Netflix This: Weapons of Mass Deception
Timothy Sexton
April 23, 2007
One of the greatest reasons to get a Netflix subscription is to gain access to their catalog of documentaries. Not only does Netflix carry the must-see PBS Frontline documentary on Dick Cheney's plan to engage in a coup of the American political system titled The Dark Side, but they carry documentaries that don't have the benefit of being backed by the Chubb Group and viewers like you. One of these documentaries that anyone interested in why the American media stuck their collective heads in the sand during the first three and a half years of Bush's war. It is titled Weapons of Mass Deception.
Weapons of Mass Deception is essentially a one man show. Journalist Danny Schecter takes us on a depressing odyssey into the world of American media. Schecter uses fair use coverage from all the major networks, interviews and, most persuasively, statistics. In doing so, he undermines all remaining pretensions that there exists something even remotely similar to the liberal bias that conservative pundits like to pretend exists. For instance, what if I were to tell you that of 800 experts that were interviewed on all of the American networks in the months leading up to the Iraq war and the months immediately following the invasion, only 3% of them expressed an anti-war viewpoint? Not all of the remaining were necessarily pro-war, either, by the way. Only 71% were pro-war. The rest were neutral. That figure hardly jibes with the idea that the media only gives access to lily-livered, leftist peaceniks. That figure should also send shivers down the spine of anyone who might have wished that pre-war media analysis had been fair. It gets even worse. According to Weapons of Mass Deception, not only was the American media well on-board the Jingo Express, doing their part to ramp up American support for the most unnecessary war in American history, but these money-grubbing networks owned by money-grubbing zillionaires were so pro-war that they even refused to accept money in exchange for public service announcements containing anti-war truths. Liberal media? Where? No, I'm serious. Where in American was there a liberal bias during the rush to get us into a war against a country with no WMDs?
Weapons of Mass Deception is also worthy of being on your Netflix queue for some the moments of belly-busting laughs it provides. For instance, it took me almost three full minutes to stop laughing at this howler from Tori Clark, Pentagon spokeswoman and one of those most responsible for the lies surrounding Jessica Lynch: "Donald Rumsfeld is an enlightened guy." Another great scene designed for laughs if big fat idiot Rush Limbaugh comparing the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity prank. Apparently, Limbaugh rushed Fatso Bangeda Guy. Somewhat less funny is the revelation that Rupert Murdoch ponied up half a million dollars to the government of Saddam Hussein for permission to keep his news bureaus operating in Iraq during the saber-rattling stage before the invasion. Nor is it funny to find out that CNN refused to report abuses of its own reporters in Iraq in order to keeps bureau operating. Some, of course, will find it very funny to watch a male newsreader and an off-camera female newsreader on Fox News giggling like schoolgirls over the idea of using even more bombs to kill Iraqis.
Netflix really came through with Weapons of Mass Deception. Where else are you going to find all the nitty gritty surrounding that whole stinking concept of inbedding journalists with the military? Never has the paradoxical idea of inbedding journalists been so aptly described as the scene where it is compared to the Stockholm Syndrome. The idea for inbedding journalists didn't originate with the media, of course, but from the Pentagon. The hope was that if the reporters were forced to spend time with the troops they would not be able to be anything other than sympathetic to the cause and therefore report the news accordingly. Guess what? That's exactly what happened. Even reporters in World War II didn't cover the war with as little questioning of the government's intentions as reporters in Iraq. And those few reporters who did dare to question? In the words of Christiane Amanpour, those reporters were "muzzled." Another laugh-out-loud moment occurs when Amanpour gives a description of Fox News reporters: "White House foot soldiers" she calls them. It's funny 'cause it's true. And just in case you wanted hard evidence for your opinion, you've got it: It is true that people who watched Fox News exclusively were more misinformed of the actual facts than viewers who watched any other channel, especially PBS.
The most fascinating segment of Weapons of Mass Deception, and the primary reason why the documentary should be on your Netflix queue, is the section that compares how the Iraq war was covered on American television to how it was covered in the region. The American coverage of the Iraq war has been sanitized and sterilized. Not only do we not see any real violence or blood, we aren't even allowed to see coffins returning home. The coverage of the war in the Middle East is not really concerned with trying to turn the ugly truths of war into something palatable enough to watch with your family during supper. The fact is that the war coverage in American is less offensive than an episode of Survivor. From what we see on American news channels, you would think the Iraq war is being conducted without the spilling of so much as a single drop of blood. The coverage of Middle Eastern television shows what is really going on: limbless children, headless corpses, and American tanks firing without provocation. Conservatives and Republicans will call this coverage anti-American. Weapons of Mass Deception proves that the coverage Americans are getting is far closer to the kind of coverage that Soviet audiences got when their country made the devastating mistake of invading the region.
Weapons of Mass Deception is essentially a one man show. Journalist Danny Schecter takes us on a depressing odyssey into the world of American media. Schecter uses fair use coverage from all the major networks, interviews and, most persuasively, statistics. In doing so, he undermines all remaining pretensions that there exists something even remotely similar to the liberal bias that conservative pundits like to pretend exists. For instance, what if I were to tell you that of 800 experts that were interviewed on all of the American networks in the months leading up to the Iraq war and the months immediately following the invasion, only 3% of them expressed an anti-war viewpoint? Not all of the remaining were necessarily pro-war, either, by the way. Only 71% were pro-war. The rest were neutral. That figure hardly jibes with the idea that the media only gives access to lily-livered, leftist peaceniks. That figure should also send shivers down the spine of anyone who might have wished that pre-war media analysis had been fair. It gets even worse. According to Weapons of Mass Deception, not only was the American media well on-board the Jingo Express, doing their part to ramp up American support for the most unnecessary war in American history, but these money-grubbing networks owned by money-grubbing zillionaires were so pro-war that they even refused to accept money in exchange for public service announcements containing anti-war truths. Liberal media? Where? No, I'm serious. Where in American was there a liberal bias during the rush to get us into a war against a country with no WMDs?
Weapons of Mass Deception is also worthy of being on your Netflix queue for some the moments of belly-busting laughs it provides. For instance, it took me almost three full minutes to stop laughing at this howler from Tori Clark, Pentagon spokeswoman and one of those most responsible for the lies surrounding Jessica Lynch: "Donald Rumsfeld is an enlightened guy." Another great scene designed for laughs if big fat idiot Rush Limbaugh comparing the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity prank. Apparently, Limbaugh rushed Fatso Bangeda Guy. Somewhat less funny is the revelation that Rupert Murdoch ponied up half a million dollars to the government of Saddam Hussein for permission to keep his news bureaus operating in Iraq during the saber-rattling stage before the invasion. Nor is it funny to find out that CNN refused to report abuses of its own reporters in Iraq in order to keeps bureau operating. Some, of course, will find it very funny to watch a male newsreader and an off-camera female newsreader on Fox News giggling like schoolgirls over the idea of using even more bombs to kill Iraqis.
Netflix really came through with Weapons of Mass Deception. Where else are you going to find all the nitty gritty surrounding that whole stinking concept of inbedding journalists with the military? Never has the paradoxical idea of inbedding journalists been so aptly described as the scene where it is compared to the Stockholm Syndrome. The idea for inbedding journalists didn't originate with the media, of course, but from the Pentagon. The hope was that if the reporters were forced to spend time with the troops they would not be able to be anything other than sympathetic to the cause and therefore report the news accordingly. Guess what? That's exactly what happened. Even reporters in World War II didn't cover the war with as little questioning of the government's intentions as reporters in Iraq. And those few reporters who did dare to question? In the words of Christiane Amanpour, those reporters were "muzzled." Another laugh-out-loud moment occurs when Amanpour gives a description of Fox News reporters: "White House foot soldiers" she calls them. It's funny 'cause it's true. And just in case you wanted hard evidence for your opinion, you've got it: It is true that people who watched Fox News exclusively were more misinformed of the actual facts than viewers who watched any other channel, especially PBS.
The most fascinating segment of Weapons of Mass Deception, and the primary reason why the documentary should be on your Netflix queue, is the section that compares how the Iraq war was covered on American television to how it was covered in the region. The American coverage of the Iraq war has been sanitized and sterilized. Not only do we not see any real violence or blood, we aren't even allowed to see coffins returning home. The coverage of the war in the Middle East is not really concerned with trying to turn the ugly truths of war into something palatable enough to watch with your family during supper. The fact is that the war coverage in American is less offensive than an episode of Survivor. From what we see on American news channels, you would think the Iraq war is being conducted without the spilling of so much as a single drop of blood. The coverage of Middle Eastern television shows what is really going on: limbless children, headless corpses, and American tanks firing without provocation. Conservatives and Republicans will call this coverage anti-American. Weapons of Mass Deception proves that the coverage Americans are getting is far closer to the kind of coverage that Soviet audiences got when their country made the devastating mistake of invading the region.
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