BS: Fair and Balanced

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 09:39 AM

Yes, it could indeed...and that is exactly the point that worries me the most, Carol, aside from the possibility of a Third World War.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 09:31 AM

If, as some have suggested, Iran's response to the US attacking it would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext for clamping down here at home, the whole idea of impeachment could become entirely irrelevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 09:28 AM

Why on Earth should Bush care if he gets impeached? Even if he thought it possible.

What actual difference would it make to his life? Congress has no power to impose criminal penalties on impeached officials.

At present it appears that Bush is destined to be regarded as wonderful by a minority of Americans, and detested by a majority. How would impeachment change this in any significant way?
...................................
"It strikes me" is an alternative to "in my opinion". As such, of course, in strict logic, it is redundant, since writing something generally implies that it is our opinion. But it's a pleasant enough convention, adding those kind of touches.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 09:24 AM

Yes, Ron, we can agree to disagree. No harm in that. All any of us is doing is making our "best guess" about what may happen.

I don't think Bush fears impeachment at all. I do think, though, that there are bigger things than impeachment to fear in this life and that he may one day face some of them for the crimes he is presently committing.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 08:31 AM

since some believe Bush is crazy enough to make the hideous mistake of attacking Iran, and I do not believe he is--mainly due to fear of impeachment and conviction--

Of course he doesn't fear impeachment or prosecution. Look at all of the crimes he and his pals have committed so far, with impunity. "Signing statements," fercrhistsake, are the biggest imposition on the agencies and the legal system around. Yet Dubya approves things then rewrites them the way he intends to follow them, regardless of the stated law.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 08:06 AM

Therefore, since some believe Bush is crazy enough to make the hideous mistake of attacking Iran, and I do not believe he is--mainly due to fear of impeachment and conviction-- we can, as I said, "agree to disagree"--without any pejorative remarks just possibly directed at anybody---and leave it at that.

It would be a welcome change--and that is a general statement, supporting the idea that good tone can be sustained--even on political threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 11:52 PM

Darned right the Iranians would come over the border into Iraq if they were attacked, Ron! That's why Mr Bush refuses to "take the nuclear option off the table". In other words, he is quite willing to initiate a first use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield and use them to kill one hell of a lot of Iranians. He has made that pretty clear. He probably assumes that the use of such weapons could stop any Iranian ground offensive in its tracks. I'm not entirely sure that it would, but I think that is what he believes. He also appears to believe that he has the right to do it, and that he can get away with it.

That there are other simply horrendous matters to consider if he were so reckless and irresponsible as to use nuclear weapons is, of course, a whole further issue, and Scott Ritter has made quite a bit of reference to it, as have others.

These are simply hypotheticals. I'm not saying you are WRONG about anything you have said, Ron, I'm simply discussing various possibilities. They are possibilities that have occurred to people far closer to the matter than you and I.

Now here is a very interesting talk given by Scott Ritter shortly before Bush's 2003 attack on Iraq...very interesting in hindsight, and quite prophetic as to what some of the results of an illegal war of aggression on Iraq might be too.

"Weapons of Mass Delusion"

Bush has made it clear again and again that he is "the decider" and that he doesn't care what anyone else thinks about his decisions. He is a type of purblind zealot, in my opinion, not a practical politician, and such people are capable of anything, given the power. Then there's Cheney, and I think he's even more dangerous in that respect than Bush will ever be.

Some of Iran's further reactions, aside from a major ground attack on Iraq, would be: determined air and missile attacks on the US Navy in the Gulf, determined attempts to stop seaborne traffic in the Straits of Hormuz, and massive launches of conventional explosive type missiles on the American bases in Iraq, as well as other important strategic targets in the Gulf. The probable results?

1. Very serious losses of American personnel
2. Massive American counter-response, probably including tactical nukes
3. Other states in the region being rapidly drawn into the conflict
4. And a rather likely eventual slide into a genuine Third World War with some other more important and much bigger participants entering the conflict in due course of time...and not on the American side.

Do I think Bush is crazy enough to make these mistakes? Yes, quite possibly. I think there's a good chance of him being that crazy. I don't know it is so. What I know is more like...that I am here in Ontario, sitting at my keyboard, and typing a message....

In other words, I KNOW about as much as what most people know. ;-) And I try and figure out what's going on like everyone else does...as best I can.

Both logic AND gut feeling play a part in everyone's analysis of the situation, Ron, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's how all human beings naturally deal with situations. They consult their head, their heart, and their gut feelings. And so they should.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 10:56 PM

Since the topic has been brought up again--though it obviously is thread creep.

"That strikes me..."--yet another gut feeling by a Mudcatter. Could we have a bit of logic?

Unless of course logic has been declared un-folk. I wonder if somebody would like to explain why, in response to an invasion or bombing of Iran, Iranian troops would not come across the border into Iraq. Look at the border.

That's the point--Bush, as Frank has noted, wants to "make his mark" and the only place to do that is Iraq--which he still imagines he can "win".

His military is telling him what will likely happen if he widens the war into Iran.

There is also the little matter of Congress--the public will not be backing an invasion of Iran as they did Iraq (which of course was only due to the brilliantly successful propaganda campaign.)

If anybody thinks being impeached, convicted and removed would not bother Bush, I'd like to suggest that that person is out of touch with US politics--which is obviously no sin in a Briton--but does mean his observations on the topic may not get great weight. Not that I would want to suggest that the poster is "slightly delusional".

And if Bush were to invade Iran just after the 2008 election--which will feature almost complete rejection of his policies--by both parties--you'd see a perfect political storm.

Might I suggest that, as has been suggested on other topics, this could be a topic on which reasonable people agree to disagree--without "slightly delusional" or other epithets being applied. Seems reasonable.

Unless of course, somebody would actually like to suggest a reasonable scenario which would avoid the above-cited reaction by Iran.

A pity, then, that the suggestion of "agreeing to disagree" is bound to be rejected--almost immediately--by one or another Mudcatter who will feel compelled to comment--- beyond an objective answer such as "I disagree"-- and without bothering to answer the question about Iran's reaction. And I suspect I can easily guess which ones will be champing at the bit. Let's see if I'm correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 08:51 PM

But that doesn't really help, because, like the rest of the world, we are in the hands of a public in the USA where evidently a great number of people do lap it up. God help us all.

Hopefully the internet will help to change that. Otherwise, I think we're all in big trouble.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 08:08 PM

The perfect counterpart to an organ of Goebbels' propaganda ministry is what I would call Fox. They use all the same scare tactics.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 07:44 PM

Pretty frightening video - as was the other Fox Attacks one that Little Hawk (I think) linked to later.

We have some pretty crappy media here, but nothing remotely close to that has ever been seen on our screens (unless you count Spitting Image) - and if Rupert Murdoch ever decided to start pumping it out on his Sky channels I can't see anyone taking it seriously.

But that doesn't really help, because, like the rest of the world, we are in the hands of a public in the USA where evidently a great number of people do lap it up. God help us all.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 07:05 PM

I'm surprised he hasn't been evicted, LH.


Just in case anyone is wondering what my original intent was in starting this thread, I just figured some people would probably want to see the video I put a link to in my opening post. That's all I had in mind. I don't usually get much discussion in the threads I start for that sort of purpose, so it's not one of the considerations I'm working with when I decide to start this type of thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:53 PM

Well, what I was thinking, Don, is we could discuss the media in general and reportage on the Middle East, Iraq, Iran...that sort of thing. But maybe we need a new thread?

Carol - He nails a variety of things to the wall. It varies. For instance, he likes nailing up mug shots of various gorillas and other lowlife characters that he's feuding with. Then he throws darts at them. When he's getting really morose, he will sometimes blast off a few rounds of .44 cal softnose at the pictures, and it makes a hell of a mess of the wall, I can tell you.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:50 PM

Golly! Not only have I been screaming and nailing things to walls, but I've been beating things to a pulp! Not only that, I think I'm God!

But be it known that I have solemnly vowed to use my Super Powers only for Good.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:48 PM

What does Chongo nail to the wall when he can't buy whisky, LH?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:45 PM

Sounds good to me, Little Hawk! Let us let leave the matter of public broadcasting's accuracy, or lack thereof (having beaten the matter to a pulp), to the judgement of each individual, and return to the original subject, which, if I remember correctly, was Fox News Service.

What is there left to say?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:39 PM

Sounds like Chongo when it's getting close to the end of the month and he hasn't got enough money to pay the rent and buy the whisky...

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:36 PM

Beats me, McGrath. I'm just posting my opinions about stuff. Don says he's been screaming, though, and trying to nail stuff to walls, so maybe he's got something else in mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:22 PM

My impression is, we already do agree on most of the essentials...as has just been suggested. ;-) Why not just move on and talk about the subject of the thread itself?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 06:01 PM

Yep, McGrath, I think you've got it. Really worth screaming at each other over, right?

I've given up trying to convince anybody of anything on this thread. I have suggested that we agree to disagree, but I find that even getting agreement on that is impossible.

. . . like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 05:36 PM

So have I got this right?

Carol says you can't trust to the accuracy of any of your broadcasters, even your NPR, and therefore people need to work on searching out more reliable sources of information if they want to get at the truth.

And Don, in total contrast, is saying that you can't trust to the accuracy of any of your broadcasters, even your NPR at times, but that NPR is a lot better than the others - and therefore people need to work on searching out more reliable sources of information if they want to get at the truth.

.......................

As for the suggestion that Bush in the run up to the scheduled end of his reign is going to be inhibited from attacking Iran because he is terrified of being impeached, which would just mean he had to go a little bit earlier - that strikes me as slightly delusional. (I rather suspect he might wait until after the actual election. Plenty of time to start a war before the new president takes over.)

I remember some people on the Mudcat reassuring us that there would not in fact be a war on Iraq, but that it was all a big bluff. That struck me as delusional too.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 04:36 PM

Yeah, I know. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 04:33 PM

I don't disagree with that, LH. By 'god', I just meant 'in a position to know what I am thinking and doing at all times'.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 04:30 PM

Heh! Well, I can't help but just say just one thing in reference to that last speculation of yours, Carol... (about if Don thinks he's God or not)

I think we are all God in a certain sense, and I mean people, animals, plants, everything...    But when I say that we are all God, that doesn't exactly mean at the level of our combative personality and our fickle opinions about stuff. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 02:50 PM

And by the way, I don't know why you think you are in a position to know when I first became aware of Teilhard de Chardin, unless perhaps you think you are God.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 02:42 PM

Don, I dont have a side. Talk about putting words in someone's mouth. YOU are trying to impose an entire identity onto me. I find myself in disagreement with some aspects of both (or really, all) of what you are calling 'sides'. And I find myself in agreement with aspects of both of them as well. I have never been consistently in agreement or disagreement with any of them. My posting history contains more than ample proof of this.

I find the Democrats to be just as reprehensible in their own way as the Republicans. I find people who call themselves 'liberals' to be prone to the same kinds of limiting thought processes as people who call themselves 'conservatives'.

What I see people doing (and I've seen you do it as much as anyone else) is that people form a sense of identity around certain cultural considerations, like their political affiliation, their particular 'right/left' orientation, the news outlets they prefer, and sometimes their religious orientation. I know for a fact that the public networks actively encourage people to do this with regard to them during their pledge drives. I've seen and heard them do it many times. They tell the listeners/viewers what sort of people listen to or watch their network. They do it in a way that promotes the idea that people who watch or listen to their network are smarter, more discerning, more educated (sometimes even funnier) than the kinds of people who don't.

Outlets like FOX promote the idea that their viewers are smarter, stronger, more mature, have more common sense, and are more patriotic and better citizens. The alphabet networks market themselves to people who see themselves as 'normal'.

If we allow our sense of identity to be shaped by people who are marketing a product, we end up with the situation we're stuck with today. And evidence of the effects of this are there for anyone to see in the myriad threads here in the Mudcat between people who identify with one side or another telling everyone what people on the 'other side' are like (conservative vs liberal, FOX vs public outlets, etc.).

We need to break free of this way of thinking if we're ever going to make any of the changes this country so desperately needs. We don't need to all agree on the issues or on what we see as solutions to those issues. We just need to stop pitting ourselves against each other in opposing camps and arguing about what makes us different from the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 01:51 PM

Geez, Don....calm down. It's more important to find some common ground here than it is to keep fighting over what someone else thinks you or someone meant when they said whatever they said about what someone else just said. It ends up going around and around forever like a dog chasing its own tail.

I've just spoken up in your defence here, and I'm suggesting that both you and Carol try being less reactive to each other.

As for "taking sides"...sure...we all have a viewpoint. That's natural. The thing is, one must avoid allowing one's viewpoint to turn one into someone who judges other people negatively in the blink of an eye.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 01:39 PM

". . . he's satisfied with what he gets from the public news outlets in the US."

I never said that. I'm not going to repeat what I did say because I've already written it above, and you have either not read it carefully or you are deliberately trying to distort what I said. When you distort what others say, it is impossible to have a rational discussion with you.

And as to taking "sides," you most certainly have a viewpoint on things, including very strong feelings about them. You may use whatever verbal chicanery you wish, but you most definitely have a "side," as anyone who has read your posts can attest. Your sudden embrace of Teilhard de Chardin, with whom I have been familiar for some time, doesn't ameliorate that fact.

Having a "side" in the context of this discussion means such things as taking a stand against needless wars, torture, genocide, oppression, neglect or total disregard of the welfare of one's own citizens, and a whole litany of atrocities that groups of human beings visit on each other. And this includes using the press and the media to try to manipulate the populace into going along with these things. Therefore, I am not satisfied with what I get from the public news outlets. However, as I have made abundantly clear, I find that the public news media does a better job of alerting me to people and events that merit further checking than the commercially sponsored ones do.

And furthermore, as I have said repeatedly on this thread and which you keep brushing aside (trying to imply that this is not what I do), you must listen with your brain in gear and not just accept what you read or hear. Think about it. Check it out. Go to a variety of other sources and compare.

I learned this years ago, in my late teens and early twenties. I had a radio with a variety of short-wave bands. When the Korean war ("police action") was on, I used to listen to the domestic news, then I would listen to newscasts from other countries (including Radio Moscow) and compare. What the American news services were calling a "rout," Radio Moscow would report as "a strategic retreat." Then I would listen to the BBC and other news broadcasts and compare their reports with what the American and Soviet news said. I got quite adept at sifting the real happenings from the propaganda.

And I continue that practice today.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 09:35 AM

ABSOLUTELY, Carol!!! That is what I have been saying for a long, long time on this forum, and it is why I sometimes come to the defence of people here whom I would generally disagree with about politics, for example.

We have got to get past this unthinking business of dividing up into opposing "sides" and believing the divisive "us and them" stuff that is foisted upon us all the time.

Every single ordinary person out there would like to see a more peaceful, more prosperous, more honest, and more fair society...and world. We have so much in common. It's just ridiculous how people are getting manipulated by their leaders and the media into fighting with each other continuously over trumpled-up political/racial/religious/and gender-based issues and excuses when they all ultimately want the same basic things out of life in order to be happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 04:10 AM

CarolC

I hate it when I agree entirely with your posts!

29 Oct 07 - 02:58 AM is absolutely valid.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 02:58 AM

This is something I probably should have responded to earlier, and perhaps if I do so now, you'll have a better idea of where I'm coming from, Don...

Whether you like it or not, you and I are on the same side!

I'm not on any side. For me 'sides' are an irrelevance and a distraction. Because from my perspective, this taking sides thing is what's killing our country. People who have control of the media (all of the mainstream media), are pitting us against each other. They're using the time honored method of divide and conquer, manipulating us into taking one side or the other and battling it out. This is not only a waste of our time, energy, and resources, it also allows the people who are using this method against us to do whatever they want, with our help!

We need to stop doing that. We need to stop seeing the other person (the one who watches FOX news, for instance) as being fundamentally different from ourselves. They have the same needs, wants, and desires. They just have been manipulated (as everyone who sees it in terms of 'sides' has) into thinking it's the FOX network that has their best interests at heart. And the people who trust the alphabet networks think it's those outlets that have their beset interests at heart. And the people who trust the public news outlets think the same about them.

But we are all being conditioned (relentlessly) to believe that the other guy, the one who gets their news from a source we don't like, that guy represents all that is wrong with our country.

Well he or she doesn't. What's wrong with this country is that we've let them manipulate us into seeing each other in that way, and we devote our energies to fighting each other about it instead of all getting together and making the people who are manipulating us in this way stop what they're doing.

Can you imagine what this country would be like if we all got together and held these people accountable for what they've been doing? Personally, I think it would be a much better place.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 02:13 AM

I'm not quite sure what point he was trying to make, then, LH. We knew early on in this thread that he's satisfied with what he gets from the public news outlets in the US. I'm not sure what he was trying to communicate by saying that the only place he'd ever heard Scot Ritter was on NPR. Looks like more of the old argument to me.

At any rate, some people are satisfied with NPR and PBS. Some people are satisfied with the alphabet networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), and some people are satisfied with FOX. And some people (like you and me, I guess), don't trust any of those people and prefer to get their information from other sources. Different strokes, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 09:17 PM

I don't think Don was suggesting at all that Scott Ritter can ONLY be heard on NPR, Carol. He was saying that NPR is the only radio or TV show that he has heard Scott Ritter on lately, that's all, and that correlates with what my Mother said about not seeing Scott Ritter on TV in the last 2 or 3 years.

We see Scott Ritter on the Internet because the Internet cannot yet be regulated for content in the way radio and TV are. It's an open forum. It speaks well for NPR that they have given Scott Ritter some airtime, since NPR is a media forum under centralized control by whoever runs it, and therefore CAN be regulated.

I don't think there's really any reason for you and Don to be arguing about what he said in that post. Whether NPR is "the best" source for whatever...well, who knows? That's just a matter of individual opinion and individual taste...often based mainly on familiarity.

What I'm saying is...there's little point in seeking new arguments here with Don when there isn't much ground for them, simply because of past arguments one has had with Don....

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 09:00 PM

Carol, I'm not suggesting anything of the kind. I said that I have heard him only on NPR, and, I believe, once on Now, with Bill Moyers on PBS some time back. People like Scott Ritter are heard much more often on public broadcasting than anywhere else I know of, and as a matter of course, without having to go hunting for him specifically. I am also aware that he has several books published, and I have read quite a bit of his writings.

The fact is that I first heard of him on NPR, and I have never heard him on any other broadcast media outlet, with the exception of audio or video links suppied by e-mail newsletters such as AlterNet Headlines, to which one must specifically subscribe to receive.

Kindly stop trying to put words in my mouth.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 08:39 PM

Don, You are suggesting that Scott Ritter can only be heard on NPR. This is obviously not true, since several videos of him talking have been posted to this thread, and none of them come from NPR. I congratulate NPR on having interviewed him, but that is hardly the only place one can hear him. And it is also possible to read what he has to say in numerous places (that are not a part of any mainstream media).

You go ahead and keep listening to NPR. Nobody's telling you that you shouldn't. But to try to suggest that it's the only place to get such information, or even necessarily the best place to get such information, is simply wrong. It's the source you prefer, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 08:19 PM

[Whispering]

Yup. National Public Radio.

Whether they "lie" or not, I am introduced to more good stuff on NPR than anywhere else in the media, including the internet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:38 PM

Speak up, Don1 I can't hear you. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:33 PM

Good! That is excellent. What is "NPR"? Is it "National Public Radio"?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 07:29 PM

As I lie here, bruised and bleeding, I really hesitate to raise my head and say anything again, but I might just mumble softly that I have heard Scott Ritter being interviewed a number of times on NPR. There, but nowhere else. . . .   

Sorry! I'll shut up now. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 05:52 PM

Yeah... ;-)

He's an absolutely brilliant man. I've read some of his books and watched videos of talks he's given.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 05:22 PM

He seems like an interesting guy, LH. His hair is a bit frightening, though. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 09:54 AM

Great stuff, Carol! He's onto a powerful truth there, I think, and I believe it will come to pass eventually.

You would probably enjoy reading some of Gregg Braden's material. Look it up here:

Gregg Braden - Uniting science and spirituality

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Oct 07 - 12:05 AM

The noosphere is sort of the opposite of the 'new world order' (like the yang to the new world order's yin). Pierre Teilhard de Chardin postulated it, and I think he was prescient in doing so, because the internet seems to be creating the very thing he postulated back in the first half of the 20th century. Here's some information about it...

http://www.gaiamind.com/Teilhard.html

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 10:23 PM

That would be good. I hope you're right. What is the Noosphere?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 09:41 PM

There's hope, LH. The internet is beginning to perform the service that a free and independent media is supposed to perform - the service that the mainstream media in our countries is supposed to perform, but doesn't. That's why I don't think threads like this one (in thousands upon thousands of internet fora all over the world) are just wheels spinning, and debate for the sake of debate. I think there's a lot of important information people are putting in them. Information that people couldn't get through the traditional outlets.

I see it as a paradigm shift, away from the kind of parent/child sort of relationship people have traditionally had with their governments and their news media, to a more egalitarian situation in which individuals become more responsible for knowing what they need to know on their own, and becoming more confident about forming their own opinions instead of having their opinions shaped by others.

Have you ever read anything about the Noosphere, LH?

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 09:20 PM

Thanks, Carol. This is the stuff you will not hear reported on TV. I wonder why? (no, I don't really wonder....I know why)

My mother is a TV news junkie. She watches CNN and all kinds of political shows every day. She says she hasn't heard a peep about Scott Ritter on her TV for a long, long time. Yet he is on the Internet, and saying the things that you will not hear on TV. That's because of who owns the TV stations, and who they are in cahoots with. It's Orwellian control, from the top down, like the eye of the pyramid on the dollar bill, and it works...because the average American consumer's vague and fearful impressions of reality are mostly formed by brief soundbites on his TV screen, soundbites which will not tell him the inconvenient truth about Iran...but only play on his fears and his ignorance. There is, in my opinion, virtually no hope for waking up a population which only gleans its understanding of the world from mainstream network news reporting in the United States of America.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 02:11 PM

Here's another good one from Ritter, LH...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZByQU-JxtY

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 08:05 AM

Carol, that link you provided about the Canadian government's collusion in persecuting people on the USA's "list" is pretty disturbing, and it says a lot. There has basically been an effort on the part of the Anglo nations: USA/Canada/UK/Australia...to work together in this so-called War on Terror which is really a war to dominate and rule the entire world (through mercantile means and military supremacy). They are all complicit in it. They hope to get the European nations and Japan to either go along with them as active allies or else to stand aside and not interfere.

I don't know if they'll succeed in regards to Europe and Japan. I hope not. If they did it would be very much against the wishes of the majority of people in those countries, and indeed even in most of the Anglo countries.

It's an extremely bad situation. I'm glad I'm not 20 years old now. I have already lived most of my life, and it's been mostly in peacetime and in a reasonably good society, so I've been rather lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 07:33 AM

Hell, Ron, there are thousands and thousands of people out there who know more than I do. ;-) Maybe millions!

What has been happening on this thread of late is just the usual nasty little ego battles that arise between people on the forum..."Well, you said...na, na, na, na, na....carp...bicker...snipe....and that proves that you are exactly what you say I am...na, na, na, na..."

It's vain and useless. Let's just stop and discuss the actual subject of the thread instead. Sound like a plan worth tackling?

I do think Bush is irrational enough to attack Iran, but I don't know it for sure, and I have no way of proving it. I merely consider it a strong possibility. You consider it a weak possibility. Fine. I don't see that difference of opinion as a problem, so why should you? I am not asking you to prove and of your opinions, and I never will. That's not how I talk to people when discussing a matter of mutual interest about which we both have...necessarily...only partial and fragmentary knowledge.

Some interesting links have been provided, and that's more important than "proving" which one among us or more or less fair and objective than which other one.

Subject: RE: BS: Fair and Balanced
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 02:07 AM

Here's some background on Leo Strauss, who is the guy who shaped the neocons' political philosophy...

http://www.alternet.org/story/15935?page=1


I find this part to be particularly telling...

According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."