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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/22/2008 2:15:26 PM |
"Reality" is a product of what you see and hear, and how it's presented to you, and who presents it
It's also a byproduct of what you don't see and don't hear, and who and how that also is not presented to you:
The authors of the incendiary new book "Into the Buzzsaw" have won nearly every journalism award possible, yet all were censorsed for challenging corporate or government power.
18 Tales of Media Censorship
"""...Indeed, some of the writers in Buzzsaw say that, before their own experiences, they were among the scoffers. Webb writes, "If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me ... I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite?"...
...The routine marginalizing of media critics is one reason "Into the Buzzsaw" is so important. It might be possible to discredit one erstwhile insider, but to argue that more than a dozen veterans of organizations like CBS News, CNN, The AP, The BBC and The San Jose Mercury News are all crazy in exactly the same way would be to engage in conspiracy-mongering more far-fetched than anything these authors are accused of....
http://www.alternet.org/story/12753/?page=2
http://skepdic.com/refuge/buzzsaw.html
http://www.paraview.com/borjesson/
"""...Writing in riveting, often gut-wrenching detail about their personal experiences with the “buzzsaw”—concerted corporate and/or government efforts to kill their controversial stories and their careers—the contributors reveal the awesome depth and breadth of censorship in America today. Their essays portray a press corps that regularly engages in self-censorship and attacks reporters who come under fire for not doing so. They describe a Fourth Estate that has largely relinquished its watchdog role and that has been co-opted by corporate and government powers.
The bigger picture is that of a press actively contributing to the demise of democracy in America.
By virtue of the content of their first-person accounts and the fact that they are of the highest caliber and have virtually centuries of experience among them, the contributors to Into the Buzzsaw have created the equivalent of a nuclear event in American journalism...
Anyone who wants to know what’s really going on in our nation’s corridors of power, or who reads or watches the news on a regular basis, should read this book. One thing is certain: anyone who reads this book will never again see or hear the news in the same way.
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/site/catalog/book_1188.html
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I suppose we could trot a couple of these old chestnuts out as well:
BUYING THE WAR
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html
or:
A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies," Cheney told Americans just after 9/11. He warned the public that the government would have to operate on the "dark side."
"The Dark Side,"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/view/#morelink
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or our old friend Peter Lance (PL):
"""...But you still had a number of unanswered questions.
PL: That’s right. And the 9/11 Commission – before which I testified – told only a fragment of the full story – focusing on the years 1998 forward. In fact, a former SDNY prosecutor named Dietrich Snell, — who had prosecuted Yousef for Bojinka in 1996 — became the senior counsel to the Commission in charge of determining the “origin of the plot.”
This was the single most important determination the Commission could make because, if you can’t pinpoint when the “planes as missiles” plot began, you can’t
fairly hold U.S. counterterrorism officials accountable for failing to prevent it.
Snell had prosecuted Yousef in the case where that 1996 treasure trove of intelligence was buried. So he was a walking conflict of interest. It was Snell, indeed, who took my “testimony” on March 15th, 2004 in a windowless conference room at 26 Federal Plaza – the HQ of the FBI’s NYO where the Commission had offices.
In the end, Snell reduced the reams of once classified material I gave the Commission from the Philippines National Police to a footnote in the final report. And then he pushed the plot original forward two years from Manila to Afghanistan, claiming falsely that KSM had merely “pitched” the plot to bin Laden and that, at the
time he wasn’t even a member of al Qaeda...
MC: But why would responsible FBI and DOJ officials bury evidence of Yousef’s connection to the 9/11 plot or this 1996 “treasure trove?”
PL: The answers are in COVER UP. But I needed further proof to connect the dots and that’s why I woke up one day and realized that Ali Mohamed was the real key.
..MC: In 1000 Years, and Cover Up you exposed a multitude of mistakes and acts of willful subterfuge on the part of FBI/CIA agents and prosecutors, but with the exception of Special Agent in Charge Carson Dunbar’s disastrous intervention into the case of informant Emad Salem, Triple Cross is the first time you’ve really written about anyone in positions of real power.
...How have the last five years affected your outlook, do you feel that this time was well spent, and what would you do differently if you had the chance?
PL: I don’t have a single regret. I feel privileged to be able to use the skills I’ve developed over 30+ years as an investigative reporter to cover the most important story of our era and to cover it in the kind of depth any daily deadline reporter can only dream of.
My hope is that people will find TRIPLE CROSS and then go back and access my first two books (1000 YEARS FOR REVENGE and COVER UP) books, that I hope won’t only educate them to the al Qaeda threat but make them smart about how utterly the FBI and Justice Department played catch up all of those years – from the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in February, 1989 up through 9/11 and beyond.
The only change will come when the public is sufficiently informed, then angered and finally motivated to act. The first step is getting the intelligence to the people and TRIPLE CROSS does that – naming names and focusing the laser beam of accountability like no other book relating to the greatest mass murder in U.S. history – the ultimate “cold case,” 9/11.
http://www.1115.org/2006/12/15/peter-lance-triple-cross/
The only change will come when the public is sufficiently informed, then angered and finally motivated to act.
Good luck with that Mr. Lance.
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msg25:
President:...These candidates are pre-selected by special interests in the USA before anyone even gets to vote. The news media is one of those special interests.
Ain't that the truth. Anyone that doesn't believe that to be the truth just didn't pay attention this past winter to the blatant media ostracization of a candidate by the name of Ron Paul. Darn shame that lots and lots of people never even heard tell of him even to this day. Whether they would have voted for him or not is a whole nuther can of eggs, but at least they could have made more informed decisions had they been imbued with the least amount of personal initiative to begin with. But that's not really the goal is it now? Keep 'em undernutritioned and genetically mutated with that wonderful food they sell in grocery stores these days, overworked, underedumacated and glued to their idiot boxes. Mushroom management. Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em lots of horsesh1t. Good patriotic horsesh1t though mind you.
"Reality" is a product of what you see and hear, and how it's presented to you, and who presents it
Yes indeed.
"""So...
So you think you can tell
Heaven from hell
blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail...
A smile from a veil...
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade...
your heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze, cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
a walk on part in the wall,
for a lead role in a cage?..."""
...just two lost souls
swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground,
what have we found?
...the same old fears...."""
NO MORE EXCUSES Tour ~ reunion tour
Wish You Were Here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvH127PFmcY&feature=related
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/22/2008 2:39:00 PM | Journalism has failed in this country, and the world for that matter. The lies broadcast by the extremely biased liberal medias are now the perceived truth.
Well ontour don't forget about the rabid right wing liars, erm I mean journalists. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/22/2008 4:15:44 PM | Just look at that famous toppling of Saddam's statue "commercial".
Probably most of you saw the news clips of that incident, the one where the people of Iraq followed the lead of the old Soviet Bloc's citizens - and went out and defiantly destroyed that statue in celebration of their new life as free citizens ?
Ever see the other angle of that shot ?
http://media.consumercide.com/saddamstatue.html
That statue was right outside the Palestine Hotel - a media center. The number of Iraqis present were minimal, and the square was surrounded by US troops and tanks. Most of the Iraqi's you do see are members of the Chalabli led "Free Iraq Forces Militia", and not some average guy walking the streets in Baghdad.
Those Iraqis are outnumbered by the American troops and journalists there for the event. 
So it really is an "infomercial" to give the American viewing audience an "iconic" image to lock onto.
Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein was a staged event, by U.S. soldiers, for the media. A Reuters long-shot of Firdos Square where the statue was located (see below) shows that the Square was nearly empty when Saddam was torn down. The Square was sealed off by the U.S. military. The 200 people milling about were U.S. Marines, international press and Iraqis. However, the media portrayed it as an event of the Iraqi people.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=
Toppling_the_statue_of_Saddam_Hussein
Remember those Kuwati babies being taken out of incubators, and left to die, during the lead in to Desert Storm ? That testimony of a crying nurse who witnesses all of the horror ? 
To bad it never happened.....
The Kuwait government had to find a way to "sell the war" to the American public, who were interested, but not deeply involved. So under the auspices of a group called Citizen for a Free Kuwait, which was really the Kuwait government in exile (the group received almost $12 million from the Kuwaiti government, and only $17,000 from others, according to author John R. MacArthur) the American PR firm Hill & Knowlton was hired for $10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Craig Fuller, the firm's president and COO, had been then-President George Bush's chief of staff when the senior Bush has served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. The move made a lot of sense – after all, access to power is everything in Washington and the Hill & Knowlton people had lots of that.
It's wasn't an easy sell. After all, Kuwait was hardly a "freedom-loving land." Only a few weeks before the invasion, Amnesty International accused the Kuwaiti government of jailing dozens of dissidents and torturing them without trial. In an effort to spruce up the Kuwait image, the company organized Kuwait Information Day on 20 college campuses, a national day of prayer for Kuwait, distributed thousands of "Free Kuwait" bumper stickers, and other similar traditional PR ventures. But none of it was working very well. American public support remained lukewarm the first two months.
According to MacArthur's book "Second Front," the first mention of babies being removed from incubators appeared in the Sept. 5 edition of the London Daily Telegraph. The paper ran a claim by the exiled Kuwait housing minister that, "babies in the premature unit of one of the hospitals had been removed from their incubators, so that these, too, could be carried off." Two days later, the LA Times carried a Reuter's story that quoted an American (first name only) who said, among other things, that babies were being taken from incubators, although she herself had not seen it happen.
From there it began to pick up steam, as one media unit after another started repeating the story without checking it. Sensing an opening, the Hill & Knowlton people jumped on the story.
The key moment occurred on October 10, when a young woman named Nayirah appeared in front of a congressional committee. She told the committee, "I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Hill & Knowlton immediately faxed details of her speech to newsrooms across the country, according to CBC's Fifth Estate's documentary. The effect was electric. The babies in incubator stories became a lead item in newspapers, and on radio and TV all over the US.
It is interesting that no one – not the congressmen in the hearing, or any journalist present – bothered to find out the identity of the young woman. She was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and actually hadn't seen the "atrocities" she described take place. (When later confronted with the lack of evidence for her claims, the young woman said that she hadn't been in the hospital herself, but that a friend who had been there had told her about it.)
Similar unsubstantiated stories appeared at the UN a few weeks later, where a team of "witnesses," coached by Hill&Knowlton, gave "testimony" (although no oath was ever taken) about atrocities in Iraq. It was later learned that the seven witnesses used false names and even identities in one case. In an unprecedented move, the US was allowed to present a video created by Hill & Knowlton to the entire security council.
But no journalist bothered to look into these witnesses' claims. As Susan B. Trento wrote in her book, "The Power House," an in-depth look at Hill & Knowlton, "The diplomats, the congressmen, and the senators wanted something to support their positions. The media wanted visual, interesting stories."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html
False testimony, from false witnesses, and no one gets prosecuted for fraud. The war drums beat louder, and the crowd claps along.
PR companies, governments, and the media all working hand in hand for the same cause - as Diogenes walks by without stopping. 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
- George Orwell
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_orwell.html
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/22/2008 5:08:17 PM | yea ~ and the one that gets my Irish up ~ the little blond driver that got seperated from her convey and route ~ ending up with over half of them dead ~ or was it all but her?
then this daring special forces ~ extraction/ rescue ~
~ a single gain of truth ~ expanded like popcorn ~~
That story stank ~ the first time ~ I heard it ~~ it sounded sooo ~ Hollywood.
~ and in the end ~ thats what it was ~~ Dance | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/22/2008 7:03:55 PM | Great Thread and topic by the way ~ The truth~ and search for the truth has been strong on manys mind of late, me being no exception.
As MG has seemed to frame the issue so nicely for us to see~ We have highly skilled "Truth Miesters" among us ~ since 1928 in fact ~ and like a highly skilled attorney ~ They take a position and argue a point of question. ~And ~ like all other skills , it can be developed , honed to a fine edge and disassembled and all it's different parts exposed and inspected ~ it's not magic ~ and has nothing to do with truth, fair or justice. ~ Purely salemanship ~ Good Salemanship requires a few things ~ supply and demand ~ and a absence of knowledge on someones part ~and personal gain. ~ Face it ~~if we knew everything ~ we'd cut out the middleman. ~~ Think about it ~ what did you ever buy ~~ that wasn't sold to you.
What the American people are just waking up too ~is the fact ~~ it's been used on them ~ by their governing body! ~~ Oh Dear! ~ No Deer , run to fast, legs to long, ass to high!
They employe many, many tools ~ and many, many people ~ until the sheer weight of the current flow ~ takes over ~ and it is then ~~ that this flowing concept ~ flows on it's own. ~ The people have taken up a banner ~ and some fall on their swords in perceived disgrace ~~ other run jublant in the streets ~ we have a "BANNER"
There was times, ~ a few years back ~ you couldn't get a liberal to raise their hand ~ they were so successful with this, this ~ Illusion of truth, The path chosen was "right" and not to be questioned if you believed in God and Country.
Labeling ~ is a great tool ~ it describe and identify an preceived evil ~ and the people pick it up and we use it on each other! ~~ We are so smart! ~ We go around labeling and mislabeling ~ until no one ~ know anything for certain ~ we are just attacking any desending opinion or vote. ~
The label only need be spoken ~~ and some go on the attack ~ others go in retreat or defence.
We are still getting a huge amount of labeling ~(programing) there is many, many people here on the forums ~that can't even express their ideas or views without a blanket label of some group of people. ~
If you find yourself being one of these people ~~ I ask you to ~~ stop and think about it for a minute. ~ Can you express your views and opinions without the "crutch" of a label? ~ This label? ~ you borrowed from somewhere?
If it wasn't so sad ~~ it'd be funny.!!
Dance | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/24/2008 5:11:28 PM | Dance, you are referring to Jessica Lynch, of course, but what kind of liberal, leftist claptrap of "truthiness" can one expect from the NY Times, anyway?:
"""""Jessica Lynch disputes army account of dramatic rescue
In her first public statements since her rescue in Iraq, Jessica Lynch criticized the military for exaggerating accounts of her rescue and recasting her ordeal as a patriotic fable.
Asked by the ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer if the military's portrayal of the rescue bothered her, Lynch said: "Yeah, it does. It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. Yeah, it's wrong," according to a partial transcript of the interview to be broadcast on Tuesday.
After months of retreating from the news media, Lynch will be a ubiquitous presence next week. In addition to her appearance on ABC's "Primetime," she will be on the cover of Time magazine, and NBC will broadcast a movie based on an Iraqi's account of her ordeal.
On Tuesday, the book publisher Knopf will release an account of her experience, "I Am a Soldier, Too," written with her cooperation by a former reporter for The New York Times, Rick Bragg.
The book has already added another lurid indignity to the public accounts of her capture. The book reports that Lynch's military doctors found injuries consistent with sexual assault but unlikely to have resulted from the Humvee crash that caused for her other wounds, suggesting that she was raped after her capture.
Lynch, who was unconscious immediately after the Humvee crash and her capture, does not remember any such assault, according to people who have talked to her and read the book.
Those details of the book's contents were first reported Thursday in The New York Daily News. Nancy Gibbs, a writer for Time magazine, said that she had independently confirmed the doctors' description of Lynch's injuries.
In the book and in the interviews, Lynch says others' accounts of her heroism often left her feeling hurt and ashamed because of what she says was overstatement.
First, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq told journalists that soldiers exchanged fire during her rescue, without adding that Iraqi soldiers had already abandoned the hospital, and the military released a green-tinted night-vision film of the mission, adding to the drama.
Then news organizations began repeating reports that she heroically resisted capture, emptying her gun as she fired at her attackers. Finally, an Iraqi lawyer who provided information leading to her rescue told journalists that he had seen her mistreated and slapped by her captors, and he sold the rights to a book about her experience based on his account.
But subsequent disclosures have cast doubt on all those details. Lynch was injured by the crash of her vehicle, her weapon jammed before she could fire, the Iraqi doctors treated her kindly, and the hospital was already in friendly hands when her rescuers arrived.
Asked how she felt about the reports of her heroism, Lynch told Sawyer: "It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that, because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell the story. So I would have been the only one able to say, Yeah, I went down shooting. But I didn't."
Asked about claims that the military exaggerated the danger of the rescue mission, Lynch said, "Yeah, I don't think it happened quite like that," although she added that in that context anybody would have approached the hospital well-armed. She continued: "I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say the things they, you know, all I know was that I was in that hospital hurting. I needed help."
Lt. Col. Rivers Johnson, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, declined to comment on Lynch's views. But he said, "Essentially, the mission to rescue Jessica Lynch demonstrated America's resolve to account for all of its missing service members."
He added that the rescue had been conducted under the appropriate procedures for a fluid situation like the war in Iraq. "You always plan for the worst."
Lynch also disputed statements by Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer, that he saw her captors slap her.
"From the time I woke up in that hospital, no one beat me, no one slapped me, no one, nothing," Lynch told Sawyer, adding, "I'm so thankful for those people, because that's why I'm alive today."
Jeff Coplon, who helped Rehaief write his book, "Because Each Life Is Precious," said it was possible that both he and Lynch were telling the truth in their divergent accounts.
"One of the questions that could arise in the wake of this kind of trauma is that someone could believe they remember everything and their memory could still be incomplete," Coplon said.""" | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/24/2008 10:01:54 PM |
Whatever happened to TRUTH?
My truth ? Your truth ?
There is only TRUTH ....
I believe the truth can certainly be supressed as is happening , and has happened , rampantly and across the board in our modern " politically correct " society .
The truth goes through cycles , but , it always bounces back .
The truth can not be beaten . | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/24/2008 10:19:50 PM |
Journalism has failed in this country, and the world for that matter. The lies broadcast by the extremely biased liberal medias are now the perceived truth.
True , but , the internet is changing all of that .
Hopefully , and for everyone's sake , the internet will remain free of censorship . | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:21:11 AM | And lest we forget the glorious invasion of Grenada by our glorious leader, Ronald Reagan, here is a nice little read about it for the younger folks:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2003/10grenada.htm
Some quotes:
"""One of the tiny island nations that grew out of the British colonies in the eastern Caribbean, Grenada--like its neighbors--was populated by descendents of black African slaves. The original inhabitants, the Carib Indians, were wiped out during the early stages of colonialism. Receiving independence in 1974, the island was ruled initially by the despotic and eccentric Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy, whose murderous secret police--known as the Mongoose Squad--and his passion for flying saucers, the occult, and extra-terrestrial communication had brought him notoriety throughout the hemisphere.
On March 13, 1979, in an almost bloodless coup, a young attorney named Maurice Bishop seized power with the backing of the New Jewel Movement. They proceeded to impose an ambitious socialist program on the island inspired at least as much by Bob Marley as Karl Marx. In the next four years, while most Caribbean nations suffered terribly from worldwide recession, Grenada achieved a 9% cumulative growth rate. Unemployment dropped from 49% to 14%. The government diversified agriculture, developed cooperatives, and created an agri-industrial base that led to a reduction of the percentage of food and total imports from over 40% to 28% at a time when market prices for agricultural products were collapsing worldwide.
The literary rate, already at a respectable 85%, grew to about 98%, comparable to or higher than most industrialized countries. A free health care and secondary education system were established, the number of secondary schools tripled, and scores of Grenadans received scholarships for studies abroad. There were ambitious programs in the development of the fishing industry, handicrafts, housing, tourism, the expansion of roads and transport systems, and the upgrading of public utilities.
What excited many in the American progressive community was the government's openness to decentralization and appropriate technology, which allowed small-scale American entrepreneurs access to development planning alongside those preferring a more traditional, centralized, capital-intensive model. It was an accessible revolution, close by and carried out by English-speaking people influenced more by Black Power and New Left politics than by Soviet-style communism. ""
"""Reports from the Washington Post indicated that since 1981 the CIA had engaged in efforts to destabilize the Grenadan government politically and economically. In August 1981, U.S. armed forces staged a mock invasion of Grenada on the island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico. As in the real invasion that would come later, paratroopers secured key points on the Grenada-sized island followed by a marine amphibious assault with air and naval support, totaling almost 10, 000 troops. Striking similarities in the geographic code names during the exercise to actual locations on Grenada were hardly coincidental. It is not unreasonable to assume that a U.S. invasion of Grenada was planned at least two years prior to the revolution's self-destruction, which gave the United States the excuse it had been waiting for. """
""""Particular concern was expressed over the fate of 800 American students at the U.S.-run St. George’s University School of Medicine. The safe arrival in the United States of the initial group of happy and relieved students evacuated from Grenada resulted in excellent photo opportunities for the administration. It appears, however, that the students’ lives were never actually in any danger prior to the invasion itself.
Grenadan and Cuban officials had met only days earlier with administrators of the American medical school and guaranteed the students’ safety. Urgent requests by the State Department’s Milan Bish to medical school officials that they publicly request U.S. military intervention to protect the students were refused. Five hundred parents of the medical students cabled President Reagan to insist he not take any “precipitous action.” Staff members from the U.S. embassy in Barbados visited Grenada and saw no need to evacuate the students.
The medical school’s chancellor, Charles Modica, polled students and found that 90% did not want to be evacuated. Despite repeated inquiries as to whether Washington was considering military action, he was told nothing of the sort was being considered. As the invasion commenced, Dr. Modica angrily denounced the invasion as totally unnecessary and a far greater risk to the students’ safety than Grenada’s domestic crisis. Vice-chancellor Geoffrey Bourne and Bursar Gary Solin also declared their steadfast opposition. The U.S. media focused great attention on the students who were first evacuated and “debriefed” by U.S. officials who generally supported the invasion. However, virtually no attention was given to those who stayed behind, who tended to be more familiar with the island and who largely opposed U.S. intervention. There were no confirmed reports of any American civilians harmed or threatened before or during the invasion. It was three days after U.S. troops initially landed before they decided to take control of the second medical school campus, raising questions as to whether the safety of Americans was really the foremost priority. """
Aftermath:
""""In Grenada during the ensuing months, the mass organizations were dismantled, the labor unions were re-organized, over half of all medical personnel were expelled, investment and tax codes were revised to favor foreign investment, and cooperatives and states enterprises were sold to private interests. Billboards that had inspired the population to work for justice, equality, development, and national sovereignty were quickly replaced by those designed to inspire them to buy American consumer products.
The quality of life for most islanders deteriorated in the period following the invasion despite infusions of American aid. This was most apparent in the health care field, where not a single pediatrician remained in this country where 60% of the population was under 25, nor was there a single psychiatrist to care for 180 mental patients. (Seventeen patients and one staff member were killed when the U.S. bombed the mental hospital during the invasion.)
The U.S. invasion of Grenada prompted witch-hunts throughout the Caribbean for those with leftist sympathies. Countries that thought they had the right as sovereign nations to receive economic and military assistance from whomever they pleased realized they had to reconsider. The day after the invasion, for example, Suriname closed down the Cuban embassy in its capital and expelled its diplomats.
Upon taking over the island, most foreign doctors, teachers, and other civilians were summarily arrested and expelled by U.S. officials. Shortly after the invasion, U.S. forces raided and ransacked the Pope Paul Ecumenical Center due to its supposedly "subversive activities" of aiding the poor. Hundreds of Grenadans were held for months without charge. Some suspects were shackled and blindfolded in violation of Hague Convention standards on the treatment of prisoners of war. The island's only radio station was taken over by the U.S. Navy. The right of free assembly was seriously curtailed, the press was censored, and writ of habeus corpus was abolished.
Over the next several years, U.S. forces loosened their grip and allowed for popular elections. Grenada has joined other small Caribbean islands under the leadership of a conservative and corrupt elite. The current center-right government, for example, has engaged in some major irregularities in awarding contracts for public works projects to foreign investors with criminal ties and has set up offshore banking operations with little oversight. Although Grenada's economy has been expanding, poverty is widespread, and it appears that the country has little choice but to follow the neoliberal orthodoxy dictated by Washington and its allied international financial institutions. """"
God, we hate societies that are successful and dont follow our way of life........eeewww.
And didnt it feel good to "save the students", especially after we left Viet Nam with our tail tween our legs? It sure did..........even if it was just a little tropical island. ....any port in a storm, eh? | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:33:00 AM | | I think you could put the "Bilderbergs" into this category. Evil bunch of people who care for no one but their supposed divine right to rule | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/26/2008 11:25:50 AM | OK, heres a little example: health care in Iraq.
This is from the White House, a pretty rosy picture painted in 2004:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040223-1.html
"""After years of neglect under Saddam Hussein, Iraq is modernizing health services. The Ministry of Health's 2004 budget is nearly $1 billion, which is nearly 6,000 percent more than what Saddam spent on health care. All 240 hospitals and more than 1,200 primary health clinics are treating patients. Teams of biomedical experts are visiting hospitals to help repair and upgrade medical equipment. As a result of these investments, more and more Iraqis are gaining access to improved health care services. " Source: Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad
Now here is another report: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2967/
"""Pre-Gulf War Iraq was “believed to have the best health care system in the Mideast, so it had enough altitude that it could fall some and still survive,” says Gilbert Burnham, principal author of the Johns Hopkins survey.
Today, the country’s health care is in free fall. Most of the $1 billion that Washington transfused into the medical system has bled out through the open wounds of wars. Of the 34,000 doctors in Iraq at the time of the invasion, more than half are gone. Most fled the country; 2,000 were murdered.
“Senior doctors, especially surgeons, have left, and patients are seen by inexperienced physicians,” Dr. A., who requested anonymity, told In These Times. He left a Baghdad hospital in July to study in the United States.
Zainab may have finished treatment before the system collapsed around her and joined the 85 percent of childhood leukemia patients who survive. But this was March 2003, and, as you know, things would not be going well.
Today, patients like Zainab die daily from treatable illnesses and injuries. “That translates to more than 1,800 preventable deaths a year at [one Baghdad] hospital alone,” according to the Los Angeles Times, which quoted Iraqi physician Husam Abud: “[I]f we get cases of cancer, we can’t treat them. They’ll probably end their days here.” ""
See what I mean? | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/26/2008 8:43:03 PM | | the right wing freaks destroyed the truth like everything else they believe in , brainwashed morons. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/26/2008 9:22:35 PM | Well I think its less about truth and more about opinion. Certain things are just a matter of how you look at things. Some see the enviroment to be more valuable some see the need for human consumption to be more important. Finding the inbetween is what we are trying to do.
IMO on the oil front we should do two things.
1) Stop letting investors jack up the price of oil. It would help with regulations. (Yes some are not bad)
2) Start looking for new deposits and start drilling and building new power plants. In the US we have an oil deposit to rival the Middle East and Russia put together. (Comprimise is not a bad thing) I don't mean let the drillers go crazy but let some.
Financial speculation and lack of new areas to drill are whats got the price so sky high.
Also think about this if we have our own oil we won't need to go to countries that use the money to fund terrorism or dictators.
As far as the WMD argument goes I look at it with this simple analgy. If you go into a convinence store with your hand in your jacket pocket pointed acting like you have a gun the state will prosicute you for ARMED robbery. Same holds true if you bluff and say you have weapons people are going to treat you like you do. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/26/2008 11:15:49 PM |
So it really is an "infomercial" to give the American viewing audience an "iconic" image to lock onto.
No doubt a collegue of Evan Fairbanks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUDxZS-RSfw | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/27/2008 12:00:01 AM | So if the UK is going broke - the world is being dragged down by the oil producers ( bless them they dont seem to be suffering a recession like the rest of the world ).
Can someone answer me this -
How come the UK is going to spend billions on the Olympic Games & Billions on new wind turbines. While the people in the streets are going broke for basic things like food and getting to work (some of us live so far out of town they dont put a metro in for us or a bus every two minutes) so we have to pay the price of incompetence of the worlds governments.
I wrote to the prime minister and said I will follow him on the 18 mile walk to work and back daily, strangely he didn't get back to me.
Think politicians should get out and live in the real world at least one week of the year all over the world (and not on pay day either). | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/27/2008 4:10:55 AM | | I am of the opinion that the abundance of "truth" in a society is directly related to that society's perception and appreciation of truth...are we a truthful society or do we prefer to have our eyes and ears tickled and treated what we want to believe...lies permeate every aspect of American society...industries and fortunes are built on them....and as many of us know so are relationships. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/27/2008 12:25:11 PM | Triumverat, you make a very good point: what do we really want?
You can't call the populace victim of some pernicious cabal of international liars when most of them really just want their eyes and ears tickled, anyway. I am sure that many good people who struggled to get the truth out go nothing but apathy and a kick in the teeth.
Nice little quote from the book, The People of the Lie:
"""There is another reaction that the evil frequently engender in us: confusion. Describing an encounter with an evil person, one woman wrote, it was "as if I'd suddenly lost my ability to think." Once again, this reaction is quite appropriate. Lies confuse. The evil are "the people of the lie," deceiving others as they also build layer upon layer of self-deception."" | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/27/2008 1:10:06 PM | All the intellect expended.....all the quotes of others....all the supposition......
The simple answer is.........human nature sometimes gets in the way.
It is no more complicated than that although on a national level sometimes expanded. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/28/2008 9:06:38 PM | Stop arguing over which came first, the chicken or the egg, the absolute truth is THE came before chicken and egg. Now stop to realize, everything after THE is an assumption, start again, relearn, live to be of service to the whole and build friendships not warships.
Unfortunately, that would be impossible, the egos gone wild arguing and protecting and attacking one and other, promising material gain for others to defend their assumptions, battling over who is more ignorant then the other, ignorance reigns on all sides, equally, the nature of debate is to have debate and within any debate, duality is a trap for ego, stop allowing the tool to be used against you. Remember, my ancestors, hopefully yours, went to the tree for food, not mates, others have lies to protect while know THE is not an ape.
Debate is not for man nor mankind, it is not within his true purpose, one who says it is, is proclaiming to be THE and everything after THE is an assumption, an opinion.
Stop trying to cheat others of time and good life experience for sake of ego's hopped up on ignorance.
Man likely is on his last leg, he pees in his neighbors tea and is offended when the like is returned.
Simpli'city is impossible , complication brings strife, the tool for the spiritless who love material and things and live only within debate as all they falsely hold as theirs, is an illusion and is debt not wealth, wealth is within the spirit of man, invest n into that which gives 10x not wealth and spirit transfer systems that trade opinions and assumptions, you can not own THE.
There are others wishing for others to fetch for them food and material things while they debate with those they wish to steal time with for superficial or materialistic ideals and with their flag tied on to their spear, they can debate differing assumptions and employee guards to protect their assumptions and plans to deceive those who hod true their rhetoric and lies.
They have others live to toil, to build for them stuff they will name and own and demand tribute from those who are forced to sacrifice (spend time) and worship (spend riches/give full attention) to that which is an assumption and nothing more then a means to siphon life and potential from those who are slave to stuff. Wealth and spirit transfers systems are controlling humanity and lulling so many into living with no purpose other then to take and help others to take from the weaker.
So many feel to know many truths, yet the same sacrifice their lives/time to worship balls of various sizes and shapes, thrown, bounced, kicked and other entertaining with its action while others are busy witnessing cars drive in circles, the animals and nature seem to be of no importance, you live and hate life and live for machines, applications and other useless junk. Born to guardian (GUARD_EDEN), you all debase it and live to replace it, think about the effects of your experience and mindset, know that cause and effect is within and without.
Fields feed machines, people are starving and most are worried about celebrities, pets and material crap.
If you had more then a few truths you would realeyes many things, but then, you still believe every opinion that came after THE.
Get real people to get truth, it is free, the lies you pay for cost you money (another lie, it is debt) you pay for them in the paper, on TV, in theaters and more, all the truth are free but in all sincerity, no one wants the truth and if they knew it, they would only wish to debate over it. Struggle in Life, rest in peace, that is most strategies I see people applying, it doesn't work, rest in truth for eternity, now there is a goal for a life experience. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/29/2008 1:48:25 PM | So long as a majority of citizens allow the media to be nothing better than lapdogs of those in power the truth will never be told.
My grandpa told me truth dies right after forgiveness. I think he had a good point. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/29/2008 4:18:49 PM | | I think it's a mixture of partisanship and the media. I just read about a theory introduced by a think tank in (I think) 1974 after Nixon's presidency and all the scandals that administration was involved in. It's called permanent campaigning or perpetual campaigning...sorry I don't have the book handy right now....but basically they say it started with Nixon, and this author goes on to show how each administration since then has participated in this, ever inching toward total campaign mindset vs. actual governing. The campaign mindset takes over and every issue, every bill, turns into an "us vs. them" fight. Instead of disagreeing and moving on, the politicians take advantage of the media, who is ever so ready to tell us 'how it is', and vilify whichever party is on the other side. This book I'm reading says the Clinton administration took this theory to new heights, and the American people did not even notice it because they were such savvy politicians. It goes on to say that the Bush administration took this even further than the Clinton admin., hence we are where we are today. Black and white, good vs evil, us vs. them. It seems easy enough to fall into that trap as an observer. Anyway, I hope my thoughts on that came across correctly, but that's my opinion of why we cannot get to the truth. Its' buried in partisanship bickering. | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/29/2008 4:34:33 PM | Simmahdahnah, good points, that's pretty much what I suspected, all "spin".
I didnt begin this thread with some ultimate search for truth, just wonder where the dispassionate, objective facts were and facts are differnt than fiction or value judgments, facts are facts, something is or it isnt, period.
I dont know about the Clinton administration but the Bush one has been one damned lie after another. Not that I think much of Clinton after lieing to the entire country about Monica Lewinsky, how that man.......or his wife.......was able to show their faces in public again is beyond me.
They take an awful lots of our money for taxes, we deserve the know the truth of where, how and why they spend it and we deserve a voice in those decisions, too. And we deserve the truth...............from our elected leaders.
ooooooo, my blood pressure is going to go up, so enough........... | |
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| Whatever happened to TRUTH?
Posted: 6/29/2008 10:41:00 PM | I hear your frustration, and if you want to hear the 'real' news and the truth of what the new world order neocons are doing to us all, then you need to go to www.infowars.com or www.prisonplanet.com daily and listen to Alex Jones. He has guests who have the real scoop and it will blow your mind and open your eyes.
If you think you know the 'truth' now, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Good luck, hope you pass this on to your friends and family. There is an agenda in place and if we don't take a stand now, it may be too late. The neocon agenda is for the New World Order to be in place by 2012. | |
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