March 19, 2005
Valued Criticism
A recent New York Times article recently caught my attention. The subject? Our government using millions of taxpayer dollars to propagandize on our newscasts.
Before you folks on the Red Column ask, I might as well anticipate your questions with an answer: Yes, I do think the government has some right to a polished presentation. It’s the manufactured, secret kind that bugs me.
Basic principles, really. We live in a democracy, and democracy is rule of the people, the masses, really. They intent is to keep power flowing all over the place, so that majorities of different demographic composition can satisfy their interests. The thing about a democracy that makes this work is that people can agree across different dividing lines of philosophy, find common ground between each other that might not be superficially obvious.
Two things create this:
1)The common experiences and human concerns of the population, with certain similarities in their reactions brought to bear.
2)Media that contains a professional press capable of giving people a trustworthy big picture, as well as containing a forum for the transmission of different opinions people might find valid, though they don't originally see things that way.
What happens otherwise is a kind of stagnation of views and policies. On point of fact, it's happening already.
Democrats are demonized as sympathizers to communism, sympathizers to terrorists, or whatever enemy the GOP needs a scapegoat for their inability to effect immediate defeat of. We're always holding them back, always belittling their heroic efforts.
It's easy to say we're at fault. We have little to do with the process by which the Republican party actually makes decisions. They can confirm Attorney Generals that okay torture and other illegalities, A UN Basher for UN ambassador, a Neoconservative architect of the Iraq War for the World Bank, and others without really having to mess all that much with us. They can pass what they want, put whoever they want on committee. And if something goes wrong? It's because the Republicans were held back by the weaklings and backbiters, the obstructionists out for their own political glorification.
The GOP has the Democratic Party where they want it. What about the American people, though? That's where things get complicated. More than anything, this is an administration afraid of what the American people might do if people got straight answers about what their government was doing. We can't call it Social Security Privatization. No, that would be wrong.
It's private accounts, now. It's not about the explicit meaning- both amount to the same thing. Privatization, though, is something that's done to large institution. Accounts is something done to you. Bush wants you to get two impressions from this: One, it's being done for your benefit by your permission, and two, it's not going to affect the institution as a whole.
What bothers me there, is that while the first is debatably true, the second is a vastly misleading impression to give. This is a privatization, one that opens the door for more of the same.
This is but one example. Do we run convoys in Iraq anymore? No, combat logistics patrols. Because of that, of course, fewer convoys are being attacked. We get more of the same spin with the junkyard armor question posed by that soldier to Donald Rumsfeld, where we are told that the unit is now fully armored, and not told that most of the Armor is the precise kind of compromised, junkyard born armor that the soldier in question complained about in the first case.
Worse yet, the spin becomes less about content, and more about the content providers. The soldier, who willingly asked the question, and was willingly cheered by his fellow soldiers gets dismissed because he gave a little help to a reporter who wanted the same question asked. Legitimate concerns about the president's wartime service, backed by damning documentary evidence are considered resolved merely because four pages out of the hundreds in concern were forged and a reporter they hate with irrational intensity is duped by that evidence. The person who confirms the forgeries confirms that the documents contained authentic information, and still all that matters is the cloud of suspicion, the dark whisperings of Liberal Bias.
Even then, people learn of the evidence, and make their own decisions. Even with his political organization going at full-steam, this president who once enjoyed a landslides worth of high opinion barely wins the presidency by a hundred thousand votes in one state. He won the popular vote by two percentage points.
But even then, relativism creeps in. The Bush administration declares that it has a mandate. If around sixty percent or more of the American voters had voted for Bush, that might have been a legitimate claim, but this last election was a landslide the way snow shaken from a branch is an avalanche.
And now it seems evident that an administration with such solid standards for evidence has been paying for news-style reports to bolster its public image, reports often indistinguishable from that of journalists working for private concerns.
One has to push aside a number of moral sentiments to get this far. First, you have to push aside that troubling legal notion that our government shouldn't be propagandizing to its own people. Second, you have to justify the secrecy under which these reports are given, coupled with their intentional resemblance to journalistic piece. Then you have to get past that notion that we should be getting straight answers from our government through the media by reporters and organizations that don't draw their paycheck from the government. The government should be a obligated primary source, a servant to American's right to know, not the ones determining what we see and hear of their activities.
Awareness is a fundamental necessity in democracy. To the extent that a democratic government enforces ignorance on its people, that government is democratic in name only. This president has done his best to keep us unaware of the full extent of his policies, the consequences of his policies, and the nature of events, conditions and issues that we are set to decide on. Despite his role as public servant, he has seen fit to keep himself invulnerable to public scrutiny and criticism, and to act as entirely as our boss, with all such privileges, when he is as much our employee as anything else.
Now, the question might be asked, by those wishing to play the games of moral relativism, of whether I would have the same response if the leaders were on my side. The answer would be an honest no. My response, though, would not be that which they would predict. I would not be so vocal in taking a Democrat to task, true enough. There is much incentive in tyranny resting on the other side of the aisle, especially when one is in the minority. I have a need to go after Bush that is intensified by my party being disadvantaged by him. But were the person in question one of my own party, I would not consider this something to be left alone, not considered at all.
I would not pull the kind of shameful performance that Zell Miller did, vilifying his own party, hamstringing them for all to see. One does not have to go after one's own party the way one would a rival or enemy. One can criticize in the name of friendship. There is no disloyalty in honest disagreement between friends, no disloyalty in taking a friend to task for shameful behavior. There's no need for public humiliation or rebuke. What can be done, can be done behind closed doors, the spin and doubletalk affording a graceful transition away from error rather than a desperate escape from responsibility.
I'm sure Republicans will ask, what do we have to gain from this? It should be obvious. With porkbarrel spending out of control, entitlements growing at a reckless pace, and waste being hidden behind secrecy and corruption, the GOP is more than ever in need of internal regulation. The last thing you want, in the end, is the American people ultimately feeling the need to correct your party by the means of the ballot box.
You know what else you don't want: The Democrats in control of a propaganda machine. The excesses of one party, unchallenged, can become the excesses of another after a change of fortune. In the end, it is in the best interests of the American people, regardless of party, to keep our government out of the media business.
Posted by Stephen Daugherty at March 19, 2005 11:00 AM“ZZZZZZ”
Get over it, Bush won, Republican House Won, Republican Senate Won = Mandate.
“One can criticize in the name of friendship. There is no disloyalty in honest disagreement between friends, no disloyalty in taking a friend to task for shameful behavior. There’s no need for public humiliation or rebuke. What can be done, can be done behind closed doors, the spin and doubletalk affording a graceful transition away from error rather than a desperate escape from responsibility.”
1. Zell Miller represents the Democratic Party of days gone by.
2. Tell me this criticizing paragraph is a joke. Does this mean you guys are going to stop insulting the President, his intelligence, and his supporters?
Posted by: Blaine at March 19, 2005 01:35 PMBlaine, you talk as though the House, Senate, and presidency were won without any opposition. You do not have a mandate from the people when over 40% of voters are against you.
As to Shrub, I don’t ever seriously belittle his intelligence. He was obviously smart enough to get elected president twice. I just criticize the majority of people that voted for him because of junk like, “John Kerry was a flip-flopper,” and other such propaganda.
Posted by: Zeek at March 19, 2005 01:56 PMStraight out of “1984”, the state must control and use the media to present ‘NEWS’ supportive of those in power.
Bush is learning…
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 19, 2005 02:33 PMBlaine-
A mandate? You can’t even get most people to agree with your folks on Social Security. Reagan had a mandate. FDR had a mandate. Bush has wishful thinking that his slim victories, wrought with much political effort, mean the people are behind him. Truth is, people are very wary of him. That’s how you go from approval ratings between 70 and 90 percent to bare percentage points majorities.
re:Zell Miller
Days gone by. Days when our party was contaminated with the old cruelties of slavery and Jim Crow. Days when it was more important to oppose communists than to put together military and foreign policy that worked. I don’t particularly see the benefit in that kind of nostalgia.
For whatever reasons, he neglected one set of important facts: Bush’s people have said many of the right words, but done few of the right things.
They let porkbarrel items in the budgets overwhelm vehicle maintenance and armoring. Cheney was cutting right alongside Kerry, and there was good reason at the time to think those cuts justified.
Look in Factcheck’s archives, and you’ll find most of what Miller accused Kerry of was either false, or not current to the attitude of the man who ran for office last year.
You didn’t think Zell Miller just got on stage and vented, did you? His speech was scripted, like everything else. And very likely, those who wrote the script knew they were wrong about these things, knew Cheney’s history, and didn’t feel enough of a problem about it to write other, less defamatory material. In short, I think you trust your own party’s propaganda too much.
re: my concluding paragraph
Read closer. My suggestion is your people police your own, before the scandals and the screw-ups start to take a toll on your peformance at the polls. I was suggesting that you and yours undertake some kind of correction in private before your dirty laundry has to be done in public. I’m warning you: we will not be gentle. You’ve stepped on too many toes and kicked too many shins for the Democrats not to have some degree of resentment. As the generations shift, you might find yourself in a political position not unlike ours. The question is, do you want to pass on practices that are hostile abuses of power, or do you want to join with the moderates in my party to take on a more civil tone in politics. Just keepin mind, the people you stepped on on the way up, are the people you’re going to be passing on the way down.
The spin has been on both sides like it or not,and still is.
What about poverty for the 30 years both senate and house where controlled by Democrats.
Please Stephen your embarassing yourself here.
This should have been spoken of 7 years ago.
There are many conservsatives that think the spending is OUT OF CONTROL but the pork barrel roles on both sides of the isle.
There has been media manipulation for the last 100 years. History is replete with examples.
People are very wary of all POLITICIANS period and they should be.
So why did Mr. Kerry refuse to release his military documentation and still has not, to this day. Maybe because his discharge was not so honorable that it had to fixed by a President years after his leaving the armed forces. Geese no wonder he doesn’t the light of day on that one.
And another thing why is everyone so apposed to giving (forcibly take from one to hand over to another) to the citizen’s of this country exactly what every congressman and senator receive as a option like this so called privitization.
Let’s talk about a Judiciary that is out of Control and off base, or scream so damn loud about the pork that American ears bleed. Why can’t we force every congressman and senator to go and spend time with there constituents and not there lobbying buddies, Most of them need a reality check, a good slap in the back of the head. I forgot the vast majority of them are multi-millionares who don’t give a damn about others. Man I’m feeling cynical and crunky today.
As far as Zell is concerned he still portrays the democrat’s of the sixties. A much nobler breed than those of today, higher ideals.
You know people like to compare Howard Dean to Newt Gingrich accept Newt’s plan actually worked. Screaming that you hate all republican’s doesn’t exactly reach out to moderates it shows a lack of tolerance which democrat’s say in word only they have lock on. JIM CROW mentality must taught in order for it to be learned AKA Howard Dean bigotry is still bigotry color doesn’t matter. Face it the tide has turned and democrat’s forgot where they came from.
They are adrift paddling furiously to nowhere.
God help us all if they don’t wake up and grow up and change. There does need to be a check on republicans (this is coming from one)and believe me they will be held accountable at the polling station.
There has never been a more diverse cabinet in this countries history even when we had the first black president.
Posted by: Chris at March 19, 2005 05:39 PMIf this thread started from a quote from the NYT, it must be true.
BTW… is Jason Blair still editor in chief there?
Posted by: Beagle at March 19, 2005 06:16 PMChris-
Diversity isn’t based on skin color. When will you guys understand that Condoleeza Rice is as black as Dick Cheney. The point isn’t skin color… the point is background, and whether or not they will do things that will actually benifit the race that they “belong” to.
Also, all of you “conservatives” will have a huge foot in your mouth when these “private acounts” turn all of us into an ownership society where we are more worried about whether or not there are enough government subsidies going to our portfolios, than government dollars going to our children’s schools. Oh that’s right. Then we can privatize them too, and then why not the prison system. I can’t see any problem with turning our government into a coorporation… can you???
Posted by: Ryan at March 19, 2005 06:23 PMRyan,
“Diversity isn’t based on skin color. When will you guys understand that Condoleeza Rice is as black as Dick Cheney. The point isn’t skin color… the point is background, and whether or not they will do things that will actually benifit the race that they “belong” to.”
The last I knew Condi was friends with some of the girls burned up in that black church in “bamma” by a group of racist pigs, do you really believe she doesn’t care?
As far as caring for “the race they belong to”, I personally think everyone belongs to the “human” race.
I would hope that everyone in a leadership position would care about everyone, reguardless of race or skin tone!
Posted by: Beagle at March 19, 2005 06:47 PM“I would hope that everyone in a leadership position would care about everyone, reguardless of race or skin tone!”
That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make… I’m sorry if my sarcasm goes over your head.
I was referring to Chris’ comment saying that this is the most diversified cabinent. Just because Condi’s skin is black, and our new attourny general’s name is Gonzoles, doesn’t make this the most ‘diverse’ group of cabinent members. A more ‘divers’ group would be one where diversity is not based on race, but on background. Background being education, economic, and cultural, not racial… cultural.
Posted by: Ryan at March 19, 2005 06:59 PMChris-
The Republicans had control of our legislature for more than a decade. Face facts: They don’t want to rein in spending. Not unless the conservatives out there start standing up to their own leaders.
Kerry released just about every record he had, minus a few medical ones. Considering your presidency stingy release of his own records, and the extraordinary difference in the completeness of their respective files, the advantage on military documentation is Kerry’s. Don’t make me come at you with all the “new” discoveries of files that happened during the course of Bush’s campaign. Kerry released far more in one fell swoop than your president did his entire campaign.
The Judiciary is supposed to be coequal with the other branches, not under their control. Separation of powers, and its what makes our country run as smoothly as it does. We do not have a subordinate judiciary, and we don’t need one.
Beagle-
You evidently have no more concern for the facts than Jayson Blair if you respond to former staff rather than facts as your method of dispute. Tell me what’s not true in the article, and then we’ll talk about lies and innuendo.
Ryan
This is a form letter!
href=”http://domain.com/link”>http://www.georgetown.edu/pdba/Executive/USA/cabinet.html
quote text
I do believe you need a refresher on the current cabinet posts.So please visit the link provided.
Ryan
Democrat’s labeled Bill Clinton as the first black president that was to be a spoof on the democrat spin of diversity, and there claim’s of the owning the topic through action, oops! there not supposed to own people. They have treated the black vote this way for a long time and a bitter root is growing there.
Can’t we all just get along!!
BEAGLE
thank you for that clarification to ryan it proves that some of us get it.
Stephen
When the judiciary makes up laws by attempting to infur certain RIGHTS where none exist. Wait why do we have the senate and the house oh that’s right they WRITE THE LAWS NOT JUDGES.
Unelected Officials cannot make laws to subvert the populace period yet this is happenning.
I believe form 180 has yet to be signed.
Please view this link.href=”http://domain.com/link”>http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=6628
quote text
oops!
writing to fast for my own good.
sorry you”ll have to cut and paste for proof.
I don’t know what either of those two links prove… I belive that Steve D. already clarified the Kerry millitary thing. And as for the list of the cabinent members I don’t know what you are trying to prove… please tell me, so that I know what to look for.
Posted by: Ryan at March 19, 2005 11:14 PMChris-
While many judges are unelected, those who appoint them and those who advise and consent to those appointments are elected, and therefore, there is a check on their lack of responsibility towards voters. Additionally, judges can be impeached and removed from the bench.
There’s a reason why federal judges, many state judges, and the supreme court are appointed, rather than elected: it gives elected officials a check on the judiciary, both in selection and confirmation. Your side has been very keen on exercising that right.
While the judges cannot make laws, they can interpret the law, the precedent, and the peculiar circumstances of a case, and set forth remedies. That is traditionally, and legally, the province of the judiciary, and it’s an awful shame that your side has twisted it into this open rebelling against a coequal judiciary.
Right now, your activist legislators are overstepping their bounds. They are telling judges the decisions they must come to, regardless of the facts of the case. They are singling out, against constitutional law one person to be affected by a law: Terry Schiavo. Additionally, they tried to overrule a court decision by an act of legislation.
Congress cannot dictate the interpretation of laws to the judiciary. They cannot decide cases, cannot write laws that defy the ultimate law of the land, and cannot take on the powers of the judiciary to themselves. They are supposed to write laws, not enforce, not judge them. As much as legislation from the bench must be reined in, so should our congress making itself judge, jury, and executioner.
As for form 180, what does it matter? Getting records from Bush has been like pulling teeth. Kerry volunteered the Records, in just about full detail. Bush signed a few forms, made a few releases, then had all you pat him on the back for being so forthcoming. Of course people mysteriously found more documents not just one or twice, but at least three times. Kerry may not always talk the talk, but he certainly did a lot better walking the walk.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 20, 2005 01:51 AMI agree with you usually Steve D. but I think when it comes to this case in floria our party has it wrong… this guy shouldn’t have the right to make the decisions he’s trying to make. But more so DuLey(Sp) and all of the other Republicans are coming out to look like the humanitarians on the side of the little guy. I don’t know why any democrat would oppose the house’s intervention to keep this person alive. It is the right thing to do.
I live in Oregon where we have a doctor assisted suiscide law (doctors can administer fatal doses of drugs to termanally ill patients at their descression). But I don’t think in Terry’s case any absolute conclusion can be made when it come’s to her wishes. So why kill her… it’s not like she’s on life support, she just can’t feed herself… much like and infant or the late Christopher Reeves.
Posted by: Ryan at March 20, 2005 03:32 AMCommunism anyone. This is the type of thing that
Russia and China use extensively. Socialist
Consevitives more to the point.
The Terry Schiavo case was lost to her parents in the courts. Her husband’s side made his case well enough that the courts decided in his favor. Now, you have the legislature trying to overrule the courts, and become an Judicial branch unto themselves.
If they can get away with that, they can overrule the courts on anything, and they become above the law, since it’s the court’s decision whether or not a law conflicts with the constitution or not.
For the sake of one woman, whose husband is probably right, whose conscious mind is probably permanently and completely destroyed, we will throw out the constitutional separation of powers that our founding fathers gave us, and which has served us well over the years. Perhaps the courts made a mistake with Terry Schiavo. But letting the law take its course in this case is better than opening up our entire system to a destructive imbalance of power.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at March 20, 2005 09:17 AMIt is up to each of us to read between the lines to hear the heart of the matter. We the people..are alive and well and the more fabrication and dogma thrown at us as a fair and balanced diet = more and more of us becoming increasingly ill. If you try to starve the people they might be disillusioned for a while…but when they see their families and children in the anguish of starvation..that my friends is a very different story. A sage for humanity once said…all I want is some truth…just give me some truth. It is up to you. This is not some type of my dad can beat up your dad cry. No in the end it is simply put - realization that something in the house is burning and unchecked will burn out of control. Let us all do our research. Work hard to see the image that is real and stop fighting amoungst ourselves… after all we are the people.
Posted by: Bradley at March 20, 2005 09:38 AMStephen,
We almost never agree on anything, but one thing I agree with you on ; ..
My first post was just a dig at the NYT, It added nothing to the thread or debate.
I apoligize for that one.
Who Cares. What a stupid article. All this talk about media bias. The general public is smart enough to look at both sides. There will always be a percentage of people who always vote republican or always vote democratic. It’s also funny to start a conversation about a bias media with a New York times article. I’m a democrat and I wish we would stop whining about this crap and move on. There are plenty of issues that will help us in future elections. Let’s get back to health care, and finding an alternative fuel source. We just hurt our party by talking about how unfair the media is.
Ivan
I think that people are losing sight of the scandal here: The DOJ claims that government has the right to produce fake news releases, with someone saying “This is so-and-so reporting from…”, with no indication that it’s not a real news report. This simply SHOULD NOT HAPPEN IN A DEMOCRACY. I don’t care if the President is Bush, Clinton, or Moses.
Now if the government wants to make flashy videos that are clearly labeled as official propaganda, that is another matter.
Posted by: Woody Mena at March 20, 2005 12:36 PMWoody,
What is really sad, is that the right belives that the media should have known better.
Posted by: Rocky at March 20, 2005 12:42 PMReminds of an SNL skit about a folk duo called something like “Oglethorpe and Flam”. Oglethorpe sings, plays guitar, and writes. Flam just claps. The interviewer keeps trying to make Flam look more dignified, and finally asks, “So you are the conscience of the band?”
“Nope,” Flam replies, “Oglethorpe takes care of that.”
That is pretty much the Bush response: We’ll just make our videos. The media can take care of the ethics.
Posted by: Woody Mena at March 20, 2005 01:01 PMIvan-
Look, I am the last person to complain about media bias. My concern is the deception and co-opting of the media. These “news” reports constitute both. With such hidden propaganda, the govenment can operate behind a curtain of secrecy, hiding inaction, incompetence and immoral policies, and produce dishonest rebuttals of accusations that masquerade as news reports. What I advocate for here is not a removal of bias, but the ending of practices that only serve to obscure your average American citizen’s perspective on their government’s doings. It is in all our interests to stop this.
this is about more than media bias, it is about media brainwashing. i think point is, we r not getting both sides in mainstream media. most people look at the news and expect it to be unbiased, fair, and even true. when i mention stories i see on link tv or fstv,blogs, etc., most of the people i talk to have no idea what i am talking about. i get responses like ‘i must have missed that story on the news, or i will turn to to my news channel and watch for that story.’ people do not realize they r being fed propaganda as news. i am sick at heart the direction our country is going, but i continue to write my letters to our (and i use the term loosely) representives/voices in government.
i feel to let the shiavo woman starve to death is wrong, but give the government power over her fate and they will find a way to abuse it in future cases.
I see our President is so worried about the feeding tubes for a woman who has been in a coma for years that he is flying back to Washington from his vacation. I fail to see the difference between this woman and the hundreds of soldiers being killed in Iraq for no apparent reason other than Big Oil. Oh, but then Big Oil is who got Bush elected in the first place.
Posted by: Jim Rideout at March 21, 2005 12:54 AMIvan… if you are still reading this you should read Noam Comsky’s ‘nessicary illusions’ and then talk about media bias… if you have time look at ‘manufacturing consent’ by him also.
The TV is nothing but a way to impose mind control on the masses. Quick survey…
1)Name 2 out of 3 hosts of American Idol?
2)What’s the name of the CIA head of counter Terrorism, who sent Condoleeza Rice a memo saying that we would be attacked by Al-Quaida if we don’t do something… 8 months before it happened.
Now Ivan… tell me please how your media has helped you discover these to facts, and how difficult they were to recall.
Posted by: Ryan at March 21, 2005 01:51 PMThis is really about a one party government centralizing control into their own hands and removing it incrementally from the states and the people. Controlling the communication has been an objective of the Bush Whitehouse since day one and the GOP since Newt Gingrich.
So, let’s add this up, centralized federal power in the hands of a small number representing a one party controlling government, with loyal party members controlling all the agencies of government, and who make keeping and expanding their power their number one goal. Almost seems to add up to the former USSR Poliburo doesn’t it. Some might guess China.
Correct answer, These United States of America. And they said it couldn’t happen here… The joke is no the voters who voted for them, the bigger joke will be on the voters who believe this is the way it is supposed to be when there children ask why their parents let this happen.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 21, 2005 05:31 PMI’m not going to pretend that i am informed enough on this subject to make a definite response, but i do know definitely that something is going wrong with our government and the Bush administration. I do not agree with the administration leaning on our media so heavily. i wish that i could read the news and actually read unbiased truth. i am a democrat, but i am not denying that this “pressure on media” is solely done by the republican party. to deny this would lying to myself
Posted by: Megan at March 21, 2005 06:48 PMThe Bush Administration (especially Rove) has an uncanny ability when it comes to presenting their case to the public of:
1. Never admitting they were wrong, ever. If something bad happened/ is happening it?s the fault of someone else.
i.e.;
Weapons of mass destruction - Blame CIA, British Intelligence, etc. ;
Deficit / failing economy - Clinton, 9/11, etc.;
poor post war planning in Iraq / Afghanistan (not welcomed as liberators)- It’s irrational freedom haters! the people speaking out against the war are encouraging them!
2. Mixing two completely unrelated issues;
We have to pass social security privatization because the AARP is made up of Troop hating homosexuals!
What will we do about education and Health Care? who cares! did you know Kerry wasn’t in Cambodia?
Cheney was the head of Halliburton and receives a differed bonus? They have been caught stealing how much already? We have to Get the feeding tube back in a brain dead woman!
3. Pandering to a 15 second attention span;
Its Hard work!
Freedom!
Democracy!
Liberty!
FLAG WAVING!
with the Media being a for-profit enterprise this plan works exceptionally well. Use small words and sound bytes, link with emotional and sensationalistic stories, repeat till whatever your opponent was saying is lost in the background. the News outlets will put whatever sells out there, they are not the moral compass of the nation! The republicans have become so good at it that i reread 1984 and almost pissed my self. I dont know what it will take to get the public to demand more fact oriented and in depth news on the stories that are important, but it really seems that people arent that interested in the truth any more, they are so used to being sold something by commercials that that is what politics has been reduced to.
My fav Bush quote,
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace!”
June 18th 2002
Vex, thank you. I have been pushing for folks to read or reread 1984 and Brave New World around here. The parallels are indeed frightening.
You are obviously a very astute person. I love your Bush quote: it could easily have come straight out of 1984. Well done.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 22, 2005 08:06 AMAnd when we talk about peace, we’re really talking about oil!
Posted by: Zeek at March 24, 2005 10:45 PM
