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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US
From: |
Pierce T . Wetter III |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US |
Date: |
Mon, 12 Jul 2004 14:14:26 -0700 |
[*] I did, even though I despise GWB and his cronies, and think they
are
causing more harm to the U.S./world than any president I can
remember
(yes, more than Reagan).
It's really been discouraging me lately the level of hatred I see in
US politics lately. It started building in the Reagan era, wasn't too
bad in the elder Bush era, built up again in the Clinton era, and has
peaked (so far) in the Bush era.
I don't blame people for being upset with any of those presidents.
Most people get their information from the media, and if you watch the
media, you'll find lots of reasons to hate any of those people if you
care strongly about almost any issue. Its important to realize that the
media doesn't distinguish between rhetoric and fact, and that their
goal is not to inform the public, but to gather viewers.
Presidents in general tend to be more centrist then left or right
wing. Reagan was effectively pro-choice, Clinton was pro business, and
so on. But if you listen to the media, they'll quote people who said
Reagan was a Nazi, and other people who say Clinton was a Communist.
Neither is a true, Clinton and Reagan probably had more in common then
they were different. But if you're speaking to a rally of Democratic or
Republican supporters, you'd never say "ah, that opposition really
isn't that bad, they're ok guys." No, you demonize them. Which is ok at
a Democratic or Republican rally. But then the media starts reporting
that rhetoric as if its true.
This spiral of hatred bums me out. So now Tom posts a link to this
article.
Which is so typical of the media hysteria machine. Let's fisk it.
For those who don't read a lot of web logs, fisking is taking an
article and going through it to extract the biases/truths/untruths. Its
named after the journalist Robert Fisk, who typically, reported that US
troops were nowhere near the airport, while we were all watching live
feeds on CNN. I think its a symptom of how bad things have gotten that
we had to invent a new word for "extracting truth from a newspaper
article".
Ok, so let's start with the first fact:
"U.S. officials have discussed the idea of postponing Election Day in
the event of a terrorist attack on or about that day, a Homeland
Security Department spokesman said Sunday."
Well, that's pretty boring, really. Some officials talked about
something. No doubt they talk about the Sopranos/sex/where to go to
lunch too... Let's sex it up.
It's about an election. Any way to get the 2000 election mentioned?
Sure!
"The commission was set up after the disputed 2000 presidential vote to
help states deal with logistical problems in their elections."
Ok, so that will get people going. Let's see if we can scare the left
some more:
"Soaries, who was appointed by President Bush, is a former New Jersey
secretary of state and senior pastor of the 7,000-member First Baptist
Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset."
Great! Now everyone who was a little disturbed by the Florida results
can freak out even more. A religious nut appointed by Bush wants to
control your elections!
Now lets get some quotes. We'll remind people that Ridge said recently
that we had intelligence (we really have to stop calling it that) that
there may be an attack during the election process. We'll give people
some other dates to worry about: "The four-day Democratic convention
kicks off July 26 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Republican National
Convention begins August 30 in New York City."
Now we need a negative quote. Who have we interviewed lately? Here we
go:
"Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California, ranking member of the House
Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that she believes planning for the
possibility of postponing Election Day is "excessive, based on what we
know.""
I don't know how "planning" for a "possibility" can be "excessive",
but ok.
Anyone else? Feinstein is always good for a quote:
"I don't think there's an argument that can be made, for the first time
in our history, to delay an election," said Democratic Sen. Dianne
Feinstein of California, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
Uh, elections have been delayed before. Learn some history Dianne.
Ok, now we have to be "fair", so lets look for another quote.
"Noting that New York election officials were able to postpone their
September 11, 2001, primary election after terrorists slammed hijacked
planes into the World Trade Center, Cox said "there isn't any body that
has that authority to do that for federal elections.""
Great! He brought up 9/11. That will push everyone's buttons. Now time
to feed the hysteria.
"What has Homeland Security officials worried is that terrorists could
attempt to disrupt the election in the same way that train bombings in
Madrid created unrest three days before the Spanish general election,
the Homeland Security spokesman said.
Although there is no evidence that the bombings influenced the March 11
vote, socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero unseated Prime Minister
Jose Maria Aznar, whose center-right government supported the U.S.-led
war in Iraq.
The country's new government then pulled Spanish troops from Iraq."
Great, now we have Iraq involved too. Now everyone who doesn't support
our presence in Iraq will think that Bush is going to postpone
elections forever.
So this article seems pretty typical media claptrap. You've got some
minor bit of news: Tom Ridge talked to a lawyer. This is then built up
to imply this giant conspiracy, yet without actually stating that. So
we're left with the impression that Bush is seizing control of the
electoral process, when actually Congress would have to pass
legislation or something for that to happen.
Now lets go check out this electoral assistance commission...googling
http://www.eac.gov/
Ok, so it was part of a law passed in the wake of 2000.
Here's their mission statement:
"The United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent
bipartisan agency, is authorized by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to
serve as "...a national clearinghouse and resource for the comparison
of information" on various matters involving the administration of
Federal elections."
Basically, there are 4 people on the commission:
Soaries: Served as Secretary of State in New Jersey
Hillman: Worked for Dukakis, Clinton, worked to promote women's rights
internationally.
DeGregorio: Head of a NGO promoting elections worldwide
Martinez: Lead voter registration drives, worked in the White House
for Clinton
So this _bi-partisan_ commission, lead by Soaries, who as a black
man, is probably extra sensitive to issues of dis-enfranchisement asked
the department of homeland security to look into what they would have
to do if they needed to delay an election? Why am I worried about this?
So someone talked to a lawyer, BFD.
The thing is, this is so typical of the media, that they feel they
have to spin controversy out of everything. This is so not-news.
Fascism is not gaining ground in the US. Tone down the hysteria. Tone
down the hatred. Bush isn't perfect, Clinton wasn't perfect, Kerry
isn't perfect, Reagan wasn't perfect, you aren't perfect, I'm not
perfect, none of the next 1,000,000 presidents will be perfect. The
only "evil" person in that list is me. :-)
When the media implies someone is evil, they're probably lying. If
they really were evil, they would come out and just say it. When they
don't come out and say things, they're just trying to mess with you.
Pierce
P.S.
Well, you read this far, so I'm going to talk some more about my
disillusionment with the media. About 2 years ago, it was really
obvious to me that we were going to have to do something about Iraq.
(Yes, I knew that early. It's called being well informed.)
So I subscribed to two things. One was the state department mailing
list of press briefings. The other was Foreign Affairs.
They were really an eye-opener for me, especially the state department
briefings. While I don't think that what the state department says is
true, I do think its a true statement of what they said. That is, if
the spokesman for the State Department gets up and says something,
that's what the State Department said.
That seems like I'm saying A=A. I am. The startling thing for me was
that CNN/Washington Post/NYT were saying A=Q. That is, what they
_reported_ the State Department saying was not the same thing as what
the State Department said. They were generally wildly different.
So I did some digging. They were wrong on Israel, on Palestine, on
Iraq, on everything. Anytime anyone said anything, anywhere, it was
twisted until it was controversial. One need not believe in a vast
right/left wing conspiracy. One need only believe that these
organizations are trying to make money, that more viewers is more
money, and that more exciting news is more viewers.
So now I rarely get my information from the media: too much of what
they say is suspect.
As far as Foreign Affairs goes, its a non-partisan magazine put out by
the Council on Foreign Relations, and its basically your ticket to the
inner workings of US Foreign Policy. Just knowing what issues the CFR
thinks are significant will tell you what will happen in the world a
year from now. For instance, two years ago, the discussion was not over
whether Saddam should be gotten rid of, but how.
- [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Tom Lord, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Mark A. Flacy, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Jan-Benedict Glaw, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, nadim, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Samium Gromoff, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Miles Bader, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Samium Gromoff, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US,
Pierce T . Wetter III <=
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Sriram Ramkrishna, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Samium Gromoff, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Pierce T . Wetter III, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Frank T. Pohlmann, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Pierce T . Wetter III, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, James Blackwell, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Samium Gromoff, 2004/07/12
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Samium Gromoff, 2004/07/12
[Gnu-arch-users] Re: [OT] facism gaining ground in US, Neil Stevens, 2004/07/12