It's Not Your Father's America Any More
This country is becoming more unrecognizable with each passing day. The government, we've learned recently, now packages the news. It provides television stations with hundreds of video news releases made up to resemble actual news reports that give us predigested, Orwellian information designed to convince the public that everything in the nation is being well-managed.
Alongside this propaganda circus comes the added revelation that the presidential hops George W. Bush is taking around the country to peddle his case for dismantling Social Security are not conversations with local citizens -- as they are billed -- but carefully arranged events before prescreened audiences who hear presentations from panelists who've been, by the recent admission of one of them, repeatedly rehearsed on what to say.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security issues a doomsday scenario that details the anticipated consequences of a dozen possible terrorist attacks -- complete with body counts and economic damage estimates. The department insists it is not trying to scare the public, although how a report that one would hope would receive the most limited and controlled circulation gets "leaked" to the public is anybody's guess. It just happens, also, to fit well -- and not surprisingly -- with the antics of an administration that has turned promoting and exploiting public fear into an art form that Joseph Goebbels would envy.
The only thing worse than the government these days -- if such is possible -- are those portions of the populace to whom this government owes its allegiance.
- posted by geoff @ #