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THE IRONY CURTAIN
During the cold war, the insular and secretive character of the Soviet Union was labeled: "The Iron Curtain". Since the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the declaration of the 'War on Terrorism', the United States has developed it's own peculiar kind of insularity. The White House and their conservative allies in the media and in industry have used the post 9-11 era to erect a curtain of control and containment of information. This curtain of containment appears to be successful for about 51% of the American Households, based upon the results of the November 2nd election. My guess is that 51% of the american people have information habits that have been groomed through the skilled marketing to church and peer networks by conservative opinion managers. Skillful memetics by conservatives have immunized these groups from contrary and world opinion through frequent injections of viral notions such as 'liberal media' or 'foreign' media. While 51% of americans can't "see out" because of information habits and information viruses, the world can readily "see in". Information technology and a virtual planetary media network combine with a critical interest in the actions of the United States to make life in the United States a source of intrigue, irritation, admiration and entertainment for the entire planet. Thus americans live behind a two-way mirror of information in which we see only a reflection of ourselves from within but the world clearly sees us from without. I call this phenomenon "The Irony Curtain" because American public discourse intended for the virally afflicted is often viewed by the rest of the world with a sense of amusement perhaps or anger but always, always a sense of irony. For example, last August, after the tragic murder of school children by Chechnyan radicals Russian President Putin announced his intention to suspend provincial elections under an emergency order. A few weeks later, the White House issued a statement, which President Bush repeated on the campaign trail, expressing concern that President Putin was "...using terrorism to justify a damgerous consolidation of power..." That is the height of irony to a world bearing witness to the post 9-11 demagoguery of the American Right. This Web Log is dedicated to documenting life from behind the Irony Curtain. The objective of the log is to a small contribution in the search for a cure to the mind viruses afflicting the insular american mind.