news.independent.co.uk — Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news.
May 29, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountMay 29, 2006
"So we're supposed to accept it when the current administration uses our tax money to create fake news stories to push THEIR partisan purposes? Thats called propaganda and thats what a free independent press is supposed to avoid."Funny, I always known them as Press Releases.Tell me, did you accept it when the previous, Democrat administration uses our tax money to create fake news stories to push THEIR partisan purposes? Or how about when the DNC currently does it?
sonicdevoMay 29, 2006
Are you freaking kidding me?First of all, we are not a Democracy (Thank God). We are a Democratic Republic. There is a world of difference. The founding fathers are spinning in their graves every time someone makes reference to an American "democracy."Secondly, you should realize how many American patriots and suffering/dead Iraqis you've just insulted. The form of government that we've fought for here in America is much preferable to any system that currently does or has ever existed in the middle east.
kyoung989May 29, 2006
@ GeterixI'm sorry, I was asking for examples of IN-accuracies. My guess is you didn't read the NY Times article. That's OK, I'll give you another chance. What in the report is "grossly inaccurate?" Again, specifics are great.
kyoung989May 29, 2006
@ GeterixAre you trying to buy time? I'm still looking for examples of "gross inaccuracies." For my part, I have put forth an article by the paper of record - the New York Times - that vouches for the accuracy of the submitted story. So once again, I ask for you to supply specific examples of why the story is "grossly inaccurate," as you claim.
cedanticpuntMay 29, 2006
I disagree with some of your points, but 1 for making them coherently and intelligently.I disagree with what you say about public health systems. I think they can be as good as private ones. The problem in the UK (where I'm from) is that the NHS was a great idea to start with, but eventually became very inefficient and complacent. The last Conservative government then spent 15 years trying to destroy it with chronic underfunding, and nearly succeeded. If I was cynical I'd suspect they were getting bungs from private health companies, but no government would do that would they *cough*. But the current Labour government has been rocked recently with party funding scandals, so it's clearly an endemic problem of where parties get money from, who gave them it, and why it was given.Your comparison between Sweden and Ireland is interesting. But I guess one important difference is that Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe, it's easier to have impressive growth when they only way is up (NB. I've been to Ireland, and don't mean that to seem insulting to the Irish in any way). Sweden also had impressive natural resources, but managed to get wealth for the entire country, not just let it get into the pockets of a few people.One thing I've read about the difference between left/right governments is that left-wing ones take away your financial freedoms (high taxes), right-wing ones take away your personal freedoms (censorship of films, music, books etc). Personally, I'm probably slightly centre-left (though that vastly oversimplifies things). I value my personal freedoms most: to read what I want, listen to what I want, look at the art I want, read what I want - without someone looking over my shoulder, being my "moral guardian" and telling me it'll be bad for my soul and I'm going to hell for it. In response to you "If you're referring to Iraq, who claimed to have "Fair Elections" every time Sadam was re-elected, your point is rather scary." - No, I was referring to various countries in South America, where the US has helped stage military coups against democratically elected governments and replaced them with military dictatorships. Saddam needing dealing with, I'm not convinced war was the best way to do that.
cnt2infinityMay 30, 2006
More possible lies here:<a class="user" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5030960.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5030960.stm</a>
obkenobiJun 1, 2006Submitter
[quote]"Since it was pointed out that both popular parties are guilty of this... I would like to ask the question, "who are we supposed to vote for in 2008?""Vote for someone else, be it 3rd party/write-in/bugs bunny/whatever. If enough people vote for someone other than the usual 2 parties, it will send a message that the people are getting tired of all this nonsense.....[/quote]Yep. Do it even if they don't get elected. If another Bush gets elected because of it, it won't make much of a difference anyway. But it might serve as a call to Demorats to stop being such two-faced spineless weasels and stand up for principles they really believe in.They don't want to do that because then Americans would see that there's hardly any difference between Clinton and Bush. The religious/morality stuff is superficial crap to please their bases. The policies that really matter--foreign policy, economic policy, constitutional rights, justice--aren't significantly different between the two.Clinton had his illegal wars, covert terrorist dealings (KLA, Taliban) and corporate scandals too. How quickly Americans forget.
obkenobiJun 1, 2006Submitter
What did Clinton do that was much worse? Maybe you forget that it was Bush's daddy that set up the Taliban and trained OBL? That it was Bush's daddy that supported Saddam, while at the same time making deals with Iran to build up the CONTRAs.You want to know when America lost its way? It was the day the CIA was created. That has led the way to 9/11 and all the corruption and abuse of the constitution. Today US politicians can operate without oversight, institute regime changes using terrorism, and embezzle billions in tax revenue for "secret" projects. And pocket a few million for themselves in the process.
gurubanksJun 4, 2006
yup, I shut it off too. I can't stand anything on TV except Boston Legal and the Daily Show.
dedzeppelinJun 23, 2006
Consider the source. This paper is infamous for blatant leftist propaganda. OBkenobi knows about as much about the history of the US and the CIA as he does about getting a date with the opposite sex. Actually UBL was trained in the Reagan years. Obi-you don't know s**t.