[thechat] Getting closer

[Tara Cleveland]

Lauri Vain wrote:
>> but we (free peoples of the west) are going to let our government
>> bomb these poor people back to the stone age, because, even though
>> we elected them, we can't control them....
>
> That is a narrow-minded statement. People apparently are in control of
> the government, when there is a 50:50 split between going to war and not
> going to war. I don't see how somebody could claim that people have no
> control over the government, when Hugh just said the following sentence:
>
> "is about 47% in the current poles. Unfortunately not enough."
>
> Apparently people *are* in control (that 47% in the margin of a 50:50
> situation, so the government is still doing what the people want).
>
> Democracy is about doing what people in a country want and at the moment
> ~50% of people in the States want war -- as simple as that.

The real question is how many people wanted war before the propaganda
machine started. I seem to remember (and I could be wrong) that it *wasn't*
50%. The US government decided they wanted a war way long before the people
did. Then they decided to throw out as much propaganda as possible to
convince them.

It's sickening to watch the US news stations. Here in Canada I get Canadian
news, BBC World and all of the major US news stations. The US broadcasts
seem like utter fiction when compared to news from elsewhere. It is
incredible to see the spin and propaganda spilling out from the TV screen.
It's just so obvious. It's over the top. Two stories are reported on
different news stations with completely different substance and conclusions
- but on the same event. The jingoism.. the inevitability of the war... the
fearmongering... it's unreal. I just hope (without much hope) that the
American people can see what is propaganda and try to glean some semblance
of the truth from all of the misinformation they are being fed.

After all, remember the "babies thrown out of incubators" debacle from the
last Gulf War? It's not like the US government is above using fabricated
evidence to convince their populace and the world that war is a good idea.

Regards,
Tara