Information control, or, How to get to Orwellian governance

Promotion of fear in the populace.

2,978..........number of people killed in 9/11 (including five from anthrax, source unknown as strain originated in a US lab)

700,142.......number of people killed in same year from heart disease
553,768.......same year, from cancer
101,537.......same year, from accidents
30,622.........same year, from suicide
17,330.........same year, from homocide
5,432...........same year, from workplace injuries
3,247...........same year, from drowning

blatham wrote:

Promotion of fear in the populace.

2,978..........number of people killed in 9/11 (including five from anthrax, source unknown as strain originated in a US lab)

700,142.......number of people killed in same year from heart disease
553,768.......same year, from cancer
101,537.......same year, from accidents
30,622.........same year, from suicide
17,330.........same year, from homocide
5,432...........same year, from workplace injuries
3,247...........same year, from drowning

At least I have some control over some of the things you mention, blatham, such as not smoking, not hanging out in dark alleys, or jumping into dangerous rivers. And the upside potential for deaths from terrorist acts does not have much limit on it, especially if Democrats strip away the ability of the government to catch them.

Blatham, your party, I presume it is your party, the Democrats, are experts at fear mongering and demagoguery. Remember the black churches burning, Willie Horton, children starving because school lunches are reduced, old people eating dog food because their social security checks are reduced to nothing? Remember welfare reform? It was predicted to be a disaster, but of course now Clinton is claiming credit for it. Of course, he vetoed it or rejected it at least once, maybe twice, I don't remember, before he had to sign it because he had run out of options.

Sorry, as a Canadian, I forgot you can't be a Democrat here, but anyway I assumed that was where your sympathies resided.

Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; Page A20

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.

The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.

Now, to back track a bit, when I was in high school (1961-65), it was held that the problem with American conservatism was that it was rooted in Calvinism. While it was a simplistic analysis, it contains a very large grain of truth.

Let me give you a hint .... the ironic portion is contained somewhere in the following:

Collectively, three conservatives not only managed to miss Blatham's easy to grasp point-that because one member of a group says something, you cannot assume any other member of that group agrees-they come down on him for holding the exact opposite view from the one he just expressed!

I know this is looking like a tough election for conservatives, but is everyone on the Right actually in mental breakdown? It certainly seems so.

blatham -- I attended a teacher seminar at Orchard House, which served for a time as the home of the Alcott family and the site of Bronson Alcott's School of Philosophy. While in Concord, MA, I had the opportunity to visit Emerson's home.

Now, to back track a bit, when I was in high school (1961-65), it was held that the problem with American conservatism was that it was rooted in Calvinism. While it was a simplistic analysis, it contains a very large grain of truth.

So, when I saw all the books that Emerson loaned to young Louisa May Alcott and the piano he allowed her sister to practice on and the paintings and engravings he allowed her other sister to copy in order to learn to draw, I thought, "How Christian of Emerson! What a wonderful and generous man he was."

I immediately laughed because Emerson and the other Transcendentalists were not Calvinists.

Then I thought of how, in Michigan, a prospective English teacher had to take a course at some level (sophomore survey class to Ph.D. seminar) on American Lit. 1830-65. I could just hear Okie and Bernie/Massa complaining that this material was inappropriate and that they hoped that no teacher would incorporate such left-leaning works in their curriculum!

plainoldme wrote:

Now, to back track a bit, when I was in high school (1961-65), it was held that the problem with American conservatism was that it was rooted in Calvinism. While it was a simplistic analysis, it contains a very large grain of truth.

So enlighten me, pom, how John Calvin, a guy that lived a few hundred years ago, a French theologian and lawyer, has anything to do with American conservatism. Explain to me how his ideas found their way into the minds of the first American settlers and later immigrants and how this persists into today.

You fail to recognize that my comment was pertaining to blatham's debating style employing demagoguery, rather than specifically blatham's point. Of course, blatham is insinuating something with his statement, and it is obviously revealing as to blatham's mindset, which I think is rotten to the core. He is not fooling anyone when he uses statements as mentioned in the following:

Blatham made a post illustrating the principle that just because one Republican says blacks are inferior, it is wrong to assume any other Republicans feel that way.

I can also point out that just because many liberals appear to think blacks are inferior, it is wrong to automatically assume blatham might feel that way without substantiating it for sure.

When voters are informed about the clear choice between our Party's vision and the Democrats' radical agenda to cut and run in the War on Terror, the Democrats' media-driven lead in the polls is erased and Republicans are in a strong position to maintain our majorities in Congress.

So enlighten me, pom, how John Calvin, a guy that lived a few hundred years ago, a French theologian and lawyer, has anything to do with American conservatism. Explain to me how his ideas found their way into the minds of the first American settlers and later immigrants and how this persists into today.