Daily Archives: 12 October 2010

Media Manipulation, as usual

As usual, when something important happens that might reflect poorly on the government, our media does what it does best: it lies.

Here’s the latest example. The original, widely published story was this:

A U.S.-led military rescue operation ended in failure Friday when a Taliban militant set off explosives that killed a British aid worker kidnapped two weeks ago in eastern Afghanistan, Western officials said Saturday.

. . . .

During the rescue, Western officials said, one of the captors detonated explosives near Norgrove, killing himself and the aid worker, who was spearheading a development project run by Development Alternatives Inc., an international consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.

It’s become a little harder to find the original. I excerpted the above from this McClatchy Newspaper.

Only later, after the shock, and false-reality sets in, after our interest wanders elsewhere, do we get the actual story:

A grenade thrown by U.S. forces may have killed a kidnapped British aid worker in Afghanistan, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday, as the U.S. military announced an investigation into the failed rescue attempt.

(source)

. . . but, but, but, the original was so convincing. I mean I could almost see it. Just like in the movies: selfless rescuers coming to the aid of an attractive woman, while evil terrorists stand ready to blow up her (and themselves) in the name of evil fanaticism.

Looking back at the original report, it seems the military anticipated, i.e. “prepped the battlefield” for the apology they’d eventually be making:

“There was no choice,” said a senior official with the U.S-led military coalition in Afghanistan who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to officially discuss the incident. “There was good information that this needed to be done because there were concerns that her life was in imminent danger.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and presume the “Western officials” were well versed in the 25 disinformation techniques and knew from the start their duty was to bullshit. I mean, look at the level of detail in the original misinformation:

Two Western officials said the captor used a suicide vest.

Some might even call it . . . . L-Y-I-N-G.

I intend no disrespect to the fallen or to the soldiers. I myself served in Kunar province where the incident took place, and know some of its valleys as well as I know the back of my hand. I’ve enjoyed great friendships with my fellow soldiers, Afghans and aid workers.

R.I.P. to all the fallen.

I make this critique because I’m soooooooo sick of all the fucking lying.

In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus (525 BC – 456 BC)

Obamacare failing already

The Unraveling Of ObamaCare
open quote Thirty companies and organizations get waivers from the new health care overhaul because otherwise they’d have to raise rates or drop coverage. The president said neither would happen. Hey, where’s our waiver?

When McDonald’s told federal regulators in a recent memo that it would be “economically prohibitive” for its insurance carrier to continue to cover its 30,000 hourly workers unless it received a waiver from the ObamaCare requirement that 80% of premiums for such minimed plans be spent on medical care, alarm bells went off in the White House.

Suddenly the “affordable health care for Americans” that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke of when she passed a bill no one had read was revealed to be an unaffordable fraud that threatened to throw untold numbers of young workers into the ranks of the uninsured in an already precarious election year.

So now McDonald’s has its waiver, for 115,000 workers, not just 30,000. Jack in the Box also has a waiver, as do 28 other companies and organizations. The largest waiver, for 351,000 people, is for, appropriately enough, a union — specifically the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York brotherhood that covers teachers. close quote (Read more from investors.com)

***

Lawsuits over health care law heat up
open quote Matt Sissel of Iowa City proudly served in Iraq as a combat medic. But he objects to being “conscripted” into an overhauled federal health care system.

The uninsured artist is riled about a provision in the new health law that would require him to purchase insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014. Last July, he filed a lawsuit to have the landmark act declared unconstitutional. “I don’t want the federal government dictating my personal financial decisions,” says Sissel, 29. “It can’t even run its own budget.”

In attacking the law in the courts, Sissel has plenty of company. A number of interest groups, state officials and ordinary citizens are seeking to have the health care law struck down in federal court, and action is heating up: close quote (Read more from usatoday.com)

Traveling Down the Road to Serfdom: History of Socialism from Marx to Obama

@ 6:15 — Some of Marx’s writing was so horrific that even commie mass murderers like Lenin hid some of his work. It was recently declassified.

In 1848 in a Bonn newspaper editorial, Marx wrote that we have have a lot of racial trash in Europe — Highland Scots, Basques, Poles, Serbs, and other dirty Slavs who would not see the obvious benefits of progressive teaching. They should be destroyed. Violence is the midwife of history.

In an 1856 letter to Engles, he encouraged Engles to ignore his concern that they will be considered mass murderers.

@ 9:15 – the story of the KGB admitting to 42 million dead people.