Reply #1: Great article, PFIBN!

[Octafish]

Gives great examples of how the Little Turd from Crawford and his henchmen in government, media, and church do the terra thing so well and loud. Four more years of terra is about all we can take before the big Armageddon, right Bushler?

EXCERPT...

Alaska senator Frank Murkowski used fear of terrorism to press for federal approval of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, telling his colleagues that US purchases of foreign oil helped to subsidise Saddam Hussein and Palestinian suicide bombers. The nuclear power industry lobbied for approval of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a repository for high-level radioactive waste by claiming that shipping the waste there would keep nuclear weapons material from falling into the hands of terrorists. Of course, they didn't propose shutting down nuclear power plants, which themselves are prime targets for terrorists.

The National Drug Council retooled the war on drugs with TV ads telling people that smoking marijuana helped to fund terrorism. Environmentalists attempted to take the fund-a-terrorist trope in a different direction, teaming up with columnist Arianna Huffington to launch the "Detroit Project", which produced TV ads modelled after the National Drug Council ads. "This is George," a voiceover said. "This is the gas that George bought for his SUV." The screen then showed a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV." The picture switched to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV." In Detroit and elsewhere, however, TV stations that had been only too happy to run the White House anti-drugs ads refused to accept the Detroit Project commercials, calling them "totally inappropriate".

September 11 was frequently compared to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, with White House officials warning that the war on terror would be prolonged and difficult like the second world war, and would require similar sacrifices. But whatever those sacrifices may entail, almost from the start it was clear that they would not include frugality. During the second world war, Americans conserved resources as never before. Rationing was imposed on petrol, tyres and even food. People collected waste such as paper and household cooking scraps so that it could be recycled and used for the war effort. Compare that with the headline that ran in O'Dwyer's PR Daily on September 24, less than two weeks after the terrorist attack: "PR Needed To Keep Consumers Spending."

President Bush himself appeared in TV commercials, urging Americans to "live their lives" by going ahead with plans for vacations and other consumer purchases. "The president of the US is encouraging us to buy," wrote marketer Chuck Kelly in an editorial for the Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune, which argued that America was "embarking on a journey of spiritual patriotism" that "is about pride, loyalty, caring and believing" - and, of course, selling. "As marketers, we have the responsibility to keep the economy rolling," wrote Kelly. "Our job is to create customers during one of the more difficult times in our history."

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,995669,00.html

PS: Surprised so few DUers these days seem to read anything. Perhaps we are being infiltrated by know-it-alls.