Why we're not getting anywhere (CBS news "torture memos")

[wryter2000]

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4951160n

My jaw hit my knees last night watching CBS's coverage of the torture memos. First, they were "so-called 'torture memos.'" Then, they showed some skeery Ayrab guys who probably are really bad actors and mentioned that they were waterboarded. Then, they said the bad guys had given up information about other plots with no question of whether that was true or not. Finally, the narrator said we were closing the books on our dark past.

End of story...move along folks...nothing to see here.

Until the American people know what really went on, there will be no outcry. Without outcry, we get more business as usual.

I honestly believe that Obama and other good Presidents would never torture people, but how long before we get another Cheney/Bush or worse? Then, the whole thing starts up again.

But, hey...how about that Susan Boyle?

[crim son]

1. I admit I've been thinking that the issue has been made prominent,

and then prominently not dealt with, as a sort of "keep them guessing" tactic. This would only be a good idea if you believe torture, or the fear of torture, might deter terrorists. I don't believe that but there are obviously many who do.

This line of thought could also just be me trying to keep up my faith in Obama.

[L. Coyote]

2. High speed rail, visit Mexico, Tax Day, new Diva, they poured it on to distract

from the Torture Memos release date. I'm reminded of Reagan, when they did not cancel the space shuttle launch even though the weather was way too cold, because Bush as in Central America giving $100 million in illegal aid to the Contras. There was a lot of news cover laid down by Obama around the Torture Memo release.

But, this will not go away. No statute of limitations on torture, OR on accessories after the fact who abuse and politicize justice to protect torturersfrom criminal prosecution for their crimes!!!

[MedleyMisty]

3. I find it easy to both think about Susan Boyle's story

and to think about torture. I don't know, maybe my brain is weird and I'm a mutant and everyone else's brain can only manage to think about one subject a week or something.

Why do people watch CBS? And if they do watch it, how can they not notice that it's really really obvious propaganda? We went to eat at Pizza Hut a few weeks ago and CNN was on. It was loud and intrusive and annoying and so fucking obvious - so obvious that it made me lose respect for them because I thought they were better at it than that. But maybe now it's to the point where they know people are so stupid that they can pretty much say, "Hi. This is the Big Pink Hammer of Propaganda and I'm hitting you upside the head with it." and no one will notice.

Plus, well - I did sort of read all of the Holocaust books in the local library when I was nine and so was introduced to the idea of propaganda and social manipulation quite early on. Also I was never really a victim of it - I didn't grow up in a religion and my mother is the complete opposite of authoritarian.

The people in my America in the Sixties class at TIP seemed to get it - we all laughed hysterically when we'd watch videos and stuff like "The Marijuana Menace" or stuff about your school desk saving you from a nuke or "Whiter teeth fresher breath, while you wait for nuclear death!" would appear on the screen. But then that was probably a self-selecting sample since we'd all scored pretty high on the SAT in 7th grade.

There was this one dude at Pizza Hut who was there by himself and he kept watching the TV with this expression on his face like he was buying what they were selling.

I don't know - I'm not rich. I don't have a college degree. But I did grow up with a mother who valued personal freedom, who let me be me and didn't impose anything on me, and who valued reading and let me have all the books I wanted and let me read them instead of forcing me to do housework. And being human, I do tend to assume that other people think the way I think and don't really realize how my personal background is actually quite rare.

And really, no matter how much I want to understand, I simply cannot imagine what it's like to be a person who watches the MSM and believes their propaganda. I can't empathize with it. I want to, but I have nowhere to start.

Well - maybe I can start with my mother. She's the reason why I am who I am today, but she - well, she is intelligent. She was the valedictorian of her high school class, I think. But she's not very cognitively complex. Like the other day on the phone she said "I don't know if you follow politics, but I think we're going to go to socialism instead of democracy. My daddy always said we would."

Speaking of that - does anyone know of a good beginner's book on socialism that I could get for her? She likes to borrow books that make her think from me, but I think that Marx and his ilk would be a bit too dense for her.

[MedleyMisty]

4. Bumping because I'm really interested in trying to understand the effect of MSM propaganda