Child that I was, I saw the film many times and was mesmerized. My emotions rose with every viewing. My heart strings vibrated to the tunes of "Over There" and "You're a Grand Old Flag." I marched proudly to WW I with Cagney/Cohan. This was a movie that appeared in 1942 to promote the WW II war effort by using the lies about WW I to do it. But oh what fun! And the stirring songs - fodder for a child. And this was before the CIA completely owned Hollywood.
Yet I grew up. I am no longer a child. I have studied and seen through the propaganda of The New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, Fox News, The Guardian, Hollywood, etc.
Many of those I know have not. They believe in the unbelievable. They still live in what Jim Garrison called the "Doll's House" and accept what Harold Pinter termed "a vast tapestry of lies." Pinter said in his 2005 Nobel address what has not changed an iota since about the U.S.'s murderous foreign policy:
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
When I was a child, I was hypnotized by "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
I've grown a bit. McGovern and Pinter are right; little has changed - Vietnam, WW I, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, China, etc. And of course, Russia, always Russia, at whose heart the weapons are always aimed, fiendish Russia that must be destroyed to make the world safe for the predators that pose as lovers of democracy and international law.
When President Kennedy, deeply chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, spoke about real peace and democracy at American University on June 10, 1963, he was the last American leader to recognize that international relations had to undergo a radical change, especially in the nuclear age. Demonizing other countries had to give way to dialogue and mutual respect. He said:
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
Five months later the CIA made sure his voice was stilled. Such sentiments have been verboten ever since.
Only children still believe the America propaganda and its war machine.
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