Who made the following statement?
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
A) George W. Bush
B) Dick Cheney
C) Karl Rove
D) Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Göring during the Nuremberg Trials
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7 comments:
This quote assumes the state controls or at least influences the media to put out the word of this attack. If the media is unbaised or anti-administration, then it would only work if the country was actually under attack.
The state *does* influence the media, however. The constant adjustment of the ambiguous terror alert level and the defense of every public policy in the name of combatting terror is immediately parroted by the complacent (and in some cases, fervently pro-administration, i.e. Fox News) media.
There has always been the threat of terrorist attack from the militant fundamentalist Islam, and it didn't begin or end with 9-11. What the administration is guilty of is not inventing the attack, but creating an environment of fear in the nation by constantly terrifying the people with the threat of an imminent threat and attacking any criticism of public policy as a support of terrorism.
"Attacking any criticism of public policy as a support of terrorism"?
I haven't watched the news lately, but you can't just throw out blanket statements like that.
That is a fair criticism.
I will respond to this more fully when I have the time, but what immediately comes to mind is:
a) The White House reaction to the vistory of Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primaries
b) The attack on the New York Times for revealing the surveillance program on bank records
c) The attacks on John Murtha after he announced that he had changed his position on the war and favored a withdrawal
d) The administration's reaction to Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and the revelation of secret prisons
e) The reaction to the recent court ruling that found the NSA wiretaps to be illegal
I will provide references to these when I have more time to devote to it. I would not be surprised if a Google search on the term "gives aid and comfort to our enemies" gave me a laundry list to work off of
I think you are blaming the administration when your issue is really with the media. The terror alert level is a means of informing decision makers and the public at the same time and preventing the potential hysteria when people are left to speculate the reason for security upgrades. The administration would be even more wrong to not share this information. The media creates the evironment of fear by sensationalizing their stories, showing pictures of 9/11 every time the terror alert increases, and airing redundant stories to fill their 24/7 networks. I would also challenge you to find any example of a war-time adminstration that did not counter every policy attack with its war impact. America is actually much more open to debate now than during the Cold War.
P.S. I may be conservative, but even I can not stomach Fox News.
First, you will have to forgive me. My time for rebuttal is limited to the period of time after I have put in my eight hours for my employer and before my wife is convinced that I don't love her anymore because I'm working too long on the blog.
I do agree that the media is a huge part of the problem, because
A)Journalitic integrity is compromised with larger and larger corporate sponsors and
B)24-hour news stations can't possibly get enough real news to fill 24 hours, so sensationalistic fluff is used.
However, I'm angrier at the administration, because while the news has been complacent in watching for abuses of executive power, it's the administration that's been abusing the power.
I'm not sure whether I agree with you in that America is more open to debate now than during the Cold War. Certainly more than the McCarthy era, but since then, debate has just been a measure of how contentious the times were. A lot of lively debate during Vietnam (and rightly so), and less during the 80's and 90's. The fact that public criticism is higher than it was during the 80's and 90's is simply because the country is more polarized now than it was then.
As for your challenge to find an administration that doesn't decry it's detractors as unpatrioitc, I will concede that it has echoed throughout history time and time again, but it doesn't justify the use of the tactic any more for the Bush Administration than it did for the Nazi party. In America especially, political protest is itself patriotic, because a free people is one of the ideals that we stand for.
I will post more later
The smell of fear is evident while the people bake...this is why I must remain anonymous....
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