Subject:
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Political PR and Other Newsbits
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 29 Jul 2003 00:14:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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342 times
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The Fog of War Talk
http://alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=16497
“That’s a good question, as to what constitutes victory,” Rumsfeld replied.
“Now, what is victory? I say that victory is persuading the American people and
the rest of the world that this is not a quick matter that’s going to be over in
a month or a year or even five years. It is something that we need to do so that
we can continue to live in a world with powerful weapons and with people who are
willing to use those powerful weapons. And we can do that as a country. And that
would be a victory, in my view.”
Rumsfeld is a clever man, and figuring out the meaning behind his words requires
careful reading. At first glance, you might be tempted to think that he was
saying the United States would win a victory by maintaining its own possession
of “powerful weapons.” Actually, though, he was admitting that even as a
superpower, the United States will not be able to stop the rest of the world
from obtaining powerful weapons with which to “impose damage on us.”
If terrorism itself cannot be ended, Rumsfeld was saying, we therefore need to
change the way we think about the problem, so that we know better than to expect
an “endgame” to the war on terror. His definition of victory, in short, becomes
“persuading the American people” that real victory will never happen, and that
the war itself may continue indefinitely.
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy.html
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html
Three months passed between Nayirah’s testimony and the start of the war. During
those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over
and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in
Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security
Council. “Of all the accusations made against the dictator,” MacArthur observed,
“none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi
soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on
the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City.”
At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had
failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her
father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US, who sat
listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to
reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what
even the Kuwaitis’ own investigators later confirmed was false testimony. If
Nayirah’s outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have
at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the
extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military
action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush’s Gulf policy. As late as
December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the
American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to
withdraw from Kuwait by Bush’s January 15 deadline.85 On January 12, the US
Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in
a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the
babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush’s favor.
Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah’s
story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty
International, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an
embarrassing retraction. Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment. “This is
the first allegation I’ve had that she was the ambassador’s daughter,” said
Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. “Yes, I think people . . . were
entitled to know the source of her testimony.” When journalists for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah
about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.
There’s a pretty good 45 minute video of the same name as this book playing
probably on PBS and Free Speech TV.
And remember: VNRs mean all advertising all the time!
Corporate Crime Without Shame
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0728-15.htm
Thompson, who is the second in command under Attorney General John Ashcroft,
told the assembled reporters that in the year since the task force was created,
it had obtained over 250 corporate fraud convictions or guilty pleas, including
guilty pleas or convictions of at least 25 former CEOs, and that it had charged
354 defendants with some type of corporate fraud in connection with 169 cases.
“We have over 320 investigations pending, involving in excess of 500 individuals
and companies as subjects of these investigations,” Thompson said.
That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment for one year.
But forcing corporate criminals and their executives to plead guilty is only
half the game. The other half is punishment.
What Thompson didn’t say is that only one high-level corporate executive has
gone to jail in that year.
If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Not Paying Attention
http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/07/22.html
Years ago, Bill Moyers lent a credible voice to those warning about America’s
“secret government”. Tracing the advent of our secretive and often grossly
unethical national security state to the National Security Act of 1947, Moyers
made it clear that Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy lied to the American
public about foreign policy, just as Nixon did, showing that any attempt to
define this as a liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican issue
is well beside the point.
Yes, THAT Bill Moyers. The one that worked for Johnson and now works for you on
PBS.
Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-07-17/rant.html
To tell the truth, I’m kind of anxious to hear back from the FBI, if only for
the chance to ask why anyone would find media criticism suspicious, or if maybe
the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in public is itself enough to strike
fear in the heart of a patriotic citizen.
My co-worker, Craig, says that we should probably be thankful the FBI takes
these things seriously; I say it seems like a dark day when an American citizen
regards reading as a threat, and downright pitch-black when the federal
government agrees.
Special Agent Trippi didn’t return calls from CL. But Special Agent Joe Paris,
Atlanta field office spokesman, stressed that specific FBI investigations are
confidential. He wouldn’t confirm or deny the Schultz interview.
“In this post-911 era, it is the absolute responsibility of the FBI to follow
through on any tips of potential terrorist activity,” Paris says. “Are people
going to take exception and be inconvenienced by this at times? Oh, yeah. ... A
certain amount of convenience is going to be offset by an increase in security.”
-- Hop-Frog
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