Letters to the Editor
MereMortal
Published Letters: 151 Editor's Choice: 19
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There is a plan and an intention to keep your citizens ignorant.
[Read the article: Breaking the Iraq stalemate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of course Bush has effectively neutralised his opposition. The GOP through their crazed republican noise machine have spent the best part of 50 years silencing the debate, consolidating media power in fewer and fewer hands and dragging down the level of discourse to shoolyard finger pointing 'how dare you impugn the troops' 'a general who has served his country deserves better than this' [i.e you must NEVER criticize the military] so if the military are sent on missions you don't like, tough. It's unpatriotic to have views contrary to your rulers and generals. And why exactly is this happening? simple, because the MSM has been completely co-opted into the heart of the political establishment, it is no longer the fifth estate. It does not fulfil the role that Robert Fisk so eloquently describes for it, of being in existence mainly to 'monitor the centers of power'. It's the journalism of official sources and high level Whitehouse officials, and partisan pundits and political hacks. The American citizenry have been very poorly served. As a Brit who is obsessed with your politics I will give two examples. Why is Tom de Lay considered a worthy guest on Meet the Press even after he has been ushered out of office against his will after one of the greatest congressional corruption scandals of all time. And he's a pious and christian oozing with self-righteous religiosity to boot. Oh because he wrote a book.
Why is Gingrich treated with kid gloves, when he largely tried mafiosi-style to cripple the legitimately elected govt back in the 90s with his crazed right-wing ideas. He's always the 'original thinker' the 'historian', but why does nobody say, his thinking doesn't actually produce any worthwhile goods in reality. These people are 'respectable' thugs at best and crooks at worst. Only a sea-change will show them up for the corrosive, dishonest and dangerous people that they truly are. 60 years of cold war and post cold war propaganda has left too many in the US unable to articulate a coherent case for or against any salient issue. If you want to know why your country is in such trouble, look at the institutions and what osmotic beliefs permeate them that are then transmitted to you, and then look around you to see where these beliefs have led.
There's so much more than can be said, but in a nutshell, your media is rotten to the core and it has let your rotten rulers lie to you and debase the truth. That's really devastating to the fabric of any society.
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and during this whole disturbing article
[Read the article: Why Bush won't attack Iran]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]which ends with a a remark about Wurmser advocating a false flag operation i.e a fake provocation to get into a war with Iran, nowhere does he point out that it's not the job of the Vice President and 'his office' to win or lose arguments on any policy issue of this importance to the world, especially something as crazed and Strangelove-like as wanting to pre-emptively attack Iran. Surely if Bush wants option 3 [and i'm amazed and glad he does] that ought to be the end of the matter. Anyone else notice that this article points towards the reality that Cheney is in effect the most deranged and dangerous vice president in all of US political history, but then doesn't actually connect the dots for all of us by actually stating that bold fact and calling for a remedy. Oh no, we're just left hanging hoping that George ignores Dick and listens to Condi, great. It's not like we live in a democracy or anything.
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the real decadent perversity about George Dubbya Bush
[Read the article: Bush's stairway to paradise]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is...
that he entered into this life with more privileges than most and made so little of the social capital that was handed over to him on a silver platter.
He obviously had and still has his own demons, what a perversity that the whole government apparatus of a modern sophisticated democracy like America is hostage to such a brittle and otherwise damaged man.
As disgusting as I found the conduct of Bush jnr, a broad smile of recognition came up on my face when I read the passages that demonstrate conclusively what a masochist Rove is.
I suspect that it would take a psychoanalist or even a stadium full of them several lifetimes to get through the highly disturbing pathology of the bats**t-crazy crew that likes to pretend it's the GOP.
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this seems apposite to me
[Read the article: Taser nation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street"
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character”
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
“If the day should ever come when we [the Nazis] must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction..”
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Joseph Goebbels