"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"

In George Orwell's seminal "1984," those words - spoken to protagonist Winston Smith by his torturer and interrogator - represented the power of the state to alter one's perception of reality, either through torture or through the skillful manipulation of language. Orwell and his ideas on words and their power to shape public views figured prominently in a presentation by David Barsamian, given to a group of about 40 Southern Humboldt residents gathered at the Veterans' Hall Sunday evening.

Barsamian was in Garberville to promote his latest book, Targeting Iran, an exploration of that country's culture, politics, and history - and how Americans' ignorance of them might be setting the U.S. up for "an ocean of bloodshed" in the Middle East. The founder and director of Boulder, Colo.-based Alternative Radio, Barsamian - who's of Armenian descent - speaks some Farsi, has traveled widely as a journalist and lecturer, and is the respected writer of several books, including Imperial Ambitions (with Noah Chomsky) and Original Zinn (with Howard Zinn).

Barsamian's presentation centered on language and how it's used in the political sphere - specifically, in the way Iran is being presented by the Bush administration and most major media in the U.S. Barsamian began by discussing Iranians' passion for the spoken word and its historical origins: this year will mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of Rumi, the most widely read poet in the world, in any language. Barsamian explained that Iran's poetic tradition extends to its working classes, where even relatively uneducated people can recite poetry: "It's a different cultural stream, where the storytelling tradition is very strong," he said, adding that it's an integral part of Sufi traditions - which, in turn, have been absorbed by many of the 89 percent of Iranians who practice Shia Islam.

Barsamian then explained that the form of Islam followed by the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and adherents of al-Qaeda is Wahhabism, whose practitioners believe in a strict interpretation of the Koran - and consider Shiites apostates deserving of death. "It's implausible," Barsamian asserted, "that Iran supports the Taliban. The Taliban want to destroy that [Iranian] culture!" "That culture" is represented today by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, a human-rights activist, as well as "five or six world-class film directors," Barsamian said, "who are doing amazing work within incredible strictures. Everything is a double entendre."

One wouldn't know that, though, from the information currently found in some of the most popular English-language news magazines, which Barsamian excoriated for running what he perceives as sensationalistic stories about Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - stories designed to inspire fear and suspicion in Americans, a majority of whom now believe Iran is the number-one danger faced by the United States. Barsamian showed the audience an issue of Time with a cover story titled "What War With Iran Would Look Like." "Can you imagine," he asked, "what the reaction would be in this country if an Iranian magazine did the same - asked what war with the U.S. would look like, complete with opinions from Iranian generals on which city they'd take out first? People would go nuts."

Barsamian had sharp words for other news media as well, including popular interviewer Charlie Rose ("he regularly misleads, distorts, and misinforms"); National Public Radio and what he deemed its "insufferable politesse," even when discussing matters of grave international importance; and The New York Times, which often provides timely coverage of critical issues but buries it. For example, a story about Kurdistan (which had been part of Iraq) independently negotiating oil deals - a move that flies in the face of Iraqi sovereignty - was buried on page 3 of the Business section. "Can you imagine Gov. Schwarzenegger negotiating an independent deal with Lithuania for offshore drilling in California?" Barsamian asked.

Barsamian compared the administration's use of the word "peace" to that used by the Third Reich: "What did the administration say before the U.S. invaded Iraq? 'We want peace.' Before he invaded Poland, before he annexed Czechoslovakia, Hitler said the same thing: 'We want peace.' All leaders must first deceive the population before getting them to jump on the war bandwagon... by constant repetition of the same tropes. What we're hearing is Iran, 9/11, Ahmadinejad, Iran, al-Qaeda, killing our soldiers, Iran... and so it goes.

"They're certainly not altar boys," Barsamian continued. "There are serious issues with human-rights violations. But they are not a threat to the U.S." Barsamian believes a U.S. invasion is imminent, a view held - according to him - by most of the Iranians he met during a recent trip to Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria. As for the crop of Democratic representatives elected to Congress in November, he expressed no hope - either of their attaining the understanding necessary to deal with Middle East issues, or developing the courage to hold the Bush administration accountable for what he calls war crimes.

"I believe impeachment is not just a legal imperative, it's a moral imperative," Barsamian said. "Why would Nancy Pelosi concede that point to Bush? It's the one thing that could have reined him in." Barsamian believes the House Speaker's refusal to consider impeachment sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations: "Future presidents will say, 'They got away with murder. Why shouldn't I?' " Responding to those who would doubt his patriotism given his loathing for the current regime, Barsamian quoted Mark Twain: " 'I support the country all the time, and I will support the government when it earns it.' Challenging the regime when it's wrong is the highest form of patriotism."

For Barsamian, "challenging the regime" includes challenging its definition of "conservative" - "an honorable political designation that's been hijacked. People like William Howard Taft and Arthur Vandenberg must be doing double turns in their graves." It also includes challenging the numerous misnomers purposely used by government: "You don't say you're going to destroy the Bill of Rights; you draft a new law and call it the 'Patriot Act.' Want to cut down some forests and gut our schools? 'Healthy Forests' and 'No Child Left Behind.' We have the 'Clean Air Act,' which means more pollution, 'tax relief,' which means more money in the hands of the super-rich, and 'faith-based initiatives,' which means funding for parochial schools. And if you want to attack another country, you call that 'defense.' George Orwell must be spinning with this tsunami of distortion."

According to Barsamian, the distortion extends, most egregiously, to the ignorance most Americans seem to have about recent Iranian history - and how a 1953 coup set the stage for the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini 26 years later. The CIA-backed Operation Ajax, led by Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Theodore), ousted the government of the democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh - "who had the funny idea that Iran's oil wells should benefit Iranian people" - and instated the Shah, whose corrupt regime was toppled by the Islamic revolution of 1979. "The only thing Americans of a certain age know of Iran is the seizure of the U.S. Embassy for 444 days," Barsamian continued. "What they don't know is that Operation Ajax was run out of the embassy, and there were these layers of meaning to what happened."

Why does it matter now? "Because what the U.S. did left Iran wide-open for Khomeini's religious revolution," Barsamian said. "And Iran has a population that's looking for change: 65 percent of the population is under age 30; 70 percent of college and university students are women; literacy is close to 100 percent; and while there are certainly human-rights violations - for example, there is no freedom of speech in an ideal way - there is resistance [to the current government]. But that will evaporate if the U.S. invades. They will rally around the flag. Iranians are deeply aware of the historical sweep Iran represents as a civilization... and conscious of the realpolitik, to use Kissinger's word, that led to Mossadegh's fall."