Parry: America's REAL problem - A poorly informed public was easily misled

[blm]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/051006.html

>>>>>>>>>
So for Clinton, learning the truth about controversial deals between the Reagan-Bush crowd and the autocratic governments of Iraq and Iran just wasn’t on the White House radar screen. Clinton also wanted to grant President George H.W. Bush a gracious exit.

“I wanted the country to be more united, not more divided,” Clinton explained in his 2004 memoir, My Life. “President Bush had given decades of service to our country, and I thought we should allow him to retire in peace, leaving the (Iran-Contra) matter between him and his conscience.”

Unexpected Results

Clinton’s generosity to George H.W. Bush and the Republicans, of course, didn’t turn out as he had hoped. Instead of bipartisanship and reciprocity, he was confronted with eight years of unrelenting GOP hostility, attacks on both his programs and his personal reputation.

Later, as tensions grew in the Middle East, the American people and even U.S. policymakers were flying partially blind, denied anything close to the full truth about the history of clandestine relationships between the Reagan-Bush team and hostile nations in the Middle East.

Clinton’s failure to expose that real history also led indirectly to the restoration of Bush Family control of the White House in 2001. Despite George W. Bush’s inexperience as a national leader, he drew support from many Americans who remembered his father’s presidency fondly.

If the full story of George H.W. Bush’s role in secret deals with Iraq and Iran had ever been made public, the Bush Family’s reputation would have been damaged to such a degree that George W. Bush’s candidacy would not have been conceivable.

Not only did Clinton inadvertently clear the way for the Bush restoration, but the Right’s political ascendancy wiped away much of the Clinton legacy, including a balanced federal budget and progress on income inequality. A poorly informed American public also was easily misled on what to do about U.S. relations with Iraq and Iran.

In retrospect, Clinton’s tolerance of Reagan-Bush cover-ups was a lose-lose-lose – the public was denied information it needed to understand dangerous complexities in the Middle East, George W. Bush built his presidential ambitions on the nation’s fuzzy memories of his dad, and Republicans got to enact a conservative agenda.

Clinton’s approach also reflected a lack of appreciation for the importance of truth in a democratic Republic. If the American people are expected to do their part in making sure democracy works, they need to be given at least a chance of being an informed electorate.
>>>>>>>>

[pnwmom]

1. Thanks for this! It's a good website and I had almost forgotten it

[blm]

2. Robert Parry is the best analytical/investigative reporter on the internet

If he says it, you can count on it being the truth - the FULLY RESEARCHED truth.

He's telling us we NEED the books opened up and keeping them closed is something this world can no longer afford.

How many more 9-11s and Iraq wars do we want to see down the road?

[Demeter]

3. Say Rather A Public Intentionally Kept In the Dark

by its own self-absorption and the failings of the churches, the media and the opposition, totally ignorant by desire and design, motivated by only the largest of emotional shocks (9/11, gas prices, employment woes, Columbine)

lives a desperate, mindless existence

until led off to slaughter by people whom only a Hitler could love.



I surely don't remember Poppy's reign with any fondness--who does?

[blm]

5. Apparently the Clinton administration found reason to keep Poppy protected

And I don't really buy that it was just for unity.

[Tuesday_Morning]

13. Failure of schools as well

Neither of my kids (one went to a private high school, the other a public school) studied the last 45 years in history class. They'd get some MLK in January around the holiday. One of them had a class that touched on the Vietnam War... and that was it!

How can people make wise decisions today without a decent grasp of the events of the last half century?

[blm]

14. No doubt the dumbing down of the school teachings was part of the plan

to keep the electorate uninformed - just as the twenty years the RW spent buying up the broadcast media was part of the greater effort to control what the public can learn from broadcast news sources.

[mim]

17. I don't think it's as conspiratorial as that

I attended high school in the early 60's, the years of Kennedy and Johnson, and they didn't get around to recent history then either. This negligence happens IMO partly because the teachers spend so much time on the earlier stuff that they can barely cram in the later stuff, and partly because recent events are just too controversial. Nevertheless one of our history teachers recommended the books A Nation of Sheep and It Can't Happen Here.

I got a further example of the former pattern when I took a course in the Old Testament as part of a diaconal-training program. The teacher spent so much time on minor incidents such as the Philistine theft of the Ark that he never got around to the Babylonian Exile.

[blm]

31. But, since that time, the GOPs have tried to eliminate Dept of Education

and have put in administrators who weakened it at every opportunity.

[blondeatlast]

4. Excellent piece and the website (new to me) duly marked. Thanks. nt

[blm]

7. Once you start reading that site, you'll see why many, like bartcop, say

it's one of the most important websites for real information, because he can put everything happening today in its proper context and link them to important past issues that the corporate media meticulously avoids.

[AX10]

6. K&R

[KoKo]

8. Clinton's passion for healing has continued as he has taken on Old George

as his fund raising buddy these days.

Breaks my heart to see the Clinton's that I defended for so long ...turn out this way. But, then NAFTA and TELECOM Act plus a few other signs were there all along. We focused on the Right Wing Attack Machine when we should have been out there demanding that Clinton not cave in and pressuring our Congress not to pass these trade bills and telecom dismantling. The attack machine was a smoke screen for what was going on as the Repugs set the stage for the big coup in 2000.

And, Clinton should have gone after Poppy and Nixon should have been impeached and served time. We had a chance to clean up this mess but every
time the "Powers that Be" said..."Move along and let the country heal itself." I imagine this time it will be no different.

[blm]

9. Except there will be no next time is what Parry is saying - the only way

this country can survive as a democracy is to OPEN THE BOOKS. The next president HAS TO DO THAT.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. To the Greatest List with you

K&R

[blm]

15. Wow... ProfP.... I am honored. Just for that, another Parry must read:

Beating Bush at 'Information War'
By Robert Parry
March 16, 2005

Some readers have asked why I started my book about the rise of the Bush dynasty with a chapter set between the two George Bush presidencies, with Bill Clinton explaining why he didn’t pursue investigations of his predecessor’s Cold War crimes. The short answer is that I saw that moment as pivotal to understanding today’s political crisis.

The failure of the Clinton Democrats to fight for an honest record of the Cold War – and to expose George H.W. Bush’s complicity in wrongdoing – opened the door for George W. Bush to enter the White House in 2001. If key documents had been declassified about just a few scandals, such as the Iraqgate arming of Saddam Hussein and the Iran-Contra Affair, that door almost certainly would have been shut for good.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/031505.html

>>>>>>>>
But Bill Clinton saw history as less important than, say, his health-care program, which he thought (naively) might garner some Republican support if he let the elder George Bush off the hook. So, the American people were left with a misleading Cold War history; Clinton never got his bipartisanship; and the way was cleared for a comeback by the Bushes and their neoconservative allies.

Indirectly, the decision to avoid any truth-commission-style accountability after “winning” the Cold War also contributed to the quagmire in Iraq, a budgetary ocean of red ink again at high tide, and a population that wallows more and more in myths and misinformation.

‘Information Warfare’

It is a thesis of both my new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, and my earlier book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ that Clinton and the Democrats grievously misunderstood the modern concept of “information warfare” and how the Republicans were waging it at home.

The Republicans and especially the neoconservative intellectuals realized that control of information – or one might say replacing it with propaganda – was the key to solidifying their political power within the United States.

That’s why the conservatives have invested billions of dollars over the past quarter century in building their own potent media infrastructure, ranging from cable networks and major daily newspapers to AM talk radio and well-organized Internet bloggers. Besides writing their own historical narrative, the conservatives succeeded in throwing the mainstream press onto the defensive with endless charges of “liberal bias.”

>>>>>>>

[ProfessorPlum]

19. Thanks,

I've been reading Parry for years, he is great. His work on Iran/Contra alone is worth its weight in gold.

And I really do agree that all of this letting high-level criminals off the hook is really corrosive to America. He's right on the money about that.

[blm]

20. He doesn't want DEms sweeping it under the rug - they shouldn't shy away

from legal measures like impeachment and opening the documents to the public.

My mantra will remain - Open the books for Open Government - I'm from the Anti-corruption wing of the Democratic Party.

[DemReadingDU]

11. People are poorly informed because

they aren't paying attention to what is going on. They are 'too busy' with work, or hobbies, or whatever. They go with the flow and rely on their friends who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox news.

[blm]

12. And that is the RW's greatest strength - uninformed electorate.

.

[mim]

18. I'm more sympathetic on that score

Like Paul Krugman, I refrain from blaming those who are too harried to follow the news. People have jobs to do and children to raise, and raising children today is a lot more stressful and time-consuming than it used to be. So a lot of people have to get their news on the fly. But because of that, I blame the news media even more. If they must condense the news to what can be gotten on the fly, that's all the more reason to concentrate on the facts, the important stuff, what the people in charge are really up to and how it affects the man and woman in the street, not who has more charisma or the latest Republican smear.

[blm]

30. Krugman was one of the few journalists who blamed THEMSELVES for turning

Bush into a heroic figure of ridiculous proportions after 9-11. He said the news media never really bothered to correct that imbalanced view of Bush for the years following, even after the 9-11 report revealed more of his incompetence, but the media still shielded the public from hearing much about those details.

[bdamomma]

22. to those who are not paying attention

this is will our downfall. Ignorance will be mankinds downfall.

[Doctor_J]

16. True, but kinda obvious, IMO

the only reason Smirk got enough votes to sneak into office is that the media lied, covered-up and slanted the facts in 2000. His whole life he's been a lazy, incurious, mean, petty loser who kills everything he touches, et we were bombarded by this big hoax that somehow these qualities would make a good leader of the free world.

[blm]

21. Bush is Bush - It's what the Clinton administration did that gave us Bush

AGAIN - when the whole family should have been put in jail and would have if Clinton didn't close the books on their crimes in 1993.

[calimary]

24. Just proves, yet again, that taking the high road takes you straight off

a cliff.

I read some things about this awhile ago - about the preference for trying to unite the country rather than divide it - and unlike bush, I think Clinton sincerely meant that.

But you CANNOT go there. Not with these people. The only thing they understand is - as one DUer long ago put it - getting the snot beaten out of them. That's the ONLY thing they understand, OR respect. You can't EVER expect these people to play fair. It's because they represent the interests of those who by their very nature do not play fair, but rather prefer stacking the deck, greasing the skids, and bending the rules (well, by now, flat-out thumbing their noses at the rules). We've seen their abuses of power again and again, just more bald-faced now than ever before.

Furthermore, bush senior did NOT deserve a dignified retirement with all his shit swept under the rug. He deserved to be HELD ACCOUNTABLE. He still does. This violates the "Big Two" in the Superman code - truth, and justice.

You cannot EVER play fair with these people.

Nor can you EVER expect that from them.

They just don't speak that language. That's just not in the milk they pour on their cornflakes every morning. It's Just. Not. In. Them.

EVER.

[blm]

32. It's why Dems shouldn't take impeachment off the table. They should just

insist they have no desire to impeach a president, and that ONLY the evidence that comes forward should lead to impeachment, and it is the duty of congress to examine that evidence and deal with it LEGALLY.

[Lexingtonian]

23. I don't really buy it

Republican ascendence isn't/hasn't been so much built on lies and crimes as resentments and fear. If all the lies and crimes had been exposed, the resentments and fears would have remained to be exploited.

Exposure doesn't actually help much when the resentment level is sufficiently high. Look at Bush's TANG "duty", his DUI, his abortion, drug use, etc. Look at the Iran-Contra perps and the Reagandolatry. Resentment-driven people aren't high-minded: they'll use lies to the extent necessary, lies about anything, to settle that nasty and vicious thing buzzing around in their heads.

[blm]

25. I disagree - Would a 9-11 even have happened if the entire BCCI network

that was funding global terror exposed fully at the time? The country would have learned about the Bin Laden family and their connection to the Bushes AND the rampant numclear proliferation that was going on through illegal means, covert operations including drugrunning, armsdealing and moneylaundering, and all being actively protected by BushInc.

If the people knew the TRUTH about how Reagan-Bush worked to keep the hostages in Iran before the 1980 election they would have been horrified. Walsh HAD that prrof through multiple sources and his work was buried under Clinton's desire to give Poppy a peaceful retirement.

[Lexingtonian]

28. I dunno

I used to have as much faith in people viewing politics as a path for goodness, truth, and constructive/creative endeavor. But every Republican wave I've lived through has really been all about bitter, hateful people scoring against their enemies and stealing from and ruining whoever/whatever is weak or easily destroyed- and they've never cared much for truth, let alone justice.

The political center has biased conservative for 35-40 years, i.e. favored the destructive sort of governance. It's not all wrong- in foreign affairs, the Cold War meant a lot of enemies, a lot of obstacles and obsolete power and social and economic arrangements that had to be broken in some fashion at some point. In domestic affairs, the effect is ultimately to achieve progress by burning bridges behind us and forcing the laggards, the reactionaries, to flee forward from the wreckage made and defeats and absurdity they create.

It's cover-your-eyes awful, ugly, painful, and stupid to watch. And costs lives and livelihoods and careers. But that's how we do it. And we call that behavior "strong on national security" and "leadership" and "compassionate conservatism" and other euphemisms. In the end none of the labels are true, but the need perceived is. And that mix of hypocrisy with expedience and low standards we term democracy.

The good news is that under Bush Jr. the Nixon Republicanism has now flamed up fully and burned out its politically exploitable psychological fuel of racial and class resentments and Cold War terrors (i.e. "political capital") almost completely, so that that whole politics is collapsing and the GOP coalition is blowing apart. Kennedy and LBJ likewise used up the goodwill-based political capital in FDR's Democratic doctrine, ending with the Party's coalition coming apart in 1966 and 1968. (Reviving very briefly in 1976, to elect Carter, and dead by 1978.)

It would be nice if people worried a lot more about the empirical truth of what goes on. But the oblique truths are also important- toppling Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and Noriega were in of themselves probably justifiable. Sucking money off the dot com wealthy and giving money to the rural Left Behinds, maybe not such a bad thing within measure. Destroying the excess of Cold War military equipment and driving superannuated thinking and military officers championing it into retirement was perhaps necessary. Ruining the corrupt neocolonial alliances with imperial European and Asian powers, probably a good thing. Demonstrating that all of the Constitution and its jurisprudence and the national public life gets corrupted and undermined if you pretend you and your friends never need to comply with the Fourteenth Amendment, that was vitally necessary. But how it was all done during the Bush Presidency...oh my good Lord.

So that's my take. Half the population has to learn by brutal trial and error of its foolish ideas. Their truth is what whacks them in the head, not what other people explain to them.

[blm]

29. They certainly showed their fascist stripes for more to see.

.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

26. interesting theory

and one I agree with.

America's other REAL problem - A poorly educated public was poorly informed. Let's give the media and our failed public educational system (specifically in regards to world history and civics) their share of the blame in this.

[opihimoimoi]

27. Yup, I concur 100%

Come, time to thimk....

[blm]

33. Dems should promise FAIRNESS DOCTRINE legislation within first 100 days.

.