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All this can be yours simply by touching the button marked + on the gizmo thing. This transports you, from channel 500 to channel 501, a nana-second's journey well worth the effort. Once there, you should soon begin to feel a better person. In my experience, a man can lose his lunch while watching American television. Last Sunday, surfing the channels I came upon the Reverend Robert Schuler's church service and paused to hear an Australian visitor of undeclared denomination but higher calling, a deduction based on my own hunch since the man was wearing a cross round his neck over a mauve blouse. He appeared to be preaching. I heard him say he was from Australia and loved Australia as did the Lord; he went on to declare that he believed God really loved America even more because God had a special destiny for America. Those present in the church then broke out in thunderous applause indicating approval of this pastoral revelation. It is a phenomenon of today's televised religions that worshippers have often become converted to audiences. In my many years in pre-televised church attendance, I do not recall any time when the pastor's sermon was interrupted by worshippers clapping their hands. So, this congregant soon departed Schuler's house of worship, fleeing the thought that America's war on terrorism had now become God's own war, destined by God to wage it. I may have become overly wrought following the World Series by its not infrequent renditions of "God Bless America," which, alas, has replaced "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" as baseball's official anthem. "God Bless America" is, of course, properly an anthem, which is to say, a religious choral and a song of devotion and praise, even when sung by Kate Smith. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is none of these, but is about peanuts, popcorn and crackerjacks. It seems to me, the U.S. administration, its spokespersons, apologists and CNN, in their efforts to keep the American people in a frenzy of patriotic fervor and appropriate readiness for battle, are wearing out the rest of us. Even while the administration warns of a lengthy war, pleads for patience and asks its citizenry to remain vigilant and on alert, it also keeps asking people to stand, or remain standing, or join in the singing of one or another of the anthems, or in solemn prayer, or in a moment's silence. I fear there is a danger of the American people leaving their fight in the gym, as we say in boxing circles. But you can wave one flag too many, it seems to me when there are many serious and sobering matters in need of contemplation and comprehension. This is, as CNN rightly informs, "America's War," or, as CNN frequently put it earlier: "America's New War." Before this one was begun, it had become the accepted wisdom of the next generation of war-fighters that one of the main reasons for the disastrous result of the war against Vietnam was the error in giving the media free access to the battlefield. Because the media told more of the truth than propaganda can endure, "America's New War" will be different. The struggle for truth will be over access, already limited. Information, then, must be mistrusted on sight since the truth cannot be confirmed by sources independent of the military or the administration. Already, the fine hand of news management shows. While watching tons of ordinance fall from the sky to explode upon distant, invisible, alleged targets, we are also shown Northern Alliance forces (our guys) firing rounds of ammo into barren hillsides while journalists report this nondescript force is "testing its weapons" and will be engaging the enemy "within a fortnight." That would be on or before Nov. 16. Make note to tune in. Film shot by a South African crew at a hospital on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border portrays the certain death of an infant child, dying from malnutrition and another child, hospitalized with shell fragments in its feet, then, a Swedish aid official, warning of the human disaster soon to engulf 100,000 Afghan refugees. CNN has a fixation on the bombing - although from a distance. The South African film, seen too close for either fantasy or comfort, was seen on BBC World, which is closer to the war. One wonders if America will even see it. Dalton Camp is a political commentator. His column appears on Wednesday and Sunday in The Star. Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited ###
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