It appears that people don't care about any deception.
Or, at least 68% of them don't care.
Harry --------------------------------------------------
Karen wrote:
Krugman wrote: After all, suppose that a politician or a journalist admits to himself that Mr. Bush bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false pretenses is, to say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to yourself that such a thing happened, you have a moral obligation to demand accountability and to do so in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless political machine but in the face of a country not yet ready to believe that its leaders have exploited 9/11 for political gain. It's a scary prospect.
The New Republic article by Judis and Ackerman that Krugman referred to as magisterialis too large to attach and pass through FWs filter, (I MB) but if anyone wants to read it in a easy to read Word format, (11 pages) please contact me. Otherwise, its at <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003>http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003.
I dont think its a matter of naivete. You have to open peoples mind to their deception gently. It you accuse someone of being willfully stupid and willingly deceived, they will be even more defensive and retreat into denial.
It is my instinctive feeling that the American public is weary of scandal, beginning in importance with the travesty that was the Clinton sex scandals that led to a sham impeachment proceeding, calling into question the motive and intent of all subsequent and more relevant, legitimate reasons for it in our checks and balances. Many people felt "used" by the excesses of the Starr Report as they saw life return to normal, Clinton's job approval ratings surviving right up to the end when the pardoning scandals unleashed yet another wave of mental overload.
Who knows what it will take for comatose America to wake up? I suspect something dramatic will have to come to light, more than leaked stories by enraged intelligence officials, stories from soldiers returning from the war, a jobless recovery confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt and the best efforts of the corporate media to hide it. Besides a smoking gun, which hopefully the article above will provide catalyst for, we need people to be brave enough to look at their communities and neighborhoods, to the families affected by joblessness, being shut out of higher education by rising tuition and fewer scholarships, by homelessness and the increase in personal crimes (domestic abuse, rape) venting personal emasculation, and the declining prospects for real health care and retirement for millions of people who have put a lifetime into Social Security who are feeling betrayed.
It is very discouraging to read that the Bush campaign is already halfway to its fundraising goals, with the reality of what that money can buy, but this simple overdone greediness may wake a few people up to the presence of a real threat to the election process and practicing democracy. I remain hopeful, because I must. Maybe that is part of the syndrome, too, however; that we don't want to know how bad it is and hold onto the dream that it is still working, real and viable.
Some of us are working fervently and diligently, some of us carefully and incrementally. Some of us are ostriches, some dreamers, some of us rabble-rousers. We may fail, but I'll be damned if I am going to sit by silently and passively. What we need is an abundant sense of outrage and civic call to duty. - KWC
REH wrote: I agree Keith,
They are all being almost beyond naive but devious. I don't even watch Russert and the others that I used to watch religiously. Their questions are obvious and the shape that they put to them constitutes spin. There is not longer and explorations but a bi-polar spin to everything. Its absolutely parliamentary. Something that is definitely an immigrant to this soil. We used to be about negotiation and compromise. Today we are about class. Sound familiar?
KH wrote: The blurb on the NYT e-mail says, of Paul Krugman's latest Op-ed:
> <<<<
There is no longer any doubt that we were deceived into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are unwilling to admit the obvious.
Surely the answer is obvious. Is not the NYT and Krugman being a teeny-weeny bit naive? The idea of an occupation of Iraq as a fallback secondary source of oil in the case of instability within Saudi Arabia had long been on the books -- not in the State Department itself, maybe, but certainly in the Bush Senior, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle group. Then, when it became clear that it was a group of predominantly Saudi Arabian fanatics that caused September 11, this was final confirmation that SA was a far more unstable country than even the Bush-Cheney group realised. The uncertain situation in the Middle East could no longer be left in the air. Of course, no one is willing to admit the obvious! To say publicly that the Americans were guaranteeing their oil supplies by invading Iraq would be almost a declaration of war against the whole of the Moslem world because the implication is that they might be prepared to invade Saudi Arabia or Iran next. If Osama bin Laden and a bunch of amateurs could take out the World Trade Centre, what could the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan do between them? Placing a suitcase nuclear bomb somewhere near the White House would be a relatively easy operation by terrorist group given a nod and wink by these governments. Unlikely, maybe, but quite feasible.
Instead, by invading a country whose President was demonstrably a monster (even though an ex-ally), the Americans have been able, so far, to establish their determination to guarantee their oil supplies by proxy without actually making a frontal attack on Islam itself. So far, the Americans have skirted disaster by a razor's edge.
The influential people Krugman alludes to know what it's all about, but they are certainly not silly enough to talk about it publicly. Nor is Tony Blair or Jack Straw, our foreign secretary, or Geiff Hoon, our defence minister. The whole of the Middle East, and Israel in particular, could be a disaster area if America were too honest about what they're really about.
DENIAL AND DECEPTION @ <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/opinion/24KRUG.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/opinion/24KRUG.html
Paul Krugman
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.489 / Virus Database: 288 - Release Date: 6/10/2003
