Sent to the Washington Post, June 2001

One of the key tools of an increasingly corporate and right wing media is the clever use of so-called “contrarian” opinions. The pretext for giving us these opinions is that we are getting the benefit of one more idea, with a spin interestingly different from what we are otherwise hearing. But, oddly enought, these interesting ideas seem to happen to deflect public awareness from some uncomfortable fact. Perhaps the great achievement of this kind of contrarianism was the idea of the “Vietnam syndrome,” a mysterious wasting malady invented to explain behavior better explained by the American people’s knowledge that they had been lied to and manipulated into war, and did not plan to let it happen again. Then, of course, there was the contrarian discovery, just as poverty programs began to visibly work, that poor people were harmed, not helped, by getting unearned money -- an opinion which has had massive consequences for the poor, but has somehow had little effect on the “victims” of dependency on inherited wealth or massive tax subsidies.

There has rarely been a more blatant example of this gimmick than Sunday’s op-ed on the upsurge of the right wing in Europe. (What I See In Europe Isn’t Pretty, June 3, 2001.) As the editorial cartoons next to it show, and as recent news has made evident, European public opinion, and therefore European politicians, represent the most serious obstacle to the reckless Bush-Cheney agenda. From global warming to genetically modified foods to Star Wars, clear thinking on the other side of the Atlantic is a rallying point against short-sightedness and greed on this side. The greatest risk, of course, is that a substantial number of Americans will begin to look outside this country for leadership, as many of us did during the Vietnam War -- and this time we will be looking to democratically elected governments, whose social models could easily be applied here. So the Post, as the mouthpiece of Washington insider opinion, cannot miss an opportunity to discredit Europe.

I have to give the editors credit for their method -- using an apparently liberal American to tell us that Europe is actually bad because it is, would you believe it, so right-wing. By the way, I am not suggested any conscious conspiracy of Post editors here, just the self-preserving behavior of those who know which side their bread is buttered on, and who is supplying the butter.

By way of establishing bona fides, Blaney’s first paragraph tells us that he was jailed for civil rights movement activism, which, of course, tells us nothing about where he stands today. (Since then, by the way, he has worked for Henry Kissinger, who has a different history on matters of jail and civil rights.) At the end of the article, Blaney mentions that the U.S. has “its own unilaterialist stances,” presumably demonstrating his objectivity by chiding the U.S. once after trashing Europe for two columns. In between, he gives those of us who read the Post little, if any, new information, nor does he weave it into a convincing continent-wide picture. More intriguingly, he treats Europe’s rightward moves as somehow unique and uniquely threatening.

Yes, Berlusconi, a man with wads of dough and media connections, was elected in Italy. But at least in Italy there was serious left opposition, and at least he was elected by a majority, rather than appointed by a partisan majority of Italy’s highest court. Yes, the Tories are getting closer to racist groups -- but they are also, Blaney tells us, being “marginalized,” and unlikely to come to power. Trent Lott, on the other hand, lost no ground for his connections to the successor group of the White Citizens Councils, though when he and his cronies started abusing wealthy white moderate Vermonters they seem to have gone a bit too far.

The unsurprising reality is that, in Europe and in the United States, there are reactionary and racist political groupings. (Though it would be very difficult to argue that these groupings are stronger in Europe than they are in the United States.) This information, not having changed a lot recently, hardly warrants the use of the Post’s precious Outlook space. A more credible agenda for Blaney’s article (it may not be his personal agenda, but it is clearly the Post’s) is to suggest that the current smoldering of reaction and racism in Europe makes that continent “conflicted” and “inward-turning,” and encourages a “head-in-the-sand approach.” It’s only a step from there to either suggesting that Europe’s critique of the U.S. is invalid, because Europe is morally no better than the U.S., or to the argument that Europe is only criticizing the U.S. because of its conflicted isolationism.

The bottom line is that Europe, like the United States, can have right-wing scoundrels and racists in high places, and still be right about some things. The reason that the European critique of the Bush-Cheney assault on the global environment and on international nuclear agreements is hitting home so hard, and so early into the life of the Bush-Cheneyjunta, I mean Administration, is that the critique is right. It makes sense and reflects what most of us know to be true -- except in Washington, where military contractors and oil cmpanies set the agenda. And the fact that Italy just also elected a wealthy extremist, and that Britain’s out-of-office Tories are bigots, doesn’t change those uncomfortable facts for a second.

Only time will tell if this new contrarian effort has legs. If the idea that Europe is infested with reactionary and racist error starts showing up on the talk show, we will know this article worked. Once again, a complaisant media outlet, despite its superficial resemblance to what we once knew as a newspaper, will have shown that it has a very different function. Where newspapers once told the truth, or tried to change it, today’s Post seeks mainly to disguise it. Those who were once the Fourth Estate are now merely the tailors of Darth Vader’s new clothes.

Larry Yates