Dampening Debate

punditman says...
As Peacenik muses about Apocalypse 2012, and the end of whatever, Punditman has been pondering more mundane matters, such as the stifling of debate on all the stuff that we still have to deal with before December 21, 2012.

Punditman thinks that on December 22, 2012, there's a good chance we'll still be dealing with stuff like this. It's the kind of thing that drives punditman bonkers. If you think you live in a free society, then read, watch, listen to, or attend a debate. Any debate. Chances are, you will not get the spectrum of opinion that you would hope a truly free society would offer. The panel discussion I refer to is one that took place at the Brookings Institute on August 25 concerning Afghanistan, and it is summarized by author Robert Dreyfuss. The self-described "nonpartisan public policy organization" presented four panelists who were all hawks. None of them questioned the legitimacy of the war. Only how to win it, and how long it would take. That's a friggin' debate?!

A debate is supposed to involve opposing arguments. To quote Michael Palin in Monty Python's Argument Sketch, "An argument is a collective series of statements intended to establish a proposition." Aparently the so-called "liberal" Brookings Institute is not the right room for an argument.

You might find diversity of opinion in some obscure panel discussion in some back water college somewhere or on some internet radio show that has twenty-seven loyal listeners. Or you may find a bunch of people agreeing with themselves there as well.

The point that punditman is trying to make is that when it comes to the big issues of our times, such as war, terrorism, Iran, civil liberties, swine flu or rising beer prices, you are being bamboozled into a type of fascist groupthink by Big Media and Big Experts from Big Institutes.

Sure there are debates-- fake ones that is, where "opposing" viewpoints are presented, but in reality, it's just a bunch of elitists and politicians screaming over top of one another for entertainment value (afterwards, the rivals can be spotted in the pub next to the studio congratulating each other on their performances and caring nothing of rising beer prices).

As Noam Chomsky and others of his ilk have been saying for years, despite the myth of a free and open "marketplace of ideas," the framework for debate within most democracies has always been relatively narrow when it comes to the big issues, compared to the potential. The reasons have to do with profit, advertising revenue, self-censorship and concentratrion of media ownership. Now this may seem counter-intuitive in the internet age, but punditman intuits that despite the abundance of new media, a narrowing of opinion on crucial matters is more evident than ever before.

Observe the following statements:

The war in Afghanistan is a war of necessity and a noble cause.
Terrorists hate us because of our freedom.
Iran is a monolothic Islamofascist state intent on nuking Israel.
Swine flu is a dangerous pandemic that requires everyone to be vaccinated even if we don't have time to safety-test the vaccine.
Beer prices need to rise because...ummm, rising costs or something...

Whether you agree with any or all of these statements or not, ask yourself whether you think the counterpoint to each of these statements gets a fair shake.

Why Are Long-Term Rates Going Up? Maybe Lenders Think We're Screwed

Henry Blodget|May. 25, 2009, 9:48 AM

The whole world is deflating, but long-term interest rates are moving up. (See the chart for the 10-yr Treasury at right). Why?

Tim Geithner thinks it's because traders are recognizing that the economy's beginning to recover

That's one happy theory. And it's possible (fingers crossed). But here are two less-happy theories:

Read on...

Peacenik has been browsing the news this morning. In the Globe and Mail there is a story about Flaherty not revealing the extent of the federal deficit. WTF? Peacenik guesses it must be big. And in Haaretz, Netanyahu is threatening Iran again. Yawn. Should Peacenik yawn at this threat? GM is on the verge of bankruptcy. Who cares? Standard and Poor's just warned Britain about downgrading Britain's credit rating. So what? Foreclosures in the U.S.A continues at a record pace.....zzzzzzzzzzzz . There are lots of stories about the growing threat of inflation. Boring. And the yield on 10-year U.S treasuries jumped 33 basis points in the past week. What dat? Obama said the U.S. was out of money. Who isn't?

Is there a trend in all this news? Peacenik doesn't see one. But Peacenik senses something. Something disquieting. Bad news is losing its punch. The sheeple are becoming inured to bad news. Society no longer seems to distinguish between good news and bad news. The stock market is just as apt to rise on bad news as on good news. Tons of really bad news is just ignored. Peacenik wonders why this is so. Peacenik wonders if this is bad. Bad news is losing its impact. That is bad news. Very bad news...I think.

Who's Telling the Truth About Iran's Nuclear Program?

by Muhammad Sahimi

Since February 2003, Iran's nuclear program has undergone what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself admits to be the most intrusive inspection in its entire history. After thousands of hours of inspections by some of the most experienced IAEA experts, the Agency has verified time and again that (1) there is no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran, and (2) all the declared nuclear materials have been accounted for; there has been no diversion of such materials to non-peaceful purposes. Iran has a clean bill of health, as far as its nuclear program is concerned.

This is not what Israel, its lobby in the United States, and its neoconservative allies had expected. Such a clean bill of health deprives them of any justification for advocating military attacks on Iran. The illegal act of sending Iran's nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council and the subsequent, highly dubious UNSC resolutions against Iran have also not been effective. So what is the War Party to do?

It has resorted to an international campaign of exaggerations, lies, and distortions. This campaign involves planting lies in the major media and on the Internet, making absurd interpretations of what the IAEA reports on Iran, and issuing dire – but bogus – warnings about the speed at which Iran's uranium-enrichment program is progressing. Such warnings have been around for over two decades. In 1984, West German intelligence predicted that Iran would make a nuclear bomb within two years.

The campaign uses all the instruments of the U.S. political establishment to advance its agenda. The Bush administration routinely talked about "Iran's nuclear weapon program" or "Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," without ever bothering to present any credible evidence for their assertion. Iran's drive for nuclear weapons has become an article of faith even to President Obama, who, in my opinion, is not pro-war. LeonPanetta , the new CIA director, recently said, "From all the information I've seen, I think there is no question that they [Iranians] are seeking that [nuclear weapon] capability." What information, Mr.Panetta? Enlighten us, please.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...I would guess that the vast majority of people out there, despite their political affiliation, would simply assume that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon and is playing a game of Monty Python's Olympic Hide-and-Seek with the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency. You, dear reader, may be one of these people. The only problem is that there is no evidence for such an assumption. None.

Punditman also makes the safe assumption that most people do not know that even the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 said Iran "halted" its nuclear weapons program in 2003; and, if they don't know that, then Punditman would bet his fictitious dividend cheque that most also don't know that this same report did not present any evidence that an Iranian nuclear program has ever existed (none, ever)–so it couldn't be "halted" in the first place!

This speaks to the power of media- and political-propaganda, working in tandem.

Is Punditman defending Iran? Not at all. Does Punditman trust Iran? Punditman does not trust any State. Punditman is simply defending the facts.

The Mighty, Scary Press Corps

by Glenn Greenwald

Criticizing the McCain campaign for refusing to allow reporters to question Sarah Palin, Time's Jay Carney writes:

Political operatives love to talk about circumventing the media and other co-called "elites" -- i.e., independent specialists, observers and thinkers. The operatives convince themselves they can take their candidate's message directly to the people -- on their terms, without all that poking and prodding and skepticism. That's propaganda. In a democratic society, it rarely works for long.

If only that were true. But if there's one indisputable lesson from the last eight years, it's that political propaganda works exceedingly well -- not despite an aggressively adversarial press but precisely because we don't have one. Carney's idealistic claims about the short life-span of propaganda in American democracy are empirically false:

Read on...

Peacenik just read elsewhere that Palin has agreed to an interview with Charlie Gibson. Just what Greenwald predicted would happen in this article. I would bet that there will be no gotcha questions and any questions about foreign leaders will be pre-screened. The press hasn't asked anyone in the Bush administration a tough question for 8 years. I don't even know why McCain and Palin are worried. BTW a weekend Gallup poll showed McCain jumping ahead of Obama.

Afghanistan Fight Will Only Get Tougher

"What we call the “Taliban” is actually a loose alliance of Pashtun tribes and clans, joined by nationalist forces and former mujahedin from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle."

Afghanistan Fight Will Only Get Tougher

punditman says:
Eric Margolis, who has a syndicated column for the Toronto Sun is one of the few informed, mainstream media critics of the Afghanistan mission.

CNN Plays Military Mouthpiece on Iran Claims

CNN Plays Military Mouthpiece on Iran Claims

punditman says:
This is no different than the way CNN and the rest of the mainstream media covered the lead-up to the War in Iraq, as outlined here.