Dont forget the main actor in this story! Rupert Murdoch.
He bought the rights for the movie(s) and the book(s).
He also happens to be a media tycoon. So he engaged some of his 'news'producing firms to stir in the pot. He keeps the story in the news, makes a big deal about it, a heroic fight of a young blonde american girl (can you get any better?) and then
BAM bingo Cash flowing in. That's what this is about.
Consider all the discussion, all the back and forth about this story. Parts of it happened, but not the way the public was told. And the military was used in a shameful way, And yes, frolic, Murdoch is a big contributor to the Bush campaign, and stands to come out a winner all the way around in the media game if Michael Powell's committee is able to hold to its position of making media giants even bigger.
So there are moral issues with this story. It started with a lie. Not a twisting of facts, but a lie. A lie about events, about people - And then it was fed to the public. And the press went along with it, because - for one reason - what was their source? It took the BBC to question the US Army. And the lives, the feelings, of the ordinary people involved in this whole elaborate scheme were brushed aside. And now we've got betrayal. In many ways, many of us trusted our government on at least some fronts. If they lied to us about this, what else did they lie about?
And why was this story so necessary to play with from the beginning? We had everyday stories of quiet heroism, ordinary people doing ordinary jobs in extraordinary ways. Why was an affair that was bad enough - the accident that claimed lives - made into a movie? And where was the intelligence in all this? So many details were bound to be refuted at one point or another. Were they figuring on permanent amnesia not only for Lynch, but for the other particpants as well? Or have they become so venal that they figure enough money will buy anybody? We used to be asked "where's the moral outrage?" Well, here it was.
Audio report yesterday on NPR:
Not having seen the TV take on the Lynch story -- relying entirely on you guys + my reading -- my impression from the get-go has been that there was something wrong with a command which threw these kids into a situation they couldn't handle. The most recently admitted details don't budget me on that.
mama,
Who's lie? Like I said, I think there was a deliberate lie on the part of the military. But try to pin it down and you'll see why there are people paid to do PR.
Oh Lord, Craven, all those people ARE Pr and advertising people. Roger Ailes, one of the head guys with the republicans, was second to Lee Atwater in the agency that did the very successful Willie Horton ad. Rove came out of advertising as did so many of them. I think maybe that will turn out to be the biggest problem with the Bush admin when this is written about in the future. These guys thought the country could be run by PR, and the others were so familiar with the corporate CEO world, where nobody dares question the CEO, and all the rewards belong to them. So among them they never question the rightness of their actions.
But advertising and PR and CEO people have never been known for honesty, or integrity, or morality. Their world revolves around the mighty dollar. It's such an insuated world I'd guess they neveer thought twice about it.
And I feel sorry for the military, because they are trained to follow orders.
What I find so scary is the sucker quotient allowing governance by PR.
The sucker quotient is huge, and it was discovered with the Hathaway commercials.
Ay that point humans realized that the best way to sell something to another human is to make it look cool, not to have any important facts but to have a good image.
Image has been everything ever since.
It only works until it doesn't. And then people get a lot madder than if they were told the truth all along.
Tartarin wrote:Not having seen the TV take on the Lynch story -- relying entirely on you guys + my reading -- my impression from the get-go has been that there was something wrong with a command which threw these kids into a situation they couldn't handle. The most recently admitted details don't budget me on that.
An interesting observation, but its probably a good thing to remember that wars are always fought by the too young and too inexperienced (the average age of the infantry soldier in Vietnam was 19, and from what I've seen, that demographic hasn't changed much).
blatham wrote:What I find so scary is the sucker quotient allowing governance by PR.
I was watching the guy who does "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central (John something -can't remember) getting interviewed by Bill Moyers on Now.
He made some very profound points about the state of media in the US today. One of the things he said was that a good idea of the real nature of American journalism can be gleaned from contrasting a Parliamentary session with Tony Blair, and a press conference with George Bush. Blair has to regularly stand face to face with his most bitter adversaries in government, and answer withering questions unrehearsed. Bush's last press conference was like "Let's see the next question will be from (looking at a list)... Bill - what have you got there, Bill?" Moyers said that Bush had to go to Africa to get asked a question about WMD. The Daily show guy made the point that it's all a tightly controlled and orchestrated farce, and that they get away with it because any journalist who would buck the system would find himself giving ALL his time to find out the smallest bits of information.
Jon Stewart. He probably gets more accurate information out under the guise of "comedy" and "entertainment" than most so-called "news outlets".
Jon also stated that the media fears that by asking tough questions they might lose access to further information when in fact they have no access to information to begin with.
There are a lot of Elite-theories dealing with the press/politician relation.
Problem is politicians and journalists mostly come from the same well educated upper (middle) class. They go to the same universities, go to the same parties, ge married with the same kind of people,....
I don't agree with that, Frolic. It certainly isn't the case very often around here.
I think Frolic is a little out of date there. Some truth, but much less so than formerly.
I think we make a mistake if we characterize politicians as somehow intrinsically different from any other powerful group trying to protect their interests. (Another point Stewart made is that) media and other corporations take measures to insure that "average" people cannot be privy to their inner workings, so that they cannot be called on the dirt.
Yeah, its a dirty game, but its not an uncommon one.
This link wasn't working yesterday - it seems to work now and IMHO, is very conclusive:
