I hope people have still been coming back to visit my site, now that my finals are over I will be able to spend more time updating this page. I have missed so much, I only hope that I can catch up on everything in this entry.
President Bush gave a speech last week that detailed his master plan for "Victory in Iraq". How people can even believe anything he says is beyond me. However, those on Fox News, who a couple of weeks ago were criticizing him about his 36% approval rating are now again in love with him. It's not because of anything Georgie boy did however, rather because Senator Murtha took a stand that was in direct opposition to the Republican party. I have to give the Republicans credit because credit is due. They are political geniuses, they have spun Senator Murtha's proposal into their idea and at the same time discrediting him. They claim that he is controlled by emotion and thus made an uncharacteristic crazy plan. The Republicans are claiming that the Democrats want to leave Iraq and lose while they want to leave Iraq as well but they want to do it in victory. What victory? Is it taking down a country that was seeking to attain weapons of mass destruction? No. How about bringing safety from opression and terror of an evil dictator? Well, sort of. It's no longer from a dictator.
Back to President Bush, his administration, and the propaganda and lies they spit out. How smart is the Republican party? As we all know Bush has never said flat out that there are ties between September 11, Al Queda, and Iraq. However, what he and his cronies have done is often times put them in the same sentence. This allows the administration to thwart any attacks by democrats while still manipulating public opinion. The most common example is the percentage of Americans who believed Iraq had something to do with the attacks on September 11. Directly after 9/11, only 3 percent of Americans polled believed that Iraq and Saddam had any connection to the attack. In January of 2003, after Bush creatively claimed there was no connection, 44 % of Americans believed that "most" or "some" of the hijackers were from Iraq despite the fact that none of them were.
So you may wonder why this is important now. For one thing, Bush continues to claim that he is a leader that is protecting the United States, somehow he managed to prove this in the last election over a highly decorated Vietnam Vet. However, who is to say that if he read his Presidential Daily Briefs prior to 9/11 that the threat couldn't have been stopped. But even if it couldn't, it must be noted that invading Iraq has actually increased the rise of terrorism in the Middle East. And now, where there was little, if not any, terrorism taking place(Iraq) there now is. Secondly, just a couple of days ago the 9/11 commission came out and said that we are no safer today from terrorist attacks, and "God help us" when there is another attack. Notice that I said when not if, just as the commission did.
What's interesting is how the Republicans get the citizens to believe these lies. As I pointed out earlier, one way is to link ideas without delibertly connecting. Another way is to have your entire party go on different news channels and shows and spit out the same rhetoric and propaganda. For those of us, like myself, that do not have enough time to watch the news 24/7, thankfully the Daily Show usually sums them up once a week. Another trick they use is to demonize words and actions. For example, somehow the words "secular" and "liberal" have become associated with evil. The Democrats have actually aided them in the effort by changing their label to "progressives". They also label moral decisions as "flip-flopping". I don't know about you but when I make a mistake in judgement and realize it, I try my best to correct that mistake. If this is flip-flopping, then wouldn't all born again Christians be flip-floppers including our current President? Not to mention that Kerry along with many other democrats who allegedly voted for the war actually voted to give the President authority to go to war as a last result. The President said he would go as a last result and then did not. Thus, in response Kerry and those other Democrats called it an unjust war only to be labeled as a flip-flopper when it was the President who flip-flopped on his promise.
As if that wasn't enough for one missed week, then it was released that the government has been paying newspapers and journalists in Iraq to publish US-friendly articles. Apparently it isn't enough to lie to the American public about how well the war is going, now we need to tell the Iraqi's how great their life is, especially those with missing limbs or worse missing family members. It's interesting to see how upset we are that over 2,000 US soldiers have died in Iraq. Just think how upset the Iraqi's are that according to, "a military analyst at the Brookings Institution who has closely followed the war's casualties, said an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Iraqis have been killed each month." There was an estimated 30,000 deaths as of October.
Wow, and I didn't even talk about the secret torture jails, our acceptance and use of torture, or Bush's lie about why the Middle East hates us, because we're free and prosperous. I guess I'll have to come back tomorrow.
President Bush gave a speech last week that detailed his master plan for "Victory in Iraq". How people can even believe anything he says is beyond me. However, those on Fox News, who a couple of weeks ago were criticizing him about his 36% approval rating are now again in love with him. It's not because of anything Georgie boy did however, rather because Senator Murtha took a stand that was in direct opposition to the Republican party. I have to give the Republicans credit because credit is due. They are political geniuses, they have spun Senator Murtha's proposal into their idea and at the same time discrediting him. They claim that he is controlled by emotion and thus made an uncharacteristic crazy plan. The Republicans are claiming that the Democrats want to leave Iraq and lose while they want to leave Iraq as well but they want to do it in victory. What victory? Is it taking down a country that was seeking to attain weapons of mass destruction? No. How about bringing safety from opression and terror of an evil dictator? Well, sort of. It's no longer from a dictator.
Back to President Bush, his administration, and the propaganda and lies they spit out. How smart is the Republican party? As we all know Bush has never said flat out that there are ties between September 11, Al Queda, and Iraq. However, what he and his cronies have done is often times put them in the same sentence. This allows the administration to thwart any attacks by democrats while still manipulating public opinion. The most common example is the percentage of Americans who believed Iraq had something to do with the attacks on September 11. Directly after 9/11, only 3 percent of Americans polled believed that Iraq and Saddam had any connection to the attack. In January of 2003, after Bush creatively claimed there was no connection, 44 % of Americans believed that "most" or "some" of the hijackers were from Iraq despite the fact that none of them were.
So you may wonder why this is important now. For one thing, Bush continues to claim that he is a leader that is protecting the United States, somehow he managed to prove this in the last election over a highly decorated Vietnam Vet. However, who is to say that if he read his Presidential Daily Briefs prior to 9/11 that the threat couldn't have been stopped. But even if it couldn't, it must be noted that invading Iraq has actually increased the rise of terrorism in the Middle East. And now, where there was little, if not any, terrorism taking place(Iraq) there now is. Secondly, just a couple of days ago the 9/11 commission came out and said that we are no safer today from terrorist attacks, and "God help us" when there is another attack. Notice that I said when not if, just as the commission did.
What's interesting is how the Republicans get the citizens to believe these lies. As I pointed out earlier, one way is to link ideas without delibertly connecting. Another way is to have your entire party go on different news channels and shows and spit out the same rhetoric and propaganda. For those of us, like myself, that do not have enough time to watch the news 24/7, thankfully the Daily Show usually sums them up once a week. Another trick they use is to demonize words and actions. For example, somehow the words "secular" and "liberal" have become associated with evil. The Democrats have actually aided them in the effort by changing their label to "progressives". They also label moral decisions as "flip-flopping". I don't know about you but when I make a mistake in judgement and realize it, I try my best to correct that mistake. If this is flip-flopping, then wouldn't all born again Christians be flip-floppers including our current President? Not to mention that Kerry along with many other democrats who allegedly voted for the war actually voted to give the President authority to go to war as a last result. The President said he would go as a last result and then did not. Thus, in response Kerry and those other Democrats called it an unjust war only to be labeled as a flip-flopper when it was the President who flip-flopped on his promise.
As if that wasn't enough for one missed week, then it was released that the government has been paying newspapers and journalists in Iraq to publish US-friendly articles. Apparently it isn't enough to lie to the American public about how well the war is going, now we need to tell the Iraqi's how great their life is, especially those with missing limbs or worse missing family members. It's interesting to see how upset we are that over 2,000 US soldiers have died in Iraq. Just think how upset the Iraqi's are that according to, "a military analyst at the Brookings Institution who has closely followed the war's casualties, said an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Iraqis have been killed each month." There was an estimated 30,000 deaths as of October.
Wow, and I didn't even talk about the secret torture jails, our acceptance and use of torture, or Bush's lie about why the Middle East hates us, because we're free and prosperous. I guess I'll have to come back tomorrow.
