From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon May 24 2004 - 16:15:22 BST
On 24 May 2004 at 10:04, Platt Holden wrote:
Among us conservatives CNN is affectionately known as the Communist
News Network.
msh says:
Odd idea of Communism. A huge, extremely profitable corporation,
owned by a still larger private conglomerate.
> Commercial media, I'm afraid, is useless for any kind of
> serious analysis of events.
ph:
On this we agree. The latest Pew Survey, published yesterday, found
that liberals make a disproportionate share of newsroom workers in
print, TV and radio. 34% identified themselves as liberal compared to
7% conservative.
msh says:
Poll the owners, directors, major stockholders. These are the people
who determine content. Aside from that, these same media have so
badly deformed the terms "liberal" and "conservative" the labels are
almost meaningless.
ph:
As for non-commercial media being a more reliable
source, we've seen how outrageously the news was distorted by the
BBC.
msh says:
Even the BBC, though somewhat better, is highly influenced by power
and commercial interests. Take a look at MediaLens.org, if you're
really interested.
> As for Saddam, as I mentioned in detail earlier, there were people
> in Iraq trying to remove him from power and begin democratization a
> decade prior to the war. If these folks had been given even a
> little help from the US, such as stopping the murderous sanctions
> against Iraqi citizens, they may very well have succeeded.
ph:
Didn't the U.N. impose the sanctions? Didn't the U.N. also create a
food for oil program which is now being investigated because of
suspected corruption by U.N. officials?
msh says:
The UN does nothing without US approval. Nor does the even
overwhelming disapproval of the UN (and the world) deter the US from
implementing its foreign policy objectives, as we've just seen with
the invasion of Iraq.
> No, the object
> wasn't removing Saddam, the object was, and continues to be, to
> occupy Iraq.
ph:
The object is to establish a democracy in the Middle East
msh says:
A putative "democracy" under the control of the US, not the people of
Iraq.
ph:
to blunt radical Islam's quest for the world domination, and to
demonstrate that terrorism doesn't pay,
msh says:
Yes, the US knows all about the quest for world denomination. As it
knows full well that terrorism does indeed pay.
ph:
I think Pirsig would say the Iraq war is a moral war for similar
reasons he gives for saying the Civil War was a moral war.
Intellectual values of freedom take precedence over totalitarian
social values. Do you think it's better (more moral) that the Iraq
people live in a Western style democracy than under Saddam's or Bin
Laden's rule?
msh says:
As we've gone through before, it's clear that Pirsig would argue
that, given sufficient freedom, a society will , on its own, evolve
toward higher morality.
Platt, let's not start repeating ourselves. I have better things to
do.
Thanks,
Mark
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