[Peace-discuss] A ruse by any other name would smell as bad

[C. G. Estabrook]

*The strange silencing of liberal America*
John Pilger
Published 07 July 2011

/Obama's greatest achievement is having seduced, co-opted and silenced much of 
liberal opinion in the US.
/
How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film Year Zero: 
the Silent Death of Cambodia was banned in the United States in 1980, the 
broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone calls 
were not returned. Something had happened. But what? Year Zero had already 
alerted much of the world to Pol Pot's horrors, but it also investigated the 
critical role of the Nixon administration in the tyrant's rise to power and the 
devastation of Cambodia.

Six months later, a PBS official told me: "This wasn't censorship. We're into 
difficult political days in Washington. Your film would have given us problems 
with the Reagan administration. Sorry."

In Britain, the long war in Northern Ireland spawned a similar, deniable 
censorship. The journalist Liz Curtis compiled a list of more than 50 television 
films that were never shown or indefinitely delayed. The word "ban" was rarely 
used, and those responsible would invariably insist they believed in free speech.

The Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, believes in free speech. The 
foundation's website says it is "dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity and 
creativity". Authors, film-makers and poets make their way to a sanctum of 
liberalism bankrolled by the billionaire Patrick Lannan in the tradition of 
Rockefeller and Ford.

The foundation also awards "grants" to America's liberal media, such as Free 
Speech TV, the Foundation for National Progress (publisher of the magazine 
Mother Jones), the Nation Institute and the TV and radio programme Democracy 
Now!. In Britain, it has been a supporter of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for 
Journalism, of which I am one of the judges. In 2008, Patrick Lannan backed 
Barack Obama's presidential campaign. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, he 
is "devoted" to Obama.

*World of not-knowing*
On 15 June, I was due in Santa Fe, having been invited to share a platform with 
the distinguished American journalist David Barsamian. The foundation was also 
to host the US premiere of my new film, The War You Don't See, which 
investigates the false image-making of warmakers, especially Obama.

I was about to leave for Santa Fe when I received an email from the Lannan 
Foundation official organising my visit. The tone was incredulous. "Something 
has come up," she wrote. Patrick Lannan had called her and ordered all my events 
to be cancelled. "I have no idea what this is all about," she wrote.

Baffled, I asked that the premiere of my film be allowed to go ahead, as the US 
distribution largely depended on it. She repeated that "all" my events were 
cancelled, "and this includes the screening of your film". On the Lannan 
Foundation website, "cancelled" appeared across a picture of me. There was no 
explanation. None of my phone calls was returned, nor subsequent emails 
answered. A Kafka world of not-knowing descended.

The silence lasted a week until, under pressure from local media, the foundation 
put out a terse statement that too few tickets had been sold to make my visit 
"viable", and that "the Foundation regrets that the reason for the cancellation 
was not explained to Mr Pilger or to the public at the time the decision was 
made". Doubts were cast by a robust editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican. The 
paper, which has long played a prominent role in promoting Lannan Foundation 
events, disclosed that my visit had been cancelled before the main advertising 
and previews were published. A full-page interview with me had to be pulled 
hurriedly. "Pilger and Barsamian could have expected closer to a packed 820-seat 
Lensic [arts centre]."

The manager of The Screen, the Santa Fe cinema that had been rented for the 
premiere, was called late at night and told to kill all his online promotion for 
my film. He was given no explanation, but took it on himself to reschedule the 
film for 23 June. It was a sell-out, with many people turned away. The idea that 
there was no public interest was demonstrably not true.
*
Symptom of suppression*
Theories? There are many, but nothing is proven. For me, it is all reminiscent 
of long shadows cast during the cold war. "Something is going to surface," said 
Barsamian. "They can't keep the lid on this."

My 15 June talk was to have been about the collusion of American liberalism in a 
permanent state of war and in the demise of cherished freedoms, such as the 
right to call governments to account. In the US, as in Britain, serious dissent 
-- free speech -- has been substantially criminalised. Obama the black liberal, 
the PC exemplar, the marketing dream, is as much a warmonger as George W Bush. 
His score is six wars. Never in US presidential history has the White House 
prosecuted so many whistleblowers, yet this truth-telling, this exercise of true 
citizenship, is at the heart of America's constitutional First Amendment. 
Obama's greatest achievement is having seduced, co-opted and silenced much of 
liberal opinion in the US, including the anti-war movement.

The reaction to the cancellation has been illuminating. The brave, such as the 
great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, were appalled and said so. Similarly, many 
ordinary Americans called in to radio stations and have written to me, 
recognising a symptom of far greater suppression. But some exalted liberal 
voices have been affronted that I dared whisper the word censorship about such a 
beacon of "cultural freedom". The embarrassment of those who wish to point both 
ways is palpable. Others have pulled down the shutters and said nothing. Given 
their patron's ruthless show of power, it is understandable. For them, the 
Russian dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko once wrote: "When truth is replaced 
by silence, the silence is a lie."
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