Bill Ayers speaks out! An In These Times exclusive.

Strangers to the Truth

By Joel Bleifuss

Coming soon to a media market near you: The GOP (Grand Old Prevaricators), who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, have been test-marketing another TV ad campaign. The fabrication this time: the war in Iraq. The target: any Democratic candidate who speaks out against the U.S. mission during the mid-term elections. The venue for the test… return to article

  • subscribe to print magazine

  • Zoom OutZoom In Reader Comments (5)

    Page 1 of 1 pages

    when you put goebels and bush together it is sadly striking how stupid we have become. goebels was smart and eloquent: bush is a vacant sign. what has happened to us. we kill for the likes of evolutionary nulls like bush. we deserve everything that is coming to us. we are really too stupid to be alive. if we didn’t have the elite terrorists killing to protect our wretched freedom, we would already be dead, but we are as good as dead already.

    United States Posted by dougshaeffer on Mar 26, 2006 at 8:40 AM

    What we need to do is wake up out of our Post 9/11 Stress Disorder, which makes us look to a protector figure for safety and mutes our collective rational faculties.

    Ah, rational faculties! If only they were considered as admirable as having augmented tits or a fat bank account!

    If throwing down with al Qaeda had been the primary agenda, that fight was in Afghanistan. Whatever other justifications might be cited in regards to the Iraq War, beating up on al Qaeda isn’t one of them.

    And dougshaeffer, in response to your question, “what has happened to us”, the answer in part is that for years Americans have emphasized 1) entertainment rather than knowledge, 2) coddling of adolescent feelings rather than the training of incisive minds in schools, and 3) the convenience of sound-bite journalism, rather than insisting upon informative reporting that includes critical analysis of the world’s complexities in an honest and “uncooked” manner. In that context, is anything that we’re seeing, with the easy and liberal use of misinformation, really that surprising? Seems like the market for such is large and growing, more’s the pity.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Mar 28, 2006 at 1:37 AM

    kuya, i agree with your assessment. my question “what has happened to us” i guess is rhetorical. like waking up to the fact that our lives are constructed and mostly not by us, yet we are still somehow us and must stay awake.
    re al queda afghanistan, we had to get the opium flowing again. our first priority was to free the drug trade from taliban control at least as i understand it wall street was jonesing bad.

    United States Posted by dougshaeffer on Mar 28, 2006 at 9:51 AM

    Goebbels is quoted:

    “It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

    What’s missing from this rather selective piece of journalism is the fact that the folks upset about this ad are themselves following Goebells’ advice in the area of repressing dissent, exactly as did the Kerry campaign in its efforts to silence the Swiftvets and others who simply wished to exercise their supposed rights of free speech in attempting to convey their own recollections of John Kerry’s “heroism” in Vietnam.

    E-mail message from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, demonstrating its “powers to repress dissent”:

    Dear DFLer,

    I’ve heard from many of you that you are disturbed by the misleading “Midwest Heroes” ads produced by Progress for America Voter Fund that are currently being run by KARE 11 and WCCO. The ads erroneously make a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists attacks and suggest that the war in Iraq will prevent an attack by Al Queda in America. The 9/11 Commission findings clearly state that there was no connection between Iraq and the the Al Queda terrorists attacks on 9/11. We must call for media responsibility regarding this issue. We have extraordinary sympathy for our troops and their families and believe that while our soldiers’ role is to protect the citizens of our country, it is our role as citizens to protect our soldiers and to make certain that they are not misused. It is a travesty that the tragedies of five countries and the deaths of our brave men and women are being used in this type of propaganda.

    Right now, our state is a testing ground for these ads. If Minnesota speaks out and says no to this ad, the entire country can thank us. What we do here, now, will have an enormous impact on the success or failure of this kind of swiftboating in 06.

    You can view the ads at: http://www.midwestheroes.com/

    Additionally, WCCO did a Reality Check stating that the ad is misleading and partly true, which in my mind means that it is partly false. See it at: http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=14609@wcco.dayport.com

    If you feel that this ad is doing a disservice to our troops and is misleading at best, and pure propaganda at worst, please call:

    KARE 11 at 763 546 1111

    WCCO at 612 370 0611

    to ask for the removal of the ads. Letters to the Editor in your local paper would be helpful to point out the untruths being communicated to citizens as fact. Thanks in advance for being a voice of truth, and for all that you do to improve the state of our nation and state.

    DFL Chair Brian Melendez will be holding a press conference at the State Capitol today at 2:30 to ask that this ad be pulled from the air waves. He will be joined by congressional candidate and veteran Tim Walz. Please tune in to your evening news to see coverage of this important event.

    Sincerely,

    Donna
    Donna Cassutt, Associate Chair,
    Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

    Criticizing the ad’s content is fine.  However, calling for their removal appears to me to be an admission that they are unable to do so effectively. 

    What’s that little reference to freedom of speech again?  Constitution or some such?

    United States Posted by Natalie on Mar 29, 2006 at 2:42 AM

    Per Natalie’s post below, one of the reason’s Kerry lost in 2004 was that he DID NOT effectively challenge the lies and distortions coming from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  (Hah! that’s a good one!  “Truth”!!!)

    Perhaps poor Natalie’s been living on Mars, or in Mississippi, for that matter, for it’s hard to see how she - or anyone else in America - could have missed how Karl Rove and his happy band of lying thugs have been playing right out of Goebbel’s playbook.  George Dumbya’s administration takes unbridled glee in squashing dissent, limiting all Q&A;opportunities to pre-screened Stepford Citizens and mislabelling anyone who disagrees with them as “traitors.” The fact that she’s at least reading “In These Times” speaks better for her than most of the Shiite Right who rely on the likes of Rush Limbore and his ilk for news, but like most of them, she misses the point entirely:  television stations have no obligation to air BULLSHIT, and that’s exactly what these ads are.

    United States Posted by davetimp on Mar 29, 2006 at 4:36 PM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

  • register a new account »Posting Security

    To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.
     

    Retreive lost password »

Article Appeared in this Issue

Full contents
Past issues

Popular Discussions