pentagon has done a clever job of setting up the US media representatives. I think one of the critics called it the "Stockholm syndrome," i.e., the Pentagon put unarmed "journalists" with the armed troops. So the former began to identify with the latter. It's a classic propaganda technique that another American critic called "straight out of Stalin." Yep, the media are the commissar culture!
Danny divided the film up into sections, one of which was the "Fox News Effect." I've been following that to a degree. Fox is a right wing cheerleader with (at least formerly) decent ratings, so the other networks followed suit. One can't seem to be in line with the US unless he tows the Pentagon line. We've seen it all. "You don't support the troops? What are you, part of Al Qaeda??" Indeed, toward the beginning of the film, a peace activist was being threatened by people near "Ground Zero" in NYC, for suggesting that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Heaven forbid, she might have a divergent opinion.
I've read on the travesty that is "embedded" journalism since I read "Second Front" a long time ago. So that's nothing new. (It is, however, something that should have real journalists, not embedded cheerleaders furious!) But still much of the American public is in the dark. One portion of the film stated that even CNN has different stories for the US than for the rest of the world. There was, of course, a rationalization for that; the concept of "cognitive dissonance" comes to mind any time Danny talked with media representatives.
Then there's the Bush rationalizations: There were no WMDs, so the regime changed the subject. There was no media pressure to get the regime to face reality, so the war continues.
Then there's Schecter's suggestion--offered with some evidence--that the non-"embedded" journalists particularly were actually targetted by the military. Some were killed in "friendly fire" and some other "accidents" were just discounted as that, when they didn't happen arbitrarily, i.e., were probably not accidents. That needs to be investigated further!
I guess one of the bottom lines is that the US media are owned by a few very large corporations. NBC was claiming they had been reasonable journalists, while critics challenged that--with more-than adequate evidence--that NBC was just towing the line. But NBC is owned by General Electric which was given upwards of $600 billion in contracts to rebuild Iraq. Isn't that what they call a "conflict of interest?" ABC is owned by Disney, which would rather entertain than inform. That, in fact, was another section of the film, on entertainment--I think someone refered to it as militainment--and journalism. And all the mega-media want the federal FCC on their side, so they refrain from confronting federal government policy. And that's a disaster.
There's so much that could be said, but it gets pretty depressing. What I hope is that teachers and professors show this to their classes so that young people realize how they're being hoodwinked. We Yanks seem to think we're miles beyond the rest of the world. And many in the rest of the world, the ones who don't hate us anyway, think we're a bunch of ignorant buffoons.
Spread the word on this DVD and others like it. Wake up!
Summary of WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
There wars going on in Iraq one was fought with armies of soldiers bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras satellites armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs Weapons of mass Deception.System Requirements: Running Time 98 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating:?NR UPC:?881394500327 Manufacturer No:?DOC50032Documentary DVD Video
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