BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!

Subject: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Peter T.
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 05:29 AM

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the top 5 catastrophes of the Bush administration, now says that the problem is that the Pentagon is not media-savvy like Al-Qaeda! Nothing to do with content, of course, no abuses, no torturing, no ridiculous lying.

And here I thought it was the liberal media. It turns out that Al Qaeda own all those advertising firms, hold press conferences every day of the week, and saturate the media with military-friendly crapola, and refuse to show pictures of American coffins coming home. Who knew?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 07:39 AM

The problem with starting to tell lies, is that they have to get bigger in order to cover up holes in the previous ones...

"Oh what a tangled web we weave,
when first we practice to deceive!"

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 10:33 AM

The Bush administration has seen the 5% of radicalized Muslims grow to about 30% of the entire Muslim population.

The calls by moderate Mullahs to teach children peace instead of revenge and hatred of the US and Isreal can not be heard above the cries of Muslims who have had their families killed by US troops.


In my opinion:
It has gone beyond the critical mass point and can not be reversed with any amount of propoganda from either side.

In fact the moderate voices in the US are in the process of being eliminated by the current academic bill of rights struggle which is in fact an attempt to silence any professor who is accused of having a liberal point of view in the classroom. The leader of this movement, Horowitz says that conservative students are being intimidated and castigated by Al Quida loving liberal professors.
A poll says that 50% of the Americn people buy into his accusations.

As student loans for the less wealthy students are still being slowly retracted as costs soar, soon the rich will again have a strangle hold on higher education until only one POV will remain.

America is being radicalized by conservative efforts as much as the inflamed Muslim world.

There is growing hope for people who believe in an armageddon and rapture.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 10:40 AM

Not media savvy?--this from the regime that successfully sold the US public the Iraq war in a masterful propaganda campaign, then repeated the feat in 2004, electing Bush in another propaganda campaign of hate and fear. Especially Cheney going all over the the US-- "Here in (your fair city) a dirty bomb could be exploded--if you vote for Kerry." And of course the rest of the Bush team telling the public--if homosexuals marry, that will destroy marriage.

How can so much of the US public be incapable of thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 03:46 PM

They grew up on TV. TV does not require one to think, just to react.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:49 PM

THe problem with that kind of PR is that it is incompetent in the long-term, just like Tokyo Rose's intimidations were. Eventually, the proponents of that sort of obviously distorted messaging become, themselves, laughing stock.

There IS a mastery of PR and it SHOULD have been used instead of shock and awe by the psychos running the White House. A bit late to reflect on one's past ineptitude, I would say.

They are only now discovering they do not know what they are doing, now, and soon they will reflect they never did.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 05:02 PM

I propose a 2 week international moratorium on EVERYTHING for everybody on the planet

Take a break, shut up, relax... then we get together for a big St. Paddy's party, get drunk and settle everthing with a big fistfight, after which we all buy each other a drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Bert
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:33 PM

How can so much of the US public be incapable of thinking?...

I don't think they are. I think the election was won by the voting machines. We should refuse to use them next time.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Cluin
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:40 PM

I've always wondered why you do. What's wrong with a straight-up paper ballot and a pencilled X?

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:45 PM

Ya need to be able to count - and in the opinion of Big Business, the US population don't count.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 10:46 AM

LH--we grew up on TV too--note our encyclopedic knowledge of things Rocky.

I think it has to do with the effectiveness of propaganda on a frightened population. Especially when some people still deny the very existence of the propaganda campaigns.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 12:19 PM

I did not grow up on TV. We didn't have one until I was 18 years old. I read books instead. Believe me, it makes a difference.

But yes, you are quite right about the effectiveness of propaganda. The USA is a nation in which people are brought up to admire warmaking and the implements of war and to expect to engage in further wars in the near future. It's an extremely aggressive, expansionist country. The contrast to Canadian culture in this sense could hardly be more noticeable, Canada being a country in which nobody ever expects to go to war...and to do so is seen as only the last possible resort until the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances. In the USA war is like football. You can expect another season to start up any time soon.

To put it another way: In Canada people see the moral job of our society to be to police itself. We look inward at improving conditions here. In the USA people see the moral job of the society to be to police the World! The USA looks outward. The World in general does not consider the USA to be morally equipped to lecture and police other nations, needless to say... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 12:34 PM

LH-you're right about the streak in the US about the mission to police the world. It's not entirely bad--Wilson's intentions were good, for instance. He was just a little naive--about US politics, among other topics--and about the prospects to impose order from outside--against centuries of history.

And remember, there's also been the countervailing tendency of isolationism--which the US has also been criticized for--as in the "late" entries in the two world wars.


It's just that under Bush, the "democracy" push is an afterthought--to justify the most sordid of motives for the Iraq war.

The crowning irony is that, had Bush just let it go with toppling the Taliban and pursuing bin Laden, his reputation, both in the US and the world at large, would be immeasurably higher.

He had the opportunity to emerge as a strong leader in a good cause. But now he has totally destroyed his own reputation forever.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 12:45 PM

I'm sure some in the US see the US "mission" as the successor to the British Empire. And I think the argument can be made that the "Pax Britannica" did exist--and that the British treated their colonies better than, for instance, the Spanish and Portuguese.

But it's of course absurdly naive to think that the US influence in the world is entirely or even mostly, positive--the homogenization of culture, for intance, is a continuing tragedy, and mostly due to US multinationals--and the seductive attractions of their products to people outside the US, as well as hard-nosed tactics those multinationals use to push their products. There's not much positive that can be said about Coca Cola or Macroslop, in my opinion, for instance.

Uh oh, thread creep alert.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 12:57 PM

He said it before and he'll say it again, "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who COUNT the votes decide everything." Thus, voting machines. They are easy to control, not like voters. Diebold, the Anti Christ.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: kendall
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 01:00 PM

That was me.

Thank our honest politicians that we don't allow voting machines here.

Subject: RE: BS: Now We Know! Bad Media is to Blame!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 08:14 PM

It's easy to corrupt the machines. If you want to corrupt the people counting the votes by hand, it's bloody difficult what with all the scrutineers and other hangers on peering over shoulders.