Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6844|North Carolina

Stingray24 wrote:

Plenty of criticism which has continued since the day GWB was elected in 2000.  To theorize that it was "media control" that kept Bush in office is laughable.  The mainstream media is no friend of GWB and neither is most of cable media.  Consider the negative narrative regarding the Iraq war.  That alone proves your theory false.
I think a better argument is that a lot of negative press was sent Kerry's way.  Kerry was a weak candidate to begin with, but it takes far less criticism to scare people away from a challenger than it does from an incumbent.  People generally prefer the devil they know rather than the one they don't.  Fear of the unknown basically trumps all other fears.

Basically, a much stronger argument is that the media isn't biased toward any one political ideology, it's just corporately biased.  Whatever the corporations that own the media want, they get.  Who controls the flow of information basically controls information itself, just like how who counts the votes matters more than the people who vote.
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6850|'Murka

Turquoise wrote:

I guess it's the difference between being wary and being paranoid.
QFT.

Paranoia is what causes people who always cry wolf to not be believed if they ever do find something real.

Not the media.

Not some global conspiracy involving Freemasons and Skull and Bones and the Illuminati.

It's the behavior of these people that causes them to not be believed.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
GunSlinger OIF II
Banned.
+1,860|7082
Why the hell is Canada first?
CommieChipmunk
Member
+488|7009|Portland, OR, USA

FEOS wrote:

Spearhead wrote:

Not much of a conspiracy theorist myself.  But can you really blame people for thinking that way?  I sure don't.  I'd rather be safe than sorry.  Worrying about your civil liberties is never wrong.
There is a significant difference between worrying about your civil liberties and accusing the government and its employees/leadership of nefarious criminal activity during every major crisis.
Well... years down the road we tend to discover that we were right in accusing the government and its employees/leaders of nefarious criminal activity.

WWI started when we sent the Lusitania (a ship loaded with civilians and munitions) into water known to be infested with German subs.. it sunk killing 1,198 people and the public turned against Germany and entering the war was acceptable.

WWII started with Pearl Harbor, and we now know that the president at the time pissed off the Japanese (politically) and ignored a warning from the Australian government about a large Japanese fleet headed towards Hawaii.  Of course after that plenty signed up to fight the good fight.

Vietnam started because of an admitted gimmick.  Some claim the Gulf of Tonkin incident didn't even happen, I think that it did... but it was a provoked attack seeing as we were in enemy waters... and we were 'attacked' be a PT boat.  The Vietnam war, similar it seems to Iraq, was not a war meant to be won, just sustained for as everyone knows war = money.

Aaaaand Iraq, started because of 9/11... if it was in fact terrorists, we did know it was coming but of course "communication between the agencies failed"... and it didn't help that not a single Air Force jet was scrambled though it's standard procedure when a plane goes way off course.  They were involved in a training exercise on the same day and if memory serves I believe it was a similar exercise, resulting in confusion when they were told of an actual terrorist attack.

Going with the whole "war is meant to be sustained not won" deal -- not to long ago British soldiers were detained in a Basra prison after they were caught speeding through the streets with turbans on shooting and yelling.  When the police wouldn't release them to the British, they came in with tanks and took them out.  Some feel that the 'destabilization' of Iraq is due in part to planted terrorists, meant to not only stir up fear but pit the citizens of Iraq against each other. "Divided and Conquer" is the name of the game.

Of course the fact that we've entered many wars because of seemingly planned events could just simply be a coincidence, but if it's not I think that I have every reason to question the the "truths" the government tells me.
FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6850|'Murka

People will always look back and find "connections" to events.

Did the Lusitania get sent into those waters specifically to get it sunk, or to show the Germans that their war was not our war, never thinking they would sink a clearly identified civilian vessel?

Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen, knowing full well that it would result in our entering WW2, or was it simply hoped that the reports were false and that diplomacy with Japan was working?

Aaaand Iraq. No one ever said it started because of 9/11...except the conspiracy theorists. All the "Loose Change" rhetoric and gimmickry won't change the fact that 9/11 wasn't an inside job. And OIF had nothing to do with 9/11, except for a heightened concern over WMD proliferation to terrorists afterward.

As for Basrah...I'm sure there was no alcohol involved in the turban, shoot 'em up incident.

It is far too easy to look back with the benefit of all the time in the world and access to information that was dug up from every conceivable corner of government, focused on by hundreds of analysts looking specifically for indications of a known type, time, place, and cast of an event (because it had already happened)--and looking for absolutely nothing else--to find "connections" and "coincidences" that people will latch on to, looking for some reason other than the most simple: they got us. And that is why they do the post-mortems on these events...to find out what was missed and how, and try to prevent those things from being missed in the future.

Unfortunately, it has the unintended side-effect of: 1) making people think that it was a vast conspiracy by an evil government that is completely inept at everything else it does, yet is somehow brilliant enough to pull off the biggest con ever; and 2) making it easy to ignore the fact that all the knowledge gained during the post-mortem is based on knowing when, where, how, and by whom something happened.

Occam's Razor strikes again.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
ATG
Banned
+5,233|6968|Global Command
This will not be allowed.
CommieChipmunk
Member
+488|7009|Portland, OR, USA

FEOS wrote:

People will always look back and find "connections" to events.

Did the Lusitania get sent into those waters specifically to get it sunk, or to show the Germans that their war was not our war, never thinking they would sink a clearly identified civilian vessel?

Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen, knowing full well that it would result in our entering WW2, or was it simply hoped that the reports were false and that diplomacy with Japan was working?

Aaaand Iraq. No one ever said it started because of 9/11...except the conspiracy theorists. All the "Loose Change" rhetoric and gimmickry won't change the fact that 9/11 wasn't an inside job. And OIF had nothing to do with 9/11, except for a heightened concern over WMD proliferation to terrorists afterward.

As for Basrah...I'm sure there was no alcohol involved in the turban, shoot 'em up incident.

It is far too easy to look back with the benefit of all the time in the world and access to information that was dug up from every conceivable corner of government, focused on by hundreds of analysts looking specifically for indications of a known type, time, place, and cast of an event (because it had already happened)--and looking for absolutely nothing else--to find "connections" and "coincidences" that people will latch on to, looking for some reason other than the most simple: they got us. And that is why they do the post-mortems on these events...to find out what was missed and how, and try to prevent those things from being missed in the future.

Unfortunately, it has the unintended side-effect of: 1) making people think that it was a vast conspiracy by an evil government that is completely inept at everything else it does, yet is somehow brilliant enough to pull off the biggest con ever; and 2) making it easy to ignore the fact that all the knowledge gained during the post-mortem is based on knowing when, where, how, and by whom something happened.

Occam's Razor strikes again.
By all means, lets hope that's the case.

But keeping the government in its place by staying on your toes is much better then letting them rule as they like, in my book, being overly critical will always beat being ignorant and indifferent. 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
krazed
Admiral of the Bathtub
+619|7219|Great Brown North

GunSlinger OIF II wrote:

Why the hell is Canada first?
because we're on top
GunSlinger OIF II
Banned.
+1,860|7082
not if youre looking at the map the other way around
CommieChipmunk
Member
+488|7009|Portland, OR, USA
It flowed better that way... but if you want Mexameranada.. then go for it

Last edited by CommieChipmunk (2007-11-25 15:39:11)

FEOS
Bellicose Yankee Air Pirate
+1,182|6850|'Murka

CommieChipmunk wrote:

By all means, lets hope that's the case.

But keeping the government in its place by staying on your toes is much better then letting them rule as they like, in my book, being overly critical will always beat being ignorant and indifferent. 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No argument from me on that point. Wasn't it Jefferson who said the people shouldn't fear the government, but the government should fear the people?
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
CommieChipmunk
Member
+488|7009|Portland, OR, USA

FEOS wrote:

CommieChipmunk wrote:

By all means, lets hope that's the case.

But keeping the government in its place by staying on your toes is much better then letting them rule as they like, in my book, being overly critical will always beat being ignorant and indifferent. 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No argument from me on that point. Wasn't it Jefferson who said the people shouldn't fear the government, but the government should fear the people?
probably, Jefferson was a wise man, it'd be nice to have a few like him in the government today

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