Just Give Me Some Truth
In the '60s, the media pushed the country against the Vietnam War. The Tet Offensive bled onto living room TV sets, Walter Cronkite came out against the war, citizens were outraged and convinced.
The same with Watergate: Central and somewhat trusted media outlets pushed and probed and exposed and again, citizens were outraged and convinced.
Now, the lament (in liberal circles) is that, no matter what crimes the Bush administration commits, nothing sticks. Approval ratings plummet but still: no big trials, no major special prosecutors, no impeachment hearings, no outrage, no one convinced.
The problem is that The Information Age is exactly the opposite. There's no longer anything even close to a consensus of where we gather truth. This isn't the information age, it's the blather-ation age. All we have is a trillion sources from which to choose truths we want to believe.
In the national newspaper of record, Maureen Dowd slams away at the Bush administration with what seem like irrefutable facts and irrepressibly funny venom... to no real effect. Even 20 years ago, it would have been outrageous/disrespectful -- impactful -- for a columnist for the New York Times to be so vehement. Now, conservatives slough her off and liberals read her partially for ammunition and partially for entertainment.
And if Maureen isn't entertaining enough, we turn to Bill Maher. He makes a grudging effort to have a dissenting viewpoint on his show and a gallant attempt to maintain civility. Usually he out-debates his conservative guest with a combination of his impeccable logic, his emcee bully-pulpit, his stand-up skills and his home crowd advantage. It should be somewhat satisfying and yet, and the end of every show, he looks more exasperated with the impossibility of having any tangible impact.
Preaching to the choir is a deadening experience.
Then again, preaching to the heathens isn't much better. On the right, a respected conservative columnist like David Brooks in the New York Times sounds more and more desperate in his attempts to gently get liberals to think another way. Ask a Maureen Dowd fan if he or she read David Brooks today and you get this put upon reaction of, "I started reading but by the third paragraph, I just couldn't stand it anymore."
Instead, we spend our lives preparing for an argument we'll never have with a person we'll never meet whose opinions we could never change.
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Because the Republicans controlled the Congress and
the Senate and the Justice Department and the media was kissing up to the administraion you had no oversight and no committees questioning all the doings on that were reported ( and there were hundreds of tips and hints ) you ended up with a mini- dictatorship evolving. Now that the Democrats are a wee bit in control when people say the Congresshas a very low approval rate the want to blame it on the Dems who still lack enough votes to be very effective. Consider the number of negative books and articles written about " George the Inept " it is hard to understandthat anything he would say should have any effect any longer. Credability is no where to be found in this Bush-Cheney administration and extends to people inhigh places shilling for them.
The truth? UMMM well I'll tell you there is no truth coming from any source in this country!
I read many newspapers and websites from around the world and then I make my own accessment from all different points of view. People better wake up!! Governments are the problem. Always trying to line their pockets with black gold.
Maybe they should try just living in peace.
We the people suffer because of their twisted views and selfish wants of governments.
Iran-the Saudi's-Russia-China all of them very greedy!! Including us. Just watch the show down over the anartic oil. That should be very interesting in the coming weeks. The world should rise up and comfront thier governments!
Oh yes and leave the Jews alone. Those people have suffered enough!! I am not a jew either.
Just a 52 year old from Kansas. Oh yes and for Bill Mahr he is just a not so Funny TV idiot.
Entertainment he thinks he is. What's this society coming to these days. Just how many idiots flood out media channels these days??
But some of these voices are complicit in this. Sure Maureen is funny now, but she also more or less openly rooted for Bush over Gore in 2000. Read her coverage of both their camps -- it is self-evident. She knew this was shallow, but she had a column to write. There is a reason you don't expect credibility there.
Maureen Dowd/ like many of her contemporaries in punditry is academically well educated and has been around the news beat long enough that her sophistication credentials should be impeccable. Sadly, and again like many of her counterparts, she doesn't measure up to her preparation. She is shallow and oftentimes thinks and writes using middle school emotions and viewpoints. It is reasonable to believe that what beef she had with Gore was, yet again like many of her counterparts (Matthews, Russert, Millbanks, even Fineman), that she did not perceive him as being COOL. The arrogant presumption of this type of judgement is breathtaking and bears no connection to the serious truth. One should read or watch these types only for entertainment ---- to begin the search for the truth, try Lehrer's News Hour or C-Span or the Monitor.
It took over 10 years to get most of our troops out of the Vietnam fiasco. We've been in the Iraq fiasco for less than 5 years, so maybe in 5+ more we can look for some common sense to prevail.
Does anyone truly believe Hillary is a leader? If you do not, you should not vote for her. As many have stated here, we do need leaders, which we have not got now w/ Pelosi, Reid, or for that matter any of the Demo frontrunners.
Alexander Cockburn in the current Nation writes about the sorry state of Democratic governance right now, using as his prime example the absolutely feeble Petraeus hearings. The general should have been shredded on the facts alone, but instead his lies were allowed to set policy.
Take a good hard look at Bill Richardson's campaign the my neighbor from IA.
Not perfect by any means but closer to what it seems most of us believe.
However! Please bear in mind that the Dem's have already crowned Queen Hillary the 1st and irregardless of how we may feel she will be the "nominee."
Stand to for four more years of a Bush clone because Hillary the 1st doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of becoming POTUS.
Television news has turned into less than info-tainment. Have you seen the Today show lately? It's 5 minutes of canned news and 4 hours of Britney Spears and fashion tips.. This is what they think the American people want. It makes me want to tie the average Joe Blow into a chair and force him to read HuffPo for a month.
People are just too complacent and selfish. They only worry about themselves and their day-today problems. The don't WANT to see the big picture.
It's just to scary for them to see what's really happening to this county.
I watch the BBC news, for what it's worth.
Yeah, the Today Show is like a woman's magazine.
BBC is good. They actually like, research facts and stuff. We should try that over here!
Patriotscholar is right. I consider myself conservative (in the fiscal sense) AND progressive --- and I don't see any conflict between the two. Conservatism is a legitimate political philosophy with a long and honorable tradition. Calling the current crop of Republicans "conservatives" --- both in and out of this Administration --- does a dishonor to real conservatives of all political stripes. If Democrats want to win in upcoming elections, we need to quit blaming and alienating conservatives, and target the "neoconservatives" instead; the real conservatives are our allies.
Mr. Mehlman is correct in identifying a lack of "consensus" as one of America's greatest problems. For too long Americans have cocooned themselves in their own homes, accepting only those "facts" that are agreeable to them. Television and radio news has evolved to where their main function is no longer to inform, but to reinforce viewers' existing perceptions; the only absolute rule is to never, ever offend anyone. And we are so convinced of our own "superiority" that most Americans' highest aspiration for their children is to be educated to believe what their parents already believe --- as if we already stood at the pinnacle of human understanding, and there was nothing further to discover.
The schism in the rest of the world --- between fundamentalist thinking, and rational secularism --- exists here at home, too. There are many degrees of "fundamentalism" (not just in the religious sense), but the polarity is clear: American society has split into two groups, one preferring the comfort of simple answers, the other requiring some kind of correspondence with objective reality.
So this is our "Matrix" moment. Do we take the red pill, and go back to sleep --- or do we take the blue pill?
So let's take the administration at their word.
They admit to conducting a secret ILLEGAL wiretapping program for years...They ADMIT to breaking the law....there is NO debate here.
So what's it gonna take to impeach these guys?
... do have have to gang rape the Constitution on the White House lawn or what?
The problem is not a lack of evidence ... the problem is a lack of leadership in Congress.
By the time they, the Democratic Congress, get their act together the Neocons will have taken complete control of what used to be a Democracy.
Instead of wondering WHO will be the next president in 08, perhaps they should be wondering IF there will be a new President in 08, because frankly, the actions of this bunch
appear seem to be geared for the long haul.
Once they establish that they are above the law, it's only a short hop to rewriting the law...to eleminating elections entirely.
They'll probably call it the Democracy Preservation Act ... and insist that it's all for OUR own good.
Without a 60% majority to make it stick - an impeachment effort would only be viewed as another whimsical Democrat failed effort.
If you really want to nail these bastards then get out and campaign for the Dem candidate in your district and make sure we overturn the bush crime family oxcart in '08'
It's 40 percent to sustain a filibuster in the Senate ... The 60 percent the Democratic "leadership" keeps touting is frankly BS ...
I am so tired of hearing how this Senate has to send legislation to this president appoving billions of dollars in defense spending without oversight, fast tracked trade deals, allow warrentless spying on Americans, and any other damn thing George Bush wants beacuse they don't have a veto proof majority.
In any case, impeachment proceedings begin in the House where Nancy Pilosi has taken it "off the table". Why in the world would the Speaker of the House take it's most effective Constitutional tool "off the table"? This is a dereliction of responsiblity as well as a serious lack of leadership.
For a real change, not only the makeup of Congress, but the makeup of the Democratic Party needs sea change.
If we want to upset the oxcart we need to send a message in the primaries much the same way that voters sent a message to Liberman last year.
Live up to your principals or find other employment.
In a word, bullshit. A good part of what got us into this mess was "solid, practical thinking" of exactly this sort.
This country was founded on a simple idea; that all* men are created equal and that none are above the law. Whether or not articles of impeachment actually pass the House, regardless of whether the Senate comes to its senses and passes a conviction, impeachment of Cheney and Bush (in that order or, preferably, simultaneously) is a moral imperative if Americans want to be taken seriously in the world, to be safe and secure in their persons, or even to be able to look themselves in the mirror.
One of the transformations that the crisis/media complex has made stick in our country is that politics is now truly a zero-sum game: either the fascists win, or the American people do; and if the former, they won't cede their winnings back to the pot anytime soon. Just look how far towards the authoritarian extreme the "mainstream" has moved over the last three or four decades; Barry Goldwater, were he running for President today, would be branded a flaming liberal for his inconvenient views on governance and liberty.
The only realpolitik that should apply here is the scheduling. The Best* Congress Money Can Buy will lose any and all interest in even pretending to govern at least 6-8 months before the next scheduled "election." That, and the general principle of "the sooner we start, the sooner we finish" should prevail.
So the question for every citizen is: Will you help today be the first day of the restoration of the United States of America to its Constitutional self?
Impeachment occurs in the House...trial in the Senate.
A carefully and thoroughly prepared list of charged offenses might very well bring a 60% vote in the House.
The excuse that impeachment will take up too much of the Congress' time is absurd. The Republicans are going to block any meaningful legislation that the Democrats propose anyway so the time might as well be spent doing something productive.
First, you impeach, then you find the votes.
If you fail to impeach, you legitimize, and you might not win the next election, either.
An impeachment would be "viewed" as such because it would be "portrayed" as such. right wing media would incessantly portray it as such and then the main stream media would lead with questions such as "are the democrats engaging in political manipulations" "is it a good idea to distract the president during a war with this sort of politics" and not "do we lose our identity if we do not honor our constitution"
I think the whole problem is that we have government by intimidation. People are kept frightened by the thought that they could be bombed by a terrorist at any minute. Protesters run the risk of being arrested simply for wearing a T-shirt in the wrong place!
It's the same thing in the Halls of Congress. It's not so much Bush they fear as it is Cheney. Are you going to argue with a man who can shoot another man in the face, get away with it, and even make the victim apologize?
You want to know why they call us cowards, wishy-washy and flip-floppers?
-For every neighborhood backyard barbecue where the topic of politics come up, and we agree with the majority conservative opinion, even though we know it's wrong.
-For every PTA meeting, town hall meeting, Little League game, Thanksgiving dinner, family reunion, night out with friends, etc., where we could voice our opinions, but back down.
-For every time they force us into a corner and let them criticize us without fighting back.
-For every social agenda they've stolen from us. For example: the Republicans are the champions of civil rights?? Since when, exactly??
-For every time they shouted just a little louder, and we let them.
-For letting them set the national topic of discussion, rather than setting it ourselves.
-For conceding even a single point in a debate with these brainless, parroting zombies.
The next time someone comes with you using an argument you don't agree with, speak up and fight back. Don't let these cowards get the best of us, lest we become cowards ourselves.
Dan, this post of yours is so damned accurate it frightens me.
Once it was seen that there would be no consequences for Harriet Meirs subpeona no-show, it became clear that the new Congress lacks teeth.
Ten thousand people have signed just one particular petition for impeachment. No report in MSM. Thousands marched in an antiwar protest in DC, or was it New York, in September. I can’t give you the specifics because it was ignored in the MSM. I saw one statement that 100,000 had marched. I guess that was too many to arrest--so just blank out the event on TV. We elected enough Democrats to give that party the majority in Congress. The new Speaker of the House, Pelosi, announces immediately that impeachment is off the table. That means that our Constitution is what? no longer in effect in regard to the Administration? Therefore, no checks and balances. A Congress with no power, not even subpoena power.
Or the correct answer that there are no legitimate charges to levy
Wheat and tares time. No middle any more.
Either the people of this country have gotten more stupid, or they've become cowards.
Did the fear card get played so well by this LYING, THIEVING, MURDERING pack of scumbags that we the people are afraid to speak out about what they so BLATANTLY do in clear view.
If this was happening 40 years ago the country would be ablaze until these criminals were brought to justice.
The information age...has it produced so much information so fast from so many sources people simply do not know what to believe or how to form their own opinions?
One thing is for sure, THEY use the information age to their own end, and they use it well. Like being able to use the force against a weak minded individual, they feed their never ending agenda of FEAR AND HATE AND BIGOTRY, and all under the guise of LIBERTY or FREEDOM or DEMOCRACY, and most Americans LISTEN AND OBEY.
n.
Orwell was only off by 20 years....... once you realize that, all is clear.
Big Brother knows everyone's secrets courtesy of the NSA and keeps everyone in line. When you ADMIT to spying on your own Secretary of State (as a "training" mission") what else is going on? How else to explain the cowed submission by all in DC? Given the scandals that have come out (Abramoff, Foley, Vitter, Craig, Hookergate, and so much more), what else remains hidden? EVERYONE'S closet has a skeleton (or two or three or more)in DC.
The fourth estate - valued so highly by our Founding Fathers in keeping the electorate engaged and informed has become co-opted, a tool of the governing, foisting propagandistic points of view, not real information.
Twenty years ago they did their job. We KNEW what was happening in Vietnam because we could not avoid it - we saw THAT reality on the news every night.
Iraq is out of sight and out of mind - the media cowed by this President and their corporatocracy owners. The Constitution is shredded as former NIXON and REAGAN administration members protest, while the "opposition" Democrats do NOTHING.
Real war crimes remain unseen and uninvestigated. Who'd have EVER thought prisoner abuse at AbuGhraib, torture at GITMO, Blackwater mercenaries running amok unbound by ANY law or regualations, and burning civilians alive in Fallujah would ever have occurred under AMERICANS?
Our times are Orwellian. Last night I read a book with the tv on...always on--but then sometimes I turn it off just to prove I can. But, we are always plugged in--gps available.
Arguments against illegal-immigration get twisted into righteous accusations of prejudice against immigrants. Immigrants are angry too--they know the effort they made to come here legally. To group them with illegals does a great wrong.
The word illegal means nothing---except maybe---when it comes to you and me: Joe or Jane Blow smchuck American.
Robert Heinlein wrote a great science fiction novel a couple decades back in which there were two types of food: synthetic and natural. Check you local grocery store--you'll find it come to fruition.
Sometimes I look about me and wonder if I haven't wandered into the wicked witches forest. I know there's a road here somewhere to a place where everything pretends to be alright and there's a man behind the curtain.
For so many...it's all too much. But unless we act--it will always be all too much.
The University kids give me hope. Look on U-tube for the kids protesting against tasers used against political dissent.
We're not done yet.
Real war crimes remain unseen and uninvestigated. Who'd have EVER thought prisoner abuse at AbuGhraib, torture at GITMO, Blackwater mercenaries running amok unbound by ANY law or regualations, and burning civilians alive in Fallujah would ever have occurred under AMERICANS?
Who you ask? Those who recognize the clear pattern of AMERICAN behavior as noted in the decimated Indians, forged chattel slavery and then subsequently segregation and Jim Crow, exiled tens of thousands of Mexicans residing in the southwest, enslaved the Chinnese, arrested Japanese citizens and now have demonized the Muslims.
It is apparent that one of the major problems with some's thinking in America is their inability to critically understand or focus on its culture; and the crimes which it has wrought on other races and cultures since its inception. How ridiculous it is to ask such a question when the very history of AMERICANS, specifically the dominate white culture, has operated in this way and fashion, including towards the Irish and Italians, until they were welcomed into the WASP tent.
These AMERICANS have been committing crimes against others while creating a deep emotional and psychological rationalization that their actions were done in the name of goodness for the benefit of those they destroyed.
This comment is natural, then for some not to equate its brutal history of violence as violence as much as doing God's eternal work. We can observe this fantasy in the words of Rudy Guiliani who describes AMERICAN economy as the 'world's best hope for mankind.'
Coming back full circle, we arrive at why AMERICANS accept and rationalize its hate, fear and brutality.
The people are lost and confused because there is a screaming match being played out in the MSM, and on the net. The point of this blog is valid ppl are cherry picking the truth they want to hear, and the neo-cons run a much better PR campaign then the liberals do. Basically each side is calling the other a liar and the people are lost in the scuffle.
Americans are too spoiled, too distracted by media manipulation to pay attention to DETAILS.
They are easily confused and influenced by political publicists spewing hype 24/7.
Most Americans are sacrificing NOTHING for the Iraq Invasion "war". IT DOESN'T HURT ENOUGH for
Americans to do something about the Bush-Cheney DISASTER.
Unless there is PAIN, and LOTS OF PAIN, lazy and spoiled America will continue NOT TO PAY ATTENTION.
America is on the edge of disaster due to the inrresponsibility of its citizens and nobody else.
Looks to me that somebody knows what's going on. Your comments are painfully evident throughout a society that fawns over the likes of Britney, Lindsay, and OJ but simply will not takes what's happening seriously.
We have no one to blame but ourselves. We'll get what we deserve no doubt.
The other half is how what you describe leaves Americans open to the tactic of divide and conquer through exploiting hate, fear and ignorance.
Republicans represent a minority on economic issues. But that minority has a disproportionate amount of the nation’s wealth. Vast wealth, when concentrated in a few hands can and often does equal great power.
As a result republicans have the money and the power to challenge those that represent economic and political interests more closely aligned with the majority of Americans.
But to do this they must divide the masses and turn them against each other. They have done this through god, race, sex and sexual orientation, fear mongering and most successfully by using the flag and questioning the patriotism of those they oppose.
They know they cannot discuss the issues especially the economy and an unnecessary war. Hence they divide and conquer through the use seven tactics:
1. Fear Mongering
2. Gay Bashing
3. Race Baiting
4. Bible thumping
5. Flag Waiving
6. Immigrant scapegoating
7. Shouting "He's a Liberal (commie socialist American hater) He's a Liberal He's a........
How can I justify the actions of a commander in chief that forbids the showing of the flag draped caskets of our own as they return from this "honorable" war?
How can I stand behind a commander in chief who would not stand face to face with a mother, who's son had lain in one of those coffins.?
How can I believe a commander in chief who can stand before us and say over and over that we are winning his immoral war in Iraq and our economy is healthy?
This is not a liberal/conservative debate, think about it...think, think. There is no honor here, it is wrong, morally wrong and it is not a question of political loyalty. Call youself anything you want but think, reflect on what we are doing to our own troops and the thousands of innocents in Iraq and the millions of those in other countries we are "too busy" to help because of the madness of one man.
How can I honor a commander in chief who would call me a traitor because I ask these questions?
Never seen it put so well....you've sorted through the BS and asked the questions the MSM or the staged "debates" will never ask.
The medium is indeed the message, and the republicans understand this. Splintered and fregmented, the news outlets are...olds. I call the news...olds. It is just a massive echo canyon, and those who shout into the canyon enough times, with familiar shouts win. Republicans---all---have talking points and sound bytes. They maintain the discipline to repeat, and repeat and repeat the point du jour.
The Dems need to learn. It is not hard. All dems need to use the same lines: "stop the bleeding" in Iraq. All Dems need to remind america that the republicans lack "moral clarity", "moral bearings", and have lost their "moral compass". Yes, to co-opt the great Oracle, Bill Bennett. His preachy litanies have emphasized for years that "liberals" are morally bankrupt. His god-fearing, testosterone driven, republican brethen have been riding this theme to success, year after year.
The irony is that "moral relativism" (another Bennett critique of liberals) is the true foundation of Bennett and his clique. Tortured "tautologies" are their logic.
America is good---and satan hates good; we are at war with satan---because America is good---and war is good for America.
We hate terrible because terrible is terrible. Torture is terrible, but torture is all that terrible understands. Islamists are satanic because they worship allah (which is arabic for God), and God (which is english for allah) commands that we fight satan. The world is divided into good and bad. Homosexuality can't be good, so it is bad. Bad is to be hated and despised because satan is bad and despicable. And so on and so on.
The republicans moral bearings are planted firmly in the ether of their satanic fearing, i.e. worshipping orthodoxy.
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