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- kremvax, on 10/12/2007, -8/+67I believe it was the late Hunter S. Thompson who said that Bush made Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison.
- rstevens, on 10/12/2007, -3/+59
American democracy can only re-emerge with good, honest men and women in positions of leadership and with a free press, but as long as tyrants can push their dishonest agendas through the press, misinformation will surely hide their crimes.
The best thing we can do for democracy to prevail is to demand the breakup of the worst monopoly in our nation's history--today's media. No company should be allowed to control more than one TV or radio station, newspaper or magazine. - KingCook, on 10/12/2007, -9/+62Now this is what happens when the government has a lot of the mainstream media in its pocket ... that and most of the people not wanting to hear the truth... Misinformation is just so f*cked up I don't know what to believe anymore
- enivid, on 10/12/2007, -9/+61Simple Solution: Watch/read media from other countries: CBC, BBC, France 2 oh and don't forget Al Jazeera.
- jivatmanx, on 10/12/2007, -8/+46@rstevens
Exactly. If anyone wants a lesson on corporate censorship, take the Dixie Chicks. Making a comment against Dubya gets you banned from nearly every radio station in the country, because so few companies own them.
If a single company owns so many media outlets, they have an incredible power to censor, and an increasing drive to do so, in an urge to not offend everyone. Obviously, considering the dixie chicks example, this is true of liberals and conservatives.
Personally, I believe that the radio companies at least, have only themselves to blame for their decline. They force all of their stations to play the same music and syndicate all of the talk shows. Without any local flavor in stations, there's no reason to listen to them when I can just listen to internet radio (which is awsome) or XM (not a fan).
ALSO, I feel the urge to make a comment about Ron Paul here. Despite so many people's support of him, I feel rather lukewarm. He really supports the power of Corporations over people, for example, he voted for the revised bankruptcy laws that basically turn debt into indentured servitude, and would abolish many regulations and taxes on them, which scares me. - numptydumpty, on 10/12/2007, -5/+40jav1231 you don't know what you're saying.
"Where is the disinformation? And don't bring up WMD's because that's off-table given that everyone ... all believed the same data"
er, no they didn't. That's why a million people in the UK marched in London to try and prevent the US invading Iraq, why the BBC reported that the British government's 'intelligence' dossier was serverely mis-informed... if you believed that Saddam had WMD before the US invaded Iraq then you're even stupider than you already seem.
Besides, if Saddam had actually had WMD Bush would've known all about it because it was his daddy that would've sold him them. He knew full well why he was taking America into Iraq. Halliburton have profited as have countless other companies run by his friends and his family's friends. - chrisk9, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30It's scary that the majority of Americans don't know much (or care?) about other countries in the world, at the same time that their own government and media lies and misleads about its national policies.
It's scary that corporations can buy their own political influence in the form of lobbyists and political contribution at the same time that they can buy media influence through media conglomeration and advertising contracts.
It's scary that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution institutionalizes separation of Church and State yet the Christian Right influences policy at the top level and throughout government. When the greater electorate persistently focuses on issues of Christian ideals like gay rights, abortion, and Creationism, the government is making wide ranging decisions impacting civil liberties, privacy, international relations, etc.
It really makes you wonder who is running the show. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26If the right wing doesn't start admitting the truth pretty soon we're going to have to dig up Nixon and apologize.
- Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30@jav1231 - So if someone lies and other people believe him, then its ok? Because some people bought the lie that Iraq had uranium, then its dismissed and 'off-table'. I don't think so. If you lie and waste billions of dollar and thousands of lives, you have to be held accountable no matter how many people believe you.
- Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30Carl's a reporter. George is the single most powerful publicly elected official in the country. There's a difference in case you can't see that. Also, who a person votes for is their business. If Carl was to lie about who he voted for, no one would die and billions of dollars would not be lost. The same can not be said when George and company lies.
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25No, this is what happens when the same corporations have both media and politicians in their pockets. And that goes for all big political parties.
- smitting, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22The primary complaint about democracy by Karl Marx is that the loudest voice rules. His primary complaint about capitalism is that the distribution of wealth is darwinian rather than equitable.
These statements are both true and should be taught, even though his attempted solutions failed. His failure to find a solution doesn't make his observations any less valuable. - Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20@ All those saying that the Dixie Chicks were not censored.
The decision to not play Dixie Chicks on the radio was not made by 'the people'. It was make by Cumulus, a corporation that owns 250 radio stations. The people never stopped listening to them as demostrated by the fact that they played to sold out crowds at their concerts following the remarks. There were even disc jockeys being suspending for playing their music against the corporations rules. They said they disobeyed the rules because "The station has received a couple of hundred calls and 75% favored playing the music.". There was even a Senate hearing on whether to break up the corporations that hold monopolies on regional radio stations because of the censoring of the Dixie Chicks.
While it was the choice of some people to boycott the Dixie Chicks, they were censored by Cumulus because of thier political opinions which are protected under the constitution.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2003-05-06-djs-suspended_x.htm
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1930521 - rstevens, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23My mother says when Carl Bernstein speaks out, she'll believe. Mom, did you read this one?
- flaterates, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Honesty and candor seem to be lacking in our government. I just don't see that changing any time soon. It's a corrupt money fed system where politicians sell their vote.
- Jelloyeti, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19I really didn't need Carl Bernstein to tell me this. It's been obvious since the beginning.
- Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@jimv: Who's running the country, again? And let's just call BS on your "90% of all blah-blah is against Bush." Even CNN lets his disinformant shills have regular airtime.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/14/barbara-starr-spreads-wh-propaganda-on-iran-bush-will-not-confirm-white-house-blues/
Honest criticism of Bush's policies has yet to begin in the major news outlets, let alone in Congress. And by the way, it's the media's JOB to question the actions of those in power. Asking, "hey, are you SURE this is going to do X, because all this stuff says Y" isn't bias, or treason, or whatever buzzword you want to attach to it. - KazamaSmokers, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19The Bush crew is just getting warmed up. This administration is just version 1.0 of their program. They will learn what worked and what didn't during these 2 terms, refine their tactics, and when they make their next push it will be amid a cloud of obfuscation, propaganda and disinformation so thick and overwhelming it will make the past decade look like kindergarten. Rove, Rush and all the other Sons of Segretti and Atwater will not stop. And they have 23% of the nation biologically predisposed to follow their lead. These are evil people and all real Americans, whatever their politics, right- or left-wing - should want them exposed for what they are.
- Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@jav1231
Thanks for being a perfect illustration of Chrisk9's point. Since Marx was a communist, none of his philosophies, ideas or achivements mean anything, right? Still stuck in the 40-50's I see. - lysdexia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13People like you are disturbing. No least because you appear to have no clue why you would be disturbing.
- eleventybillion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Saying 'Karl Marx was a communist' is as unnecessary as saying 'Queen Elisabeth is British.'
OMFG Marx was a communist??? O RLY??11??
Marx was communist and made some very fundamentally true observations about the tendencies of economic and political/class systems left unchecked. His over-confidence in the decency and self-moderating abilities of humanity were what kept him from finding the solution to those observed problems.
Einstein also failed to completely prove some of his theories on quantum physics, but that does not discredit him as a brilliant, forward-thinking figure in history. - roguenine2000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Patriotism is a love of country
Fascism is a love of the state
Undermining a corrupt state to preserve the nation is very much a patriotic thing to do. - LukeSkope, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14"You are obviously a demonRAT. Its disturbing that you live in America but hate it SO much. Our troops are dying for YOUR freedom and the best way you find to say thank you is to support undermining their mission and robbing working citizens of their money by way of taxes....that my friend is disturbing"
Dude, get off it. It's not hate for America that fuels this debate. It is hate for the policies of an administration that most Americans do not support (and remember, most Americans did not vote for GW in 2000, I know he won in the Electoral College, which is ridiculous considering that he lost the popular election. The person with the most votes should win, the Electoral College makes no sense). Our troops are dying to protect the interests of the war profiteers and big oil. Not a single soldier that has died has protected any Americans freedom.
Neither Afghanistan not Iraq were a threat to any Americans freedom. The propaganda during the buildup to the wars got people so scared of a phantom enemy, when neither country posed a threat. If anything, the hijackers ties to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were much stronger than their ties to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Once it became clear that Iraq was not a threat to our freedom or "way of life" the justifications changed from WMD's to spreading democracy and liberating the Iraqi people. The instability that ensued has actually made us less safe. GW claims that war was a last resort, but I hope anyone with any penchant for critical thinking can understand that all other options were not exhausted, and now thousands of US troops and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the invasion.
Spending 145 billion this year on a war that does nothing to help the average American is robbing us of our taxes, not protesting the war, or the escalation there of. That statement was as retarded as it was illogical. That 145 billion (and all the other billions wasted before it) could have gone to fix schools, provide universal health care, provide relief in times disaster, which would benefit us all. - GrahamCox, on 01/31/2008, -0/+11> Dissent is Patriotic....
> Actively trying to undermine the current Administration during a war is sedition.
Quite right young man. One must never question the authority of the free worlds dear leader!
thcobb...you really need to take the blinkers off. The most patriotic thing you can do for the soldiers out in Iraq is oppose this futile war. How many more men women and children need to die before you realise it's completely senseless.
Patriotism is not being unquestioning about those in power. - Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10What are you talking about? There are plenty of times the Bush Administration has demonstrated that they are lying and spread misinformation. Right off the top of my head, I can recall just last month when Checny came out and was saying that violence in Iraq was not so bad and that there were many successes. Then the very next week, Bush gets up and says that there is not enough success is Iraq and that things there are very tough. Right after that, we have a military intelligence report being published that says the top leaders in Iran are giving weapons to Iraqi insurgents. Now we have Bush turning around and saying that the weapons are from some other group in Iran and not from the actual government.
- lysdexia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11No.
Your *version* of truth is disturbing - but still not quite as much as you are. - rjn17960, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Nope, it doesn't make we wonder who's running the show. That's pretty obvious: it's the people who have the money, and they're trying to keep it that way and make even more.
- diggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I don't think they are going to find the sledding quite so easy from here on out. Tony Snow is finding out that the press has had enough of Admin. BS, and they are going to question and challenge every position and comment that the Admin. makes. The fact is that the Admin. has lost all credibility with the press and the world. That's a very bad place to be. It hurts all Americans.
- edrift101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10God bless our troops!!!
God bless America!!!
***** George Bush and his illegal war based on lies!!! - numptydumpty, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Yeah, i know exactly what you mean... like, with Iraq, and all the 'specific factual detail' they had on the weapons of mass destruction, which meant they could go and invad.... oh, wait a minute.
- monkeyrun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10But according to republicans: "All politician lies .. so it's a wash."
it's like "Bush didn't go to Vietnam, and John Kerry has the 'swift boat Veterans', so it's a wash."
I never understand how could people buy into any of those idiotic reasonings. - derat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Completely agree, the press is no longer a tool for the people to keep their govenrmants honest and accountable it is a tool for governements to keep their population misinformed and under control.
- Smoove, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"I guess you would propose to write a hand written invitation for the islamists to come kill us all. Grow a backbone!!!!!!"
Grow a backbone? We're ready to take up arms and resist to the death any invasion of our nation or theft of our rights. You cower in such fear of the hairy A-rabs that you'll gladly hand over your freedoms if only Bush will "protect" you. Bend over, baby--there's more "protection" coming right atcha! - GeneralFault, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"Country music fans have a VERY long memory and very rarely do they forgive and move on."
But they can't seem to remember Vietnam or Nixon. I'll give them a little credit and assume that most of them are just too young. - ScionAltera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@cokeacolacowboy
More soldiers have died in Iraq than people in 9/11. However, there has been no evidence that Iraq was building any kind of chemical weapons (if I'm wrong about that, link me to an article that proves it). There has been no proof that 9/11 had any connection to Saddam or Iraq (again, if you have proof that there is a connection, I'd like to see it).
If Saddam's republican guard had landed troops in New York City and started killing people and blowing ***** up, I would have been 100% all for sending the Marines in to kill them all. I'd support killing all the Iraqi soldiers in NYC, then shipping our boys over to Iraq and burning the entire country to the ground.
Unfortunately, what really happened wasn't so clear cut. The people who crashed those planes didn't claim a nationality. The investigation got ***** up. We failed to figure out for certain who attacked us and why.
I know you won't agree with anything I say just because I'm an evil DemonRat, but please try to follow me on this one. I'm going to assume for a moment that Saddam was building weapons, and that he did help plan 9/11. If I believed those things, I would have supported attacking him and his country. Our troops did a fantastic job at the beginning of the war. We annihilated the republican guard and took over Baghdad in a very short time, and we lost very few of our own troops doing it. If I werent also a godless atheist, I'd say God bless our troops! Instead, I'll just say they did a terrific job and I'm proud to be an American and to have them as my countrymen.
The problem is what happened after that. The political situation in the middle east and Iraq in particular is tremendously complex. It turns out that Saddam (even though he was evil) was the only thing keeping the region stable. When we took him out, we found ourselves in the middle of a three sided civil war. We did not anticipate that. I'm sure that you'd agree with me that being tough isn't all that a soldier needs. He also needs his commanders to be well informed and give him good orders. He needs to go into situations with the information he needs. How many enemies are in the building? Where are they? Are they armed? He can't afford to be surprised, and he needs to know what to do if he gets surprised. We got surprised, and we didn't know the right thing to do.
Now our soliders are getting killed not because they are protecting our freedom, but because our military as a whole got surprised. We froze like a deer in headlights. The right thing to do is to get out of the way so we don't get hit by the truck. - ScionAltera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@thcobbs
"Actively trying to undermine the current Administration during a war is sedition."
Wow, so all a president should have to do to get everyone who disagrees with him to shut up is start a war? I should just wait until this war is over before I start my criticism then? - elef3u, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11To anyone who's read this article and hasn't Dugg it, PLEASE DO! People need to read this stuff. These are things that many people know, but don't do anything about...and it's sad.
DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC! We need a soapbox. We need some way to make our voices heard (one that's not government controlled).
Impeach Bush. That is all. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11"I believe it was the late Hunter S. Thompson who said that Bush made Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison."
What's funny about that statement is that if you know the real history of Lincoln's reign (not the glossed over version we get in high school history books), you'd realize that Bush hasn't quite made it to the level of tyranny that Lincoln did during his tenure as President. Close, but not yet. - Smoove, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"You are obviously a demonRAT."
Slow day over at FreeRepublic? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@thcobbs:
Advocating rebellion is sedition. "Undermining" the administration is dissension. If you don't know the difference, you don't understand democracy. - Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7 I think the reasons they don't do anything about is is either they don't think they can,or they don't know how.
In college,way back when,a professor told us that eventually corporations would run everything (in the background,of course).
We did not think that was possible...But now it's already happened. They control what we hear and see and if they could,they would control the Internet as well.
I don't see a way we,the people can undo what all the big corporations have done.
I also don't see the Bush being impeached either.
Yeah,I'm pessimistic alright.
- shuffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The only mistake the Dixie Chicks made was that they gave their old fan base too much credit. They alientated themselves from their old redneck fan base. Good for them, they made a new fan out of me and many others I know. I don't listen to much country music, but I do listed to them now thanks to their views. I like a couple songs and they are in regular rotation at home.
- Pfhreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." -- Theodore Roosevelt
- GrahamCox, on 01/31/2008, -0/+6I'd suggest the people who were brave enough to oppose this war from the outset in spite of all the misinformation and lies spouted in the media are the ones
with the backbone. Very easy to support something everyone's saying is good for you rather than question it. And who wants to be dubbed treacherous after all. - dsbmac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The worst thing is not that this administration is the most dishonest in scope and severity it's that the american people have put up with it and endorsed it by voting this admin in twice. It's one thing to have a bad presidency but it's scarier if the people are unable to hold it accountable.
- ScionAltera, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The difference between "impeach Bush" and "assassinate Bush" is the difference between dissent and sedition.
Calling for impeachment of a president who you believe to be unfit to lead the country is patriotic: the nation is more important than the person elected to lead it. Not only are you acting in what you believe to be the best interest of the country, but you are using well established constitutional law to do it. You have to get a majority of people to agree with you and put the impeachment in motion. This is democracy in action.
If you take it upon yourself to assassinate the president, you are bypassing the established procedure for replacing a bad president. Going it alone is bad because it doesn't require that a sufficient majority of people agree with you and support the action. The idea behind impeachment is that one wacko nutjob shouldn't get to remove a president that most people like. That is very un-democratic. - Phrag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@cokeacolacowboy
Well, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made sure that there will be justifyable reasons for millions of Islamic (and other) extremist groups to want to hurt Americans for the foreseeable future, I guess that invitation is unnecesary. - DeepSeaDan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7What is more frightening then all the secrecy, corruption and lies of this administration is the fact that no one in this country seems to care about any of it.
- jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Agreed. Everyone believes there is no good being done in Iraq despite the fact that soldiers and workers are coming home on leave and are agast that no one is reporting on the work they're doing. Why? The media. Talk all you want about Republicans swallowing the cool-aid but the truth is America is riding the tide the media wants them to. Whether you lean left or right, up or down, if you're an American that should shock you more than anything.
- bsmeteronhigh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Richard M. Nixon was small potatoes by comparison. Who'd have ever thought?
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