Indoctrinating Children To Hate Freedom Of The Press?
from the lovely dept
I just listened to a recent podcast from This American Life with the theme of "Kid Politics." As per usual, it's an entertaining hour, but the First Act struck me as especially interesting, given the current debates about Wikileaks and free speech. In that story, reporter and TAL regular Starlee Kine visits the Ronald Reagan library, where a bunch of school children visit and run through an exercise in which they get to simulate the invasion of Grenada and get to make all the decisions just like Reagan did. They're prepped for this with a bit of laughably propaganda-filled version of history (e.g. if we didn't invade Grenada, then Grenada, Cuba and Nicaragua would have invaded the US and made us communist). Then, they go through this simulation -- in which they're told there are "no right or wrong answers." However, it later turns out that if you answer differently than Ronald Reagan actually did, an angry buzzer buzzes and the students are told they're wrong -- if you answer the same as Reagan, a bell dings, and the students are told they made "the correct choice." In most cases, of course, the students are lead to the "easy" answer being exactly what Reagan did.Then, suddenly, in the middle of the exercise, the evil press ruins everything, by revealing that two US carriers have been rerouted to Grenada, ruining the element of surprise. To be honest, if you look through historical reports of the invasion of Grenada, the press leaking this bit of information is pretty hard to find. Yet, in the Reagan Library, it's the key to the whole story. The element of surprise has been blown, and now the faux-Reagan needs to decide whether to move forward with the invasion. The "correct" answer, of course, is yes -- and woe is the poor child Reagan-stand-in who suggests that perhaps it's best to focus on just evacuating the US medical students in Grenada first, and consider an invasion at a later date when the element of surprise has returned.
But after the story plays out to the inevitable, rose-tinted-glasses-of-retrospect conclusion, the library staffer makes sure that the kids in the fake Oval Office know that everything would have worked much better if that darn press hadn't interfered. And while freedom of the press is discussed briefly, the woman encourages students to think about the value of self-censorship of the press, reinforcing it by asking the students if the press should have reported on the news, to which they all say no. She follows this up immediately by suggesting that the 19 soldiers who lost their lives in Grenada was really due to the press and their big mouths, with an amusing hedge about how "we can't directly say that's because of the press, but... did it help that they released the story?" The students (who had been divided into different groups -- including some who play "the press") are brought back together, and the child-politicians immediately start attacking the child-press for killing 19 soldiers. The child-press are suddenly being accused of being murderers, and are pressured into agreeing that the press should simply shut up when it has information like this.
It's really disturbing to listen to this.
In an era when we're having a number of important and active discussions about the importance of free speech and the freedom of the press, it seems quite unfortunate that school kids are being walked through an exercise, whose sole purpose appears to be to suggest that the press should never report on what a government is doing -- especially if it might involve activities that many considered to be illegal (as was the case at the time of the invasion of Grenada). I'm sure as the kids grow up, many will realize just how silly this particular lesson was at the time, but it still seems quite odd that the entire purpose of an exercise at the Reagan Library appears to be about attacking the press for actually doing what it's supposed to.
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Filed Under: free speech, freedom of the press, grenada, indoctrination, ronald reagan
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Why is TechDirt irresponsibly reporting on this?
For Shame. For Shame.
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We need a new word!!
Anyway, is there a concise word for describing such a thing?
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Dose of reality please!!!
Yes this is disturbing, and clearly white washing things which are, AT LEAST, open debate. The fact that it's inflicted on schoolchildren is disturbing.
But, the US is not a facist a country. The fact that the press reported on the carrier movements without repercussions, and that Mike can report on this without repercussions speak to that.
The library and its staff need to get smacked down, hard, for this. But cherry picking disturbing incidents and building some notion of a caged populace is, to say the least, an extreme exaggeration. Much like we expect of the library, let's keep it within the bounds of reality.
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Re: Dose of reality please!!!
I've seen civil disobedience result in police brutality, on multiple occasions. If fact, if you do a little homework you'll learn that mildly covert violence is the SOP when it comes to any politically motivated disobedience, or just disobedience in general.
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Re: Re: Dose of reality please!!!
The US gov't is a huge, chaotic organization. Many parts of it are corrupt to varying degrees, others are violent or oppressive. While some of these parts, in isolation, could be perceived as having fascist tendencies, that is not enough to make the country fascist.
The people who have lived through REAL fascism, or other forms of highly oppressive gov't, would most likely find your categorization highly rhetorical and more than a little spoiled. Fight the injustices, yes, but throwing around "isms" and cherry picking to demonstrate some greater conspiracy theory of fascist subversion of the US is more than a little ludicrous.
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Re: Re: Re: Dose of reality please!!!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Dose of reality please!!!
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Dose of reality please!!!
Next time I fly I might have to be put in the enviable position of deciding whether or not to allow the TSA to grope the private parts of my minor children or face arrest.
No. We're already there.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dose of reality please!!!
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
Many many examples of this have been reported here on TD.
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Re: Re: Dose of reality please!!!
That doesn't sound too far off. Wikipedia also notes that there is a great deal of disagreement about what fascism means.
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Re: Dose of reality please!!!
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Re: Dose of reality please!!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: Re: We need a new word!!
It's not like anyone else has been using 'Imperials' since ww2 anyway.
heck, even without it's global actions, the USA rules Half a freaking Continent. if Brazil can be an empire (and i believe it was/is at one point? or is that just my alternate history reading coming back to bite me?) and China can be an Empire... then the USA is certainly an empire. heck, it's bigger than Europe, and there have been legitimate empires There that included only 1/6th to 1/8th of that...
so yeah... add in the tendency towards actions beneficial to achieving and maintaining a global hegemony (at least in theory... many failures there) and you'd be hard pressed to say it was Inaccurate, at least.
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: Re: We need a new word!!
"terrifically disguised fascist"?
I'll not apologize for saying exactly what I meant to say. I used a word the definition of which I am very aware, with the knowledge that it does, in fact, apply. However, you believe whatever you wish to believe. What saves everyday Americans from being shot in the streets is the need to maintain the illusion of freedom, nothing else.
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Re: Re: We need a new word!!
Semi communist yes but facist? Get real ;0)
Those of us lucky enough to live outside the US have friends who regularly visit Cuba and despite being poorly run in some ways, Cuba still doesn't qualify as 'facist'.
A hint for you, just because the US government doesn't like somewhere doesn't make them facists.
Please try harder.
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Re: Re: Re: We need a new word!!
or if you'd prefer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Pretty dead on, I'd say.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: We need a new word!!
There are some areas in which Cuba matches the definition but on the whole these tend to be the areas which Facism and Communism have in common
"Fascists seek to organize a country according to a particular nationalist strand of corporatist" ... Nope
"Though normally described as being on the far right, there is a scholarly consensus that fascism was also influenced by the left, but with a focus on solutions from the right".... Nope
"They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality."... How many wars has Cuba been in again? Contrast that to say America in the same period...
"Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will.[20] They oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements"... nope
"Fascism perceives conservatism as partly valuable for its support of order in society" ... I think they shot or threw out the conservatives, so nope
Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist economy ... again nope
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you get to call it facist. (although in cases such as Sarah Palin and Rush Limburgh it's probably OK)
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We need a new word!!
This whole nonsense reminded me very much of Goebels or the sort of nonsense one was subjected to in the Soviet primary education.
Perhaps "Aspiring Fascists" would be a more accurate term.
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re: We need a new word!!
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Re:
It would be great if there were some Mike Masnicks in Russia and China too, or some European countries for that matter. People who dare to criticize their own government, not just the governments of other countries.
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Re: Re:
While I agree with your comment, to be fair to those living in Russia or China, the reprocussions for Mike speaking out against abuses of power in the US are much less severe than those for speaking out in those two other countries. Those who do tend to have short careers.
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Maybe this explains it
I wonder how many of those kids had this same kind of visit to the Reagan Library.
Whoever put that exercise together ought to be ashamed, but we all know they're not...
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Re: Maybe this explains it
Yes, I know this will piss off the 1st amendment absolutists even though the only exceptions I wouldn't shout about myself are quite specific. No reporting on troop movements/strength until cleared by the military and when printing/airing retractions you put them in the same spot/time that you printed/aired the original error.
That aside, I really freaking hate it when educators try to teach politics. I've yet to see one make the attempt and not splash their beliefs all over the students. It's hard enough to figure out for the first time that pretty much everyone in politics are douchebags without having a grade depend on regurgitating douchebaggery.
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Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
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Re: Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
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Re: Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
Just because the press knows something doesn't mean anybody else does (especially an enemy in another country). In fact, I'd say that, usually, if the press nows something, then most of the rest of the country, if not the world, probably doesn't.
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Re: Maybe this explains it
Just because the press knows something doesn't mean anybody else does (especially an enemy in another country).
Let’s put it this way: which one has the greater motivation, and funding, to uncover the secrets that your Government doesn’t want revealed?
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Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
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Re: Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
Congress, then the President, then the courts, same as everything else. The President could try an executive order but it would be easier to convince the courts if it came from Congress first. As to moving the line? Don't. If you need another section cut out you make it jump the same hurdles to be approved. Be extremely specific and state in the law that it applies to nothing not explicitly spelled out within.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
You seemed to ignore the rest of my reply though. I can't disagree strongly enough that the press shouldn't be limited by statute when reporting on the government. Should the press carefully consider the repercussions of publishing certain stories? Absolutely, but they already do.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
I didn't reply on the rest because it was mostly either a simple difference of opinion or I didn't disagree.
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Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
Another problem is that it could never actually prevent speech, only punish it after the fact. So you could question how effective it would be, at anything other than sending journalists to jail anyway. And do we really want to become a nation that puts journalists in jail because they report on things we don't want them to?
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Bullies don't need the element of surprise.
> about the worst possible way but they do
> have a point. At no time, ever, should the
> press be allowed to report on military asset
> deployment until it is too late to help the enemy.
Oh Please.
Unless we are planning on attacking the Russians or Chinese, there simply isn't any consequences of the enemy knowing we're coming. Watch a modern war documentary sometime. It will help give you a clue.
This was GRENADA.
If that's not a cake walk for us then we need to do some serious soul searching. It doesn't even matter if we give them our entire battle plan ahead of time. It's like an adult bullying a toddler.
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Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
By William Whiting, Special War Counsel to Lincoln during The Civil War
@amazon books.
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Re: Re: Maybe this explains it
By William Whiting, Special War Counsel to Lincoln during The Civil War
@amazon books.
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Re: Children
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Re: Re: Children
it is the nature of children that they learn from their parents, and that such experience forms the basis of how they make decisions for the rest of their lives... or at least part of it.
What you teach them doesn't change this.
it's like saying a lioness teaching cubs to hunt (if i'm getting the biology wrong here, adjust it as necessary). is it brainwashing? and, if so, is it better or worse than Not teaching them to hunt, given that, as carnivores, they'd then starve, or at least not eat well and/or get injured more than necessary.
i get so sick of this little snippit showing up like it's evidence of absolute evil or something... it's in the book of Proverbs for a reason...
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Re: Poor kids indeed!
The desired result is "The Land of the Free, (as long as you accept OUR definition of 'Free'), and the Home of the Brave, (as long as 'Brave' means risking your life for the money-making interests of our corporate overlords)".
Constitution? We don't need no stinkin' Constitution!
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It gets worse...
"I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers." -- John Rockefeller
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Re: It gets worse...
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Re: It gets worse...
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Re: Re: Re: It gets worse...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It gets worse...
In what capacity do you have contact with 20-year-olds?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It gets worse...
Also, Huph, I'm not very far from 20-years-old, myself.
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Laughable?
Yeah it backfired badly but this increasingly becoming the standard operating procedure for propaganda campaigns. Cant make it settle? Go for in your face!
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Re:
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Why are Americans so interested in politics
I wish something like this happened here. Say a scenario of the 1916 Easter Rising - and a big wrong beep if you say, as Pearse, "No, we won't run around and proclaim an independent republic, even though the majority of Ireland don't want to fight for it"
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Re: Why are Americans so interested in politics
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http://www.schoolsucksproject.com/
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Re: Guvmnt Run Skools
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Not The Only Example
They fail at teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, to be sure, but if their goal is teaching children blind obedience to authority, they are very much succeeding.
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Re: Not The Only Example
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Not The Only Example
I'm not really certain, however, that it doesn't turn out that even most of the "rebels" end up intellectually neutered in the end.
I feel rather lucky that I had exposure to a mix of educational techniques when I was growing up, including home-schooling, private schooling, and public school. Public schooling was by far the worst.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not The Only Example
And this was at a public school in Mississippi, a place which does not rank high in standards. I think I still managed to get a good education. I had college credits before graduating high school, and I wasn't even anywhere near the top of my class.
Am I the only one who had a positive experience in public school? I also went to a private elementary school for a few years, but I much preferred the public system. Private schools, in the southern US at least, are too small, leading to a lot of close-minded clique-ishness in the educational and social atmosphere. And home schooling down there is mostly done by very devout religious people. The variety of opportunity and people afforded me by public education was much more vibrant.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not The Only Example
What makes you think it sounds pretentious?
I went to public school, although I'm 29, so maybe I was attending more recently than many here.
I'm younger than you are, so my experience is equally up-to-date. :)
I learned pre-calculus and [lots of awesome stuff that's practically unheard of in the average public school]...
I went to one of the best high schools in my state and it didn't have any of those things. Your school sounds seriously awesome, and I'd like to know the name of it, and what year you graduated.
In addition, most of those things are not listed in the Common Core Standards (which are the standard in 40 out of 50 states, including Mississippi), so it's pretty doubtful that the average public-schooler has the opportunity to take those classes, or would even be ready for them if they were offered.
Am I the only one who had a positive experience in public school?
It's not about having a positive experience. It's about having an educationally valuable experience.
And home schooling down there is mostly done by very devout religious people.
Do you mean in Mississippi? What makes you think that? Less than 40% of American homeschoolers do so for religious reasons, and those statistics are even mirrored here in Oklahoma (the proverbial buckle of the Bible Belt).
The variety of opportunity and people afforded me by public education was much more vibrant.
Really? That's strange, because in most states, including Mississippi, your classmates are drawn from your neighborhood, meaning that they're your social and financial equals. Not much variety there.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not The Only Example
I graduated with a great education, knowing plenty to get me started in university. Maybe it was the teachers, maybe it was me, maybe it was my parents, maybe it was all three, but either way, my school turned out to achieve what it set out for me.
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Re: Not The Only Example
Mike talks about hyperbole from the govt and you guys eat it up, but no one calls any of you on it. No wonder reform never goes anywhere. Its always an "us vs them" argument with you guys.
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Re: Re: Not The Only Example
Society?
"You mean to say that parents can't undo whatever it is you think the schools are doing to indoctrinate children."
Of course some can. I think the more generations go through the system, however, the less likely it is that a parent was not subject to the same effect. I still remember all the bullshit flag-waving revisionist history they forced down my throat when I was a kid; I'm still busy unlearning it.
"Its always an "us vs them" argument with you guys."
When one party in a negotiation declares that they have granted themselves control over every aspect of your life, and that they have all the means at their disposal necessary to carry out their decrees by force, then there's not much middle ground left.
I guess you can try negotiating with a mugger when he puts a gun to your head and tells you to give him your wallet, but I would consider that an "us vs. them" scenario.
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Re: Re: Not The Only Example
"Its always an "us vs them" argument with you guys."
Oh, the irony.
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Re: Re: Not The Only Example
is this irony? I'm never really sure if I'm using that word right. sarcasm's essentially deliberate irony, right?
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Re: Re: Not The Only Example
I'd like to point out that parents generally have three to four hours with their kids, during which they're cooking, eating, bathing, doing homework and housework, and so on. Schools have eight hours with their kids. That's a pretty significant imbalance there.
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Hopefully they can't visit techdirt, otherwise the get indoctrinated in the other direction.
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Re:
And what direction is that exactly? When has Techdirt ever expressed a political leaning? I guess you think anyone who respects the Bill of Rights is out of line. What do you have against freedom exactly?
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Re: Re:
*tilts his laptop for a different version of leaning, ponders methods of inserting politics into it*
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its more likely that they are just trying to raise regan to demagogue status and the bit about the press is where the revisionist history comes in. the press was not doing anything they had not done in reporting other military conflicts before that point from what i remember.
oh, in full disclosure, this is presented by someone who thinks very highly of regan. great president... but seriously folks, please no demagoguery k?
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I wonder...
The press is not made up of magical creatures who act only out of noble purposes. They are people who have bills to pay, bosses to satisfy, egos to feed and all sort of other things that are also apt descriptors of the evil government and corporate people that get complained about here.
I certainly do not trust that the press is acting in my best interest, especially since I don't get to vote for them, or call them onto any sort of official carpet when they act irresponsibly. You can't impeach a reporter or vote him out of office at the next election. Indeed, we are often told that we have to put up with the extremes of the press in order to preserve the ability of the more responsible members of that profession to do their job (I don't really buy this).
I think the press should be viewed with at least as much skepticism as the government they are reporting on.
HM
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Re: I wonder...
No one claimed otherwise. Why would you even say that?
I certainly do not trust that the press is acting in my best interest, especially since I don't get to vote for them, or call them onto any sort of official carpet when they act irresponsibly. You can't impeach a reporter or vote him out of office at the next election.
Nor does the press tax us or send us to war. Seems like an important point.
I think the press should be viewed with at least as much skepticism as the government they are reporting on.
Of course they should. But that's not what was being taught here. There was no question of skepticism about the press (and, let's face it, we've been quite vocal on skepticism about mainstream press reporting).
You're conflating two separate issues: the quality of reporting and freedom of the press. I'm not sure why you would do that.
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Re: I wonder...
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Re:
It's sad to see such practices continued in an allegedly "thinking" society. Obviously, this is because our education is so amazingly poor that grown people need a mental crutch in dealing with the unexplainable...
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Should I counter your Bible stories with the story of Lot's wife, or just with the fact that the majority of Christians do, in fact, advocate blind acceptance without evidence? Your choice. :)
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and Christians are humans.
humans are things.
90% of everything is crud
the vast majority of humans, Christian or otherwise, are pretty darn stupid, at least collectively, and/or lazy. it's more efficient to get someone else to do the thinking about everything that's not in your immediate day to day for you.
most humans are just generally predisposed towards blind obedience in anything that doesn't directly harm them in immediate and visible ways.
... efficiency is NOT the best option when the less efficient process has a better output and you can afford the resources to maintain the less efficient method. (this applies to thinking... and to the various content industries too, actually. problem is they Can't afford the inefficiency anymore, and their definition of a better output was/is skewed. that's a bit off topic though)
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Re:
I'd rather have them taught to think and verify than simply believe. They'll be better citizens that way. :)
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Re: Re:
verification of truthfulness leads to belief.
at some point you have to assume Something to be correct to form the basis of your frame of reference or it is literally impossible to prove anything. (including this statement. what's that you say, a recursive loop? exactly.)
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Yes, exactly. Heaven forbid that we teach them what to think. Instead, we should teach them how to think.
...better the phobiac panic reaction to any kind of faith...
This post wasn't about faith, so why would a potential reaction to it's mention be relevant?
...complete, total misinterpretation of what is quoted merely for the sake of slamming without reference or context...
What was quoted and how was it misinterpreted? In addition, how do you know the motive of the person who quoted whatever it was that was quoted?
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Re: Re:
further up thread, Lobo said the following
"From religion--the acknowledged authority on brain-washing:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6"
TDR is just failing at using the reply feature.
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There fixed your logic problem.
As for hating a bunch of lying hate filled propagandist that emotion is not strong enough.
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Miss America agrees
BTW, she was hot, so I might be able to overlook her desire to take away my rights.
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Assange is a sellout
Last link (before Google Books bans it also]:
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000190526
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Re: Assange is a sellout
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Careful
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Re: Careful
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Religion, Politics, and _____
Best kept out of public and not shoved down children's throats.
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Re: Religion, Politics, and _____
i shall settle for a mix of both.
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This is the most disgusting story ...
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However, there are times when you are free to do something, and you really shouldnt do it. For instance, imagine America was planning a secret large scale invasion of China. Plans are going great, and we have multiple agents in place in every major city in China, we have Americans near the borders, posing as civilians of other countries. All this complex stuff, all this secrecy that led to this point.
This information is leaked to one person, and one person only. They are the head of a major media company. Lets say CNN. Now, Does CNN choose to broadcast this, be the first one on this amazing story. It would boost ratings tremendously. Every person in America, hell, other countries as well, would be tuned into CNN, the only news station with this story. CNN is blowing away other news companies. However, it results in the complete foiling of America planned invasion. All americans already in China are reveled to the Chinese. All the borders are shut, or even worse, the Chinese stop them mid invasion, killing thousands, millions even, of Americans in the process.
What could have been a very smooth invasion is now turned into an American bloodbath because of freedom of speech. No, wait, it wasnt freedom of speech that did this - it was a media outlet who didnt give a damned about Americas plans - they simply wanted more viewers
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Make them watch MASH, Kubrick style.
Yes. War means death. It means death of American kids. The fact that this is unavoidable should be not forgotten by anyone.
One wonders if these censorship weenies would have suppressed the first battlefield photos taken of Antietam.
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+1 on Cipher-0, don't invade other countries and we won't have these problems to begin with. If the US is being invaded and the press leaked our battle plans, I would be more sypmathetic to your position.
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Even at that age...
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Placing the Blame
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Just came back from there
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Re: Just came back from there
Care to share any details?
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Re: Just came back from there
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