LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Taboos: United States
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Taboos are never easy to discuss, but on occasion, political advantage goes to the person who speaks the unspeakable. Shintaro Ishihara accomplished this with his book, "The Japan That Can Say No." He stated things about U.S. dependency on Japanese technological superiority, about Japanese national interests and about Japan's divergence from the United States over time that no one dared to say quite so boldly, and credibly, given his position in the LDP.
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The best contemporary example of dominant media taboos at work has to do with the Iraq War. Certain sections of “mainstream†media may have apologized for their power-serving role in propagating the big weapons of mass destruction (WMD) lie (and related deceptions about Saddam Hussein’s alleged connections to al Qaeda and 9/11) that the Bush administration cooked up to justify their invasion of Iraq. But so what? The apology came far too late to matter and dominant U.S. media has subsequently continued to disseminate numerous other administration deceptions, such as the preposterous claim (elevated by the White House public relations machine once the WMD fraud began to be exposed) that the real reason for the occupation of Iraq was the United States’ desire to export “democracy†and to create a free and sovereign Iraq.Â
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Consider the other taboos that have been smashed on the road to peace. Until very recently, talk about creating a ``Palestinian state'' caused the gnashing of teeth and, in American politics, excommunication from the mainstream. But recognizing a state for the Palestinians is now at the heart of Israel's negotiating strategy. End of taboo.
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One of the United States' most emotionally convulsive taboos of its own that is discussed more frequently is "race." Along these lines, there is enormous interest in results of DNA testing of various relatives of Thomas Jefferson--Declaration of Independence author and third president of the United States--and his slave, Sally Hemings. The results show that the author of the Bill of Rights and the words "all men are created equal," produced offspring with his own African-American slave.
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