BillW wrote:Bush's actions against Veterans' promised medical care is abominable and seriously erodes any confidence anyone should have in regards to his regime and the populace at large!
Luckily this is no problem for me, Bill. I've never had even a smidgen of confidence in the guy to erode.
ooooooh, clever comeback! Ha ha Frank and william henry! Isn't it interesting that the timing of the Bush administration proposed cutbacks to the VA system came just about the time 'we' were discussing that *here*!
BTW, has anyone noticed that the story out "now" in American press and media about the "real story" of the Private Lynch rescue - is out "now" a good week to two weeks following the breaking of the story globally???
Too close to Memorial Day in the US, eh?
How does "this" guy keep up his popularity ratings? c.i.
He makes sure his cronies own the media, CI.
c.i.<
Remember, it goes something like this: You can fool some of the people some of the time . . .
I wish I still believed that, WilliamHenry!
You don't believe Tartarin and I certainly don't believe, so it must be believable. There isn't a relevant ratio that must be obtained to be true!
When I heard the FTC ruling today that was voted in by Congress, it was a stunning reminder to me that control of the media is of critical importance to the present administration. Since there are now going to be wide-open opportunities for the wealthy and conglomerates to own ALL of the media covering many areas of population in the US, the "polls" will be less and less believeable, especially when it come to popularity ratings of the President and the number of Americans in favor of War on Iraq/Syria/Iran/Korea....
Exactly, Cobalt. But Congress will now (having felt some serious pressure) review the issue and likely change it back to the original rules (bad enough!). That's not great, but one thing which is great that came out of this is stunning proof that organized protest still has an effect, in spite of the FCC turning off its phone banks, stopping reading its email, refusing to publish the proposed new rules until after the vote.
I've just posted in the US, UN, Iraq thread the news that Congress, increasingly dismayed by the possibility that Bush may have lied and (worse!) LIED TO THEM! EMBARRASSED THEM! , will open hearings on the lies which led up to the war. So there's a shift in atmosphere, and the admin may find breathing a little difficult these days. Some of the hearings will be televised.
I can see it now, a small town newspaper prints the truth about something Bush did, said, etc. Of course Bush objects (he always objects to the truth, it is the one known fact that can be relied upon in this Regime). He gives a call to one of his mega media owner buddies - boom, they buy the newspaper and all is swell again.
Some people want to call it a battle - that is what is very, very scary!
On MSNBC's Lester Holt Live tonight, the network's military advisor (a retired top brass whose name escapes me at the moment) predicted massive numbers of troops from the United States will stay in Iraq for the next five years.
It seems resistance to change is true of people everywhere. Some of Sadaam's old Baath Party members are stirring up resistance to what the United States is obviously doing in Iraq: nation-building. Operation Iraqi Freedom now seems to be Operation Iraqi Oppresion. We have sent in our men and women to make sure the Iraqi's do as we want them to do.
Meanwhile, those "weapons of mass destruction, Dubya assures us, will still be found even though our intelligence reports said they were definitely there before the first shots were fired. Where are they?
And, what has become of Sadaam Hussein himself? Will he return to his country which he ruled so ruthlessly ruled? Or, has he ever left?
Questions linger . . . and good people are being killed . . . Dubya says the old Iraqi regime was destroyed. Was it the regime that was destroyed, or just a bunch of palatial buildings?
Yes, questions do linger . . . will the American people ever demand answers? Or, will many of them instead be happy to get the $400.00 per child tax rebate "hush money" as passed by Congress and promised for delivery this summer? Just in time for a vacation, maybe, along with the thought that Dubya is a fine president.
cobalt
Great site! Thank you. Many, many great links. Pulled this one, a piece by Timothy Garton Ash I hadn't seen before...
Quote:Distorted intelligence on Iraq is part of an Orwellian world of fabricated reality
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,970749,00.html
ps
Has anyone else noticed the published photos of Bush coming out of the recent Evian summit? They are remarkable. Bush is always taller, always the central figure, always a senior/fatherly pose. I'll see if I can find the one's published here for you.
Ah, Blatham. You too are looking closely at the photos. I thought we ought to do a whole discussion on press photos and how much more revealing they are than TV videos: the expression on the face stopped in time, the body language. I remember a photo last summer of Tommy Franks visiting Bush in Crawford and showing, in the NYTimes photo, such intense dislike of Bush that it was quite startling.
The photo of the three men was in the Times too, with a slight variation. In it one sees the Palestinian, still confident in Bush and somewhat charmed, relaxed, pleased, while Sharon has "watch out" written all over him. In this morning's news, we hear that the process has fallen apart because the Palestinians believe their Prime Minister was conned. Sure looked that way in the photo!
Tartarin
A discussion on this would be very interesting, and educational. On one thread in the last day or two, someone quoted Rove's observation that most citizens go only very shallowly into content. Photos are very powerful tools for propaganda given this truth. The classic revelation for me on this matter came out of the Ollie North hearings, where the cameras were positioned very low, thus giving the impression of Ollie being a towering and trustable father figure.
