Sociology

Chapter 1-Branding America After reading the first chapter of this book I was blown away by how the government can actually hire an advertiser to make an image for the United States. When a country doesn’t like us they can just fix American’s on the television to make us seem more like the viewers that are watching. The first image that popped into my head was a show that was like MTV. It didn’t say in the book but I think that they would direct this towards the younger audience because the adults already have an image in their heads of us. The parents of the teens are trying to raise their children to hate the U.S. but with these TV programs it makes them see a softer or “nicer” side of the United States. By knowing that our government is putting these images and making the foreign countries feel differently about us I begin to question everything I watch on television. Has our government been “brainwashing” us much like the Muslims have to their children? The phrase “actions speak louder than words” comes to mind. No wonder many countries are so angry at us. Here we show them one thing but yet we act like another. The US government went and hired a person who was once an advertiser to “sell” us to the foreign nations. We even went to Walt Disney to ask him if he could “as a patriotic duty” make a film that would defend democracy. In many press conferences we tend to dehumanize and demonize Saddam Hussein, we have this horrible image of him because we think he has strong ties to Osama Bin Laden. But, is the reasons the government told us for going to war true or were they pulling a “television show” on us like they have done in the past to other countries. When we went to war we were invading Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction; however, there is a part in the chapter that says that we had given them most of them to help them with their war. Sure is strange how we come to find out now instead of at the beginning of this war. Chapter 2- War is Sell Every move our government makes, even the exact time they “allow” something to show up on our television screens is planned. When we went to war and even when there was talk about war Bush planned it to the anniversary of Sept. 11th. He planned that we would have so much hate and he basically poured salt on an opened cut. During this time our government went ahead and spent millions of dollars to put together an advertisement to make us believe and come together to make sure that Saddam Hussein needed to be put down. Just after reading that I question why our government would go through so much to just make us think this way. Why waste all of that money and time to buy our approval if Saddam really needed to be stopped. Wouldn’t we all just see it for ourselves without the government clouding our minds? During class time we watched a movie about how FOX NEWS hires or makes contracts with different people to have views about us going to war. What if all of this is just some huge game that government created to make us see things or to cover things up? When we first went to Iraq and they tore down the statue of Saddam we saw hundreds of Iraqis with American flags and they seemed to be helping and cheering on the American soldiers when they were helping tear it down. However, that wasn’t all true. In the book it says that, that was just something played out. There weren’t actually hundreds of people out there; In fact there were only about one hundred. And on the other side of the street there were even more protesting. Here they want us to believe one thing but yet it isn’t the whole truth. It’s almost like a Hollywood movie that they are playing for us. Why wouldn’t we believe it, we see so much in the movies, why wouldn’t we think this was true? Chapter 3- True Lies “All warfare is based on deception.” This quote remains in my head. The entire section about psyops, “are designed to convey selected information and indicators to foreign leaders and audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately their behavior,” while “military deception misleads adversaries, causing them to act in accordance with the originator’s objectives.” This statement right here tells me that our government has used our air waves to basically brainwash us. If they can put something on television that makes us hate our mothers or to cry when we see a certain color blows me away. Do we even know how to control our emotions anymore of are we just some strange robots being told how to act by our parents [government]. In the late 1990’s the story of “babies torn from incubators” by Iraqi soldiers was aired throughout the United States and this story alone made a huge public favor to go to war; however, comes to find out that this wasn’t entirely a true story. I say entirely because Saddam was gassing people but during the time when he was killing women and children we were supplying the chemicals for the killings. I don’t think we entirely knew that he was doing this but why wasn’t that aired along with the baby stories? This reminds me of why we went to war this time. President Bush thought that or had intelligence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Sure is funny how this storied aired right after the plane crash into the twin towers. Then when we finally get there we find no weapons at all, but yet we’re still there looking for something. I feel that this was just a way of getting the public to be ok with us going to war. Chapter 4- Doublespeak Doublespeak is a word that I have never heard before. However, it’s something that I can now understand as I go through all the press conferences that I’ve seen throughout this summer. To mean something completely different than what you are actually saying. When the president said one thing it was actually a code for something else. It reminded me of when I was in elementary school and we would lie to our friends. They thought we were talking about one thing but really we were saying something that had not relevance to what was actually being said. The government pays writers to write so that the normal American and even foreigner will not understand what’s going on. George Carlin makes an excellent point about all the different “wars” we declare. We really don’t do anything about the different things we declare war on but yet we through the word around as though its nothing. Chapter 5- The Uses of Fear It is said that most terrorist do things just so spark the fear in the country and then others would see this and do the same. When the planes crashed into the twin towers fear was raised everywhere. It really scares me when they say that “media coverage and terrorism are soul mates- virtually inseparable.” That is really true if you think about it. That morning of September 11th the only thing found on the news for at least a month were the plane crashes. Then each time Bin Laden sent a tape it was plastered all over the televisions and our fear level increased all over again. Its almost as though he wanted us to fear him and he was doing it on purpose so that we wouldn’t forget about him. The media coverage almost makes it worse because here he’s getting what he ultimately wants. When Goering said how the communist dictatorship, fascist dictatorship, parliament, and democracy are all alike it really made sense. Even though we vote in our presidents and our congress and our house reps it doesn’t really make a difference in certain matters. Even though there is a large amount of people who are not in favor of the war we are still there. Most of the people who are in favor only want to be there to stop terrorism; however, we think this will work because our government tells us that if we don’t do it we will be attacked again. And as Goering said “it works the same way in any country.” And the land the free has made that statement true. Out of this whole chapter I found the comments about SUV’s to be rather amusing and hit somewhat close to home. When Psychiatrist Clotaire Rapaille said the reason behind car manufacture’s models of the cars I just laughed. But then as I was driving down the streets I began to look around at all the cars. When you see a hummer you think that you feel really safe in it. It looks like nothing could hurt it. However, the death rate is so much higher for these cars. If you were to ask someone that owned one of these “killer” cars they would probably tell you that they feel safe. I know I would and all I want is a big Tahoe.