The trouble with your press

Challenge away. If that makes your chosen ignorance more comfortable, you, not me, will be the loser.

I am not inclined to expend much effort to further your education regarding the recent history of this country (say since 1932).

There is no one so blind as one who will not open his eyes and observe.

Are you then suggesting that today's Democrat leaders in the Congress and their supporters in the media don't do the same???? Or that recent and past Democrat administrations didn't do it even more assiduously????

I am not inclined to expend much effort to further your education

Not so much defensive as increasingly disinterested.

I don't acknowledge any burden of proof or anything else for that matter. In particular I don't enjoy games of opening unfounded assertions followed by demands that one provide proof of any qualification or question asked in rebuttal. Blatham's endless anecdotes don't prove anything but themselves: the included implied assertion that these represent a class of exclusively Republican acts is utterly unsupported by anything. Sadly you seem to fail to detect such things. Not my problem.

This isn't "mere" plagiarism.

Bad enough if the state department was so devoid of researchers that the information from which they plan and provide accounting back to congress and other branches is often just culled from media. But it is worse than that.

First, the media has broadly and pervasively cut foreign offices and field reporting in order to serve corporate profit interests. Much cheaper to just copy accounts from anywhere or to function as stenographers and type/repeat what government or military briefers (or "leakers") give them.

Second, the military and the administration now have huge and sophisticated public relations operations which have, in part, the goal of managing information and attempting to create consensus in the public which will forward their agendas. False information, misrepresented facts, withheld embarrassing info, etc is part of this operation and mission. They will feed stories to media outlets both in Iraq and here for this purpose. Cheney, for example, will commonly make reference to some newspaper/tv reportage to support some claim he's making, thus giving the impression of reliance on disinterested or objective sources for his claim. But as likely as not, that very bit of reportage he's referencing has been 'leaked' to the news outlet a day or two earlier precisely so that he can pull this trick. This is a modern communication control commonplace.

So, what will be the case in much of what that piece above is detailing, will be
1) a story leaked or planted in the media
2) state department copies it
3) it is forwarded to other branches as factual accounting of ongoing situations/progress

In other words, it is (can be, and will be in many cases) entirely circular with no necessary connection to reality at all.

It's information control for political purposes.

blatham wrote:

This isn't "mere" plagiarism.

Bad enough if the state department was so devoid of researchers that the information from which they plan and provide accounting back to congress and other branches is often just culled from media. But it is worse than that.

First, the media has broadly and pervasively cut foreign offices and field reporting in order to serve corporate profit interests. Much cheaper to just copy accounts from anywhere or to function as stenographers and type/repeat what government or military briefers (or "leakers") give them.

Second, the military and the administration now have huge and sophisticated public relations operations which have, in part, the goal of managing information and attempting to create consensus in the public which will forward their agendas. False information, misrepresented facts, withheld embarrassing info, etc is part of this operation and mission. They will feed stories to media outlets both in Iraq and here for this purpose. Cheney, for example, will commonly make reference to some newspaper/tv reportage to support some claim he's making, thus giving the impression of reliance on disinterested or objective sources for his claim. But as likely as not, that very bit of reportage he's referencing has been 'leaked' to the news outlet a day or two earlier precisely so that he can pull this trick. This is a modern communication control commonplace.

So, what will be the case in much of what that piece above is detailing, will be
1) a story leaked or planted in the media
2) state department copies it
3) it is forwarded to other branches as factual accounting of ongoing situations/progress

In other words, it is (can be, and will be in many cases) entirely circular with no necessary connection to reality at all.

It's information control for political purposes.

Are you suggesting that ANY of this is new or of recent origin?

I would be fascinated to learn how - short of abolishing the constitution - you plan to stop such things and expunge them from your party. (Sounds a bit remeniscent of Aesop's story about belling the cat). Old Ben Franklin was a particularly adept practicioner of the technique, as of course were the revered Federalists, and even the sainted Thomas Jefferson.

In these matters one expects a certain level of common knowledge and understanding.

I like Blatham a lot, but I don't suscribe to any of his compulsions concerning underground conspiracies of evil property owners.

I have found that O'George often has things to say which are worth reading. For as often as he is (in my never humble opinion) wrong, he also provides useful and reliable information on many occasions.

I would never tell O'George that, however.

Gordon Brown has exhibited "Stalinist ruthlessness" at the Treasury and has treated his Cabinet colleagues with "more or less complete contempt", according to the Chancellor's former top civil servant.
...........................

Lord Turnbull noted that the Chancellor tended to keep out of the limelight when difficult decisions had to be taken. Comparing him to T. S. Eliot's "mystery cat", who was never to be found at the scene of a crime, he said: "The Chancellor has a Macavity quality. He is not there when there is dirty work to be done."

It appears his heart was really in the assembly line Democrat speeches.