GOP Brownshirts

[Chris Alger]

Someone posted a transcript of a debate between Senatorial candidates Barak Obama and Alan Keyes the illuminates the most important issue in American politics, one that will likely determine the survival of American democracy, yet one that is rarely discussed. It's found in Keyes's description of an event that has killed several times as many innocent civilians than perished on 9/11, with more dead daily:

[ QUOTE ]
ANDERSON: Ambassador Keyes, the U.S. has armed forces in Iraq. How long will they stay there, and when should they get out, and how should we get them out?

ALAN KEYES: I think they stay there until they get the job done. I know that John Kerry is preoccupied with an exit strategy, but as I've been telling folks lately, if you get into a battle and the only thing you're thinking about is how to get out, I think we have a word for you--and it's not very complimentary.

We are engaged in a war . . .

MODERATOR: What is the word?

KEYES: We are engaged in a war against terror that was started by the terrorists, that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans, that involves a global infrastructure of insidious individuals. We have seen the work they do, in Russia and elsewhere, against innocent lives in the most bestial fashion possible.To fight that war, as I learned in my experience when I was on the National Security Council staff working directly on the problem of terrorism, it is not sufficient to have rhetoric, it is not sufficient to react after the fact. You have got to preemptively move against their bases, against their sources of supply, against their training camps, against the states the provide them with safe haven and infrastructure. If you do not, then they will simply prepare for further attacks.

And in a world where we have weapons of mass destruction, it's not good enough to say that, "Well, if there's a 50% chance that they could use them, I will act"--because once one such attack succeeds, we could end up losing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.

[/ QUOTE ]

Note: the war in Iraq was "started by terrorists." I agree, but I doubt that Keyes and I mean the same thing.

Anyway, the unexamined issue is: HOW THE HELL CAN ANY PARTY THAT PURPORTS TO BELIEVE IN THE INFORMED CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED SUPPORT A DEMOGOGUE FOR MASS KILLING LIKE ALAN KEYES?

The answer, of course, is that the mass media in the U.S. doesn't do what it's supposed to but does do what it shouldn't. As a result, not since Germany in the 1930's has such a huge population of a modern society been so utterly deluded about the nature of the troubles they face. This point was again made in Paul Craig Roberts' recent article The Brownshirting of America:

[David] Brock makes a credible case that today's conservatives are driven by ideology, not by fact. He argues that their stock in trade is denunciation, not debate. Conservatives don't assess opponents' arguments, they demonize opponents. Truth and falsity are out of the picture; the criteria are: who's good, who's evil, who's patriotic, who's unpatriotic.

These are the traits of brownshirts. Brownshirts know they are right. They know their opponents are wrong and regard them as enemies who must be silenced if not exterminated.

Some of Brock's quotes from prominent conservative commentators will curl your toes. His description of the rightwing's destruction of an independent media and the "Fairness Doctrine" explain why a recent CNN/Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack on the US and 32% believe that Saddam Hussein personally planned the attack.

A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.

Today there is no one to correct a lie once it is told. The media, thanks to Republicans, has been concentrated in few hands, and they are not the hands of newsmen. Corporate values rule. If lies sell, sell them. If listeners, viewers, and readers want confirmation of their resentments and beliefs, give it to them. Objectivity turns listeners off and is a money loser.

In his book, Cruel and Unusual, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, explains how rightwing influence has moved the media away from reporting news to designing our consciousness. "The Age of Information," Miller writes, "has turned out to be an Age of Ignorance."

Miller makes a strong case. His description of how CNN and Fox News destroyed the credibility of Scott Ritter, the leading expert on Iraq's weapons, reveals a media completely given over to propaganda. Ritter stood in the way of the neocon's invasion of Iraq.

CNN's Miles O'Brien, Eason Jordan, Catherine Callaway, Paula Zahn, Kyra Phillips, Arthel Neville, and Fox News' David Asman and John Gibson portrayed Ritter as a disloyal American, a Ba-athist stooge on the take from Saddam Hussein, and compared him to Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.

With this, the rightwing talk radio crazies were off and running. Anyone with the slightest bit of real information about the state of weapons development in Iraq was dismissed as a foreign agent who should be shot for treason.

By substituting fiction for reality, the US media took the country to war. The CNN and Fox News "journalists" are as responsible for America's ill-fated invasion of Iraq as Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle.

With a sizable percentage of the US population now addicted to daily confirmations of their resentments and hatreds, US policy will be increasingly driven by tightly made up minds in pursuit of unrealistic agendas.

American troops are in Iraq on false pretenses. No one knows all the fateful consequences of this mistaken adventure. Bush's reelection would be seen as a vindication of aggression, and more aggression would likely follow. A continuing expenditure of blood, money, alliances, good will, and civil liberties is not a future to which to look forward.

[lastchance]

Both sides are abusing misinformation to try to win a political war. If anyone thought of the CBS stuff, that stuff on Bush's military service in the Guard was just as dirty as Fox News, probably more.

I do think these comments show us something. It is much easier to lump your enemies into one sum than it is to keep them separate, and Republicans are doing a pretty lousy job of keeping them separate, either by design or just by accident.

As for the right-wing conspiracy stuff, your essay upon that was filled with rhetoric. I want to see exactly how it happened. Explain pure facts, we already heard your commentary. However, I would assume that you would tell us to go read "Cruel and Unusual" the book by Mark Crispin Miller, but I do not have the time for that.

[GWB]

Kerry's marching orders:

[juanez]

[ QUOTE ]
the war in Iraq was "started by terrorists." I agree, but I doubt that Keyes and I mean the same thing.


[/ QUOTE ]

So you believe Americans are terrorists. That says a lot about you Chris.

[Chris Alger]

I suppose that someone who thinks that al Qaeda proves "Arabs are terrorists" also believes that a war of aggression enabled by official lying proves "Americans are terrorists." Your words, not mine.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
your essay upon that was filled with rhetoric. I want to see exactly how it happened. Explain pure facts

[/ QUOTE ]

A "CNN/Gallup poll found that 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 terrorist attack on the US and 32% believe that Saddam Hussein personally planned the attack."

Sounds like a statement of fact to me. Ditto with the media treatment of Scott Ritter and quote by Keyes.

[Chris Alger]

This is a perfect example of what I've been saying about the GOP obsession with lying. Of course Kerry doesn't believe that national defense requires foreign permission. Nor does the UN Charter for that matter.

But when Kerry used the phrase "global test" in reference to the ability to prove to the U.S. electorate and the world that the war is justified, the GOP jumped on it to falsely claim it amounts to giving other countries a veto, even after Kerry said the exact opposite. To the extent the GOP disagrees with Kerry's real position, it means: "we should sometimes wage war for no good reason."

Up = Down, another brownshirt equation.

[lastchance]

I agree many Americans are misinformed, but I just didn't see the level of detail I really want from an allegation about a right-wing conspiracy.

I want to see how they destroyed the leading expert on Iraq's WMDs. I really want to see how the Right Wing crazies took off with something. Very, very specific examples.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]

Note: the war in Iraq was "started by terrorists." I agree, but I doubt that Keyes and I mean the same thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come off it, Chris, you are twisting Keyes' words. Keyes was not saying that the Iraq war was started by terrorists.

Read in the larger context of his remarks (larger than you quoted), it is clear that Keyes is saying the terrorists are more widespread and more interconnectd in the Middle East than just being a local phenomonen here or there. Keyes is essentially saying what Kasparov said, that Arab/Islamic terror against the West shares much ideologically across its factions. Keyes also mentioned Saddam's financial support of Palestinian suicide bombing terror.

Thus Keyes was saying that the Arab/Islamic Middle East started a terror war against the West and it is a mistake to treat al-Qaeda as entirely unrelated to Hamas as entirely unrelated to Iranian-sponsored terror as being unrelated to the terror elements seeking now to destabilize Iraq, etc. These groups all have similar goals and share much ideological and religious hatred of the West; they are all interconnected in varying degree.

Keyes is saying that defeating the supporters of terror throughout the Middle East (and Saddam at least was a direct financial sponsor of Palestinian terror) is an essential part of the war on terror. And what's more Keyes is absolutely right. The entire region has long produced terrorist organzations and supported them and that must be stopped.

Finally I don't think Keyes is necesarily calling for full-scale war against the entire Middle East, but rather for targeted actions of various kinds against the supporters of terror. Failure to take such actions would simply allow the terrorist orgs to plot and carry out attacks at the times and places of their own choosing. These organizations must be dismantled, and the state support they are receiving must be cut off.

[lastchance]

[ QUOTE ]
The [Middle East] has long produced terrorist organzations and supported them and that must be stopped.


[/ QUOTE ]
Why?

I have my guesses. They might be right.....

But if someone has a great answer for this one, I'd love to hear it.