War in the media and the English language:

the case of Yugoslavia 1999 bombardment

For most human beings in the Western world, watching television has
become the principal means of interaction with the new world now
under construction, as well as a primary activity of the everyday life.
At the same time, the instructions at the fulcrum of the process use
television to train human beings in what to think, what to feel, and
how to be in the modern world. In the text that follows I examine
additional impacts of television in the world today in the case of 1999
NA TO bombardment of Yugoslavia. I examine the war they led in the
English language at the same time.
“Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of
our culture," says Neil Postman (Currents of Inquiry, 250), while Jerry
Mander, an American author, recognises the critical role television
plays in the larger technological web. He claims that in this society life
has moved inside media-looking at and experiencing-a machine. The
problem is in the environment of TV, which is not static, but aggressive.
As it enters people's minds leaving images within, television becomes
an internal, mental environment. Television synchronises our internal
processes to make them compatible with the world outside ourselves.
As a consequence our brain is put into passive “alpha”, a non-cognitive,
passive-receptive mode. The humans are receivers. “Television seems
to be engaged in some kind of weird mental training” (Against the
Current, 164). It is a drug, called speed. But TV not only trains younger
generations for drug dependency, it also trains them for commodity
dependency (It leaves them with feeling that they can't experience life
without technological and chemical props).
On the other hand, television is supposed to be a democratic
medium. But if it is “democratic” on the receiving end, it is surely not
that on the sending end. For, at this end there are the largest corporations
in every country (In America 75 % of commercial network television
time is paid for by the 100 of them. They can afford it. 450,000
have no influence). The outcome of this is, as A. J. Libelling finds out,
“Freedom of the press is available only to those who own one” (Against
the Current, 166).
Television synchronises our internal processes, concludes Mander,
“with the new world of concrete, computers, space travel, and acceleration”.
It makes our insides-brain and nervous system-compatible with
the world outside ourselves. It puts out brains into a passive alpha state
while ‘zapping our thinking processes and destroying our creative impulses’.
Finally, a new human emerges: speed junkie, videovoid, technovoid.
George Orwell's 1984 describes an information environment so
monolithic and aggressive that it becomes the total source and absolute
limit of human knowledge. In this novel every room has a two-way
"telescreen" that cannot be turned off; its non-stop programming consisted
of official music, economic data, and constant reports of military
victories. Here television becomes an instrument of daily training sessions
for human emotions via constant juxtapositions of the images of
Good vs. Evil; the benevolent, beloved Big Brother versus the hatred,
loathsome enemy, Goldstein.
Like in Orwell’s novel 1984, during 1999 media war against Yugoslavia
the effect of the total control of imaginary was to unify mass
consciousness within a single-media version of reality. Eventually,
people accepted even utterly contradictory “doublethink” statements
such as: “war is peace,” “hate is love,” “ignorance is strength.” Life and
television have merged, just like in the novel. Carl Bernstain, another
American author, joins Mender in seeing the role of American media,
but he asks for raising the same fundamental questions: about standards,
about self-interest and its eclipse of the public interest and interest
of truth. He, first of all, asks: “Who is served?”, and then concludes:
“They-or more precisely, we-have abdicated our responsibility, and the
consequence of our abdication is the spectacle” (American Voices, 390).
Television was essentially an instrument of official policy during
the Persian Gulf War, and it still is, Mander claims. The two sources of
imagery – video games and war – became intertwined in the minds of
a society, and war itself became something of a giant video game. This
started in America during Ronald Reagan presidency. Mander analyses
Mr. Reagan as a man who spent his adult life being an image. He
knew that the way you look and behave is more important than what
you say or do. Above all, he recreated a set of images that had been
reinforced by standard story lines since World War II; he was making
real what was previously just imagery in the minds of the population.
Mander recognised that Reagan understood the antihistorical
nature of TV reality, its nowness. He also understood the power of one
single source to control human minds. And just as in 1984, real and
unreal, truth and fiction, became equally arbitrary, for there is no way
to clarify or check what is asserted on TV. “And so Reagan could call
his invasion of Grenada a ‘rescue’ of students who were never in danger.
He could assert that the Soviets knew that Korean Air flight 007 was
a passenger plane before they shot it down, though subsequent stories
suggested that Reagan knew that the Soviets did not know. By asserting
that Libya was behind the Berlin disco bombing, Reagan made that
true for millions of Americans, and we supported his bloody retaliation,
though later evidence showed that Syria had most likely created
that evident” (Against the Current, 178). Clinton obviously had a good
teacher when he did the same in the case of Albanians in Yugoslavia,
which enabled him to get a support from his people during the bombardment
of Yugoslavia.
TV media needs a specific Orwellian language in order to win its
video wars. Again, this started with Ronald Reagan as well. He called
MX missiles "peace-keepers." He also said that lowering taxes on the
wealthy “benefited the poor”, and claimed that “massive rearming was
the way to disarm”. George Bush followed him a few years later by
claiming that “the last best chance for peace was to declare war against
Iraq”, and then said “the goal of the war is peace.” All these sentences
qualify as advanced “doublespeak” (Against the Current, 179).
Obviously, Reagan and Bush also understood the important Orwellian
lesson in focusing public hatred on the repeated images of the
enemy. Orwel had used the loathsome TV visage of Goldstein in "Two
Minute Hate" periods throughout the day. Reagan used Khomeni, then
Khadafy, then Ortega. Bush continued the tendency, focusing American
hatred on images of Willie Horton, then Manuel Noriega, then
Saddam Hussein. (Against the Current, 179) Clinton together with
eighteen more presidents used Milosevic, Saddam Hussein.
When Mr. Reagan said that video games were good training for
bomber pilots, explains Mander, he forgot to mention that video
games were good training for the people too since they enabled people
to truly identify with bomber pilots and brought people closer to
them. (It is amazing how images of the laser and radar guided missiles
brought about video games did enable the TV audience to identify
itself with the precision of the pilot's tasks.) Jerry Mander recognises
in it the unique capability of the medium, equal to its delivery of
multifaced and multidimensional advertising imagery. It is obvious
that no other medium before created such a wonderful advertisement
combined with awe, for technology itself. Just as in Thomas Pynchon
novels: the vision of big high-tech wars (Gravity Rainbow, The Crying
Lot of 49) becomes reality.
Obviously, in the case of Yugoslavia bombardment the two sources
of imaginary video-games and war – became intertwined in people's
minds, and the war itself became something of a giant video game.
This was so apparent that it was noted by mass media pundits. What
was not sufficiently noted but was amazingly odd was the following:
all people's favourite toys-computers, television, video games, and war
games-had merged this way into something we could all experience
right up there with our real pilots. Still, there remained one area of
confusion. For unlike the video-game in video parlours, the actual
bombs had a final outcome that was not merely electronic: it was metal
against flesh. This many have not experienced.
But many have. About 11 million people in Yugoslavia during the
longest up-to-date 78 day video game of bombing of Yugoslavia played
by the 19 most powerful presidents in the spring of 1999. The final outcome
of the metal against flesh was this: by its intensity and military
might, it was the biggest one after World War II. It was undertaken
by NA TO, the alliance of 19 most developed countries in the world,
10 of which took part in the aggression with 1,100 planes and most
sophisticated weaponry. NA TO flew 25,200 sorties over the territory
of Yugoslavia, dropping 25,000 tons of explosives.
NA TO (metal) was unselective about its victims. Children, women,
men, and the elderly perished (1254) as well as mothers with their