I don’t think things are going well in Iraq. Although from from watching our own media you’d never know it.
This morning, I saw a story on Google News that Kerry recieved no ‘convention boost’, the numbers stayed essentially the same. This afternoon I see this:
Kerry Leads Bush in Post-Convention Poll. What’s the real story?
Barack Obama gave a tremendous speech the other night - almost had me going - but I just couldn’t ignore the discrepencies. A couple blocks away from where he made his speech was a ‘protest zone’ that was (presumably) full of anti-Kerry protesters. John Kerry also raised the issue of civil rights and their loss. Again no mention of the quarantined Americans just trying to make their opionions known.
Are they being hypocritical? I believe so. It’s not like they don’t know it’s going on, it’s more like they condone it by their silence. Shouldn’t they be screaming from the roof tops that Americans are being deprived of their most fundamental rights by the administration? It seems to me that a few good points could be made at the paranoia and arrogance of both the president and vice-president. But for some reason, silence on these issues rules the day.
I am not impressed with Kerry or Edwards. It’s not just the ‘protest zones’ thing. I see no real information, no meat, just platitudes and generalities that noone will be able to hold ‘em to later on. I see no real distinction between the R’s and the D’s other than the tone of their messages. The R’s are a downer and the D’s are trying to be upbeat. That’s not much of a difference on which to elect a President.
Noone seems to be telling the truth anymore (well, except maybe Helen Thomas - you go Helen!). The mass media sure aren’t - they show themselves to be lying mo^%$#^%kers every day - either boldly lying because they know noone will call them on it (and what could they do anyway?) or through gross omissions. The omission thing seems to be the more prevelant form of ‘news lie’. Take for instance this little tidbit: Iraqi Civilian Death Toll More Than 37,000. Why is it that this is not on the evening news, or the Sunday morning talkfests? Sure the numbers could be wrong (and more than likely are inflated) but even reducing it by 50% leaves a rather newsworthy item.
The right accuses the mass media of being ‘liberal’ and ‘biased’. If you happened to catch FOX news the morning after Kerry’s acceptance speech, you’d have seen the media’s true colors. Biased? Duh. Liberal? I’m thinking not. What really frightens me is that there’s a concerted effort to label the media as ‘left’ so they can get away with being ‘way right’ - and then justify it by pointing to the right and say “but they accuse us of…..”. It’s kinda sad really.
I read stuff like this: Can’t Bush and Blair See Iraq Is About to Explode? and it just doesn’t square with what my own government and media are saying. There’s no hint in the major press that Iraq is falling apart - now I’m not stupid and I can see that it is imploding simply by the dearth of information in the main stream press (if it was going well they’d be making a lot of noise about it - silence in this case is really not good). But the main reason I tend to believe this article is the simple fact that I do not believe the official news sources nor my own government. It’s terribly wrong and depressing to realize that no matter what is said, you can’t beleive it - in fact you immediately suspect the opposite.
I’m starting to understand how people can become frothing radicals.
It is depressing.
At this point I have two reasons to vote for Kerry 1) He does not seem to exhibit the personal hubris which I find so appalling in Bush&Co. and 2) he’s not the incumbant. That the only thing I can get excited about (at least in politics) is that I get an opportunity to ‘vote the bastards out’ is telling I think. I’ve really tried to get interested and excited about this race - reading up on the issues and trying to stay abreast of what’s going on but all that does is feeds my cynicism (which can’t be entirely healthy).
