from despair to where
it looks like bush has won, ohio is undeclared but the margin he leads by is sufficient to say that it is highly improbable that the uncounted votes will change the position.
i am deflated; the world is stuck with that warmongering corporate lackey and his quasi-religious bullshit and his 'leadership' (note to the oed: leadership now means that you don't change your mind under any circumstances, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence)
and this time the americans voted for him when they knew what he stood for. or at least one america did. it's very obvious from the breakdown of the voting across the various states that there are two americas.
one is hicksville america where they still believe in god, own more guns than al capone and find it difficult to locate any other country on a map. the other is the intelligent people (my bias may be somewhat obvious) of the metropolises of california, washington state and new york. outmuscled by the ignorant masses.
hicksville america rules the world. help us indeed.
i am deflated; the world is stuck with that warmongering corporate lackey and his quasi-religious bullshit and his 'leadership' (note to the oed: leadership now means that you don't change your mind under any circumstances, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence)
and this time the americans voted for him when they knew what he stood for. or at least one america did. it's very obvious from the breakdown of the voting across the various states that there are two americas.
one is hicksville america where they still believe in god, own more guns than al capone and find it difficult to locate any other country on a map. the other is the intelligent people (my bias may be somewhat obvious) of the metropolises of california, washington state and new york. outmuscled by the ignorant masses.
hicksville america rules the world. help us indeed.
lyrics by viperx143 at
10:35
2 Comments:
"there are two americas."
Well, I think there are 260 million Americas, one for each person.
"one is hicksville america where ... own more guns than al capone ... the other is the intelligent people (my bias may be somewhat obvious)"
Bias? Well, yes, indeed. Personally, I find gun-ownership pretty intelligent.
"outmuscled by the ignorant masses"
gotta love it! Thats democracy! you summed up that stupid concept pretty well.
Cheer up! Things could be worse. Imagine a Gore reelection. Yech!
By
lemuel, at 12:24 am
I wrote the blog entry in a frustrated frame of mind. The wording is perhaps provocative. But the picture it paints is true enough.
You see, the key word was 'ignorant'. There are many polls demonstrating that there are widely-held misconceptions about the Iraq issue, predominantly amongst Bush supporters.
I believe a democracy where a large proportion of people are wholly misinformed about the issues of the day is a poisoned one; their judgement may be sound but if they exercise it when not in command of the facts, their conclusions will be wrong.
I am British. Our government strongly supports Bush; amongst the people there are those who do too. Some are more sceptical. There is perhaps nowhere on the planet where media coverage presents both sides of the story as well as it does in the UK. Certainly Europe is sceptical, and their coverage reflects that. But watching US news channels via satellite is shocking. The outright partisan nature of coverage by Fox News, for example, represents pure propaganda. How many people realise they are not watching vanilla news, they are watching spin? Why do so few media outlets in the US feel able to criticise where criticism is deserved (debate is the lifeblood of democracy...)?
The result is that many people in the US believe a lot of stuff that isn't true. And they don't question it, or what they got it from. They believe their TV news channel.
History teaches us the danger of propaganda and ideological evangelism: Germans are and have always been reasonable people. Yet, in the 30s, Hitler was able to tap into frustration, insecurity and prejudice. The result was nationalism (at first, later outright fascism) supported by Goebbels' propaganda that strongly influenced the masses. The people really began to believe that the jews were taking their jobs. That it was right to relegate them in society to 2nd class citizens and deny them rights. The propaganda-influenced masses put Hitler in a position of unassailable power because they swallowed the fallacy. We know what happened next.
Gore? Bush? Kerry? Ordinarily, I don't care. It is not my country. But a politician who frames a pre-emptive strike on Iraq in the context of Bin Laden (when there is no link, as Rumsfeld admitted) is a liar and a danger to peace. But the spin machine does it's work, and vast swathes of people don't see the truth (or do not care?). An election surely influenced by an unquestioning media where some channels are propaganda outlets. Very dangerous.
Some links which may be of interest:
reality and perceptionRumsfeld tells the truth and contradicts cheney...
a misinformed public - shows this HarrisInteractive pollfindings corroborated by this summary of a PIPA poll [original PIPA press release here]
mediawhich came first, the chicken or the egg? A pew research center report - News Audiences Increasingly Politicizedfox news and news corp owner Rupert Murdoch nails his colours to the mastpoison
harrassment? negative votes? no paper trails? sounds like a poisoned democracy to me.
By
viperx143, at 1:44 pm
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