Tuesday, March 09, 2004

this is the 900th time i've tried to post this
... because blogger blows dicks.

I've been reading a lot of stuff William Blum has written recently. He used to work for the State Department until 1967 when he left because he was pissed about what the US was doing in Viet Nam. Now he is one of the most outspoken critics there is of US foreign policy.

Now read this. He basically explains away the (obviously obsurd to me) widely accepted claim that we are fighting a war on terrorism because they, "hate our freedom." Right, and homeless people live that way because they like the outdoors.

Here is an interesting article he wrote about the national endowment for democracy. nice name, fucked up organization. Kind of like if you started a group called "the association for the promotion of nonviolence" that went around shooting people in the face. or like creating a piece of legislation called the clear skies act that allowed way more pollution than the previous version of it did ... oh wait ... that happened. silly me. I didnt even know the NED existed .... weird.

this brings me to rant number two

alternative media is dumb
it's not dumb because it's wrong, it's dumb because it lends itself so easily to being percieved as wrong. you can't just print articles about the staged capture of osama bin laden coming soon and expect people to take that at face value -- even if it does turn out to be true. You have to sell that kind of stuff, and sell it well, otherwise you might as well print it on the front page of the national enquirer right next to that same dumb picture of wolf boy.

If you're going to print something that challenges the general public opinion, or goes against the popular grain, you have to back it up with at least some references to indicators in mass media and you have to site sources. so much alternative media seems to be based on tons of speculation, but even as compelling and convincing as some speculation may be, it's still speculation .... and speculation never convinced anyone of anything.

unless you're Colin Powell speculating about Iraq in front of the UN ... oh wait, he still didnt convince any of them.

oh well ... at least we still have the guardian ... matt drudge is the bomb diggity too.