Instant Revisionism

[Southpaw Bookworm]

Another winner from Gene Robinson at the WashPost:

The story line was a classic: Beauty and the Beast. Remember the Atlanta courthouse shootings a few months ago? Brian Nichols was the ogre whose homicidal rampage led him to the apartment of an attractive young woman named Ashley Smith, who soothed his savage breast by speaking gently of God and redemption. That he was black and she was white seemed to deepen the narrative and give it the status of myth.

Oh, did I say myth? I meant meth.

It turns out that Smith did more than read to Nichols from "The Purpose-Driven Life" about God's master plan. She also gave him some of her stash of the illegal drug methamphetamine, or "ice" as she has called it in the publicity campaign for her new book.

snip


The whole episode struck me as a good illustration of the dizzying speed with which the story of our times gets written and rewritten in the digital age. It's no wonder that public opinion is so jittery over just about everything, no mystery that Time and Newsweek tell us every few weeks how desperate we are for spiritual connection and some kind of eternal truth. The worldly truth we know keeps changing on us.

I witnessed this warp-speed process in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I got there five days after the deluge, when the story, as the whole world understood it, was one of "Mad Max" depravity and violence. Hoodlums were raping and pillaging, I just "knew" -- even shooting at rescue helicopters trying to take hospital patients to safety. So it was a surprise when I rolled into the center of the city, with all my foreign-correspondent antennae bristling, and found the place as quiet as a tomb.

snip

It's a warning to consumers: You'll sleep better if you remember that the truth is never simple, and that the first story you hear surely won't be the last.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601492.html

[raccoon]

1. Thanks for posting that. It's certainly something to keep in mind. nt

[peacetalksforall]

2. Corporations and their stockholders are the culprits.

They need Sensationalism, Serialism, Surrealism, and Propaganda to make money on a either a little bit of news or by suppressing the news. Do you think they can make money by suppressing and distorting the news? They can by either direct payola from the ruling regime or by the benefits to their owners as propaganda partners of the ruling regime. NBC makes money for a war production company. FOX makes money for a war backing man. Etc.

Do you stockholders approve of the U.S. versions of Izvetzia and Pravda?

Propaganda Brokers: I bet you wrote more about the way news was handled in the USSR than you provide about important issues to this country? Say nothing about the fear spreading you are involved in.

Tell me, where is the news about the U.S. paid employees who passed secret information to Israel? Spies in the very departments that are planning and executing U.S. policy?

Where is the news about the U.S. paid Marine who supposedly gave supposed secrets (or known information) to someone in the Philippines?

Where is the news about vote protections?

Where is the news about the billions of missing dollars from HUD and the DOD?

Where is the truth about the real agenda of this regime?

Where is in depth information about the true state of energy, envioronment, insurance, starvation, homelessness.

But you sure can dish it out when it comes to propagandizing for the regime about the imminent wars on Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Maybe even Nicaragua.

Who really dumbed down America?

How do we respect you?