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Lies of the day - keeping track

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21:57 / 31.10.06

...the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,"

Admittedly, it sounded better paraphrased for the headlines: "Bush says Democratic win equals a win for terror."

I guess it goes along with Cheney's "The horrible violence in Iraq this month is just an attempt to sway our midterm election..."

20:57 / 16.11.06

I think I have a champion....

America has abolished hunger.

Really. No more hunger in America. The government says so.

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey."

...Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

...

Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.

And in case you were wondering...

That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.

"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry."

19:42 / 17.11.06

great example of newspeak, grant.

"instead of calling it "hunger", let's devise a different term. A more soothing one, less clear and less easy to feel bad about. After all, we all are or feel insecure sometimes, and these people are just insecure about their food-supply."

Doesn't sound quite as bad does it?

One a different note:

I find it still somewhat baffling that lies are treated so differently from one president to the next. While one president was impeached for lying about an extra-marital affair, a president lying through his teeth to get a pre-text for all-out war is re-elected. I know that Clinton was under oath at the time of his most famous lie, but I think doing the dirty in the White House doesn't quite compare to humongous hypocrisy of committing atrocities and at the same time attacking others for "intending to".

18:18 / 27.12.06

Shhhh!

That's a list of recently suppressed reports & findings that don't jibe with power's view of How Things Are.

09:19 / 06.08.07

"After months of prodding by House Republicans, Congress has finally closed the terrorist loophole in our surveillance law -- and America will be the safer for it,"

here

It might be my own paranoia, but if the word "terrorist" is dropped anywhere, it seems usually to be followed by the need to limit liberties and citizen's rights. Now, the U.S. government has come out into the open and publically announced international spying without any court order. They've probably been doing it for years, as I suspect it would be naïve to assume they didn't. But now, this bill, gives the American intelligence agencies the legal right to monitor conversations, e-mail traffic, etc abroad without court order. Outside their own jurisdiction, ignoring the rights of citizens in other countries to be free from investigation without due process or legal attest of suspicion.

One the one hand, several european political parties have spoken out for a deep investigation into the covert C.I.A. flights, which I found praiseworthy and positive. But there seems to be a general lack of protest against this latest piece of legislation. Although it's only a six-month bill, it appears that the quest is for it to become permanent, giving the United States government even more (legalized) power to spy on, illegally arrest and control people in other countries. I can not get it out of my head that situations like the case of Khaled Masri (german citizen wrongfully kidnapped by the C.I.A.), will become more prevalent.

And still it seems there is very little worry about such sort of things around here. Islamaphobia is reigning supreme on the "right" side of the political spectrum , and on the other hand there is often the cynical announcement and shoulder shrugging of "what can you do?".

Can we do something against this? Or mush all rational protest fade into obscurity before the irrational nightmarish hobgoblin that the word terrorism has become? Is it even possible for foreign governments to object to and reject this kind of illegal monitoring of its' own people on a grand scale?

All Acting Regiment

10:35 / 06.08.07

One assumes that when the tide finally turns, all this will be remembered and used as a case for the prosecution. Until then I'm not sure what. You could write to your MP.

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