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Gullibity Wins In America

Comment by Larry Ross, August 17, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts found that according to U.S. polls, 50% of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when Bush invaded and 64% still believe Saddam has strong links to Al Qaeda. That is really astonishing. Enough Americans will believe whatever their leaders tell them, regardless of how outrageously wrong it may be - and - they will keep believing it in spite of the many proofs that it is lies.

The key factor here is that U.S. mass media goes along with, and repeats as true, the big lies of the Bush Administration. When proof of these lies is readily available, the mass media generally does not print it, or buries it in small print on a back page. Readers letters pointing out lies and documenting truths are not printed. Any doubts are usually dismissed as "conspiracies theories". Americans have been conditioned by their media to regard all doubts of Governments stories about 9/11 as "conspiracy theories" Nor do the media ever apologise for misleading their readers.

So much for the much-trumpeted "democratic free press". It is the same with the over-seas owned Christchurch Press in New Zealand. Not only has it kept it's readers in a cocoon of ignorance about 9/11 lies, U.S. middle east wars and related Bush Administration subjects, it has received an award as New Zealand's best newspaper.

Is there much difference between The Christchurch Press and the media in George Orwell's book "1984"?.

Paul Craig Roberts has written an excellent article about these and related problems.

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Gullible Americans

By Paul Craig Roberts, ICH, August 14, 2006

I was in China when a July Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when Bush invaded that country, and that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links with Al Qaeda.

The Chinese leaders and intellectuals with whom I was meeting were incredulous. How could a majority of the population in an allegedly free country with an allegedly free press be so totally misinformed? 

The only answer I could give the Chinese is that Americans would have been the perfect population for Mao and the Gang of Four, because Americans believe anything their government tells them.

Americans never check any facts.  Who do you know, for example, who has even read the Report of the 9/11 Commission, much less checked the alleged facts reported in that document.  I can answer for you.  You don't know anyone who has read the report or checked the facts. 

The two co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission Report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have just released a new book, “Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission.”  Kean and Hamilton reveal that the commission suppressed the fact that Muslim ire toward the US is due to US support for Israel's persecution and dispossession of the Palestinians, not to our “freedom and democracy” as Bush propagandistically claims.  Kean and Hamilton also reveal that the US military committed perjury and lied about its failure to intercept the hijacked airliners.  The commission even debated referring the military's lies to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.  Why should we assume that these admissions are the only coverups and lies in the 9/11 Commission Report?

Continue....

I received a number of intelligent responses from readers of my August 14 column, “ Gullible Americans,” The letters deserve a reply. Moreover, some contain important points that should be shared with a wider audience. Pundits such as myself are not the only people who have interesting things to say. Considering the number of letters and the time it would require to respond individually, I am replying instead in this column.
Most readers from whom I heard understand the difference between loyalty to country and loyalty to a government. They understand that to support a political party or a government that is destroying the US Constitution and America’s reputation in the world is, in fact, an act of treason. Therefore, I did not have to read the usual drivel about how doubting “our government” is un-American.
Among the issues raised are:
How could the complicity of the US government, or some part of it, in the events of 9/11 be kept a secret?......