Are We Unaware?

A year ago, an “event” occurred while we were fighting amongst ourselves as to which was the better candidate – Hillary or Barak – a major news event went whistling over my head, or rather – a major news event was hopelessly under reported in the U.S.

I found myself searching for a credible back up to support my argument with an office wingnut that Al-Qaida had nothing at all to do with Saddam Hussein pre 9-11. This asshole is hopelessly mush-brained from years of a steady diet of Fox News, he thinks Hannity is “a good man” and that O’Reilly is “fair and balanced”.

I took it for granted, since I have been paying attention and have not subjected myself to the mind control of Fox News Propaganda, that when the media FINALLY forced the issue and made George Bush admit that Iraq, in his words, had “NOTHING”  to do with 9-11 that the issue was finally closed and everyone knew it. Until the office wingnut kept insisting that I didn’t know my history.

HA!! Guess What Folks!?? There are STILL wingnut idiots that didn’t get the memo. They still believe what they were told by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, et al that somehow someway sometime Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Qaida and had his share of responsibility for 9-11.

Here is my third or fourth search phrase, taken from the title of a Guardian newspaper article from an earlier search:

 “Saddam Hussein had no direct ties to al-Qaida, says Pentagon study”

NPR had it. McClatchey had it. I’m scanning down the page to find something the office wingnut could not simply call biased against all things conservative. On the second page the NY Sun (who?) had it and the National Review had it. Finally, on page two, after a couple of blog listings, was “ABC NEWS”. Oh, good – a credible source even the Wingnut can’t say is biased. But look closer, the ABC link is to the Australian version of ABC News.

So the Pentagon (yes, our Pentagon) reported that there was no direct link between Iraq and Al-Qaida, and …

It Got Buried. Of course I read about it last year, but I get my news from blogs and some stinking liberal hippie commie pinko Berkenstock newspaper like the Washington Post. I can’t take those sources to the office wingnut and get anything but a “liberal media bullshit” response from him.

According to TruthOut.org: http://www.truthout.org/articl…

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

   It won’t be emailed to reporters and it won’t be posted online.

   Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: “We’re making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we’ll send it out via CD in the mail.”

If you ask for it, we’ll send it to you in the mail? As in USPS mail? It’s digital, it is on a CD, but it will be sent by snail mail only. Hmmmmmm.

So dear friends, remember – we can take for granted that the facts are fixed around the policies of those in office.  If facts get in the way of those policies, they will bury the facts. You want to get hearings on torture? You have to start with convincing the “other” half of the American Electorate that they have trusted their news source to be truthful. They have trusted their news source to be complete.  

They have been propagandized and it is not easy to convince them that what they wanted to hear is not what they needed to hear. If and when it becomes common knowledge that our “news” organizations are not to be trusted will they change their ways? They’ll follow the money, you can be sure of that.

It makes me wonder how much of what I consider “truth” is simply an incomplete version of what the government wants me to know.  How can we possibly get Congress to do anything we want when they think know they can massage the facts to fit their agenda?

If the Bush Administration is never investigated for any of the crimes I suspect them of committing then Democracy as I know it is dead. Investigative Journalism is pathetically weakened by a conservative editorial staff and corporate board beholden to profits, not the consumer.

Buhdy should not be the only one to say it;

LOUDER DAMMIT!!