Letters to the Editor
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The butter vs margarine meme
I often used to wonder how the entire might of the health advice lobby (doctors, nutritionists, journalists, magazine editors) etc... could flip flop in a cyclical way into which was worse for you Butter or Margarine. in the 70s and 80s it was Margarine, in the 90s it was butter (in moderate amounts) and now we're back on some totally concocted Cholesterol reducing spreads etc...
It occured to me that in order to pass your nutritionist exams you probably do very little primary research. You may well go into depth into studies done by other people that 'prove' conclusively that Butter is more harmful than margarine or vice versa. You take your exams after 3 or 4 years, you're now an accredited nutrition expert. Only you're not. You're an accredited exam passing expert. If there are any flaws in the research that you based your exam answers on, you merely end up perpetuating those flaws. There is also an orthodoxy in most subjects and you get plaudits for regurgitating that orthodoxy.
Most people don't do primary research in their lives. The typical punter, or even the most hardened political maven, will not travel to Iraq to find out for him or herself what the real situation is. The mendacious Bush administration is extremely well aware that by spreading the 'things are improving in Iraq' meme, much legwork will be saved for them as the Republican noise machine mindlessly repeats it, and then worse maliciously attacks anyone for challenging it. This is an excellent article by Juan Cole, one in a long tradition. The Bush administration has learned that no information however tenuous when transmitted and re-transmitted ad nauseum, fails to gain traction in the general population. This is Saddam is responsible for 9/11 redux. It's highly effective for people who get their worldview from Fox/Lumbaugh/Hannity et al.
One thing to remember about Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, is how badly he comes off in Thomas Rick's 'Fiasco'. He is blamed for almost single-handedly starting the insurgency around Tikrit and Falluja due to his counter-productive , punitive and overreacting measures against any transgressions by the Iraqi population back in the summer of '03. He, in my view, is not a good source on the truth of what is happening in Iraq.
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Geeze, too bad Wolf Blitzer didn't read this.
Why do you suppose so many "real" news outlets refuse to illuminate this stuff? Oh, I forgot. Bushit is running the country. Lewis Carroll would have had a field day with this one. With all of the good reporting now going on in Blogs about this war how can this administration be allowed to continually place such a good face to this fiasco?
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10 % surge
Who are those people who fell for the BS emanating from the White House? The only real surge is in the violence on the streets of Baghdad killing hundreds of Iraqis and scores of American soldiers. The "elected" Iraqi government(?) is a useless group of lackeys to George Bush without any real power. As for the democratization, how come that the majority of Iraqis is convinced that they were better off under Saddam Hussein than they are in the Bush created "democracy"? Lets be clear about one thing: The war was a criminal invasion, lousily planned and lost. And Rumsfeld recent statements are still the same hot air he spewed while in the Pentagon.Bullshit artists rule the administration and those who still believe them must be mentally retarded to say the least.
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Death to the death
The brutality of thought and action continues in Iraq, perpetrated by those to whom we have given unfettered power to represent us. The application of more violence to a violent drama is supported by an oil field analogy- if an oil well is on fire, extinguish it by using a large explosion, sucking the oxygen from the combustion – a surge of violence will extinguish the violence. Such analogies work well in conference rooms when discussed by self-serving, wondering, and non-practiced minds.
The violence forced upon the Iraqi people is being prolonged by those who are concerned with upgrading their resumes. The U.S. population has acquiesced to the mass murder by choosing blindness and comfort over responsibility, duty, and compassion.
We accept the reasoning of this U.S. administration; that to free you we must constrict you, to protect you we must make new enemies, to be a patriot you must not see nor think but become blind and follow, to stop the flowing Iraqi blood we must kill the Iraqi neighbor.
A personification of evil resonates from a large white house just off the Mall in Washington D.C. But we are too afraid to battle this evil, and so release ourselves of the responsibility. The trains roll by, but we don’t hear the wails, nor smell the stench, nor see the cloud rising from the distant smokestack. Courage is for someone else to display, we no longer know how.
The way to stop the butchery is to stop it.
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If only...
If only we could install a secular strong-man who could limit the influence of the Iranians and Al Qaeda while maintaining the national unity of the three major Iraqi ethnic groups.
Maybe like, uh, what was his name? Had a big moustache...
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Of course the surge is working!
Look at the numbers of casualties! They're declining. Why they have been the lowest...
Oh, the number of casualties has gone up? Of course it has. That just shows you how desperate the insurgency really is. They are attacking more because we've been so successful. Otherwise, they wouldn't be pushing so hard. Therefore, our plan is a success.
At this rate, our troops will be home by Christmas. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Surge Success! Brought to you by.. the same folks that advocated for war on false pretexts!
Namely, the Bush Administration, its sychophantic generals and bureaucrats in the military and department of defense, all parroted and amplified by the hacks of the corporate-owned media.
Lots of credibility there, hey?
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Peace is not an option. It never was.
I like that my neighborhood is peaceful. In general though the world is not a peaceful place. Add to that reality increasingly limited resources. I wish we lived on a planet that was peaceful and abundant but we don't. I wish our government was friendly and the world loved America and all Americans because we are so damn nice and always helping. In reality we are a powerful nation that consumes the worlds limited resources faster than anyone else. That tends to piss some people off. As Americans, the majority of us enjoy our cars and Wendy's hamburgers and don't want to give them anytime soon. If that's the case we need to be not peaceful and take what we need, by force if necessary. That's how humans have done it from the beginning. Just ask the Neanderthals. Oops, you can't. Your ancestors killed them and took their resources. Lucky for you. My long winded point is, I hate that we have to fight. I don't like Bush. But I have come to believe that the "war" is going exactly as planned and that we will have troops in Iraq until the last drop of oil is pumped. Our government is big and strong and will fight for us because we are to fat from eating Wendy's and our kids kids will be glad they did even if we aren't.