Blog For Arizona

Michael: Propaganda as a Collaborative Endeavor

The politically rancid Little Green Footballs recently focused on a Syrian TV clip from a segment they entitled: "Palestinian Womb is a Factory for the Conflict" More interesting than the clip itself, in which a Syrian intellectual points out the perfectly obvious, perfectly racist, and frighteningly eliminatationist, connection between Palestinian reproduction and the Palestinian resistance, are the comments by LGFers. Her comment is essentially that the wombs of Palestinian women are factories of conflict given that they produce the next generation of warriors.

This is a horrid generalization and a hateful characterization of the legitimate and normal processes of life. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the commentary generated by LGF readers is viciously eliminationist, racist, and quite anti-life. Some of the choicest examples:

"palestinian womb -> palestinian bomb"

"Looks like its time to take out another factory...."

"It's like Aliens: human bodies as a breeding host for foreign death-machines."

"If only the little jihadis in training would blow themselves up IN the womb, we'd all be better off."

"As soon as Israel starts killing Palestinians wholesale, massive number will be meaningless. "

"Then it's time to bomb the paleo's warmaking capabilities."

"Almost as dangerous are the western mothers who breed the likes of Rachel Corrie."

"What a sick, demented culture the Palestinians have. They sacrifice their children in worship of death and perpetual hatred."

"The palestinian Authority is a "nation" founded by the damned Arafat and he has passed on his seed to innocents."

"I think we should drop bombs on all Islamic nations. Tons and tons of them."

"a palistinian child is an IED"

While such comments are not necessarily the opinions of the editors of LGF, it is fascinating how well they have judged exactly what meat to throw to the pack. What the readers make of this fare is quite telling. Few, if any, actually questioned the commentator's interpretation. They used it, as expected, as another factor in the dehumanization of the 'enemy'.

This sort of dehumanization of Middle Eastern people, especially those who resist imperial subjugation, is a fair example of the war-time psycho-pathology that allows citizens to tolerate and even support such activities as the indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations and the wholesale suspension of human rights, or in the case of the Palestinian-Iraeli conflict, to demonize the humanistic claims of the vastly weaker side to freedom and autonomy. Such depersonalization allows the advocacy of acts that would be unethical, even murderous, under the ethico-religious terms of the 'culture of life'. Of course, the 'culture of life' only applies to humans, and the 'paleos' have been conveniently defined out of the circle of humanity. Damned by an unjustified and unfounded characterization of their own acts and attitudes, based upon only the flimsiest of pretexts.

Nice to see LGF skillfully spreading such charming memes among the proto-fascists.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 6/21/2005 05:14:00 PM