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Say what you want. Iraq went from having no free media to having hundreds. It is better now because of us and will be better still next year.

Some people (especially lefties) think that the only accurate news is bad news. You can believe that, but you will be wrong.

Step-by-step we are making progress. Democracy is wonderful. And you do have to learn some methods.

Let’s not forget the ‘free military’ that Germany, France, South Korea, and Japan, (among others) have been enjoying for the past 60 years either.

Republican definition of a “Free Press”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1654661,00.html
________________________________________________
Pentagon pays Iraqi papers to print its ‘good news’ stories

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Thursday December 1, 2005
The Guardian

Faced with suicide bombings, claims of Iraqi death squads, and kidnappings, the Pentagon has come up with an innovative solution to solving the problems in Iraq: buying good news. Using defence contractors or intermediaries posing as freelance reporters, the military has been paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by a military propaganda unit lauding the US mission.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the articles are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers where they are often presented as unbiased accounts by independent journalists. Records obtained by the newspaper indicate the US has paid to publish dozens of articles since the operation began this year, with headlines such as “Iraqis insist on living despite terrorism” and “more money goes to Iraq’s development”.

One military official told the LA Times the military has also bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, both used to channel pro-American messages. The propaganda offensive is said to have caused unease among some senior military officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq, especially when the US is promising to promote democratic principles.

Let’s just hope their media won’t be like ours.

Jack,
Here you go again!
Apologetics for the Administration’s propaganda machine belong on Fox Blogs, not on this one.

I’ll bet you grew up enjoying pulling the legs off spiders and torturing other animals as well.

There must be a streak of sadism in people who are so intent on annoying others.

Why don’t you go back to watching O’Reilly, Novak, and Hannity - and leave us alone to pursue our ideals.

Western-styled journalism hmm that must be code for editing stories that get the crazies riled up, right? Boy these military people sure are clever. Just like what Putin has a state run media organization, nice way to start a nation with propaganda and cover-up. It worked well for Saddam so let’s give it another try huh? That shouldn’t cause a backlash—Naaaa.

We have decimated their country, killed over 150 thousand civillians and destroyed any hope they may see in their own future which will be turned over to shiite madmen with potential links to terror in time. WOw Neocons are really good at this nation building stuff, huh?

WE ARE NOT NATION-BUILDING! We were invading, WE are occupying, we are colonializing all innitially for some rediculous half-baked republican GOP ideal that we have that we can put in a Walmart Supercenter there. That’s what this war is to every republican who posts anywhere on the net.

We think that we can put in a mall and not getting that this is a different society all together with a whole different mindset. THis country will be ruled by religious whackos with ties to Iranian clerics who support terror. If not run by clerics themselves.

HERE’S WHAT IT iS: We put in the Shah of Iran and a decade or so later it was over run by Khomenei and the Shiia. What we are doing is skipping the Shah phase and will be going straight to Bush’s biggest faith-based innitiative thus far and that’s what all of this is going to wind up to be.

>>>I heard a report last night of Iraqi army soldiers killing intellectuals from Universities in Iraq in house to house raids and dragging them out to be executed. That’s how Pol Pot started and these Shiites are not to be mistaken as a friendly bunch they want theocratic totalitarian power and such is exemplified and documented by everything else they’ve managed to run into the ground. Will the Republicans blame us for that too??? I wonder.

The story of intellectual slayings and the killing of University professors (namely in fields such as Sociology, Politican Sciences, philosophy and the like)by the Iraqi army that we have trained/are training is a big big big red flag to what’s coming. I hope the Iraqi’s will survive what Bush is putting in place there.

Thanks republicans, please stop helping the world. The next time you have a paramilitary wet dream please keep it to yourselves. The Iraqis we’re training are setting things up for their New Iraqi Order through bloodshed and murdering intellectuals, nice work guys.

Yeah I know that’s our fault too right? We were too negative and didn’t support our troops, right? It will all be our fault in the end that somehow it all went awry.

Also have you noticed Bush with Audiences of uniformed military personel as of late. What kinds of leaders surround themselves with miltary audiences almost solely? Dictatorship regeims. Hitler, Stalin, eastern block communists of the fourties through the eighties unto today. It’s a nice look. It says smell the ‘might’, what a nice image, clearly says ‘powermad’. Either that or he’s only catering to audiences who are getting half descent prices at the pump (they’re in the mideast).

I’m just stunned at the drastic new direction Bush took us in his speech yesterday…

We will not run. Terrorism is bad. Freedom is good.

I keep expecting him to come and change from his business shoes into his sneakers and cardigan sweater - and start welcoming us to his neighborhood.

‘Hello kids. Can you say ‘talking points? Good try…’

Is Jack a real person, or is he just a straw man created to provoke discussion? He completely ignores the post and regurgitates talking points which have just been discredited. Iraq’s electricity and water supply are below what they were before we invaded. All humans need water to survive. Anyone on this board is currently using electricity. Those aren’t trivial facts. We aren’t making progress in Iraq. Bush is blundering at every turn. Iraq had an army, and Bush fired them and told them to take their guns with them. Jack prides himself in his inability to understand this, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I guess that when he repeats his talking points it gives us a chance to dissect them. Unfortunately, it is too easy to take them at face value.

Jack, can you be a little bit more vague with your next post? Ironically, you can go give much more information replying to an incorrect vague post than you can replying to an incorrect specific post.

I took a look at the yahoo bush blog. They edit content. If they do not like your comments they will ban you from posting. That is telling. Most post there are exercises in doublethink.
The idea of this administration helping democracy is bizarre. They cannot stand it even in Florida.

My older brother had a theory that conservatives must be either lacking or having an excess of some trace element, mineral, or some other chemical in their bodies that is responsible for the way they think. when I read the postings by Jack I am much closer to believing he was right.

Well, Iraq’s news media is ours we pay for it and The lincoln group makes sure we look good. So what’s wrong with that ?
We are trying to drive our thoughts into the Iraq peoples heads

We are trying to drive our thoughts into the Iraq peoples heads

Well, it can’t be worse than trying to drive bullets into the Iraq people heads. Bullets are poor thoughts containers afterall, they can only host “die!” or “ooops” words.

Your frenchly,

I was just thinking, I wonder if Donald Rumsfeld ever eats out of vases. I mean, he probably ridicules his wife, so she makes him do the dishes. Then, when he refuses to do them, he “goes to dinner with the dishes that he has, which are not necessarily the dishes that he needs.” Then, when he gets tired of eating out of “the same vase over and over and over,” he probably sculpts a new one out of clay. Hopefully, it’s ready to use by the time that he needs it, but hey I guess that he can do what he wants, because “that’s what happens in a free society.” Besides, with his pharmacy kickbacks, he may come out ahead in the whole deal.

Fred,

“We are trying to drive our thoughts into the Iraq peoples heads.”

If I am an Iraqi, and I look out my front door and I see people dying. I go to the kitchen to get a drink and there is no water. I go to watch re-runs of Cheers but there is no electricity. I walk to the store(dodging bullets and bombs)to pick up the paper. I open the paper. I read that I have water, electricity and I am much safer than I really am, am I going to buy into the thoughts of the Pentagon paid-for news article, or am I going to think that the author of the article is an idiot?
Or worse, am I, once I find out that the liberators who are bringing Democracy to my country are using the same propoganda techniques used by Saddam, going to trust the Americans not to lie to me or use me?

Why, of course, the people don’t want war… that is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship… voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country…

—Herman Goering, 1946

—-
My older brother had a theory that conservatives must be either lacking or having an excess of some trace element, mineral, or some other chemical in their bodies that is responsible for the way they think. when I read the postings by Jack I am much closer to believing he was right.
—-
It’s called empathy - or lack there of.

Yikes! tree hugger, scary quote there.

tree hugger:

Wow. Damn. That’s either one the smartest or scariest quotes I’ve read in a while.

Thanks… I think.

Tony,

There’s a theory that right-wingers by and large are more prone to dream in black and white, while those prone to be more liberal dream in color or atleast partial color. Probably pseudo-science.

I personally think it’s chromosomes that make them more rigid in their outlook and thought patterns. Maybe it’s just nurture, who knows, born to money. As to their overuse of the word ‘liberal’ with anything that doesn’t reinforce their political world view, it’s some form of tourettes syndrome I think. (really I do know the problems of over bureaucratization although ‘liberalism’ is the wrong term for that kind of thought/behavior—‘overlegislative’, ‘Utopianist’, or ‘micromanagative’ seems more befitting than ‘liberal’. Using the wrong word repeatedly for decades makes republicans, I’m not going to say it, but you thought it too).

Letter from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) to House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) because he wants an investigation into the military paying Iraqi papers to print stories.

Adrienne:

Fat chance of that happening.

I know that many people you meet that are Republican are born that way, but I’ve read studies that suggest that many people born normal become Republican, mostly through home accidents (riding a bike without a helmet, child abuse & neglect, etc.)

:?

Tony,

Don’t forget rampant alcoholism or whip-hits huffing as a determiner as to whether someone finds Bush to be a great president or not.

Phrases like “The power to unite is stronger than the power to divide” or “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” really lend themselves to the delusional mindset of the town drunks and barflies in Anytown USA. They have to be, they’re just too stupid to be otherwise.

Mike wondered publicly:

Is Jack a real person, or is he just a straw man created to provoke discussion?

while Marko revealed that:

…when I read the postings by Jack I am much closer to believing … [his older brother’s theory that] conservatives must be either lacking or having an excess of some trace element, mineral, or some other chemical in their bodies that is responsible for the way they think.

Actually, guys, it’s just that Jack doesn’t know Himself.

two… three… four…

*badabing!*

And, in fact, that could be said for most Conservatives - since in fact the entire Conservative ethos is defined by and created from two Reactions (as befitting Reactionaries), to-wit: Fear, and Loathing. Allow me to elucidate…

Conservatism seeks to Conserve, and what it seeks to Conserve is The Past. Past ways of doing things based on past reactions to encountered stimuli; past viewpoints and methodologies. And it does so because The Past is “Safe.” It is Known Territory, and not subject to the Fear caused by New Things and New Thinking. Fear is caused by the Unknown (i.e.: the New), and Loathing, in turn, is caused by Fear…

Here are some of the things which Conservatism tells us to Fear (and hence, to Loathe):

Foreigners; Homosexuals; People who tolerate Foreigners and Homosexuals; People who are a different Colour than Us (whoever we may be); People who Live Differently than Us; People who tolerate people who Live Differently than Us; People who Think differently than Us; People who Think; etc.

Conservatives made Galileo recant. Conservatives fought for the “States Right” of Slavery in the American Civil War. Conservatives in the U.S. strive to keep it the only Western country to maintain a death “penalty.” According to the Roman historians, Conservatives argued vehemently against going from the Old Way of Human Sacrifice to the New Way of Animal Sacrifice (before the Republic was formed). And it’s a sure bet that Conservatives complained mightily about giving up the practice of Cannibalism…

Conservatives are people who Fear what they do not understand, and they Loathe what they have come to Fear. Ergo, conservatives are filled with Fear and Loathing for anything which they do not understand. Which is quite a lot, actually.

If we use the “Planet Of the Apes” paradigm, Conservatives would be the Gorillas, extremely reactionary intolerant xenophobes constantly arguing (and acting) in favour of violence and war. (Incidentally, carrying the metaphor further, the Orangutans would then be what are today known as “Limousine Liberals” [e.g.: Hillary Clinton, F.D.R., Jack Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, etc.], leaving the spot for Progressives [i.e.: New Thinkers] to be filled by the Chimpanzees.)

Now, for some time in the United States, conservatives have been trying to either water down funding for Public Education, or do away with what is today the Department Of Education entirely. Instead, they propose to take taxpayer dollars and reurn them to parents in the form of School Vouchers, so that public tax revenues can be used to home-“school” (edumacate) their chest-beating spawn in the ways of Creationism and Corporate “Science” (i.e.: Marijuana is Bad for you, but Liquor and Nicotine are *good* for you, and the Jury’s Still Out on Global Warming…) - this is because the more ignorant they can make the future Electorate, the more Conservatives there will be in it. Which brings me to my last Fact Of The Day:

Conservatism in any given individual is based on a composite of the Ignorance and Evil within that individual.

Just as Fear is natural to Ignorance and Evil is natural to Loathing, all Conservatives are an admixture of various degrees of both. The less Ignorant a Conservative is, the more Evil they must, by necessity, be. Let’s look at some examples of well-known Conservatives, categorised by Relative Levels of Evil and/or Ignorance:

Not So Much Evil As Ignorant
Dan Quayle; George Bush; Bo Dietl; Marge Schott; Nero; Travis Tritt; Bo Derek; Bruce Willis; Etc.

Not So Much Ignorant As Evil
Richard Perle; Henry Kissinger; J. Edgar Hoover; Antonin Scalia; G. Gordon Liddy; Paul Wolfowitz; Roy Cohn; Ariel Sharon; Etc.

About Equally Ignorant And Evil
David Duke; Ronald Reagan; Dick Cheney; Caligula; William Sessions; Richard Nixon; Adolph Hitler; John Ashcroft; Joseph McCarthy; Etc.

The first category is comprised of people who were mostly *led* into Conservatism; they might be forgiven, for they know not What They Do. The second class of Conservative is highly dangerous: these people know very well What They Do, and even revel in their Evil. The last class of Conservatives is perhaps the most dangerous of all: ideological fanatics who utilise their Ignorance to excuse their Evil and to justify it to themselves. When taken as a whole, the entire universe of Conservatives throughout history explains quite nicely why Progress on Planet Earth moves at such a snail’s pace, withal, and why Things are in the State They’re In today. Is there Intelligent Life on Planet Earth? Yes, but the Gorillas are doing their level best to pack it off to Guantanamo…

If you’ll excuse me now, I’m off for a Banana Daquiri.

One thing I see on this site and on the conservative sites is the name calling and reference to those of opposite opinion as either stupid or evil. Most of my conservative friends think of the liberals as the enemy. I find this disturbing and there is a general trend in this country to move towards polarization. We have the red states and the blue states. The fundamentalists go so far as to see global warming as a big lie sponsored by the liberal media to force us to support the “tree huggersâ€. The liberals see the conservatives as evil and stupid. The earth is getting warmer. Maybe this increase is also related to the “hot air†from these web sites.

In truth both sides have very smart people and an open dialog is the basis for democracy. I think the conservatives would be in a better position to serve as the voice of reason (voice of the status quo) to keep a congress in check rather than trying to run the government.

What the liberal and moderate thinkers need to figure out is how to take the issues that have motivated the conservatives and fundamentalists into action and make these issues go away. The gay marriage thing needs to go away. Let’s keep the “In God we Trust†on the dollar bill and stop with effort to force the “under God†out of the pledge of allegiance. These are little things but they are used by the angry media to whip an otherwise passive audience into action.

The previous posting by Betty is very accurate. She wrote:
Conservatism seeks to Conserve, and what it seeks to Conserve is The Past. Past ways of doing things based on past reactions to encountered stimuli; past viewpoints and methodologies. And it does so because The Past is “Safe.†It is Known Territory, and not subject to the Fear caused by New Things and New Thinking. Fear is caused by the Unknown (i.e.: the New), and Loathing, in turn, is caused by Fear…

Take the fear away from the conservatism and we can start a dialogue that will unite this country and maybe we can come together and figure out what we can do to get out of Iraq and get on with the business of fixing this planet before we melt down both poles.

Take the fear away from the conservatism and we can start a dialogue that will unite this country and maybe we can come together and figure out what we can do to get out of Iraq and get on with the business of fixing this planet before we melt down both poles.

Unfortunately, you cannot “take the fear away from conservatism” any more than you can “take the egg away from the chicken.” You have the Cart before the Horse, sir: it is Ignorance and Evil which makes people Conservatives - not the other way round!

Here is the difference between what happens when Conservatives or Liberals are running the show and become filled with hubris to the point of recklessness:

When Liberals go Wrong, they become laughable: they champion such stupid causes as “Ebonics” and “Herstory” and Reparations for wrongs done centuries ago to anyone filing a claim. I agree that this makes them look silly and ineffectual, and tends to cloud over their truly great accomplishments (i.e.: Social Security, Civil Rights, Etc.).

*BUT*…

When Conservatives go Wrong we have Wars, and War-Profiteering, and other forms of Corruption, and Police States, and Lies, and National Bankruptcy. The Body Bags flow in as the Dollars and Blood flow out. And whereas the fucking *Flag* is well protected, your actual Liberties are eroded if not destroyed entirely!

Now, take a Reasoned Moment and think: which would you rather have to deal with?

All human endeavour is prone to Mistake. We are not infallible. Some of us - if placed in high power - will get blowjobs under our desks; others will start a bloody War based on Lies and bankrupt the country paying for it and for Corporate Welfare as they despoil both the planet and the reputation of their nation… Again, assuming human fallibility, which would you rather have to put up with???

Betty and Mike

It is better to be talked about than not talked about. I am glad that I provoke you so.

It is good that you can live in a world of your own where you can define conservatism as everything bad and you can assign people to your categories ex-post-facto.

You all clearly don’t understand what being a conservative in the U.S. means. I don’t have the time to educate you on the subject and no pearls to cast at this time. Only a few points

I don’t have any particular fear of the future. In fact I find liberals are the pessimists. I don’t fear situations, because I can usually find opportunities. I don’t fear change because I can usually adapt. And I don’t fear liberals because I can usually beat them. (And most become conservative in practice if not rhetoric after they learn a little about the world)

I also don’t hate people that I don’t know and I don’t base my likes or dislikes on a person’s category as many liberals clearly do (and you just did). The only thing I fear is that the narrow minded section of the PC liberals will hurt my country.

Hi Jack,

“I don’t have any particular fear of the future. In fact I find liberals are the pessimists.”

Let’s see if you have a solution to a major problem in Iraq. I think it’s a tricky problem. You’re clever and optomistic about outcomes in Iraq so you should be able to solve this.

What do we do about all the terrorists in the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Security forces?

The three main parties in Iraq are all terrorist parties and the security forces are, in part, death squads.

How do you propose to handle all the terrorists in the Iraqi security forces?

It seems like removing all the terrorists in the security forces would weaken them considerably. It seems like the White House strategy in Iraq is to strenghten rather than weaken the security forces.

I’m just a Democrat so I can’t figure out how to handle the issue of terrorism in the security forces. I assume you’ve got a plan?

If you don’t have a plan perhaps you’ll consider the possibility that there are serious problems in Iraq?