Thursday, July 19, 2007

A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth?
In his novel 1984, George Orwell portrayed a future time in which the explanations of recent events and earlier history are continually changed to meet Big Brother's latest purpose. Previous explanations disappear down "the memory hole."

Sound familiar? Any American who pays attention can observe the identical phenomenon occurring in the U.S. today.

Think about the Bush regime's changing explanations for the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq. Shortly after Bush's May 2003 announcement of "mission accomplished," the mission revealed itself to be very much unaccomplished. Americans were told that the cause of the snafu was a small Sunni insurgency of two or three thousand at the most inspired by "die-hard Ba'ath Party remnants." Remember the propagandistic deck of cards identifying the most wanted down to the less wanted? Americans were assured that once Saddam Hussein and his relatives and henchmen were rounded up, our troops would be pelted with the promised flowers instead of roadside bombs.

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