Customer Reviews

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Excellent documentary that talks about the way the media and the American government heave misled the American people into the Vietnam and Iraq wars and then actively rewrite history to cover the facts.

How many times have we heard, "no one could have known Iraq didn't have WMDs" or "if i knew then what i know now." The fact is, we did know the chances were extremely low, and the protesters before the war began numbered in the millions. The media, rather than investigating and out of fear of being "unpatriotic" fell in lockstep with the administration.
Times right now are scary, and this movie shows how the freedoms we take for granted are being grievously abused. Watch this movie to be reminded of how the media and the government should work in relation to one another.

Norman Solomon is a thoughtful scholar and his powerful analysis makes clear the many factors which let government officials (mis)lead us into war. A must see! Also read the book: War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

This documentary puts it all in perspective-- easy to connect the dots, even for those who don't wish to know.
It should be required viewing for high school and college students AND for citizens of the U.S.

My wife and I went to a peace rally today where Barbara Lee and Daniel Ellsberg talked, and then this movie was shown. It's wonderful, in a depressing way. We must have it to show to friends -- an anyone who supports the war.

Sometimes we think George W was the first and only U.S. President to lie to us in order to go to war. T'ain't so. Lyndon Johnson did it with a straight face, and Nixon, and George H.W, Bush. This documentary is beautifully put together, searing, compelling, chilling. In every way it rates AAAAA+++++

I found this documentary clear and well edited, with some decent clear explanations of the sorry state of mainstream media, however it really did not go into clear detail showing the mess that corporate mainstream journalism is today. Huge media corporations controlling most news outlets and spouting 'news' that is big business friendly and tows the line of elite power. One aspect of the film shows how colin powell's address to the united nations was not critisised at all in the US mainstream media and was accepted as the truth, whereas in the UK and more so,the rest of Europe, some of the left leaning press clearly exposed him as having no proof for his assertions (much of the left leaning media in Europe - excluding the mass of right wing Murdoch type papers - didn't readily accept his own computer generated diagrams as proof). The media in the UK is incredibly centred towards elite business power and towing the government line so it is incredible to see how utterly inept the US mainstream press is even compared to the sorry state of affairs in most UK mainstream press. The mainstream press nowadays with its corporate owners and career and 'celebrity' journalists is totally part of the establishment and unfortunately cannot be looked to for truth which would expose power, i.e the news.

Norman Solomon's War Made Easy affords us very little by way of fresh or vital information needed to grasp why major corporate networks adopt views that demonize countries and consistently advance the cause of war. The obvious reason, one neglected or evaded by Solomon is profit. In the major media, journalism has been nearly completely supplanted by commercialism. Even more objective non-commercial stations such as PBS and NPR remain financially tied to corporate underwriters that epitomize the military industrial complex such as United Technologies, Boeing and General Electric. Rupert Murdoch's Fox, Time-Warner's a CNN (no longer influenced by a more progressive-oriented Ted Turner), CBS's Viacom presided over by the staunch neo-conservative and close ally of President Bush- Sumner Redstone, Disney's ABC and General Electric's NBC, can no longer be categorized as news gathering organizations that employ bona fide journalists.

Indeed, so-called reporters and news analysts working for corporate conglomerates function today primarily as agents who obediently disseminate an agenda that routinely subordinates corporate profit to justice, truth, fairness, and common decency. Commercial agents of this variety - the use of the term journalists in this regard is outmoded and irrelevant - understand where their bread is buttered, especially while summary eradication from television or radio airwaves constitutes the price such corporate agents pay for an effort to perform credible research, engage in independent analysis and offer in the process worthy sources on behalf of the views they readily espouse on behalf of the corporations that control them.

To his credit, Solomon does offer reference to Phil Donahue who was dismissed by NBC in 2003 as a consequence to his opposition to America's invasion of Iraq. However, in his treatment of Donahue, we are afforded such a paucity of information relating to the details of his case that the viewer is left with the erroneous impression that the media in such instances remains myopic rather than willful, agenda-driven and profit-minded.

Much more sophisticated and painstakingly researched films such as: Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed and Iraq for Sale: the War Profiteers, Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight, Michael Moore's: Bowling for Columbine or Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abott and Joel Bakkan's The Corporation afford us far more knowledge and insight about the manner in which the military industrial complex, the US government and the commercially driven mass media exist as a well-orchestrated monolith that promotes a policy of war for profit with singular determination and skill. Indeed, this constitutes one of the most disturbing fundamental realities afflicting America and the world today, one that Solomon fully neglects to examine.

Why should this have been so? Does Solomon deem the general public unfit or incapable of processing the fairly straightforward profit-minded nature of the commercially-driven mass media? NBC is owned by General Electric, a major actor in the military industrial complex and the company has reaped vast profits from the war in Iraq. The entertainment giant Viacom owning CBS under Redstone can no longer rightly claim to serve as news gathering organization. Time-Warner, which owns CNN, now appears to be nearly as agenda-driven and right-wing as Fox demonstrating commitment in every possible way to upholding the Bush foreign policy and corporate agenda. Facts such as these, so worthy of concerted investigation are strangely if not perversely omitted by Solomon. Much of the world deems Bush policies to be pernicious and the commercial mass media serves as accomplices in this regard. Gore Vidal's small, but important book: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace presents characteristically informed and provocative ideas from which Solomon may have profited. Yet in his treatment of the FCC, Solomon also evades pertinent details relating to the shameful conduct of that agency in the present day skirting the issue that FCC has fully betrayed its original mission. The ranks of the FCC are filled with unfit Bush political appointees and its actions and policies - much as we witnessed during Hurricane Katrina - display utter contempt for the American commonweal. Today, as never before, the FCC can be completely relied upon to advance the cause of media consolidation, corporate greed, governmental power-politics and unfathomable death and destruction worldwide. In the meantime, Fox, CNN and GE's NBC routinely employ stunningly effective and highly rational forms of manipulation of the public thereby effectively generating mass support for a profit-based war agenda emanating from Washington policymakers.

Solomon's singular failure to elucidate these salient and ghastly realities is rendered all the more exasperating by his incessant and quite irritating on and off appearances as a talking head throughout the film. Sean Penn's strong and welcomed narrative voice is too often interrupted by Solomon. For their part, Loretta's Alper and Jeremy Earp's direction evince artfulness. Fine footage of Oregon Senator Wayne Morse's denunciation of America's involvement in Vietnam and Martin Luther King's ominously prophetic discourse on the same subject remind us how remarkably prescient these remarkable leaders were in voicing strong opposition to a war that had gained during its early phase, widespread support from the commercial mass media and the public.

Alas, powerful excerpts of speeches depicting Morse and King's courageous stands fail to compensate for Solomon's vapid script. On the whole, War Made Easy reveals Solomon's predisposition to deny others, far more knowledgeable than he, the opportunity to offer detail, authenticity and insight into the symbiotic relationship existing today between war-profiteering and mass media.

The topic Solomon has chosen to portray in his film in so disappointing a fashion is simply too disturbing and powerful in its vast implications to be left in the hands of someone manifestly unable or unwilling to address it with requisite, erudition, perspicacity, or candor.

I agree with the others who have seen the film, this is most definitely a must see documentary.
Tired of all the lies being told by bush (he doesn't even deserve a "capital b") concerning the war in Iraq? Then watch this film and learn how the government has lied before (Vietnam) in order to get us into a war and how they continue to do so to this day.
As for the "conservative reviewer" who gave this film only one star, have you even seen the film? And do you know how to spell and structure sentences correctly? Funny how alot of those right wingers have trouble spelling (probably due to too much inbreeding).
Anyway, Joe Bob says (concerning this film)"check it out!"

Powerful, if slightly familiar examination of how the US government lies to get us into war, and how the media happily goes along. Interesting to see the how Bush, Johnson, Reagan, and even Clinton used such similar language and techniques to manipulate public opinion, and how the media generally never does ask the hard questions. It does get a bit repetitive, and it's not like we didn't know some of this on the big picture level already. In some ways 'The Daily Show' does it even better every night, if with less historical perspective. None the less, these kind of examinations of our recent history are always worthwhile, important and thought-provoking.

This DVD makes it apparent, that it is so easy to be conned by the media and our Government. A good citizen is one who refuses to be conned and instead demands the truth from our media and Government.