War of the Words
Having been cognisant of events in the world around me since the Kennedy years, I would just like to mention that never before have I observed an administration so fixed on providing misinformation so consistently.
Nixon said "I am not a crook." Reagan was generally too hazy to know anything solid, and dealt in generalities because it was as much as he could comprehend. Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman." The current president claimed to have special knowledge, even though he was informed by multiple informed sources thtat the special knowledge with respect to WMD's and candy/flower reception was simply not true. And now he wants to use his established reputation for spreading lies to smear John Kerry for a remark which was not put clearly enough to avoid misinterpretation.
What we have here is a world leader who has no respect for the public, and only speaks to it in terms that assume it is incapable of overriding his misinformation, incapable of judgment. The political aims of the white house are the exclusive and overriding concern of those elected to the position of leaders.
Kerry said that failing to become educated would lead you into the morass like Iraq -somewhat like the President's famous misstatement that the enemy in Iraq had as its goal to do damage to us, and that we have the same goal - wish I had the exact quote.
But some one who says "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (found here);
Or who says; "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio here)
That is not some one who can throw stones at others' awkward use of language without total cynicism as his motivation.
Before they are forgotten in the face of the wild rhetorical hodgepodge - the actual words Kerry spoke -
Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."
But in the heat of political desperation, this has been taken up by the Grand Old Prevaricators as an insult to the troops.
GOP Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), like Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran and a potential 2008 rival, said while campaigning for Republican candidates in Indiana that "the suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today."
Added House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., struggling to keep his party in control of Congress: "Our soldiers risk their lives in the face of grave dangers on the battlefield, and no one who chooses to courageously and selflessly defend our country can be considered 'uneducated.'"
It's another indication of the basic rejection by this White House of 'the people' that they cannot find anything but obfuscation to throw out. Diversion from their record, not dealing with the demands of high office, dominates the bunch of them, and rhetoric is the reaction to any reality that doesn't help their pursuit of ignorant political goals.
Our press has been woefully inadequate in this atmosphere to provide the truth-telling complement that it should give to the public. Happily, the NYTimes and WaPo did finally confess and apologize that it should have been providing real information instead of parroting the WH line about WMD's. Unhappily, none of the press in this country has assumed the role of Truth Seeker in Chief in the face of blatant lies from the Cretin in Chief.
Today, I read through a post by Robert Samuelson, an eminent economist, that based his whole opinion on the failure of our leaders to break free from 'public opinion' -all the time blithely ignoring the fact that those same leaders are rushing pellmell after this WH to mislead the public, and to form, not respect, public opinion by outright lies such as Rummy's and Cheney's declarations of eminent victory in Iraq which are constantly given the lie by our military, Press Secretary Snow's and Hastert's about Kerry, and the C-i-C's about everything right up to and including what he himself will do, as in "Stay the Course".
Samuelson said
Americans favor balanced budgets. But in 66 years of surveys, taxpayers have never said their income taxes were too low, reports Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute. A Gallup poll in April found that 48 percent thought their taxes too high and only 2 percent too low. Americans also think government spending is hugely wasteful; 61 percent said so in a 2004 poll by the University of Michigan. But locating that waste is hard. A recent Fox News poll found that only 19 percent favor cuts in Social Security, 21 percent in health care, 19 percent in education and 25 percent for the military.
Ah, there's the rub. His solutions would be big cuts in social security,health care, education - while most of us would rather see the top 1% in wealth give up supersizing maybe one of the 5 - 6 homes in Vail [Ken Lay's standard] than that our elderly eat catfood and our youth assume frightening debt in order to improve their economic prospects through education.
So public opinion becomes the enemy for the greedy, it's fickle and unreliable. This totally ignores the role of the press in providing dependable, solid information rather than 'stenography' of views such as his. And it shirks the responsibility of our irresponsible heads of state in consistently lying to the public for their purely political purposes.
from Ruth
Nixon said "I am not a crook." Reagan was generally too hazy to know anything solid, and dealt in generalities because it was as much as he could comprehend. Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman." The current president claimed to have special knowledge, even though he was informed by multiple informed sources thtat the special knowledge with respect to WMD's and candy/flower reception was simply not true. And now he wants to use his established reputation for spreading lies to smear John Kerry for a remark which was not put clearly enough to avoid misinterpretation.
What we have here is a world leader who has no respect for the public, and only speaks to it in terms that assume it is incapable of overriding his misinformation, incapable of judgment. The political aims of the white house are the exclusive and overriding concern of those elected to the position of leaders.
Kerry said that failing to become educated would lead you into the morass like Iraq -somewhat like the President's famous misstatement that the enemy in Iraq had as its goal to do damage to us, and that we have the same goal - wish I had the exact quote.
But some one who says "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (found here);
Or who says; "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio here)
That is not some one who can throw stones at others' awkward use of language without total cynicism as his motivation.
Before they are forgotten in the face of the wild rhetorical hodgepodge - the actual words Kerry spoke -
Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."
But in the heat of political desperation, this has been taken up by the Grand Old Prevaricators as an insult to the troops.
GOP Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), like Kerry a decorated Vietnam veteran and a potential 2008 rival, said while campaigning for Republican candidates in Indiana that "the suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today."
Added House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., struggling to keep his party in control of Congress: "Our soldiers risk their lives in the face of grave dangers on the battlefield, and no one who chooses to courageously and selflessly defend our country can be considered 'uneducated.'"
It's another indication of the basic rejection by this White House of 'the people' that they cannot find anything but obfuscation to throw out. Diversion from their record, not dealing with the demands of high office, dominates the bunch of them, and rhetoric is the reaction to any reality that doesn't help their pursuit of ignorant political goals.
Our press has been woefully inadequate in this atmosphere to provide the truth-telling complement that it should give to the public. Happily, the NYTimes and WaPo did finally confess and apologize that it should have been providing real information instead of parroting the WH line about WMD's. Unhappily, none of the press in this country has assumed the role of Truth Seeker in Chief in the face of blatant lies from the Cretin in Chief.
Today, I read through a post by Robert Samuelson, an eminent economist, that based his whole opinion on the failure of our leaders to break free from 'public opinion' -all the time blithely ignoring the fact that those same leaders are rushing pellmell after this WH to mislead the public, and to form, not respect, public opinion by outright lies such as Rummy's and Cheney's declarations of eminent victory in Iraq which are constantly given the lie by our military, Press Secretary Snow's and Hastert's about Kerry, and the C-i-C's about everything right up to and including what he himself will do, as in "Stay the Course".
Samuelson said
Americans favor balanced budgets. But in 66 years of surveys, taxpayers have never said their income taxes were too low, reports Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute. A Gallup poll in April found that 48 percent thought their taxes too high and only 2 percent too low. Americans also think government spending is hugely wasteful; 61 percent said so in a 2004 poll by the University of Michigan. But locating that waste is hard. A recent Fox News poll found that only 19 percent favor cuts in Social Security, 21 percent in health care, 19 percent in education and 25 percent for the military.
Ah, there's the rub. His solutions would be big cuts in social security,health care, education - while most of us would rather see the top 1% in wealth give up supersizing maybe one of the 5 - 6 homes in Vail [Ken Lay's standard] than that our elderly eat catfood and our youth assume frightening debt in order to improve their economic prospects through education.
So public opinion becomes the enemy for the greedy, it's fickle and unreliable. This totally ignores the role of the press in providing dependable, solid information rather than 'stenography' of views such as his. And it shirks the responsibility of our irresponsible heads of state in consistently lying to the public for their purely political purposes.
from Ruth
Labels: Disinformation
posted by Diane at 1:34 AM
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