wrong thread!

...the concluding paragraph of her latest post, which connects the dots from the current financial crises to the criticisms of Obama's pastor:

When I read about rightwing jerks attacking Rev. Wright for telling the truth when they themselves have created the mess we are in (huge expensive war, nose-diving economy, rotting infrastructure, climate change dead ahead, Constitution in shambles, White House occupied by delusional idiot) I know we have entered, not the golden age that the shallow, ignorant economists predicted, but a true iron age of conflict, death, and destruction.

I wrote a letter to Time last night making similar points, and was going to blog about it later today. (I was waiting for permission to use some images)

Scooped again!

The entire thing was stupid for all the points you mention but the thing that I harped on what the claim that the Patiot Act hasn't been abused, something clearly factually false.

Why are they behaving like this? When I think about how obtuse they're being despite all evidence available to them, I'm reminded of John DeCamp's comment at the end of this shocking documentary: "When you control the media, the justice department, and the police, you control the system."

Time appears to be firmly under "control."

Discovery Channel doc is here:

http://www.franklincase.org/silencewinmedia.htm

"When President Bush convened a meeting of his National Security Council on May 22, 2003, his special envoy in Iraq made a statement that caught many of the participants by surprise. In a video presentation from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III informed the president and hs aides that he was about to issue an order formally dissolving Iraq's Army.

The decree was issued the next day."

~~~

" ... interviews show that while Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Bremer's plan in the May 22 meeting, the decision was made without thorough consultations within government, and without the counsel of the secretary of state or the senior American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan. The decree by Mr. Bremer ... prompted bitter infighting within the goverment and the military with recriminations continuing to this day."

~~~

"Mr. Bremer said he did not recall who first proposed the decree dissolving the Iraqi Army. But he acknowledged that he ... favored the move."

~~~

" ...General McKiernan, the senior American military commander at the time, had a very different view on how to raise a new Iraqi military."

~~~

" 'We knew they [Saddam's troops] had either gone home of come out of uniform,' said General McKiernan ... 'The idea was to bring in the Iraqi soldiers and their officers, put them on a roster and sort out the bad guys as we went.' "

~~~

"General McKiernan ... asserted that he neither reviewed nor backed the decree. 'I never saw that order and never concurred,' he said."

~~~

"Lt. Gen. J.D. Thurman, who serves as the Army's chief operatons officer and was the top operations officer for General McKiernan at the time, had a similar recollection. 'We did not get a chance to make a comment ... not sure they wanted to hear what we had to say.' "

~~~

" 'I don't remember any particular response from that [May 22] meeting,' Mr. Bremer said. 'If there had been an objection, I would have made a note of it then.'

Some participants in the session asserted, however, that though the Defense Department leadership may have known in advance of the proposed order, they did not. Mr. Bremer's handling of the issue appeared intended, they asserted, to keep much of the government in the dark until the last minute.

'Anyone who is experienced in the ways of Washington knows the difference between an open, transparent policy process and slamming something through the system,' said Franklin C. Miller, the senior director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, who played an important role on the National Security Council in overseeing plans for the post-war phase. 'The most portentous decision of the occupation was carried out stealthily and without giving the president'e principal advisers an opportunity to consider it and give the president their views.' "

---Michael R. Gordon

---The New York Times, 3/17/08

But, of course, the American people aren't interested in any of that. Time told me so.

-- kovie

It gets to the heart of the whole dishonest enterprise. I recently read the whole history somewhere and was surprised Time was designed to serve this function from the very start. I guess that is how they like it, i.e., the readership not knowing either the real story or their reasons for mis-leading.

"a poll"

must preview

Is it possible to get people's real opinions on whether they approve of the government listening to their phone conversations in poll conducted over the telephone?

Are Time reporters and editors just blissfully ignorant of these incidents or do they conceal them because they negate their clean, crisp storyline?

They ignore them because they do not support the CORPORATE storyline that regulations, deficits, checks, and balances don't matter anymore in this brave new world of unitary executives and the forever war empire.

Who is greedier, the person that wants to keep more of what he earns, or the person that covets those earnings for himself?-- shooter242

Well sounds to me like you just described capitalism in your question. Greed does drive capitalism and you could say the guy that covets others earnings as well as keeping more for themselves is a capitalist. Microsoft went after their competitors to gain their wealth, corporate takeovers accomplish the same thing. Baseball players want to take more of owners earnings and owners want to take more of players earnings as their own. THere are many many examples of capitalism that fall within your question.

However, the Carlisle group who owns large shares of Bear Sterns and is a significant beneficiary of the federal bailout, is more like the imaginary welfare queen I imagine you had in mind with your statement.

Thanks. Although to be fair, I have no qualms about stealing other peoples good lines and ideas and that post was no exception.

"Reading" it and expected to get real, hard news is like watching CNN and expecting to get the same. It's not coincidental that they're owned by the same company, and thus share the same fluffy and uncritical "news" philosophy. Time, like CNN, is for people who want to think of themselves as being up on the news, but who aren't willing to devote the time and brainpower to actually do so. It's like living on junk food and taking a couple of vitamin pills and thinking that this makes it all ok.

This isn't really about cowardly "journalists" fearful of being critical of a disasterous regime, lest they be shut out of having access to it. Rather, this is about the willfully and deliberately cynical decision, that really dates back to the founding of this newsie rag, to present a cleaned-up and distorted version of the news that its management and owners believe will both attract the widest readership and reinforce their corporate interests and ideological leanings. It's a form of corporate propaganda presented as journalism, no different really from those deceptive brand-reinforcing ads by companies like ADM, Cargill and BP, that are meant to make people feel good about these notoriously dishonest and destructive companies.

Reading Time credulously is like reading a pre-collapse Enron annual report and buying its rosy view of its financial situation. Sadly, many people are probably doing precisely this, and having meaningless water cooler conversations that are based on distorted information and outright lies, and have no idea that they might as well be having serious conversations about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. The danger of publications like Time isn't that it's dishonest, but that many if not most of its readers have no idea that it's dishonest. This is how outright lies are transformed into conventional wisdom in our society. Media outlets like Time and CNN are an integral part of this process. And it is both knowing and intentional.

But, of course, the American people aren't interested in any of that. Time told me so.