So much disinformation, so little time. by SignyM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

So much disinformation, so little time.

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 19:20
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VIEWED: 1499
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Monday, February 6, 2012 6:40 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Governments, the media, and businesses all lie. But the scope and depth of the lies is breathtaking. Here are some recent examples:

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Let's consider a nuclear Iran. The threat of a mushroom cloud- or worse yet, a terrorist's dirty bomb- has a kind of mesmerizing horror. Who would be targeted? Who would be killed? How many would suffer from the after-effects of radioactive contamination, and how would we ever decontaminate and rebuild? This is a serious enough threat to risk Europe's oil supply and Russia's a China's displeasure. All of this is serious stuff, and worthy of all of the attention that our satellites and monitors and IAEA inspections and national security advisors can bring to it.

And yet, right now, the most serious nuclear threat the world is facing are four thousand-ton dirty bombs going off right now in Fukushima. And during this still-unfolding disaster, a 50-year Japanese program of radiation monitoring was abruptly halted by the government. The NRC and the IAEA have not seen fit to share their extensive satellite and monitoring data with ... anyone, really, except the Japanese government. The nuclear club has been keeping very quiet about the horrific mess in their own backyard.

But Unit number 2 is heating rapidly. Despite injections of more and more water, the temperature went up more than 27 deg C (about 60 deg F) in a few hours. And despite even more assurances that it is impossible for the corium (melted nuclear fuel etc) to go critical, TEPCO is injecting boron.... to prevent the corium from going critical. As of now, unit 2 is the only unit not to have exploded. That may change soon.

So why aren't we hearing about all of this? You may be under the wrong assumption that the NRC and IAEA are safety regulators. They are not. Their mission is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear power whether that use is an overall boon or bane to the host nation and everyone around it. So even tho San Onofre tubes are leaking like they're ten years old (they're only two years old) you will certainly receive assurances that everything is a-OK.

And then there's Libya. You haven't heard much about it lately, have you? Libya has devolved into tribes, again. Islamists are taking control of some areas. Sub-Saharans are being jailed and tortured. Pro-Qaddafi forces have retaken several towns, because they don't want to be jailed and tortured either. This is not a case of vengeance for past wrongs, this is prejudice and radical Muslims gone wild.

Syria, portrayed as a “fight for freedom” against tyranny. But I happen to know some Christian Syrians, and they're terrified of an Alawite takeover, afraid that the majority will deal harshly will ALL religious minorities, including them.

Iran. Despite pressure from the Administration (yes, Obama), the national security assessment remains that Iran dismantled its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not restarted it.

Afghanistan, a stalwartly secular nation before we turned it into a hotbed of radical Islam. Afghan women are now burning themselves because of the horror of their lives.
http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/afghanistan-women-burning-
themselves.html

Ditto Iraq.

Yanno, there's a pattern here: It seems we'd rather have foaming fundamentalists in power than a socialist government.

So much disinformation, so little time. Every time you turn on the TV or listen to the radio, you're being lied to. I don't care if its NPR or Fox, the President or the mayor. You have to be careful with your information. Don't feed your mind junk food.

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Monday, February 6, 2012 7:54 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The silence on Fukushima is deafening. I wonder how they'll hide the reactor #2 explosion.

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Monday, February 6, 2012 8:01 PM

WISHIMAY

Honey you're gonna get little gray hairs popping outta places. Can't nothin be done about most a that shit...What's reporting the whole truth gonna do for the people who are already over their own heads with worry about the little things??

Nothin. That's what.
I have a plate, it says "Tomorrow's cares will have to wait 'till this days cares are done."

Imma going ta bed. I have a whole load of today's cares yet to deal with tomorrow

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Monday, February 6, 2012 8:01 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

KIKI- Yeah, it's amazing... a worldwide news blackout. Because Russia and China, and France and Britain, and the US, and Pakistan and India... all have one thing in common... they need those nuclear reactors humming along, making plutonium for their bombs. So nobody is going to let you in on their dirty secret.
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WISHIMAY- Which is why you can get 110 million people to watch a football game, and can't get 110 people to protest nuclear power. It's not lack of time, it's lack of hope. And honey, I haven't even STARTED on global climate shift! Most ppl correctly perceive the game is totally rigged.

But anyway, I've already got gray hair! When you get to be my age, shit like that happens!

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Tuesday, February 7, 2012 4:33 AM

WISHIMAY

Protesting a thing doesn't do much good when it takes away people's ability to charge their cell phones and run coffee makers...and watch football games...Humanity is all about instant gratification and ignorence and there is no good solution for that, except maybe plague

All energy solutions have their drawbacks. Who's gonna protest a thing that makes living harder?? What alternative are you suggesting??

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Tuesday, February 7, 2012 7:51 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
So much disinformation, so little time. Every time you turn on the TV or listen to the radio, you're being lied to. I don't care if its NPR or Fox, the President or the mayor. You have to be careful with your information. Don't feed your mind junk food.

I don't watch Television, having soured on it way back in the day of the OJ circus, and choose to get my info from a collective of far more reliable and accurate sources anyhow...

But I tellya, the sheer AMOUNT of stupid distraction tactics, bullshit, sensationalism over petty things, and LOOK HERE, LOOK THERE, DON'T LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN, is so extreme these days it's downright offensive.

Worse is how pathetically transparent the lies ARE, I mean only someone completely conditioned to chugging the koolaid could even PRETEND to believe this shit (or so mentally disturbed they need that crutch to prop up their delusion of not being a complete fucking tool) and even in those cases I am startin to see a lot of what can only be termed chokin on the koolaid, even wholly partisan folks calling bullshit.

Of course, without a voice, and a loud one, ain't no one ever gonna hear it over the mass media bullshit trumpets - what we need more than ever is to get behind independant media concepts and start pushing, and when the corp-controlled system starts throwing roadblocks, crush them, even if that DOES mean bending a few laws.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 4:58 AM

CAVETROLL

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
...Afghanistan, a stalwartly secular nation before we turned it into a hotbed of radical Islam...

Seriously? The radicalization of Afghanistan is a direct outgrowth of the influx of Mujahedin following the Soviet Unions invasion. Once the Soviets withdrew the Mujahedin formed and supported the Taliban government.

But we're to blame? I'd like to see an explanation of how the west is responsible for the ills created by the Soviets.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 5:59 AM

BYTEMITE

Actually, the Mujahideen did not form the Taliban. The Taliban arose in a period of chaos and disorder after the soviets withdrew from the area, their supported communist government fell, and Mujahideen forces largely dispersed. The Taliban established itself in 1996, the soviet union fell in 1989. However, what you might be thinking of is that the Taliban may have been organized and set up into power by the Pakistan ISS, who were also involved in the war against the Soviets on the side of the CIA and the Mujahideen. Osama Bin Laden fought on the side of the Mujahideen, but was a pan-Islamist, and it was a Mujahideen government that the Taliban replaced.

The most contact the Taliban ever had with Al Qaeda was they accepted arms and fighters from them, but the two groups stayed in different parts of the country and were otherwise independent states. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. What you have to realize is that there are different demographics. The Taliban were largely consolidated in the southern part of the country, while Kurds and Pashtun encampments were in the north. Similarly, Pakistan has two different demographics, the more modern Pakistan of the east, and the primitive Pakistan of the west. Al Qaeda was hiding out in tunnels and mountains in northern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. We demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden, who they had no real means of tracking down, and when they stalled for time, we attacked.

But yes, otherwise, the soviets were the ones that really created the mess and all the infighting, and that would have happened whether or not we'd tried to mobilize forces against them because the principle factor in ending the soviet-afghanistan conflict was the fall of the USSR.

However, since Operation Enduring Freedom the countryside now has been largely taken over by the druglords, which kind of is our fault.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 9:58 AM

CAVETROLL

Thank you Byte. That was much more informed and more complete than my orbital view.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 10:32 AM

BYTEMITE

To be fair to us, the Taliban aren't exactly the most sympathetic bunch, and I'm not sorry to see them go. There might have been a better way to get Osama though. We're racking up a hefty debt and body count by now, which are two things I don't generally approve of, especially when a lot of that body count is local rubes tricked by propaganda or pressed into service by people with guns.

If the US wants to assassinate someone, they should hire an assassin, instead of invading a country. In the very least it's less collateral damage.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 3:22 PM

DREAMTROVE

Sig, I disagree: the number one nuclear threat right now is the US and her allies with mininukes.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 7:20 PM

BYTEMITE

I wonder if the blizzard and the 50 mph winds are spreading some of the Fukushima radioactivity around Japan.

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