| Saturday, January 28, 2006 |
| Are the Dumb leading the Dumber? |
Today, in an online piece posted over at Counterpunch by the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, entitled "Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush" he asks:
Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.
Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?
EXACTLY!!! The propaganda and noise coming predominately from the Right is designed to allow those who wish, as well as the unsuspecting, to exist within an alternate "reality". Plastic Facts, Plastic Patriotism. This is why many on the left often refer to themselves as "reality-based" or of the "reality-based community". It is to the benefit of those currently in control of the levers of power that Americans, as a whole, be illinformed or misinformed. See Jack Aramoff partner Michael Scanlon's comments for more on how the "Wackos", as he puts it, from their conservative base are controlled. This should shed some light on the overall strategy for you.
FISA was created with the specific intent of "balancing" national security with the unalienable rights guaranteed to all those who reside within the borders of the United States by our Constitution. However, FISA itself is little more then just accepted doctrine and at this time is only considered "legal" because it has never been directly challenged in a court of law. This is how the lines of tyranny are first blurred and then shifted.
Paul then continues with this analysis of the current political climate in the Middle East as a result of US intervention:
It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US. Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.
A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.
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And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!
A pretty good read, hitting on the heart of the problem, propaganda. Recommended. |
posted by MindSquash the Brain Worm @ 4:27 PM   |
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