The previous blog was about several instances where after 9/11, the current Administration has used guile and deceit or incompetence to influence the minds of the American people, usually through misinformation.
But, how did this happen? How did we allow it? How did it come to this?
First let me mention the firing of US attorneys. The US attorneys that were being fired were Republicans, not Democrats. This goes back to Monica Goodling, the goober that went to Messiah "College" and (Pat Robertson's) Regent Law "School." I also provided a link showing that US News & Reports ranks every law school and Regent Law "School [aka "Fundy U"] is bottom tier(IV). I bet there were a lot of people who thought that since the current party in control of the White House is Republican, then the US Attorneys must be Dems. Wrong. Let me first say that almost every president gets rid of all the US Attorneys when they FIRST hit office. Reagan did it and Clinton as well. What you dont see, and this is the first time its EVER happened... you dont see US Attorneys replaced mid-term. Its viewed (rightfully so, in my judgment) as a political move. That is to say, "if you won't do what we want, we'll find someone who will." Even our Department of Justice is now partisan?
Even though the DoJ is part of the Executive Branch, it is thought to be independent in terms of thinking. There is no republican or democratic "twist", as far as the Justice Department SHOULD be concerned, there is only "right" and "wrong"... "legal" and "illegal"... "constitutional" and "unconstitutional." But Monica Goodling and her fellow rightwing'ers wanted lawyers who were going to play ball, and those did not. They actually believed that the law was above politics, and these Republicans who held the Constitution as more important than party loyalty lost their jobs for their actions. Again... since 1980, only two US Attorneys have been forced out of office, and both with CLEAR reason. There were memo's showing that Gonzales and Goodling wanted to remove about 20 more attorneys.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2007/03/15/crs-most-us-attorneys-serve-full-terms.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/13/fired.emails/index.html
Just another form of control, even the law is partisan now. You're either for us, or against us...
Now, I must say that each and every US citizen must share in the culpability of events that have happened since September 11th. Soon after 9/11, I began working for the Gallup poll. I've never liked working for someone, but, this was definately one of my more BORING jobs. The reason being, there are a lot of corporations who pay a lot of good money, in an attempt to find out what you the consumer think. Smart strategy. The problem is, I dont want to spend 23 minutes on the phone with people asking them how satisfied they are with their current long distance provider. Maybe it was just because of the climate (late 2002), but there were a lot of social polls that attempted to find out the mindset of the average American. CNN polls, CBS... things like that. Not nearly as often as I would prefer, but it was always refreshing when they come up. Now, maybe its because of the average person's general apathy towards all things news, but much to my dismay, there were far more people than I thought who A) supported Bush in whatever he wanted to do and B) thought that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. So many times i wanted to "taint" a survey, but could not. But early on in the rush to war, it appeared clear to me that the average American didn't keep up with the news well, and generally believed what the President (who isn't the sharpest pencil in the box, btw) told them without question.
The first thing that these guys wanted to sell to the American people, was the idea that the world had somehow morphed after 9/11. As I stated before, that was going to be a hard sell to others (i.e. Europe) who generally sympathized with that day of tragedy, HOWEVER, had a clearer understanding of suffering, the likes of which, we as Americans, only really knew from history books and tv coverage.
Usually, when tragedy strikes, there is either utter chaos or some form of singular nationalism. Both being extremes, IMO. We were convinced that the world had (somehow) changed, we believed that something needed to be done, so we could feel safe again, and from there, the climate was created, where there would be little tolerance for dissent, which would be labelled as unpatriotic.Most people never pay attention anyway, but those that do... were afraid to speak out, afraid to question. Afraid to be labelled. The fear of the masses was used as a tool of control. Terrorism could happen again. "Mushroom cloud" "Smoking gun" "Weapons of Mass Destruction" "Chemical" "Biological" "Nuclear" It could happen at anytime. It could happen to you. What other reason could there have been for a Terrorism Threat Alert Level? What does it do? What does it mean? Used purely as a tool to instill fear.
First of all, it was never set to "low" or "guarded". It was always either "elevated" and sometimes went to "high". If everyday is elevated, is that truly ELEVATED, but more importantly, what are you supposed to do when it goes to high?
"Dude, wanna go shoot some hoops?"
"Nah, man, I can play basketball when the terror threat level is elevated, but high... nah man... thats just... too much risk for me."
It was created for one purpose: to create fear and BLIND OBEDIENCE. So, when a (un-)Patriot act gets passed, noone takes notice, noone cares, and the few that are concerned about the liberties that are taken away (even library records are now fair game?) noone has the guts to speak up about the civil liberties violations. And the minority party (at that time) the Democrats, overwhelmingly went with the tide. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, both criticize Bush now, but weren't much for dissent in the time we really needed it. At least Edwards has admitted his vote was a mistake. Hillary is still SCARED of "not supporting the troops." That fascism is powerful!
And finally, what about the press? What about the role of THE FOURTH ESTATE? They are supposed to act as a skeptical fourth branch who informs the people, but independently examines the evidence that we then interpret. Well, with staged press conferences (gay male escort reporters?!!!) as the first bit of evidence, is there any wonder that press wasn't speaking truth to power. Wasn't truly investigating, but rather just acting as a sounding board for the offical Bush administration view.
Who asked the really tough questions? Why did we have Osama bin Laden, on tape in Afghanistan, telling us why he attacked the United States, and suddenly, we started focusing on Saddam Hussein. The Neo-Conservatives (uber=Republicans?) came into the White House in Januarry of 2001 OPENLY voicing their agenda of regime change in Iraq, it was no secret they already wanted to do this. Guys like Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey and Richard Perle made no qualms about their "hawkish" foreign policy. Where were the voices in the press to question the evidence and even tie it to their predisposed views of the future of Iraq? There were months when Osama bin Laden's name was never mentioned by Bush, yet Saddam was there. What really astounded me, was if you were to accept their rhetoric, WHICH I DID NOT, while Saddam was denying having weapons, you had Kim Jong IL of North Korea ADMITTING to renewing his uranium enrichment & kicking out inspectors! How is Iraq more "imminent" than that?!!
"I dont have any weapons, I swear. Come see."
(guy 1)
"I have weapons. Im trying to build more. Get outta my house."
(guy 2)
"You know, I think we need to keep our eye on that first guy, he's acting mighty suspicious."
(Maxwell Smart)
There was a fear there, and now some of these guys in the press are admitting it. In an interview with Bill Moyers (video link at the end of this entry) Walter Isaacson admits that he (as former head of CNN) felt pressured to hold back on critical news about the war in Afghanistan. There's even a leaked CNN memo referenced on the internet (couldn't find a copy) that has him quoted as saying it would be wrong to focus on the problems we're having, and that CNN should temper it with news of some of the progress.
Phil Donahue had a short lived show on MSNBC. The ratings were just as good as other MSNBC shows, yet it was cancelled right before the war in Iraq. After the cancellation, another memo leaked...
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1825
"a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Fear of being seen unpatriotic because they challenged the status quo. THATS WHAT THE NEWS IS SUPPOSED TO DO! The news organizations were having a flag waving contest? Are you kidding me? Well, they're being pro-Bush, and thats popular, we need to do it to. The news organizations. The news... the... news... the news... felt... pressured... *sigh*... by other news outlets... to be just as... flag happy pro-government... as everyone else. The... news.
"Man, screw you guys... we can wave the flag just as well. Even better. Yea! So, take that. We wave flags with the best of them. Show me what you got. Lets see your best flag wave."
*sigh*
Just last year (Nov 06), a very interesting memo leaked from John Moody, a Vice President at Fox News.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/14/fox-news-internal-memo-_n_34128.htm
I guess leaked memo's are cool now.
"What are you doing leaking memo's proving your crazy right wing bias and your lack of credibility or objectivity as a news organization of any capacity?"
"But dad, all the other news stations are doing it!"
"If CNN jumped off a bridge... would you do that, too?"
But, this is MUCH worse than the other memo's. He's not ... we shouldn't be too critical of the government (which is bad)... he's telling his "reporters"... hey, go out and see if you can find news where terrorists are happy the Democrats took over. With that one memo, the "Fair and Balanced" (ha ha ha ha haaa!) Fox News should have closed their doors. What can be more distorted than that? I dont consider it news... its the Republican Opinion Network.
"oh this is just my good buddy Ron"
..,just an editorial television station. And even THIS didn't make much news. A year later, that should STILL be a hot news story. Until the day Fox closes its "fair and balanced" republican doors.
The information is out there. There were some reporters who actually went out and investigated. But again, the people are just as responsible. We need to demand more of our government, more of our press... more of ourselves.
*This is a good video. MUST SEE MATERIAL. If you want to see an actual Presidential Press Conference where Bush tells one of the guys its scripted, then looks at a piece of paper before calling on people... you need to see this.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html