"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State.........

[buycitgo]

".....can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Josef Goebbels--who else?

who else? name your current junta spokescreep, cause that's ALL they ever do, including their unindicted co-conspirators in the sub-government right wing media.

is there any hope for getting the truth out?

the latest ridiculous treatment in the media of "Dr." David Kay, as well as the mind-boggling approach of media shills to the Jennings/Clark/Moore/Deserter confrontation are two of the more egregious, and commonly (ubiqutious?) occurring examples of media complicity in keeping the public in its perpetual state of benighted ignorance.

I heard Robert Kuttner--the American Prospect--on thisishell (http://www.thisishell.com), this morning, discussing just HOW bad it is. He related how a recently resigned CNN boss told him that whenEVER an even slightly critical story about the junta was used, he immediately got phone calls from the admin, as well as avalanches of email. He also mentioned the WashPost WH correspondent who is/was frozen out because of HIS failure to act the complete lapdog. He said the person (unnamed) couldn't get ANY access, therefore jeapordizing his position with his editors. Kuttner says this happens all the time, at all media outlets, that it's a concerted, concentrated, ORGANIZED effort to control information flow.

He also mentioned John Tierney's (sp?) recent front page NYTimes article on Kerry, which he said was a model of RW propaganda; that Tierney is a well-known conservative, who somehow got a job writing NEWS for the Times, instead of the crackpot wingnut features/editorials for which he's "known"

It goes on and on, and, from what Kuttner said, it's even WORSE than you think.

what's to be done?

[stepnw1f]

1. revolt

[brainshrub]

2. Revolts & revolutions eat their young.

I prefer voting.

[enough]

3. Thanks for the Kuttner link

and that Goebbels quotation is hair-raising. Do you have a citation for that? I'd like to use it.

[buycitgo]

6. naaaaahhhhh....just made it up!

just kidding.....got it from ratical.....will link that, or some primary source

here's something from Kuttner's TAP, btw, on the egregious wagon circling done over the Clark/Moore/AWOL fiasco

When Michael Moore called George W. Bush a "deserter" at a January 18 rally for Wesley Clark, he stepped way over the line, injecting into the public discourse a scurrilous charge with no basis in fact, the kind of defamation that has rightly earned the moniker "political hate speech" from Republicans. Or at least that's what you'd think if you listened to reporters' comments on Moore's statement. Speaking for his colleagues, ABC's Peter Jennings told Clark during Thursday's debate, "That's a reckless charge not supported by the facts. And I was curious to know why you didn't contradict him, and whether or not you think it would've been a better example of ethical behavior to have done so."

/////////

"Clark should have distanced himself from the remark," wrote The Boston Globe. On FOX News, Chris Wallace said Clark's failure to do so was the one place in the debate when "my reporter's antenna went up. And I thought, 'This is news' Doesn't that raise questions of perhaps being a little amateur?" Clark, the United Press International's story about the debate contended, "may have stumbled most when he was quizzed as to why he stayed silent when documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, who has endorsed him, called Bush a deserter in Clark's presence and Clark did not immediately condemn the remark or disassociate himself from it."

If you've been reading the news, though, you may've a hard time figuring out just what Moore was talking about. The New York Times referred obliquely to "Bush's attendance record with the National Guard in Texas," while National Public Radio offered that the charge "refer to his time in the Texas Air National Guard." The Los Angeles Times gave a non-explanation, writing, "Bush served as a pilot in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War, a relatively safe posting. In 1972, Bush was allowed to transfer to the Alabama National Guard for three months so he could work on the campaign of a Senate candidate there."

But with the notable exception of those who came across a brief story by The Washington Post's David Broder, who actually explained the controversy, the typical news reader would be hard pressed to discern that, depending on what your definition of "desertion" is (call it AWOL if you like), Moore was exactly right.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2004/01/waldman-p-01-26.html

just one small instance of the never ending flood of media complicity in shoring up the WORST 'presidency' in history.

[buycitgo]

16. here's a link

can't find a definitive source, so this MAY be apocryphal, but it's ALL over the web

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:5xNt6ypQSI0J:mirrorh.com/mirror.html+famous+quotes+The+lie+can+be+maintained+only+for+such+time+as+the+State&hl=en&start=1&ie=UTF-8

here's another one I've seen while searching for corrob



"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be ... The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe."

[indepat]

4. Is virtually everything worse than we thought? Where will this eventually

take us? How will it all end? How and when will our national nightmare end?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Keep telling the truth

Give links to sites that are truthful and non-partisan to those who want the truth.

Encourage folks to listen to news that originates in other countries, such as Canada and Britain, or France and Germany if they are multi-lingual.

Talk to people. I've been doing this, and it seems that the folks out there don't like Bush and are suspicious of the media. They are looking for facts, and are glad to get them from reliable sources.

So if you have a link to the CNN stuff, I'd appreciate it so I can pass it on.

[buycitgo]

9. it's here, from yesterday, in a thread I started, but was ignored

didn't bookmark it, can't find it online at this point, but will go back and check again


edit

here

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/07/cia.mobile.labs /

[Broward]

7. Admin tactics must become main story

before it's too late. A major news organization needs to do an expose on the ruthless, controlling, and vengeful ways of these people. If we wait too long and enough honorable, objective journalists lose their access and positions and replaced by "lapdogs" our country is in big trouble. In the meanwhile, just be thankful we have the internet.

[buycitgo]

12. they WON'T, unless Bush proves vulnerable in the extreme

only when it all starts unraveling will the media pack descend on him (maybe)

problem is, it's going to take the sort of effort you deSCRIBE for this process to begin

unLESS the dems start harping relentlessly on the constant flow of lies emanating from the government/media propaganda mills

course, when/if they do THAT, the media will descend on THEM like they did Gore, for example, or going back....WAY back, to WJC.

they will NOT allow the message to get out

"dems" need to understand that, and find a way to counteract it

[nixonwasbetterthanW]

8. In reality, Kuttner offers potentially great news.

The only reason Kuttner's friends -- the CNN producer, the WashPost reporter, etc. -- are on the defensive is because of the organized Bushie base. Now that it is clear, however, that more than half the people in this country think Bush is a fraud, those same scribes can be turned the other way.

In other words, as long as reporters know -- by receiving e-mails, phone calls, etc. from the good side -- that the outright lies and other roadblocks to the truth can and should be publicized (viz WMD nonexistence, Plame outing, No Child Left Behind nonfunding, etc.), eventually they'll do their jobs.

Rove & Co. have pivoted the fate of the administration on a steadfast ability to control the image in leakproof fashion. The wintertime seepage has begun; as Chauncey Gardner would have it, there will be floods in the spring.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. But they didn't have the internet

and the impact of having unprecedented access to information and the ability to communicate and spread information with sites like DU is having a major impact on current events.

We don't need independent investigations. Bu$hCo is on trial right now in the court of public opinion and the trial is taking place on the internet, in forums, blogs, and news sites just like DU. For the first time in history, folks like us can can download enough evidence to convict the whole bunch. Welcome to justice 21st Century style.

[onethatcares]

17. so right,

more and more people are waking up, I'm just a carpenter, and to the wealthy, a low life but wherever I go, people are talking about the lies, the insincerity, the bullshit of programs without funding. Most say they are going to vote (hopefully they do), all say get this sad sack of a wannabe out of office before the country is worse than Haiti. Blacks/whites they are all paying attention now, they all want to avenge 2000 and I don't think the administration realizes what kind of avalanche is in front of them. Talk, talk soft, you'll be surprised at the responses.

[buycitgo]

18. JUST a carpenter! Ha!

I remember somebody awhile back who was (well....maybe) a carpenter, and he created quite the stir!

that said, we keep hearing that same thing much more frequently, and I only hope it carries over through the next Selection process

excellent advice, btw

one at a time

drip drip drip

a trickle becomes a stream becomes a river becomes a delta becomes an ocean

[calimary]

11. Well, that dick-head at CNN, and the one at the Washington Post

oughta turn that one right around. If their guys are frozen out, the only access they're losing is access to the White House. There are LOTS of other people out there who would be willing to talk. Not just an increasing number of republi-CON Rip Van Winkles who are now awakening, but the OTHER side, for Christ's sake! And EVERY SINGLE statement that goes unrefuted by the White House because they refuse to grant access to these poor peons should include the added sentence - "we tried to get a comment from the White House, but no one there is willing to speak to us, since they think we're not biased in their favor."

Smack it right back in their faces. I used to be a reporter. ALL the time we coerced comment from the reluctant ones by saying we were going to have to go with it anyway, just that if we go like this, it won't include your spin. And we'll say so. Or else just "...REFUSED comment." Or "...REFUSED to return phone calls seeking comment." Use the active words, too, like REFUSED. Put the onus back on them.

Shit, people, this can be done. These asshole editors are just giving into their cowardice, and LAZINESS. Now is a GREAT time to go digging. And if they're not gonna comment on it, say so. And say why you think it is. After all, you're free to make those assertions sincce they won't comment on it and they don't seem interested in making sure you got "both sides."

The "onesided coverage" door swings both ways, you know.

When I was a reporter, I made it something of a hallmark of mine that - whenever anybody or anybody's flak said we were not to discuss such-and-such, or ask such-and-such questions, it immediately became my mission to figure out exactly how to broach those very same forbidden questions. And if you get a rude smackdown, you go with that, and put THAT on the radio, or in the article. Winds up making 'em look kinda weasely, or chickenshit, too, for not having the guts to take you on.

[buycitgo]

13. excellent analysis, BUT.......

they WON'T do it, because, for various reasons, they're CHICKEN'

REAL reporters, like Robert Parry or Jason Leopold can tell you what happens to somebody who bucks the system

I hope you're right, but the current media, as comprised is nothing better than an extension of the Rove Ministry of Propaganda, and the internet, while valuable in keeping certain items from disappearing down the memory hole, is still an unrecognized quanitity in the overall media scene, as digested by most news consumers, who only gleen the most superficial (read propaganda-driven) tidbits.

It's soundbite/marketing-driven "news" for dummies, for the large majority of the populace

AND......the drive to change the internet into a closed system is taking place as we type away. THEY know that it's the last bastion of freedom, and are trying their best to consolidate it into a system just as inimical to free expression as the huge media monopolies have done in the broadcast realm

wish I could be more optimistic

[Dantes]

14. Bush may not be Hitler ...

But Karl Rove IS Josef Goebbels.



For the record, Bush is Mussolini ;-)

[salinen]

15. We are literally at the edge of the abyss

The FCC is moving fast and furious, the BBC may become FAUX, and don't look over your shoulder. The next step for the neohitlers will be so shocking that we may regret not leaving.

[buycitgo]

19. here's a GREAT ariticle about John ONeill, which also does this:

connects a few dots regarding press supinity/complicity in what's happened since Watergate

Thirty years ago, the Post brought down President Nixon. That scared the American elite, including the publishing magnates. Ever since, journalists have been trained to worship and respect power, and those who question official versions of events are labeled “conspiracy theorists” and “lunatics,” relegated to marginal publications and poverty. Serious people seriously believe that there are no conspiracies in the US government; governments around the world are constantly hatching conspiracies, and through history we know that politics has been a conspiracy Olympics. American business, particularly at the higher levels, is nothing but plots and conspiracies. Yet for some reason, you'd have to be crazy to believe that American officials hatch conspiracies, cuz, you know, it would like, get out in the press, and, like, people would be really upset.

this is in response to a story in the WashPost regarding ONeill's censure for "losing" a briefcase during a conference. the importance of the briefcase is that it contained

"a draft of what is known in the bureau as the Annual Field Office Report for national security operations in New York. The closely guarded report contained a description of every counterespionage and counterterrorism program in New York and detailed the budget and manpower for each operation. The document, submitted to bureau headquarters, is used as a central planning tool each year."

the writer explains that the explanation of the circumstances surrounding the theft/loss of said briefcase make no sense as explained in this, and most other accounts.

you have to read this link to get the full impact

http://www.exile.ru/150/150010101.html