....LMB: "Big Picture"....

July 15, 2003

I can understand why all the bloggers and pundits and journalists and some Democrats are leaping on this Bush-Niger-Uranium story. It's a chink in the presidential armor, the first scandal that might actually stick to the Teflon Idiot. And aiding the effort to exploit this weakness is certainly a noble cause.

If you want to work with that hit squad and argue the nuances of what Tenet or Condi or Georgie knew and when, feel free. I just don't want us to get sidetracked or red herringed. So to keep us focused:

The bottom line is that the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq as early as December 2001, and everything else was a PR exercise to win domestic and foreign support. I have examined every bit of public pre-war WMD evidence, and none of it added up to "Iraq is a threat." The force with which the Bush administration tried to push this war showed that they had a reason to want to invade, but the faulty public reason they gave could not possibly be their true reason. Which meant that their had to be another, secret, publicly unacceptable reason that they wanted to invade Iraq. And to date, the best reason I've seen that explains Bush's actions is the "we want to reshape the political landscape in the entire Middle East" scenario. Which made me uncomfortable, because it sounded so conspiracy theory, but truly, it was the best explanation among many.

So the issue of whether or not Bush knew that the Niger-Iraq-uranium documents were forged at the time of his speech is pretty insignificant in contrast. Bush and his team of soulless set out to trick the nation (and create a "coalition of the willing") into supporting a war to enhance U.S. global dominance. If this scandal can take the motherfucker down, so be it, but let's not lose the forest for the trees.

Posted by Jake at 11:49 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I agree with you 100%. I think there were a few reasons to invade Iraq and so did many others. Reshaping the Middle East was indeed the main goal and I don't think there is anything "conspiracy theory" about that. It is just pure "free market capitalism" at work.

Look at all the potential benefits from such an undertaking. Cheap oil for our SUVs, finally getting our troops out of Saudi Arabia, having a strategic location next to Iran and control of the entire Middle East area, and big profits for big corporations, all of whom will keep Bush in office for another 4 years. Sure the government is going to go into debt over this occupation, but the taxpayers pay for that, not the wealthy or the corporations. Sure an American service person is going to die every day or two, but I think the Bush administration feels this is a small price to pay.

Will the Democrats use everything they can to get back into power? Absolutely. Will the media get behind them? Maybe. Will the Amrican people rise up and "vote the bums out"? Perhaps. However, when you think of what Bush has done for the wealthy in this country and for all the big corportions, it will be easy for him to ask for 10% of that back for his re-election campaign.

My prediction is that Bush will easily raise over 200M and will, by hook or by crook, just like in 2000, "win" for another 4 years.

It's sad to think that way, but I do not have any faith in my fellow Americans to stop it from happening. ...and besides, what is the alternative? the Democrats? Please!

Posted by: jim at July 16, 2003 07:02 AM

Something about the last comments about the democrats... Why does everyone believe they're incapable of anything? The media... It's just the same machine that gave you the war in the first place...

Posted by: John at July 16, 2003 09:31 AM

Amen, brother. Biggest misdirection play since the Spanish-American War. The media's just playing up the yellowcake thing in order to save face. They're about to turn on the Chimp In Chief, and it's going to be as if someone shoved sausages down his throat and starving dogs up his ass.

Posted by: cazart at July 16, 2003 01:09 PM

The Iraq invasion was one of the opening moves in the strategy pushed by the Project for the New American Century. The idea started in the early 1990s, and PNAC formed in 1997. Check out

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

http://pnac.info/

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Posted by: mg at July 16, 2003 04:28 PM

The Iraq invasion was one of the opening moves in the strategy pushed by the Project for the New American Century. The idea started in the early 1990s, and PNAC formed in 1997. Check out

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

http://pnac.info/

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Posted by: mg at July 16, 2003 04:29 PM

The Iraq invasion was one of the opening moves in the strategy pushed by the Project for the New American Century. The idea started in the early 1990s, and PNAC formed in 1997. Check out

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

http://pnac.info/

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Posted by: mg at July 16, 2003 04:29 PM

The Iraq invasion was one of the opening moves in the strategy pushed by the Project for the New American Century. The idea started in the early 1990s, and PNAC formed in 1997. Check out

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm

http://pnac.info/

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Posted by: mg at July 16, 2003 04:33 PM

It seems this was planned long before December 2001

CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS

http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.b_PR.shtml

Posted by: 56k at July 18, 2003 08:30 AM

As an old anti-Vietnam leftist, it's gratifying to see the vast number of people and websites involved and interacting against the Bush Administration. But to remove Bush without removing the cause of such cancers is useless. We managed to chase Lyndon Johnson out of office, only to get Nixon. None of our postwar presidents have been any more environmentally minded or public minded than the other. They have all been public relations hacks for big business and transnational corporations, especially oil and military/industrial coporations interested in short term profit. I see no one running for public office now who will do any more than put frosting on a very dirty corporate cake. It's almost better to have Bush and Cheney being obviously fascist, than to have a Clinton who puts a smile on the same fascism.

Posted by: Jim LeCuyer at August 22, 2003 05:21 PM

As an old anti-Vietnam leftist, it's gratifying to see the vast number of people and websites involved and interacting against the Bush Administration. But to remove Bush without removing the cause of such cancers is useless. We managed to chase Lyndon Johnson out of office, only to get Nixon. None of our postwar presidents have been any more environmentally minded or public minded than the other. They have all been public relations hacks for big business and transnational corporations, especially oil and military/industrial coporations interested in short term profit. I see no one running for public office now who will do any more than put frosting on a very dirty corporate cake. It's almost better to have Bush and Cheney being obviously fascist, than to have a Clinton who puts a smile on the same fascism.

Posted by: Jim LeCuyer at August 22, 2003 05:23 PM
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Media News

December 01, 2004

Media Mambo

The Great Indecency Hoax- last week, we wrote about how the "massive outcry" to the FCC about a racy Fox TV segment amounted to letters from 20 people. This week, we look at the newest media scandal, the infamous "naked back" commercial. On Monday Night Football, last week, ABC aired an ad for it's popular "Desperate Housewives" TV show, in which one of the actresses from the show attempted to seduce a football player by removing the towel she was wearing to bare her body to him. All the audience saw, however, was her back. No tits, no ass, no crotch, just her back.

No one complained.

The next Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh told his shocked viewers how the woman had appeard in the commercial "buck naked".

Then, the FCC received 50,000 complaints. How many of them actually saw this commercial is anyone's guess.

The article also shows the amazing statistics that although the Right is pretending that the "22% of Americans voted based on 'moral values'" statistic shows the return of the Moral Majority, this is actually a huge drop from the 35% who said that in the 2000 election or the 40% who said that in 1996 (when alleged pervert Bill Clinton was re-elected). This fact is so important I'm going to mention it over in the main news section too.

Brian Williams may surprise America- Tom Brokaw's replacement anchor, Brian Williams, dismissed the impact of blogs by saying that bloggers are "on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem." Which is really funny, coming out of the mouth of a dude who's idea of journalism is to read words out loud off a teleprompter. Seriously, if parrots were literate, Brian Williams would be reporting live from the line outside the soup kitchen.

In related news, Tom Brokaw has quit NBC Nightly News, and it appears that unlike his predecessor, the new guy can speak without slurring words like a drunk.

PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror- in February of 2002, Donald Rumsfeld announced the creation of the Office of Strategic Influence, a new department that would fight the war on terror through misinformation, especially by lying to journalists. Journalists were so up in arms about this that the Pentagon agreed to scrap the program.

Don't you think that an agency designed to lie to the public might lie about being shut down, too?

This article gives some examples about the US military lying to the press for propaganda and disinformation purposes.

Tavis Smiley leaving NPR in December- African-American talk show host Tavis Smiley is opting to not renew his daily talk show on National Public Radio. He criticized his former employers for failing to: "meaningfully reach out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio but simply don’t know it exists or what it offers ... In the most multicultural, multi-ethnic and multiracial America ever, I believe that NPR can and must do better in the future." He's 100% correct. NPR is white. Polar bear eating a marshmallow at the mayonaise factory white. And the reason it's so white is that it is trying to maintain an affluent listener base (premoniantly older white folks) who will donate money to their stations. This is a great paradox of American public broadcasting, that they have a mandate to express neglected viewpoints and serve marginalized communities, but those folks can't donate money in the amounts that the stations would like to see.

U.S. Muslim Cable TV Channel Aims to Build Bridges- it sounds more positive than it is "Bridges TV" seems to simultaneously be a cable channel pursuing an affluent American Muslim demographic, and a way of building understanding and tolerance among American non-Muslims who might happen to watch the channel's programming. I was hoping it would be aimed more at Muslim's worldwide, but it ain't. Still, I'd be interested in seeing how their news programs cover the issues.

Every Damned Weblog Post Ever- it's funny cuz it's true.

Wikipedia Creators Move Into News- Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, created collectively by thousands of contributors. It's one of those non-profit, decentralized, collective, public projects that show how good the internet can be. Now, the Wikipedia founders are working on a similar project to create a collaborative news portal, with original content. Honestly, it's quite similar to IndyMedia sites (which reminds me, happy 5th birthday, IndyMedia!). I'll admit, I'm a bit skeptical about the Wikinews project, though. IndyMedia sites work because they're local, focused on certain lefty issues, and they're run by activists invested in their beliefs. I'm not sure what would drive Wikinews or how it would hang together.

CBS, NBC ban church ad inviting gays- the United Church of Christ created a TV ad which touts the church's inclusion, even implying that they accept homosexuals into their congregation. Both CBS and NBC are refusing to air the ad. This is not too surprising, as many Americans are uncomfortable about homosexuality, and because TV networks are utter cowards. But CBS' explanation for the ban was odd:

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples...and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast."

Whoa, what? First of all, the ad does not mention marriage at all. Second, since when do positions opposite of the Executive Branch constitute "unacceptable"? This doesn't sound like "we're not airing this because it's controversial", this sounds like "we're afraid of what the President might say."

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