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I'm an old Dem. I go back to the days of the Huntley-Brinkley News and Walter Cronkite, national exposure of the white bigots in the southern states who murdered civil rights workers and beat up civil rights marchers, the relatively uncensored coverage of the Vietnam war, and a bit later the Washington Post investigation of Watergate. Our country was by no means perfect--we were slaughtering 1 million Vietnamese and lost 55 thousand US solders in an unjustified war, for one thing--but at least we knew about it. We had a better "balance of power" among government, industry and news organizations.
It is still shocking to me how much this has changed. The news organizations--including such icons as the New York Times--have become COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE. You cannot trust ONE WORD they print or broadcast. There may be nuggets of fact; the obits are probably accurate; the sports page probably gets the scores right; and the general facts about an event might be true (and I stress, MIGHT BE true)--that is, the date, time, participants and occasion, say, Colin Powell DID speak to the U.N. on such and such a day, and said such and such.
But the fact that what Colin Powell said was 100% false will not be revealed, or even hinted at; his assertions will not be vetted; and in fact the news organization will promote the Bush Cartel viewpoint, and ignore and blackhole anything to the contrary, and will continue to do so until the Bush Cartel's purpose is accomplished (invasion of Iraq, the deaths of 100,000 innocent people, widespread torture of prisoners, the shredding of the Constitution, tax cuts for the rich, Halliburton theft of billions of dollars, etc.), then they may permit some contrary facts into the back pages of the paper or at the tail end of news broadcasts. What the other countries and the UN weapons inspectors had to say, or what 500 thousand anti-war protesters had to say (and how many there were, and who they were) will be extremely distorted or marginalized, or entirely ignored, especially at critical junctures when they are trying to force public opinion in a certain direction.
They have done the same thing with the 2004 fraudulent election. That is the situation--and it continues to be mind-boggling. Mission accomplished. The Bush Cartel is still in power--to the enormous benefit of news monopoly CEOs, global oil companies, arms dealers, and all global corporations and the rich, and to those who want Israel surrounded with U.S. military might--and now they permit a little news talk about election fraud, in order to debunk it.
What is more, many Americans still remain plugged into these lying, war profiteering, fascist news monopolies, as if to an umbilical cord to "the nation." Many people accept the illusion that these news monopolies create, even those who are aware of some of the lies. It is an emotional thing, in my opinion. Maybe it goes back to the days of Huntley-Brinkley and Walter Cronkite--when we seemed to be a nation, a people, with a common sense of progress and destiny, despite all the dissension (the dissension was a sign of political health!). Or maybe it's that American communities and families have been so shattered by corporate policy that people feel few common bonds with each other any more, and rely on "the news" to create some sort of common national identity.
People in this condition (brain-fuzzed by their own need to identify with "the nation," which the news monopolies brutally use to spread disinformation) can't see the utter discrepancy between the rulers and themselves. The newscasters and reporters are mere spokespeople for the rulers, who couldn't care less what we think. They merely manipulate us, and rob us, and lie to us. But the illusion that they create--the illusion of democracy, and this very mentally deranged illusion (delusion, really) of a common national identity and purpose that incorporates rich and poor, the Bush Cartel and the local grocer and schoolteacher and firefighter, sucks people in, time and again.
What do we have in common with the Bush Cartel or its lapdog media? Nothing. They rule us. We have no say in the matter, and no common ground. None. But still many people prefer to think that we do--and "the news" is how that delusion is foisted upon us.
Thus, too many people feel that "if it's not in 'the news,' it isn't real." They sometimes WAKE UP from the delusion--as they did on Iraq WMDs, for instance. Opposition to the war was huge (nearly 60% of Americans opposed it), and continues to be huge today. Further, the majority voted Bush out! They saw through all the B.S.--and rejected it--a credit to the strength of the American psyche, it seems to me. (It was certainly not a credit to American "journalism.")
Americans are not stupid, and they are not "conservative." (I'm sorry, I just don't believe it.) But we DO have a serious weakness, and that is our vulnerability to the delusional world that is created on TV (which the print media provides the headlines for).
The utter cynicism and diabolical manipulation that is revealed in these posted "news" stories--about Edison-Mitofsky and ESI--and the putrid corruption behind it, is the sort of thing we have been dealing with here at the DU Election Forum since Nov. 2, 2004.
The Bush Cartel stole this election. There is really no doubt about it. The evidence is overwhelming. And the news monopolies who HELPED THEM DO IT--by giving the American people FALSE INFORMATION on election night--ALTERED exit polls--are now helping them cover it up. (They changed the exit polls to fit the official tally, late on election night--thus depriving the public of strong evidence of fraud. They failed to disclose that Kerry actually won the exit polls, or that they were putting polluted data on their TV screens.)
The exit polls are just one piece of evidence. There is much more--including the fraudulent nature of the election system itself (Bush partisans owning and controlling the secret, proprietary programming code that was used to count the votes; no paper trail; a corroded "chain of custody" between the votes and the reporting of the votes.) The facts of this story are riveting. Any one of these facts--such as 86 out of 88 electronic touchscreen voting machines changing Kerry votes to Bush votes, in reported incidents--is a major news story. And there are thousands of such facts, pointing to an invalid election and a wrong result. The news monopolies have have quite deliberately killed this information, and they have done so in sync with each other and with the Bush regime (with help from corrupt and collusive Democrats).
Here's another example: The Democrats had a blowout success in new voter registration (nearly 60/40) in 2004. Most new voters voted for Kerry. Most Nader voters switched to Kerry. When Gore/Bush repeat voters are added in, Kerry wins by 4 million votes (similar to his exit poll win). Where did Bush's support come from? Well, recently, Karl Rove put out a "talking point" about the Republicans' "invisible" voter registration and get-out-the-vote effort. THAT gets press. THAT gets repeated all over the newsmap. THAT never gets vetted or investigated (there is NO data to back it up). But Kerry's very significant advantages in the election--advantages that made a Bush win nearly impossible; advantages that were CONFIRMED by the exit polls, and for which there is solid evidence--fall into oblivion. Did YOU know that the Democrats blew the Republicans away in new voter registrations in 2004? Most people don't know that.
To believe Bush won, you have to believe that a significant number of Gore voters--the very people who were getting all their non-voting family members, friends, co-workers, fellow students, employees, bosses, church members and neighbors to register for the first time, as DEMOCRATS, and to vote THIS TIME--themselves voted for Bush! You have to turn reality on its head. You have to believe Karl Rove about "invisible" voters. ("Invisible," indeed.)
This is what the news monopolies have done, time and again, on the election story--just as they did with the Iraq story and many others. They have turned reality on its head.
Despite all this, I rejoice, and I hope you do, too. You have found a forum that is working very hard to expose the truth, and to apply the solution (election reform!). Americans who were duped by the news monopolies on the election will wake up, and begin to understand it. They have the capacity to do that. They overwhelmingly disapprove of Bush and all his polices, and many are probably already wondering how he got elected. Although we are a profoundly disenfranchised people, I think our common sense and our democratic traditions, and our long time belief in progressive policies, will prevail.
freedomfries, don't let it continue to be just a suspicion, on your part. Review the facts. Get well informed about this. Spread the word. And lend your support to the election reform struggle, if you can. Our democracy is at great risk, and needs your help.
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