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...should, really--don't let them seep into the unconscious), you begin to notice a pattern. Whatever the TV commercial asserts, the exact opposite is very likely true.
If the TV commercial asserts that purchasing a new 4-wheeled drive vehicle will gain you freedom, and shows freedom as the vehicle tearing up a beach or a forest floor, or just driving up Highway One on the California coast all by yourself, no other cars on the road, the truth is that purchasing this new vehicle will put you in debt and tie you down to a job that requires a daily commute in bumper to bumper traffic in an urban area polluted by yours and all the other vehicles, and that frequent confinement in this vehicle will make you sick, not free, and even if you do manage to go tear up a beach or a forest floor, that isn't really freedom, it's just destruction.
Or, if the TV commercial asserts that a certain toothpaste will make your teeth sparkly white, it most likely has ingredients that will cause tooth decay and gum disease, and/or poison your body with chemicals. Plain baking soda, which is extremely cheap, is the best toothpaste, but they'll never tell you that.
Or, if the TV commercial asserts that you need to buy an expensive window cleaner to have sparkly clean windows in your house, the substance they are selling you probably causes streaks, or, in any case, is completely unnecessary. If it's sparkly windows you want, plain vinegar and newspaper is by far the most effective window cleaner, and is very cheap by comparison.
Apply this rule to almost any TV commercial, and see what I mean: It is invariably--and almost amusingly--true that, whatever the commercial asserts, if you assume the opposite, you will find the truth.
I have found this rule to be applicable to almost anything asserted by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and their close associates such as Condoleeza Rice. It is also applicable to the Bush Cartel "pod people" in Congress. These people are "walking TV commercials." Their sole purpose is to sell you something that is bad for you by constantly asserting the opposite of the truth about that product (say, the war in Iraq). (War = freedom.)
And it is most certainly true of rightwing radio talk hosts. For instance: "Liberals are ruining the country" is reversible to the truth, "Conservatives are ruining the country."
The news monopolies, who have come to control how we perceive our identity as a "nation," have also become increasingly subject to my little "TV commercial rule" over the years. It's not quite as neat as when George Bush says something or when an SUV maker flashes you the freedom to tear up a forest floor--these things are neatly reversible (for the truth). News monopolies may be telling you the truth about how many people were injured or killed in a car accident that afternoon (MAY be--we can't know for sure), but beyond relatively neutral facts about non-political and non-financial matters, their assertions about what happened and who did it become highly questionable, and the rule of "the opposite is the truth" comes into play.
But perhaps the worst of what the news monopolies have done (besides falsifying the exit polls that showed a clear Kerry win, and changing it to a Bush win, on everybody's TV screens on election night) is their "blackholing" of important stories and information- -2004 election fraud, and our fraudulent election SYSTEM, being prime examples.
Where does Edison-Mitofsky fit into this news picture of pervasive lies, falsifications, misinformation, and black holed stories?
To some extent the "commercial rule" fits. If Mitofsy touts a "reluctant Bush responder," you can be pretty sure that the truth has to do with "reluctant Kerry responders" (say, Kerry voters in Republican precincts who feared social or religious repercussions from their vote, and would be reluctant to disclose it in a neighborhood venue such as a polling place). If he says that the exit polls are not evidence of election fraud, you can be pretty sure that they are.
E-M has become little more than lying Bushites, akin to the news monopolies. However, they try to maintain an ambience of science, and to aim their answers somewhere between truth and lie, that is, at something that kind of sounds like the truth, but has no foundation in actual data--like their latest excuse for Kerry's exit poll win, that the poll- takers somehow smelled out Kerry voters, as they left the polling place, and favored asking them how they voted, instead of Bush voters (thus biasing the polls). He brought forth no data to support this latest (and doesn't have any, as far as I know), but it raises some interesting questions. Do Kerry voters smell different than Bush voters? Dress different? Make more frequent eye contact? Have better skin, or teeth?
I can't imagine what he's talking about--and I don't think he can either. But if that was the case--that all the poll takers (and there were thousands), despite careful instruction, were looking to give Kerry the edge, by their choice of respondents--then that's a poll all by itself, isn't it?
The truth obtained from this reversal?: that most people in the country wanted Kerry to win, and badly wanted to oust Bush, and that the enthusiasm for this outcome was infectious.
(Note: I am not crediting this ridiculous theory; I'm just saying that the truth often lay hidden behind what the liars are lying about, and if you pay careful attention, you can suss it out, often by simple reversal of what they're saying.) (I learned this in Catholic grade school.)
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