L. Pitts, Jr: The Bush doctrine of ignorance

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082706B.shtml

Pitt discusses in beginning the Bush Admin mania with security and his recent blacking out of historical documents that were previously public dating back to the Cold War.

Anyone who doesn't see a pattern here has not been paying attention. From its 18-hour blackout of news that the vice president had shot a man, to its paying a newspaper columnist to write favorable pieces, to its habit of putting out video press releases disguised as TV news, to its penchant for stamping top secret on anything that doesn't move fast enough, this administration has repeatedly shown contempt for the right of the people to know what's going on. At a time when information is more readily available than ever, this government is working like 1952 to enforce ignorance.

And the people, too many of them, shrug and say okey-dokey. As if we learned nothing from Abscam, Iran-contra, Vietnam and Watergate. As if it's OK for an arrogant and paternalistic government to decide for us what we get to know.

Well, it's not. An informed electorate is the lifeblood of democracy, the ultimate check on despotic ambitions.

One wonders if most people get this. One suspects that most people do not. How can you get it and not be outraged? How can you get it and not feel fear? Apparently, some of us don't understand the stakes here.

It's not just information they're trying to control.

[Cobalt-60]

1. Secrecy = Tyranny

[FlavaKreemSnak]

2. This article reminds me of these girls from Kuwait

I know it sounds weird, but it was this time when I was talking on the Kuwait IRC channel, I had heard somewhere that people in Kuwait only have to pay a nickel a gallon for gas and I wanted to see if it was true. So I went to the Kuwait channel and I was going to ask people, but it was really weird, they were all like these rich people who acted really stuck up when I would ask them, and they were all like, oh who knows something like that I would have to ask my chauffeur. I am not making this up there were like 5 different people on there who said that, some of them called it a driver and said it in different words but nobody there knew how much gas cost because they didn't personally ever buy any.

But that is not the part this article reminded me of. While I was asking about the gas, there were other people talking, they were girls, or at least that is what they said, on IRC who knows but the way they were talking about dresses etc made me think that they probably were. And then at some point they were talking about voting. And some of them there were also from other countries where women can't vote and I think in Kuwait they had just started it or maybe they were still thinking about it, I don't know. But there were a lot of these girls who were like oh I am so glad I don't have to vote or think about any of that kind of stuff, it is so boring.

And it reminded me of people you see at school that whenever anything comes up about the war etc or any current events or any topic about other countries, they don't know and it is like they are proud of it, their attitude is like my life is so great I'm glad I don't have to know which countries we are invading or where they are, I would rather skate or play video games or go to the mall, it depends on what they like to do, but it made me think about how governments can make people have these points of view that are totally bogus, as long as they have like entertainment they think they are in such great situations that they are like too good or something to think about anything else, kind of like when having a suntan was supposed to be really prestigious because it showed you had leisure time.

But after I kept thinking about it I realized OK but what about the people whose lives are not so full of entertainment, and then as time went on and I started to try to get to know people from different groups, I found out that it is true, that people who don't have as much money, there are not as many of them that think that Iran is like next to China and China is next to France, OK maybe that last one is exaggerating but you know what I mean. Because their lives actually get affected by the stuff that the government does so they are more interested in it. And I have started to wonder, you know, because the war on terror is going to be so expensive, that maybe not the rich people in Kuwait, but a lot of Americans are going to have really big changes in our lives, and the kids that act like they are too cool to care where Afghanistan is etc, will their point of view change when their lives do? Sorry this is such a long comment, but the article just made me think about all that.

[izzie]

3. I think it has always been with us Bush just used it better.

I grew up in grade school during WW2 and we had all these maps up and pictures of air planes and ships and every morning we had to know where the army and ships were.Usually we had to know some thing about the place they were in also. I have run into others that did not do that. It was sure a great lessons for us in that small town in Maine. When I went to college I would run into students that had never heard of the Ottoman Empire or some thing of that importance in History. I do not know why I did, only I liked to read. So I think it has always been the same only it is more important to know now than when I grew up. I think these others like a man like Bush that they can say he will do it all and I do not have to think about it and Bush and his type count on it. Our type of govt. does not work well unless the people who vote know what is going on and we on this site are hardly the norm. I read a lot still and I would say this is a pretty good site for reading all sides. If you look at freerepubic they hardly do that. I guess, just in make-up, liberals are more open minded. Only thing that turns me off on that is I came from a GOP home, but more in the Ike line and not this Bush style. Church and State and to stay apart papers used to come in weekly at our home.