Neo-Conservatism and its Roots in Warfare State Propaganda

[DblBarrelJ]

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PLEASE stop linking stuff from informationclearinghouse and mediamatters and moveon.

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I understand why you would not like anything from media matters or moveon, but I don't know anything about information clearing house. What's so bad about them?

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if there was ever a website that is MORE biased than mediamatters, it's informationclearinghouse.

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I don't know if you could have said anything more meaningless. All of the mediums in which we try and find information are biased, there really is nothing one can do to avoid that.

If you want to reply to this feel free, but I don't want to derail boro's thread anymore than I already have so I will likely not respond.

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I think that it is very relevant, here's why. When someone wants to bring information gathered by a third party into a debate, I believe that the source of that information becomes critical.

We can't just accept whatever is written on some lunatic fringe website or in some guys blog as the word of law carved in stone.

Of course all media is slightly bias. My earlier commentary was to prove a point. Slight bias is acceptable. Moveon.org, mediamatters, informationclearinghouse, etc are grossly bias, written by agenda driven writers, and should be taken as such.

[andyfox]

What difference does it make where the stuff is linked from? Defend or critique the arguments contained therein.

[Copernicus]

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What difference does it make where the stuff is linked from? Defend or critique the arguments contained therein.

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He already responded to what difference it makes, particularly when the sources are indirect and 10 years old. If you know you have to dig through 30 yards of cow [censored] to determine if one cow actually swallowed and pooped out a silver dollar, it isnt worth it.

[andyfox]

"At its peak, the CIA allocated 29 percent of its budget to 'media and propaganda.'"

One wonders how the author came upon this information. By saying "at it's peak," it would seem to indicate he has relevant stats on the CIA budget for its entire history.

"How convenient for the neo-conservatives that 9/11 came along"

I believe that the war in Iraq would have occurred without 9/11 and that 9/11 was an excuse, not the reason, for the war. That said, are you implying anything beyond that with "how conveient"?

"Does anyone around here actually remember the foreign policy platform that George W. Bush actually ran and won the presidency on?"

Here are some samples:

"I’m not sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it’s got to be. I want to empower people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you. We went into Russia, we said here’s some IMF money. It ended up in Chernomyrdin’s pocket. And yet we played like there was reform. The only people who are going to reform Russia are Russians. I’m not sure where the vice president’s coming from, but I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, we do it this way, so should you. I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called 'nation-building.'"

"[The people of the world] ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from that you can succeed. I don’t think they ought to look at us with envy. It really depends upon how [our] nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that’s why we’ve got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. We’re a freedom-loving nation. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll view us that way, but if we’re humble nation, they’ll respect us."

[Zeno]

Interesting article, thanks for the link. I found the stuff about the founding of National Review and Buckley being a spy etc to be particularly amusing. I hope it is all true.


Apparently, the writer objects to the warfare state (his definition) and foams-at-the-mouth against groups that supposedly adhere to policies that promotes this type of activity. Why he wastes his time in this sort of analysis is something of a mystery to me. I suspect he never read Cicero, or Thucydides, or Edward Gibbon or the book of Genesis, or Ambrose Bierce for that matter. And he must have keep Mark Twain away with a 10-foot pole.


Le Misanthrope

[andyfox]

He said it's biased. Show us where and how the article is biased. There's plenty in the article to critique and discuss. For example::

-Was the Soviet threat really a chimera?

-Was there " mounting intellectual opposition" to the "warfare state" and a "return of grassroots isolationism" in 1997?

Simply saying it's biased accomplishes nothing.

[Money2Burn]

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-Was the Soviet threat really a chimera?

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I would love to see this discussed. My only knowledge of the cold war is that I always heard McCarthyism was bad, then I read "Treason" which said McCarthy was right about a lot of things, but this is coming from Ann Coulter. It's safe to say I know very little about the soviet threat, but it seems that the cold war is incredibly relevant to what's going on internationally now.

[Borodog]

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PLEASE stop linking stuff from informationclearinghouse and mediamatters and moveon.

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It was a conveniently accessible web based copy. The original is from The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

[Borodog]

Wonderful. I see this thread has descended into the typical howling about where it was linked from rather than addressing the arguments it contains.

[skeptix]

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PLEASE stop linking stuff from informationclearinghouse and mediamatters and moveon.

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This is really stupid. You can't discredit an article simply by stating the publisher is biased. I bet you didn't even read the article. You just saw the link and completely wrote it off (and in the process, hijacking the thread, somewhat halting discussion on said article). Behaving like this certainly makes it easier to reinforce your own bias, but it really only serves to make you complacent and stubborn.

FWIW, I'm not a big MoveOn fan either, but my reasoning goes a little beyond yelling "stupid liberal media!"