In his first days in office, President Barack Obama took a pen and
signed executive orders halting the use of torture, shutting
Guantanamo and banning secret CIA prisons overseas, as he vowed to
fight terrorism "in a manner that is consistent with our values and
our ideals."
Shortly thereafter, a poll showed that Americans did not
overwhelmingly support the president's rejection of the Bush
administration's use of torture as an instrument of the state.
In their zeal to legalize torture and trounce the Bill of Rights, the
Bush team crafted a media campaign to sell the "War on Terror" as a
righteous quest retribution for 9/11, inciting fear of future carnage
to justify violating the Geneva protocols and the U.S. Army Field
Manual. While the Bush torture policy made stunning progress through
the courts and the legislature, with the Patriot Act and the Military
Commissions Act of 2006, there followed an increase in the
normalization of torture images in popular culture, a growing
acceptance of violence as effective, routine.
When photographs of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib appeared in 2004,
Bush's approval ratings sank, yet torture themes multiplied in film
and TV. From 2002 through 2005, the Parents Television Council
counted 624 torture scenes in prime time, a six-fold increase. UCLA's
Television Violence Monitoring Project reports "torture on TV shows
is significantly higher than it was five years ago and the characters
who torture have changed. It used to be that only villains on
television tortured. Today, "good guy" and heroic American characters
torture -- and this torture is depicted as necessary, effective and
even patriotic".
<http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/124739/torture_chic%3A_why_is_the_media_glorifying_inhumane%2C_sadistic_behavior/>Link
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/02/torture-chic-why-is-media-glorifying.htm>monochrom
at 2/04/2009 11:01:00 AM
