[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Karl Rove's America

[Ian]

E-Mail ThisMichael:

This is a truly sad truth about what much of America has become: a bunch of weak-kneed, head-in-the-sand sheep unwilling to use even the most basic powers of observation, common sense and logic, much less openly and actively question what is going on around them.  They believe anything they are told by Bush, Rove and the neocon spinmeisters, no matter how illogical, idiotic, phony, false or openly contemptuous.

Two quotes come to mind.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" (Samuel Johnson).  And, boy, is the Bush Administration filled with scoundrels!

"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."  (George Orwell).


And while we're on the subject of Orwell, I thought the following additional quotes would be apropos:

"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome."

"All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac."

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."


"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

"One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship."

"Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end."

"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

Peace.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: michael at intrafi.com 
  To: mb-civic at islandlists.com 
  Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 1:01 PM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] NYTimes.com: Karl Rove's America


            
                  
                
             
              This page was sent to you by:  michael at intrafi.com 

              OPINION   | July 15, 2005 
              Op-Ed Columnist:  Karl Rove's America 
              By PAUL KRUGMAN 
              President Bush's adviser understood long before the rest of us that facts are irrelevant. 
             
             
                 
                     
                    1. Op-Ed Columnist: Karl Rove's America 
                    2. Op-Ed Columnist: A Poverty of Dignity and a Wealth of Rage 
                    3. Financially Set, Grandparents Help Keep Families Afloat, Too 
                    4. E.R. for Hard Drives 
                    5. Op-Ed Contributor: All Rock, No Action 

                    »  Go to Complete List 
                     
                   
             
             
                
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