All this talk about WWIII

[Emit]

From last Sunday's Meet the Press with Gingrich, and all those other talking heads in between. Think it might have started with Norquist?

Every time I re-read this article, I think how important it is to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine:

SENTIENT TIMES June/July 2005

The Disinformation Society

By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

~snip~

Every Wednesday morning the leaders of 80 conservative organizations meet in Washington in Norquist’s boardroom. This radical cabal formulates policy with the Republican National Committee and the White House, developing talking points that go out to the conservative media via a sophisticated fax tree. Soon, millions of Americans are hearing the same message from cable news commentators and thousands of talk jocks across America. Their precisely crafted message and language then percolate through the mainstream media to form the underlying assumptions of our national debate.

This meeting has now grown to include more than 120 participants, including industry lobbyists and representatives of conservative media outlets such as The Washington Times and the National Review. According to Brock, columnist Bob Novak sends a researcher. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan may attend in person. The lockstep coordination among right-wing political operatives and the press is new in American politics.

A typical meeting might focus on a new tax proposal released by President Bush. Following conference calls throughout the week, the decision will be made to call the plan “bold.” Over the next 10 days, radio and cable will reiterate that it’s “bold, bold, bold.” The result, according to Brock, is that “people come to think that there must be something ‘bold’ about this plan.”

This highly integrated network has given the right frightening power to disseminate its propaganda and has dramatically changed the way Americans get their information and formulate policy. In The Republican Noise Machine, Brock alleges routine fraud and systematically dishonest practices by his former employer the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times, which is the primary propaganda organ for Moon’s agenda to establish America as a Fascist theocracy. The paper doesn’t reach more than a hundred thousand subscribers, but its articles are read on the air by Rush Limbaugh, reaching 15 million people, and are posted on Matt Drudge’s web site, to reach another 7 million people, and its writers regularly appear on The O’Reilly Factor, before another 2 million. Network TV talk-show producers and bookers use those appearances as a tip sheet for picking the subject matter and guests for their own shows. And so the capacity of the conservative movement to disseminate propaganda has increased exponentially.

~snip~

http://www.sentienttimes.com/05/june_july_05/print_disinformation.html

[LSK]

1. K & R

[oscar111]

2. CAP center for american progress should do the same

are you reading DU, CAP??

[Emit]

6. Yes

The progressive think tanks could be more aggressive.

http://www.americanprogress.org/

[Ringo84]

3. I dunno

I tend to think that talk about the apocalypse and about WWIII is hasty, even though I don't pretend to understand the complex politics behind this whole mess. Sorry if the rest of you disagree.
Ringo

[Dresden]

4. I totally agree...

the reason that the talking heads and GOP mouthpieces are yapping about WWW3 etc. is because they know that when the populace is scared it is better for them politically...makes sense that the midterms are more or less just around the corner. My expectation is that they will play this for all it's worth and then make mention of it as much as possible during the runup to the elections; it's all they got.

Terror, Terror, Terror...rinse, repeat.

[Emit]

5. Yes, but, it's really about why they -- meaning

The Republicans via Gingrich, O'Reilly, Tucker and other talking heads -- are labeling this WWIII (and Kristol calling it "Our War"):

~snip~

There is a political element to his talk of World War III. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is, "OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

Gingrich said he is "very worried" about Republicans facing fall elections and says the party must have the "nerve" to nationalize the elections and make the 2006 campaigns about a liberal Democratic agenda rather than about President Bush's record.

Republicans are now "sailing into the wind" in congressional campaigns. He said, in part, that's because of the Iraq war, adding, "Iraq is hard and painful, and we do not explain it very well." But some of it is due to Republicans' congressional agenda. He said House and Senate Republicans "forgot the core principle" of the party and embraced congressional pork. "Some of the guys," he said, have come down with a case of "incumbentitis."

Democrats have been trying to nationalize the midterm elections and make each race about Bush's record and the Iraq war.

Republicans instead have been trying to localize each race, as in Reichert's challenge from political newcomer Darcy Burner, and make the race about the qualifications and personalities of the candidates, not about a national agenda.

Gingrich says that's a mistake. Republicans, he says, should nationalize the contest, too.

~snip~

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003130274_postman16m.html