Rakesh, I think it is not trivial and Chai-on was right to introduce the CNN use of old video. I have had occasion to mention this incident to others and even experienced people were surprised and one woman's mouth dropped open. Why, because the U.S. population is so dominated ideologically by the mass media, yet is eager to understand what the hell is going on. After all, they thought at least their government could protect them, not least a Republican administration at that. Now they are confronting reality and a small episode like this can do more to begin to open their consciousness than big grand theories. In other words, inside this small, seemingly trivial example lies profound truths. You yourself don't need these small examples. But massive amounts of workers and their families do need to hear these examples. For myself, I questioned the bias of using that footage in similar ways to your own questioning, but I assumed it authentic for what it was. I was wrong. It doesn't change my understanding because it fits naturally into my working framework. But the same cannot be said for many, many Americans. I repeat what I think I implied or said before. In addition to trying to understand better what has come down, we need to reach out! I end by quoting the last part of lead letter in Tuesday's Buffalo News: "To send a crystal-clear message to zealots all around the globe, one of the terrorists' sponsor nations must be reduced to a parking lot -- including civilians. The only thing that will match the brillance of this beacon of light we call America is a high-yield nuclear detonation in the skies over Afghanistan" (Jason A. Maier, Depew, New York). Think not only about the writer thinking it, daring to write it and send it in, but also a rather "liberal" newspaper deciding to publish it at all, and then as a lead letter! Paul ************************************************************************ Paul Zarembka, editor, RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at ********************* http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@stanford.edu> said, on 09/20/01: >I would hope that this list could do more than become obsessed with >inconsequential rumors like this. It would not matter if the footage had >been created out of whole cloth. It was terrible judgement to replay that >loop over and over.
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