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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (50681)	6/22/2005 5:28:01 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 173976

I love the rev. Moon

To: geode00 who wrote (50681)	6/22/2005 7:36:41 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 173976

Geode00, I am precluded from responding to you on the FADG thread, but you did publish there an interesting view about the mainstream media that I'd like to debate you on. *** Message 21440915 To: stockman_scott who wrote (164596) 6/22/2005 4:16:45 PM From: geode00 Read Replies (2) of 164640 Geode: "The corporate media doesn't want to deal with the DSM because it means admitting to themselves and, more importantly, to the public that they WERE DUPED while being stupid and lazy." RGD: I would submit to you that there is an alternative explanation that fits the fact case much better. As you are probably familiar, the CIA and other intel agencies began infiltrating the U.S. media establishment in a big way in the 1950s. This was dubbed Operation Mockingbird. By the 1970s, a minor scandal erupted over the disclosure that well over 300 key individuals were employed in the American corporate media who had direct or indirect ties to the government's spy apparatus. The CIA was so proud of their propaganda operation that the dubbed it "The Mighty Wurlitzer". CIA Director Stansfield Turner, tinyurl.com, even submitted anonymous resumes to the Senator Frank Church Commission which was looking into agency abuses of that era. So what is the point of refreshing your memory about past attempts to subvert the news? I would submit to you a counter hypothesis to explain the peculiar reaction of the corporate media to the Downing Street Memo revelations. I would suggest that it was not an act of incompetence that had most of the MSM reporting breathlessly on WMDs, and Saddam Hussein's imminent plans for attack on the U.S. and the UK. Quite the contrary. I will suggest, and I can provide proof if needed, that the MSM was an active agent of propaganda and disinformation, acting more-or-less as the Ministry of Information for the Bush Administration in the runup to war with Iraq in March, 2003. The evidence seems inrefutable to me. The drums of war that were being beaten by Bush, Cheney and Rice among others before the war became a giant echo chamber in the MSM. Any reasonable dissent was censored. TV news outlets, all of them including PBS-NPR, skewed their coverage to the point that there were probably 3 or 4 proponents of war for every mild and purposefully obscure oppponent of the war allowed any air time. In the newspapers and major magazines, the same sort of ratio applied. We saw a tremendous amount of sheer regurgitation of the Bush Crime Family's lies, cant and innuendo by the completely obsequious White House press corps. We saw blatant disinformation campaigns, such as Judith Miller's at the NY Times, go completely unchallenged at these corporate outposts of the Establishment. Face it, corporate America lusted for war, and it did everything it could to propagandize and disinform the American public that it could. This was no mere matter of incompetence on the part of the media. This was, and remains, active willful compliance and cooperation in a posture of illegal foreign aggression, ruthless and reckless deceit and complete contempt for the processes of democratic society. Geode00: "- Their first whining point is that they, being professionals, knew all about everything outlined in the DSM BEFORE the DSM even came out. - Their second main whining point is that they're tired of amateur readers and amateur bloggers pointing out quite correctly that the 'professionals' are ignorant and lazy and not doing their jobs well." RGD: The media's response has a certain similarity to the obfuscations offered by the Wizard of Oz, wouldn't you say. :) One of the most annoying aspects of the elites is their supercilious attitude that "we are the experts and you little people should just trust us." History simply shows this to be a vile arrogance that cannot be tolerated if a real democracy is to be preserved in America. Fortunately for this great nation, dissent is not going out of style any time soon. And although the media may attempt to riducule the growing dissent to failed policy as "amateurish", nonetheless dissent will continue to grow and the failure of the Bush Crime Family's schemes becomes increasingly apparent to a growing number of victims of Bush's heartless and greedy policies. *** Geode00: "Just as CongressPeople know that these are the best jobs they will ever have and the most important they will ever be, professional journalists will hit back at anything that threatens their cushy world. For goodness sakes, how many times can the WashPost say: you're right, we didn't get it but we're sorta sorry. The corporate press is losing its grip on the news and it knows it. It's gone so far into infotainment that its 'news' doesn't appear altogether that credible any longer." In this regard, I would very much recommend a re-reading of Orwell's "1984" for an excellent analysis of the methods being applied by the media to the body politic. In essence, and in a very chilling premonition of things to come, Orwell concluded that a Big Brother media has it within its power to infantilize the great bulk of the population to such and extent and with such malice aforethought that what could happen would be that the audience of 2050 could be so coarsened, prevented from using vocabulary and steered to pure emotional responses that this audience would be intellectually incapable of even understanding what passed for normal political discussion one hundred years earlier, i.e. 1950. What Orwell predicted, and what Fox News is perfecting, is disinformation and infotainment as a means of mind control that would/will make dissent impossible. In this new world, those who would have the temerity to dissent from the dishonest policies of a criminal government will unfortunately be met by vacuousness and blank stares from an American public who will know everything that there is to know about Desperate Housewives and who know absolutely nothing about the lives of desperate Iraqi women and children.

To: geode00 who wrote (50681)	6/22/2005 8:19:39 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 173976

Democrats must learn to frame the debate By JOEL CONNELLY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST Wednesday, June 22, 2005 seattlepi.nwsource.com The high point of the Democrats' annual shrimp feed on Capitol Hill used to be a stemwinder speech by Rep. (later Gov.) Mike Lowry forecasting that liberals would eventually win the day because, in Lowry's words, "We're right and they're wrong." George Lakoff, linguistics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, rejects such reasoning. "The truth will NOT set you free," argues Lakoff, author of the book "Don't Think Like an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate." Lakoff is a new star in the Democrats' constellation. He was here last week doing a non-stop series of lectures, meetings and interviews on how the liberal-left can catch up to conservatives in the art of defining public issues. Here's one listener who didn't entirely buy into his theories. Not only do liberals need help with packaging, but the quality of the product also requires work. Lakoff is, however, provocative and on the mark in assessing why President Bush won re-election last year. In the 41 years since Barry Goldwater's landslide defeat, conservatives have learned to stir -- and manipulate -- Americans' emotions. The Democrats originated modern scorched earth campaigning. Nuclear mushroom clouds and hands tearing up Social Security cards were deployed in TV spots against Goldwater. But the political right has since taken over the defining game. How, for instance, do you "sell" an unpopular war? "Frank Luntz (a GOP pollster) sent a memo last year telling Republicans to identify the war in Iraq as part of the war on terror," Lakoff said in an interview. "Whenever Fox News shows footage of Iraq, it is labeled 'War on Terror.' They tell troops that they're protecting the homeland. They justify the war in Iraq as self-defense. They evoke fear of further attacks here. Fear evokes a strict-father understanding of the world, which favors the conservative way of thinking." Boos and hisses have greeted such justifications of the Iraq war at public forums in Seattle. The Emerald City voted 75 percent for John Kerry in November. On a quick trip back to a battleground state wedding last fall, however, I heard the Bush position resonate among fellow guests. Several, while disagreeing with the president on social issues, identified him as the man who would keep terrorism away from America's shores. Pollsters labeled them "security moms." They helped decide the election. Lakoff says the Democrats could have countered the Republicans' war-sales strategy. "What was necessary was to point out Bush's weaknesses, to have made fun of him," he said. "Remember the 'mission accomplished!' sign on the aircraft carrier. The president hasn't accomplished what he says." The conservative right has shown a genius at using words to frame issues and evoke emotions. "Partial birth abortion" is an example. Stem cell research has become "embryonic stem cell research" -- evoking the image of an unborn baby. "Frivolous lawsuits" and "tort reform" define efforts to limit damage awards that tell corporate America that it will pay for marketing dangerous or defective products. "They are very, very good at what they do," Lakoff said. He noted that the right has even turned "do-gooder" into a derogatory term. But in public appearances here, he did not seem willing to prick the self-satisfaction of Seattle liberals. Lakoff spoke twice to sold-out audiences at Town Hall, with Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., serving as master of ceremonies on the second night. As is frequently the case, the Town Hall audience on Friday a) was 99 percent white; b) welcomed McDermott onstage with a standing ovation; c) gave speeches in lieu of asking questions; an d) fastened on to left conspiracy theories, lately the Downing Street Memo. Lakoff sounded like an updated Lowry at times. "The folks controlling our country right now are not true conservatives," he declared. "They're radicals." He blamed conservatives' opposition to sex education for causing unwanted pregnancies and decried "vigilante pharmacists" who refuse to dispense the pill. He attributed conservatives' power to "a huge empire of think tanks" and the fact that "they bought up the media." He did caution against doing an exclusively "gay protest" against an upcoming Bothell appearance by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. "People should not be shouting, 'No, no, no. ... They should be saying positive things that contradict his agenda." More such talk is needed. The Town Hall crowd ought to take a critical look at folks lining up on the other side of the fence. Our cumbersome state government minted a lot of the "Dinocrats" who almost captured the governorship. A tendency to blame America -- a Vietnam-era virus embedded in the Seattle left -- has infuriated old-line "Scoop Jackson" Democrats. It sure didn't help the Democrats' case in the 2002 elections when McDermott traveled to Baghdad and beamed back a TV interview saying President Bush would lie to get us into war. What manner of "framing" was that? Not the kind on which you build a foundation to recapture red states. The right knows the game, but the left too often plays into its hands. P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com © 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer