Liveblogging…Am curretnly sitting in the skybox at Rutgers University Stadium as the Dalai Lama gives a talk… “Peace, War & Reconciliation”. He is speaking about how people feel hate and anger is 90 percent mental perception and not reality. A high percentage of peoples ideas of anger and hate are exaggerated. And, we all lose our tempter, feel anger… “When I speak, say harsh words, dominated by anger, afterwords I feel shy about speaking to that person I was angry at, so I realize that anger dominated my mind, and thus my mind was not functioning properly. Negative emotion always hidees reality. The action that is carried by these negative emotions thus is not correct.” [...]
“We are social animals, no matter how powerful one single person is, without a community that person can not survive. I am part of a community, and in order to succeed, I have to take into account other communities beyond my own. Otherwise, I do not succeed. Compassion and attachment come into play… [...]
“Compassion, sense of closeness is unbiased… attachment is biased. Compassion is closeness.”
“Compassion can extend to your enemy. Attachment can not. One must extend compassion to ones enemies and those who hate.”
“Compassion brings us all together, and that is based in mutual respect. It opens our inner door. So, dealing with people is then not stressful. Distrust is reduced. Suspicion is reduced. Self centeredness is reduced.”
“In your heart, open your heart, extend your hand, then comes the possibility to find change and end suspicion. Smile.”
…Throw stones in a glass house. President Bush, as quoted in the Washington Times:
President Bush yesterday implored the United Nations to rid itself of corruption and scolded the global body for squandering the world’s respect and making a mockery of human rights. “When this great institution’s member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the credibility of the whole organization,” Mr. Bush told the U.N. General Assembly. In past years, Libya and Sudan have served on the commission. “If member countries want the United Nations to be respected and effective, they should begin by making sure it is worthy of respect,” he said.
It’s an extraordinary statement considering the recent past human rights abuses revealed at Abu Ghraib, such corporate scandals as Enron, the no bid awarding of contracts to Halliburton in both Iraq and Louisiana, the onging and spiraling ever downward war in Iraq and finally, how the reality of these failures are reflected in Bush’s own falling poll numbers in the USA.
The policies of the Bush Administration have burnt nearly all of the respect the US once had around the world. The incompetance they have foisted upon the US and the world is coming home to roost.
When Bush speaks about the squandering of respect and making a mockery of human rights, he knows of what he speaks. It’s a sad time for this great nation. We are saddled with a President who utters such words without an understanding of how hyperbolic, hypocritical and truly revealing those words really are, nor any understading of how those words are dripping with embarrassing irony. We should all be ashamed he is allowed to speak for us.
He is a sad clown. It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words. Tis most true. And, two pictures speak volumes. These show a man detached from the events before him, unable to feign interest, unwilling to sit up in his chair like the prince he wishes to be, slouching before the world, every second of wanting to be elsewhere, of disgust, of disrespect and of ill temperment and boredom etched into his face for all to see. Petualant, uncurious, uninvolved and uninterested.
Such behavior is of a child, not of a person who warrants respect amongst the leaders of the entire world. This is how far we have gone. Most of us have been aware of this situation for a very very long time. The hard core beleivers will hold onto their idol to the very end. It is what they do. For them, there is no consideration of contrary reality nor the facts. For them, he will always be “The Prince”. But, for those of us who understand that the security of our nation depends upon our relations with and respect amongst the world of nations, the man currently in power garners no respect, no integrity and has not earned it in any way shape or form.
And, that is a shame. Many have said that Bush is not a smart man, and I’ve always defended him in that regard, for it is clear that he is indeed quite smart in many ways. But, in the most important he is ignorant.
Success as a leader and as a nations standard bearer requires more than propaganda and good intentions. It requires an intellect and the ability and desire to engage ideas and solutions from a broad spectrum. It also requires the ability to deal with bad news and dissent in order to foster solutions.
The truth is, sometimes the best solutions are those we do not see, or agree with, or come from difficult ideas or circumstances.
It is well established that Bush is not a man who entertains ideas not his own or which conflict with his ideals.
That is unfortunate, and it is the mark of a truly foolish man. A man who is too arrogant to understand his own weaknesses, for we all have them, work with his strengths and nurture the strengths of those around him, from all ideological perspectives. That is the basis of true intelligence: the ability to marshall many people and ideas and bring them together to create something new and progressive in order to solve a problem, initiate a solution and move onto the next. All facts to date, from 9/11, to the economy, to foreign relations, to New Orleans show Bush to be a man of limited abilities in this regard. And, when in a room of leaders and thinkers, he is disengaged.
Remember when the President of the United States was the smartest man in the room?
It is amazing how much time and effort the right-wing has spent on crushing the peace mom train. It’s pretty extraorinary. LGF has been blogging on it for weeks. Rush can’t shut up about it. It’s everywhere. It is, of course, simply the latest chapter in liberal bashing. All opposition to Bush and the right-wing agenda and ideology is to be crushed and ridiculed. But, the reaction to Cindy Sheehan was particularly nasty and riddled with factual lies.
Which tells us one thing: Her message got out there. And, people are talking about it. And, the right is scared. So, out came the propaganda guns, blazing away. Destroy the traitorous mom.
Propaganda is a simple matter most of the time. News is farily easy to manipulate, if you know how to do it. And, one of the easiest ways to alter news and create propaganda is to alter the motivation of individuals in the news by taking advantage of the lack of real information and the fact that only a given amount of info is going to come out on a topic in a certain period of time. The best ways to do this is to manipulate a persons motivation and to raise the stakes.
Case in point, the recent report that a rental car driven by a hired driver who was rushing Al Sharpton to the airport after his prayer meeting with “peace mom” Cindy Sheehan was pulled over by authorities for going 110 mph in a 65 mph zone.
The headline at NewsMax read: Sharpton Evades Police for 9 Miles, leading one to surmise that Sharpton was driving, or at least somehow responsible or that Sharpton was running from police for some reason, wanted for some crime. But, that was not the case at all.
The article states:
A driver for the Rev. Al Sharpton led Ellis County sheriff’s deputies on a nine-mile chase at speeds up to 110 mph before state troopers stopped the car, authorities said. [...]
The driver was rushing Sharpton to the airport after his visit with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Sunday at her camp outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford.
The headline is factually incorrect. Sharpton was charged with no crime, and was allowed to leave. Sharpton was not behind the wheel, nor apparently, was he suspected of making the driver do anything illegal. The incorrect headline is disinfo, meant to imply that Sharpton was involved in some type of high stakes felonious car chase. It’s a simple propaganda technique – raise the stakes.
Which brings us to the New York Post headline which read: REV. AL’S WILD RIDE IN 110-MPH COP CHASE, and also means imply that Sharpton was involved in a high stakes chase, a criminal on the run. The opening graph goes further, adding a more telling element – altering the motivation:
The Rev. Al Sharpton was in such a hurry to get out of President Bush’s neighborhood that his driver blew past a deputy sheriff at 110 mph and then led troopers on a nine-mile Texas chase before pulling over, authorities said. (Emphasis added)
A good propagandist knows how to twist information to the benefit of the cause, in this case, to smear anyone involved in the events at Camp Casey. The story is no longer about a driver breaking the speed limit to get to the airport, it’s about how Sharpton was trying to get out of town like a thief in the night!
The little propaganda gnomes over at Little Green Footballs excel at turning news into propaganda as well. So much so, that they feel empowered enough to take photographs and use them as evidence supporting their propganda lies. Very bold. But, not very smart nor thought out.
The LGF effort at twisting the facts regarding Sharpton’s”wild ride” predates the one at the New York Post, but is ever the more ham handed. It begins with a post entitled: Sharpton Bails at High Rate of Speed, and opines:
Following his staged photo session with Mother Sheehan, the Reverend Al Sharpton couldn’t get away fast enough.
Neat huh? It gets better.
The post links to another post which seems to think it’s found something of note and clear proof that the prayer event was a “staged photo session”. It would be utterly amazing observation if staged photo ops never occur. But, they happen every single day.
Here is a prime example of a photo op staged to create propaganda in order to convey and convince. Photo ops are part of the world we live in. Everyone who has something to promote, from poltics to selling a book, does them. Everyone. The fact is, usually, the press is kept out of the shot, but that takes organization and people. The LGF posters argument is simply hypocritical in the highest. OF course, the nut of the argument for the little propaganda squirrel is that they don’t like propaganda that doesn’t promote their ideology. Everyone contrary is unpatriotic and all that rubbish.
Further, the poster presents the photo “evidence” in a manipulative and dishonest manner, all in an effort to prove the propaganda point, which is to bash the peace mom.
What the LGF poster has done is entirely disregard the actual timing of the event, which the photos faithfully recreate in their original context.
If you go to the Yahoo! slideshow from which the pictures are taken, it is plain and clear that the first picture, number 24, is the wider shot. The second picture, number 25, is the tighter shot.
The LGF post switches the order to make it’s point. It implies that the wider shot is the real shot, and the closer shot is not, because it omits the reporters and photographers. But, in truth, they are two completely separate shots, one taken after the other. Video taken at the event backs up the photos.
Taking the pictures out of that context, as the LGF poster has done, is manipulative and alters the real information and its context. Such manipulation is meant to convey and convince the audience of the posters point of view, in this case that Sheehan is a phony because 1) She associates with a borderline criminal who evades authories, and 2) she holds staged photo ops. (Much like President Bush it should be noted yet again.)
Finally, right on cue, that other great propaganda dog Rush Limbaugh picks up the bone, repeating the exact same errors and manipulations.
As the president himself stated:
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
And, the man knows of what he speaks. The problem lay within his own statement. Propaganda is not truth. It is manipulation of information to convince and to persuade. And, it almost always involves bending the truth and outright lying. Propaganda is about keeping the ideology front and center.
But, I’m sure that the President is most aware of that fact, as are the gnomes at LGF and all the others who propigate the progaganda. Lying has become their lingua franca, and when they see a threat to their ideology, they engage the noise machine. No matter the truth, no matter the consequences.
And, that’s a shame. It’s also an indication of how far down the rabbit hole the right-wing idealogue dogs have gone. Greater desperation lay over the hill. Which means it is going to get even uglier. Watch your back.
This will come as no surprise to those of us who are familiar with Jonah Goldberg’s particular brand of racist idiocy. From “The Corner”:
ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg]
I think it’s time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you’re working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he’s not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It’s never too soon to be prepared.
Posted at 10:05 AM
Shorter Jonah: You primitive screwheads are f*cked.
Someone should really revoke this guys charter.
