Letters to the Editor
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TIME, Doubleplusgood duckspeakers and the end of history
Glenn, excellent article as usual, but hardly "news" not even in the Orwellian sense. As a reader of Time since forever, I never had any respect for this rag.
For decades when I wanted to convince someone that what passes for News in America is simply propaganda; I would ask them to go to the library, get a history book on America and then compare it to the Orwellian swill that TIME was flogging at the time. The dichotomy is shocking, at least to people like Glenn who apparently still believe that you can call an editor and "sort things out". The editor's response was all the answer you'll get Glenn, there is no truth, there is only the big lie, oft repeated. TIME has always been at odds with the facts - at least where the facts contradict what the permanent government in America would have the proles believe.
You see I have this nasty habit of remembering things. I remember all the TIME articles about the brave Green Berets and how they were "helping" the Vietnamese (while killing 3 million of them). And I remember how Russia was the evil empire complete with picture after picture of their ugly women, and evil men. And then I remember how the Sovs suddenly (and briefly) became our friends. The Sovs did not change, but the goals of TIME and their employers did, and the story lines followed.
TIME is only useful in the sense that Pravda was; if you want to know the truth - just reverse everything. So if in Pravda you read that there was a bumper wheat crop in the Ukraine, you could count on a million or so serfs dying of starvation. Just like today in TIME where you can read "fascist occupiers" in Iraq where they say "liberators", or "fanatical Zionists" where they say "Israeli settlers".
Glenn, the democratic country with a free press, that you seem to think you live in, does not exist, it never did. It's true, I read it in TIME magazine. Read it between the lines anyway.