The Druids - Convulse

"One of the ways 'our' enemies are constructed as savages who need to be taught civilization is by forming an image of them as people who do not value human life the same way we know that we do. The radio program Counterspin's March 29, 2007 episode spoke of a piece of journalism about 'Black on Black' crime by Cokie Roberts who asked something like "Why do blacks not value black life?" and then giving the statistic of 86% of murders with black victims have black perpetrators as well. Counterspin's host Peter Hart noted that this statistic is consistant with 'white on white' crime as well, with most white murder victims being killed by white killers. 'White on white' crime is clearly not thought of as a form of racial self-destruction, it is never portrayed as such and the term 'white on white violence' is never actually spoken because we whites know that as a group we value life. With 'blacks' it is portrayed as a form of savagery internally threatening the survival of the 'black community' that overall has placed a lower value on life. Similarly this construction has existed with the Japanese during World War II, the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and now with the heavy media emphasis on suicide bombers it exists again with Arabs of the middle east, as the unfamiliar tactics of 'enemy combatants' are interpreted as being emblematic of an entire culture that as a whole, rejects the notion that life has a value of any significance. This is contrasted against depictions of 'our' soldiers who are portrayed as heroes and, implicit to these depictions, the only force engaged in conflict with any sense of honour. Of course, the reality of 'our' soldiers is that they are present in foreign lands to act as bullies, brutal thugs and hired killers - to act without strongly discriminating between 'enemy combatant' and civilian - and to teach 'civilization' (a euphemism of imperial conquest which refers to the culture of the conquerors) to the unknowing. This reality is removed from the images of mainstream media, and in fact the entire ideology of imperial conquest is encoded into every image of broadcast news which pertains to the current conflict. ...And we are supposed to choose sides based on these ridiculously transparent fictions."