|
war profiteering corporate news monopolies. When you think of the outrages they have committed, and the number of people who are dead because of it, nothing short of an apology will do. It's not likely to be forthcoming, but that's what is needed.
And it's not just the war. CNN and the other US news organizations acted in concert on election night 2004 to FALSIFY their own exit poll data that said Kerry won--thus denying the American people major evidence of fraud, and squelching protests and calls for investigation. That was an unforgivable journalistic crime against democracy! They will give you all kinds of excuses for it--that they ALWAYS do that--"adjust" the exit poll numbers to "fit" the "official result," but we have never before had an election in which the "official result" was derived by SECRET, PROPRIETARY PROGRAMMING CODE, OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY MAJOR BUSH DONORS AND SUPPORTERS!
This election CRIED OUT for verification--with the 2000 election STILL in question (by the news monopolies' own calculations, Gore won the popular vote), and with the Bushites' new control over the vote tabulation, on extremely hackable machines run on "trade secret" software. A highly controversial previous election, that most people believe Bush stole. A highly controversial new election SYSTEM with grave issues of non-transparency. And they didn't seek to VERIFY the results THIS TIME--and had evidence that the result was wrong AGAIN, and SUPPRESSED that evidence?
Their excuses are bullshit! Exit polls are used worldwide to verify elections and check for fraud. These exit polls in fact detected strong evidence of fraud, and they PUT FALSE NUMBERS ON THE SCREEN TO MAKE US THINK OTHERWISE!
I repeat: They put FALSE NUMBERS on everybody's TV screens, in the most important election in American history!
Of all the black-holing of important news stories that they have done, and all the lies and mis-impressions and illusions they have promulgated, this may be the worst--worse even than the war propaganda--because it directly interfered with the democratic mechanism of control over tyranny! It prevented CORRECTION of the course that the country had been set upon. And the long term consequences may be far worse than one war. They may include MULTIPLE wars, economic collapse, and world holocaust.
Further, I am not at all feeling benign about the new coverage of these PREVIOUS war lies--long after the fact--the Cindy Sheehan coverage, and the other sketchy signs of a crack in the Iron Curtain we've had on real news. I think that the connivance of all the news monopolies that we saw on election night--to deny the American people major evidence of election fraud--is still at work, and may now be a conspiracy to install a War Democrat in the White House in '08, who will be better able than Bush to maintain the FIFTEEN NEW, PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY BASES (some the size of cities) in Iraq, to keep the military contract hogfeast going, to institute a Draft, to extend the Mideast war into Iran and Syria, to further squeeze the poor with goddamned lies about "fiscal responsibility" (the poor paying more for war!), and to take the rap for Bush disasters and blowback, so that they can finish off the Democratic Party once and for all (cause it to be ripped to shreds), and Jeb can be installed in 2012.
That's my fear about this slightly more truthful news coverage that we seem to be getting--that it's all just a game played by billionaires, and that these little 'loosenings' of the hangman's rope around our neck have the purpose of strangling us further and completely destroying our democracy.
My hope, of course, like all of us, is that democracy is starting to work--that they can't really run a government with the disapproval of 70% of the people, and that corporate TV is of course dependent on viewership, and ultimately MUST respond to public opinion, at least to some degree.
My caveat: Be prepared for the installation of a War Democrat. (With Diebold and ES&S, they can do anything they want to.) And IF we get a War Democrat--a great likelihood, in my opinion--don't be lulled, and USE THAT OPPORTUNITY--if we can--to, a) get rid of Diebold and ES&S (into 'Boston Harbor' with their election theft machines!), and b) bust up the corporate news monopolies.
A War Democrat will have to at least pay lip service to progressive policy, and that will be an opening for these two critical action items--the election system, and the news monopolies.
You may recall that it was JUST AFTER Howard Dean said that he would bust up the news monopolies that the news monopolies doctored the tape of his "scream" and destroyed his campaign. That's what THEY fear most--that we will bust them up and reclaim our public airwaves. (The other reason for the demise of his campaign was that the War Democrats were not about to permit a true antiwar candidate to be nominated. The War Party closed ranks and Dean got axed.)
It's a measure of just how bad the news monopolies are that most Americans DON'T KNOW that Bushites now control the vote tabulation. And it's a measure of just how corrupt the Democratic Party leadership has become that they said NOTHING about Bushites controlling the vote tabulation. NOTHING! (The corruption is widespread and bipartisan in the new billion dollar boondoggle of electronic voting systems.)
I think that the American people are actually very progressive-minded, tolerant, and generous, and very much want good government. It's hard to see that in the delusions that are fed to us about ourselves on TV, but it is, interestingly, reflected in all the news monopoly polls (--not just in Bush disapproval ratings, but also in the very great majorities of Americans who disapprove of ALL Bush policies, way up in the 60% to 70% range, for over a year now--the Iraq war (from BEFORE the invasion), torture policy, Social Security, women's rights, you name it.)
I think it's going to be a struggle, but I think the good people in our country--the great majority--are going to prevail. I think we may even see the Second American Revolution--the renewal and the great improvement of democracy--as a result of the experience of Bush Cartel fascism. Patience, persistence and peacefulness will be the keys to it. And I don't think we need worry about a second 9/11, for the moment (as some do). The Bush Cartel thinks they've got it all sewed up now, with Diebold and ES&S. They don't need more terror tactics when they can determine who rules with untraceable hacking of the voting machines. (But we might have to start worrying about it again, when we recover our right to vote.) (Prevention of another fascist coup is going to require more than election reform and busting up the news monopolies. It is going to require prosecution of Bushites for war crimes and treason, and deconstruction of the military-industrial complex--and if we undertake these two courses of action, after we restore our right to vote, we had better be prepared for these venomous snakes to bite back.)
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
