Gore and Sheehan Join Forces

Ms. Coco you wrote in your last paragraph:

"For this "absence of reason" Gore offers no antidote —nor does anyone. He suggests that more political discourse be conducted over the Internet..."

Perhaps you haven't heard about Gore's movie "An inconvenient truth" - perhaps you fail to grasp that Gore, like most progressive people believe that the people need the truth in order to make intelligent decisions, that we need our votes to be honestly counted, that the hideous war criminals in the white house should be impeached and held accountable for the massive amount of needless suffering that they are largely responsible for, that the time for war has past, that the mainstream corporate press is nothing more than a megaphone for the ruling elite and their unbridled greed, etc etc.

Your apparent naivity is understandable - if you weren't a little deaf and dumb - your masters at the washington post wouldn't have any use for you. Who needs the truth anyway, right? I mean, it's so inconvenient that it must be hidden from the masses, right? We should all just shut up, and leave all the important decisions to the richest 1% and their minions.

I bet the parties that washingtonpost "journalists" go to are a real blast, and that you're all terribly proud of yourselfs and your shiny cars. Thanks so much for supporting the greediest and most selfish people on earth.

Take care,

Aum33

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"One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda. Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system--and they believe what the system expects them to believe. By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power. " Noam Chomsky

A good short article:
Propaganda American Style by Noam Chomsky
http://www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html
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Media Education Foundation
Elite Propaganda
THE MYTH OF THE LIBERAL MEDIA
The Propaganda Model of News

watch/listen to free 60 min. video:

Video
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6435.htm

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the "liberal media." Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they
reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of "elite propaganda."

"If you want to understand the way a system works, you look at its institutional structure. How it is organized, how it is controlled, how it is funded." -Noam Chomsky

"The Mainstream media really represent elite interests, and what the propaganda model tries to do is stipulate a set of institutional variables, reflecting this elite power, that very powerfully influence the media." -Edward Herman

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"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem." Howard Zinn, "Failure to Quit", p. 45

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"We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man
is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity." Theodore Roosevelt

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"The time for war has past...
Man must change or die.
There is no other course...
Sharing will save the world."
Maitreya, the World Teacher

CNN Spoof ...

http://tinyurl.com/3yoek4

I saw a link to this website as part of a blog response to Scott Ritter's "Repudiation" article. I think it actually could be a step in the right direction:

www.article5.com

A nation-wide push for an Article V constitutional convention could be just what we need.

It puts EVERYTHING on the table. And it bypasses Congressional stalemates and presidential vetoes. It's the final check and balance, so to speak, short of revolution. I actually have more faith for the possibilities of positive change with this than I do with the 2008 election.

Please check it out. www.article5.com

The only way to stop unnecessary wars by the US government is to remove the industrial military complex from private ownership. To many politicians democrats and republicans alike own stock in the industrial military complex and the only way to increase profits is to make war. Same way with the industrial prison complex, have you ever wondered why America imprisons more people than any other country in the world?

Poet sounds to me as representative of the ignorant fools who seem intent in having the human race join the dinosaurs in extinction.

I'm not sure what the solution is for helping to put a stop to all these unnecessary wars, and the toll it takes on working people in the US.

I don't think it can be done through self-appointed activism, which is what Sheehan looks like. Her experience of American Imperialism is no more authentic than anyone else's. The death of a son is a personal tragedy. The death of a son as part of an imperialist war that has now killed hundreds of thousands is more than a personal tragedy.

Sheehan wasn't able to transcend her personal tragedy. Some of us wondered why she felt she could move the Democratic Party, but we left her to her efforts. She even got Democratic Party support because they used her to help their own chances in elections against the Republicans.

I wish there was a political solution. That people who are anti-war could do something inside the two-party system. But these are not, for the most part, mass parties organized from the bottom up.

Opinionated - brilliant. I have just turned on a small light in our front window (not the porch light, that takes too much electricity). If others do the same we can really 'continue the relay'. So - if you like this idea, tell your friends. Small things have a way of getting big.

Maybe the best way to support Ms. Sheehan is to pick up the torch and continue the relay.

Pre-emptive war IS illegal. It's part of the UN Charter, The Nuremberg Resolutions, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is incorporated into other US and International Laws that according to our Constitution are the Supreme Laws of the Land.

As a historian of the US Empire, I think it best to look at our Empire's behavior over time. When this is done, as Chalmers Johnson discovered and as Chomsky has pointed out for several decades now, there is a distict continuum and continuity of policy scope and direction that establishes my contentions for the existence of the Death Party; other's might be more comfortable with the term Imperial Party, but the result for those effected by its policies is most often death and/or immiseration.

I understand the knee-jerk reaction to the notion of the Death Party as a natural psychological defense mechanism for those unwilling to admit that they willingly/unwillingly supported the outcomes of the Party's policies; in other words, a form of denial. I understand that it's very difficult to discover and come to grips with our true historical past/nature; but without such an understanding, the anti-war activist has no foundation on which to argue. Being an unequivocal Ghandian is no easy task.

Ezeflyer: Thank you for making reference to and honoring THAT great balance, which ultimately will correct the askance scales masking "justice" as policies engineered and orchestrated by the least conscionable.

Eris states:

"…the mistakes that were made were the direct result of the country "ignoring what information was available…"

This IS correct. Naturally, we know the admin cherrypicked its information to sell the war to us - which means they knew, they just ignored...

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The Downing Street memos prove that both Bush and Blair LIED to their legislative bodies and their countrymen for the sake of going to war.
In this effort they were both aided and abetted by such MSM lions as the WaPo, NYT, and CBS, ABC, and NBC who all parroted the adminstration lies without any critical analysis of them.
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eris then states:

"…and internet discourse is some of "the viliest commentary and some of the wildest conspiracy theories" around."

There IS an abundance of opinion, theory, and alarmist keyboard-pounding on the internet. It's the downside to having a truly free (ie unrestricted) public place where you can speak your mind on the same level as the 'pros'.
The consequence is that to avoid being duped by every little conspiracy theory or misinformed op-ed piece, you have to have a discerning eye, a level head, and plenty of skepticism (not cynicism!). That's a GOOD thing, and a wonderful alternative to television - it encourages thought rather than somnolescent couchsurfing."

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Wackos don't just populate the Internet. Go to Barnes and Noble or Books a MIllion or anywhere else with a large periodical selection (maybe even your local library if you are lucky). You can observe all manner of wierdness on the pages of many periodical publications.

The big difference is the democratization and accerssibility of knowledge, opinion, and (most importantly)expression. This in my own opinion is what Lady Coco and her ilk detest.

Like all good elitist gliteratti, she desires to maintain control and is starting to realize that her bloviations in Internet land don't count for much more than your's or my own. Eat your hearts out elitists--the times truly are a changin'!

Poet: I may not agree with Coco's 'agenda' but she's not entirely incorrect.

"...the mistakes that were made were the direct result of the country "ignoring what information was available..."

This IS correct. Naturally, we know the admin cherrypicked its information to sell the war to us - which means they knew, they just ignored. But even on the level of a news consumer, Coco's statement is correct. I knew so much more than most people even as far back as 2002, regarding the agenda and intentions of the Bush admin, and I got ALL my information from news stories and op-eds, online! People thought I was raving. Then things slooowly began to trickle into MSM, and confirmed what I'd been saying all along. However...

"...and internet discourse is some of "the viliest commentary and some of the wildest conspiracy theories" around."

There IS an abundance of opinion, theory, and alarmist keyboard-pounding on the internet. It's the downside to having a truly free (ie unrestricted) public place where you can speak your mind on the same level as the 'pros'.
The consequence is that to avoid being duped by every little conspiracy theory or misinformed op-ed piece, you have to have a discerning eye, a level head, and plenty of skepticism (not cynicism!). That's a GOOD thing, and a wonderful alternative to television - it encourages thought rather than somnolescent couchsurfing.

"...Gore, who laments in his book that "it is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse."

Not really. Our bestial conservative side has overwhelmed our liberal humanist side resulting in environmental problems that throw our proverbial yin and yang out of balance. Too many people with too little and too few with too much. The "chaos is opportunity" business people prefer it this way, ignoring that nature will have the last word.

NOTHING and no one compares with this bush junta. Every politician may pander to special interests, and it's ostensible that the main "special" interest in the USA today is the military-prison-big pharma industrial complexes; however, there are DEGREES of outrageous indifference to life and its future sustainability!

Maybe she's well-published but not well-read. Orwell himself, from the grave, proffers the antidote: "by feeling there is still time and by responding with greater clarity and greater courage".

"'The Assault on Reason'... [has its] roots, Gore argues, in the deceits and manipulations President Bush and his administration practiced, artfully and dangerously, for too long and with too little consequence."

Didn't Clinton/Gore engage in the same sort of "deceits and manipulations"?
Didn't their policies kill, maim, destroy, and destabilize more people on a wider global scale than Bush/Cheney have acheived? Didn't Clinton/Gore Iraq policies provide the primary foundation for Cheney/Bush's invasion?

As a WaPo propagandist, it's clear her agenda is to support the continuation of the Death Party, as Poet notes, and to help rewriting history.

I have an idea to show solidarity for Cindy Sheehan.

I suggest the following:

From June 4th until July 4th, WE act in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, so we quit. No more criticism of the War, no criticism of Bush, no criticism of the Dems, no one utters a peep of dissent (we aren't being listened to, as she said, anyway). During this time of Deafening Silence, we can each utilize our full academic arsenal using our right to free speech to prepare the speech of our lifetimes, to be presented to whoever will listen to us on the 4th of July.

It will be very quiet when the forums go silent and people know that everyone is using the time to prepare their speech of a lifetime for a live audience.

Imagine on the Fourth of July when people leave their houses with speech in hand and go out into public to Read their speech to those who will listen. If you can you should even memorize your speech to give even greater effect.

The breaking of the silence will break like a wave of refreshing water, soothing the dryness that will surely come about in our absence.

So according to the Republicans/neocons, anyone who criticizes the present government is "anti-American." What a cheap ploy. Sounds like fascism to me. They've been getting away with spewing that BS for years.

I'm an anti-war person -- let me clarify that. I'm against UNNECESSARY WAR. The U.S. had NO proof that Iraq was involved in 9/11, had ties to al-Qaida, or was a threat. Iraq had been under heavy surveillance since the early 1990s. The American war-profiteering plutocrats knew it was no threat. Pre-emptive war should be illegal.

What unprovoked country in its right mind is going to attack the world's superpower -- or nuclear-armed Israel for that matter? Bush and his evil cabal want enemies to ensure never-ending war profiteering for themselves -- and they don't care how many people die for their profits.

Right-wing neocons accuse Cindy Sheehan of "treason" and "surrender." How can it be surrender if the U.S. aggressively and pre-emptively attacked a country for no reason? The neocons must think we're imbeciles to believe their propaganda.

Hmm...now let's see if we can discern Ms. Coco's agenda:

"Nearly two years later, and after a descent into the clutch of radical politics, Sheehan's "resignation" letter lashes out equally at left-wing commentators who she says heaped the same abuse upon her once she held the Democratic Party to account for its role in sustaining the war. Sheehan's letter is a rambling account of her journey to disillusion."

"Gore, the scold, is a familiar character in his own political saga—the same fellow who was ridiculed for sighing audibly during a 2000 presidential campaign debate. But, like Sheehan, he speaks a truth: The country didn't make so many bad decisions—about Iraq, global warming, torture or the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists—in the absence of information about these policies and their historic consequences. It ignored what information was available."

For this "absence of reason" Gore offers no antidote—nor does anyone. He suggests that more political discourse be conducted over the Internet, which happens to be where some of the vilest commentary and wildest conspiracy theories circulate. Eventually these peculiar dark ages will end. We can only hope historians see them as an aberration, not an early marker of decline.

So there you have it! Opposing the Iraqi war is a "descent into radical politics", the mistakes that were made were the direct result of the country "ignoring what information was available", and internet discourse is some of "the viliest commentary and some of the wildest conspiracy theories" around.

Sounds like the hate-filled flailings of an aging journalistic dinosaur slowly sinking into the Cretaceous mud of history where she will be a fossilized curiosity for future generations to contemplate.

I can think of at least 3 important steps that will lead to an antidote to the culture of unreason. Check out my comment on Cindy Sheehan's resignation as the face of the anti-war movement at: http://hankedson.squarespace.com/heartbreakandduty/