International trends / Other publications
Tensions and affinities: cultural relations and politics between the USA and Europe in the Bush era
21/05/2008 By Publicaciones FRIDE
André Schiffrin, French writer and editor, who recently published the book "A Political Education. Coming of Age in Paris and New York", participated in early May in the "FRIDE in Casa de Galicia" series of seminars, with a presentation on "Tensions and affinities: cultural relations and politics between the USA and Europe in the Bush era".
During his presentation, Schiffrin, director of publishing at Pantheon Books for 30 years, regretted the current lack of independence of several editorial groups, which are more and more controlled and profit-oriented. This is a growing tendency that can only be counterbalanced by the creation of new editorial houses, such as The New Press, founded by Schiffrin, and the establishment of more independent media.
According to Schiffrin, America, and hence its media, has changed since 1940s. In 1948, Truman’s policies were much more progressive than those of today’s democrats, as after WWII America assumed it would be in control. But Communism came as a shock and the Cold War and McCarthyism made America forget all Truman’s policies, leading to an intellectual purge that lasted for nearly 20 years and eliminating the possibilities for any kind of reform until the late 1960s.
There was also a shift to reactive policies in the face of revolutionary changes in the outside that America could not control. Vietnam was a good example of this. And along with it came some “lessons learnt” by subsequent governments.
One of these lessons was that the media could be very dangerous. During the Vietnam War, images of Americans bombing innocent civilians were brought every night into the homes of men and women, who were horrified by what they saw. So even before going to Afghanistan, Secretary Rice spoke to the heads of the major media networks and said that nobody wanted to see wounded civilians on their screens.
And the networks have maintained this. At the last presidential elections, 80 percent of the people who voted for Bush believed there to be weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as they had seen nothing to contradict this.
There is also very little coverage of the Iraqi public opinion. Iraqis have blogs, but no one reads them. We have no idea what public opinion is like there. So US public opinion against the war is based on the number of US soldiers killed.
Neither the mass media nor the publishing houses did anything. The 5 large publishing groups which control 80 percent of American books were as silent as the press.
It took a long time for media to express dissent towards the official government line but, according to Schiffrin, we are still in a situation of control of the media.
Schiffrin claims that there are two main reasons for this lack of independence of the media. Initially, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, there was a patriotic reaction and everyone rallied around the flag. But then, politics within the newspapers became more complicated. People who were willing to accept the government line were given the first pages. Also, the Bush administration had promised to change the FCC rules which forbid a group to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same city, and so all newspapers were eager to go along with the government because it seemed more profitable.
Gradually, however, NGOs who saw the dangers of a controlled media began to disclose this tacit deal and to protest. For the first time in American history, 3 million letters were sent to Congress and the administration had to abandon the plans. Media policy was seen by ordinary citizens as something that had an immediate impact on their lives and so decided to take action.
In addition, the conglomerate control of publishing houses has made it more common for them to have interests outside their usual sphere, which makes them more prone to give in to government pressure. For example, in France 2/3 of newspapers belong to 2 groups that belong to armament manufacturers, who have only one customer – the government. In America it’s not as bad but all groups have great economic interests. There are also differences between large and small houses, the latter being more willing to criticise.
On the other hand, even though recently we are starting to see more and more movies which are critical of Iraq, people do not really want to see it. Partly because they are tired of it, but mostly because even though public opinion is unhappy with the war, they are much more worried about losing their houses. In addition, whereas in Vietnam the middle class youth was sent to fight, now there is some sort of “economic draft”, where the poor are the ones who join the army and constitute the vast majority that get sent to fight. And these, for most Americans, are people they do not know.
Another consequence of this lack of independent media is that less coverage help feed the feeling that we don’t need to know what happens in the rest of the world, which is the current administration’s philosophy. In a recent TV interview, Cheney replied he was not interested when asked what he thought about the fact that 70 percent of public opinion was against the Iraq War.
For this administration, Old Europe is not interesting, but the New Europe is. According to Schiffrin, America now seems to be using countries like Poland, which sent a high number of troops to Iraq, as colonial mercenaries.
With regards to the upcoming elections, Schiffrin argues that results will depend on to what extent the economic situation allows people to do what they believe in rather than act on the basis of their economic interests.
For Schiffrin, one thing is certain though, that in America there is a great contrast between illusions of power and the reality. The realities of US power are such that things cannot continue in this direction. America has one of the largest international debts and now, with rise of the Euro, American investments are losing value. And the Iraq war is already costing 3 trillion dollars.
On a different note, Schiffrin made a brief analysis of Sarzoky’s policies in France, which he considers flawed and lacking better political advice. In the last elections, Sarkozy’s policy of playing the immigrant card, to win over the Le Pen vote, soon backfired as the left, the centre and even the centre-right began to rebel against his proposal to deport 25,000 thousand illegal immigrants each year. For many people, it brought back images of French police deporting the Jews during WWII.
Now almost all public opinion polls criticise him. According to Schiffrin, his falling popularity is due to a mixture of personal and political failure. The old generations who voted for him are now very critical of his numerous displays of what they call “vulgarities” and the rest is critical of his inability to fulfil his electoral pledges, further evidenced by his abandoning of reform proposals only 24 hours after proposing them, amongst others.
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FRIDE in Casa de GaliciaKeywords
Democratic control Europe Globalization Neo-conservatives US War on terrorBio author: Publicaciones FRIDE
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