Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Op-Ed in local paper

Progressive Americans disgusted at White House use of media as propaganda tools

By Susan Oehler
January 25, 2005 6:00 am
I have to admit I got a real laugh out of the Asheville Citizen-Times editorial pages of Saturday, Jan. 8. Under the headline "Fake news coupled with deception is a disgraceful use of taxpayers' money," (AC-T, Jan. 8), written by the editors, this comment was made: "The newspaper reported Williams, one of those modern media creations who appears in print and is omnipresent on radio and television, is being paid by the Bush administration to the tune of $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind program."

No, that wasn't funny.It was sad to read that the Bush administration is using our tax money to underhandedly promote a program.One would think if the program was a good idea, then it would stand on its own merits, without this propaganda paid for by U.S. taxpayers. I agree with the Asheville Citizen-Times: we, the taxpayers should end this immediately, and we should be refunded the money handed over to this propaganda attempt.

The laugh came when I read Bill O'Reilly's syndicated column, "Right-thinking Americans hope for democracy in Iraq and easing of ridiculous culture wars at home," which had this statement: "The big difference, however, is that conservatives don't have access to the elite media, and progressives do." Well, I guess that makes President Bush a progressive instead of a conservative then. That's sure news to me. O'Reilly goes on to claim he is a "warrior" in the culture war whereas so-called progressives, who (combined with the ACLU) are out to get all good conservatives. Well, thank goodness, the progressives are not in power and using our tax dollars for these propagandistic ends. We are attempting to correct falsehoods in our media whenever we can however, - and O'Reilly presents a lot of them.

O'Reilly goes on to present in his column some of his other ideas that are truly divorced from reality. One of the most dangerous and misguided ones is the idea that "some" Americans are not hoping for a positive outcome in Iraq. I imagine that everyone hopes, and wants, Iraq to turn out to be peaceful and democratic. People who are liberal or progressive are also hoping for these outcomes, no matter how much we opposed starting this war. We want to see the violence come to an end, and our troops come home safe.

It's just that we don't think democracy can be delivered by bombs and bullets, and we think the overall Bush administration policies are the main cause of the mayhem and chaos in that country. As a matter of fact, just as we suspected there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and no connection between Saddam and Sept. 11, 2001, we today suspect that the Bush administration's real motives and objectives are not in the best interests of the Iraqi people.
We don't feel their objectives are in the best interests of ordinary Americans either. We feel our troops are being misused and mistreated on many occasions.

O'Reilly claims that it is "disgraceful that so many in the free world cannot put aside political differences and help the U.S. defeat the brutal villains who are creating mayhem." In the eyes of a lot of people in the world, it is the Bush administration policies that are creating mayhem in Iraq and allowing a climate of terrorism to flourish. I personally wonder if Bush failed to plan in Iraq, or if he planned for Iraq to fail. Many of us, but not all, therefore advocate that the U.S. get out of Iraq now, and the country be turned over to the Iraqi people, with U.N. or NATO troops to provide security, if needed. We feel this administration's policies are quite unhelpful to providing peace and security in this area of the world.

The WNC Peace Coalition is holding an organizational meeting to plan an event for the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. The organizational meeting will be tonight, Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. It will be held at the Asheville Friends Meeting house at 227 Edgewood Road. If you are interested in finding a peaceful solution to world problems and think this war in Iraq is not going well, then you are invited to attend.

And back to the original topic: I would like to see an end to the U.S. government using our media as propaganda tools, especially when paid for by U.S. taxpayers. This has already happened with the No Child Left Behind and with the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, and probably other Bush administration programs also. I would further like to see TV pundits stop attacking people who hold different positions on the issues, and instead listen to and try to understand their positions.


PS: We had a very sucessful meetin of the WNC Peace Coalition tonight. We are going to organize buses to Fayetteville, NC for the MARCH 19th protest, and we are going to have a protest on March 20th here in Asheville.

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