The fallacy of news media
How many absurdities can you fit in a 652-word article?
1. A “World News” article devoid of a single fact underlying its premise that the U.S. is changing unpopular policies, such as extrajudicial prisons.
2. Instead, this news report tells us one thing: the President adopted a conciliatory _approach_.
3. Notes that Bush expressed a “deep desire” to close Guantanomo without noting the obvious: there is nothing stopping him.
4. Does not note the fact that U.S. actions belie every Bush utterance.
5. Neither does it notice that Bush’s own words belie his purported intent. To whit, how does the following statement speak to anything but Bush’s belief in his right to hold prisoners indefinitely without access to a system of justice? -- “there are some that need to be tried in US courts. They are cold-blooded killers. They will murder someone if out on the street.” [translation: some are guilty, some are innocent, although none are even charged. Someday, some will get a trial. Maybe.]
6. Promotes the idea that the U.S. government is transparent, meaning, judging from the context, that it is honest, just, and responsive to the will of the people.
7. Is unaware that “transparent” has other meanings, such as “transparent lies” and “transparent intent” as revealed by actions. (e.g. the transparent lies propagated about Cheney’s _transparent_ secret energy task force meetings.)
8. Provides extensive opportunity for Bush to scoff at European public opinion (“a record majority of Europeans held a negative view of the US. A Harris poll this week suggested that most Europeans considered the US a bigger threat to world peace than Iran, North Korea or China”) without an opportunity for an articulate proponent of this view to speak.
9. Includes completely meaningless reference to the Marshall Plan in what amounts to a world-leader-to-world-leader handjob and further exposes “news” article as PR puff piece.
10. Reports that Mr Bush had given “a clear commitment that there would be no torture” as if it meant something.
11. Allows Bush to characterize the anti-Iraq war movement as people who “say that it’s OK to condemn people to tyranny.” Again, without an opportunity for any representative of a peace and, ahem, justice organization to rebut.
12. Engages in its own form a torture by referencing another instance of Bush complaining that “Presidentin is hard.” This reference apparently in connection with the difficulty of wrestling with whether or not it is “OK to condemn people to tyranny,” even though “some people” say it is OK.
13. Tells us Bush views as inadequate “Iran’s promise to reply in August to a US-European offer for talks on its nuclear programme,” without telling us why.
14. Quotes Bush on North Korea -- “It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear weapons fire missiles” -- without noting wryly that this is precisely what Bush wants for his own regime.
15. Fails to preface Bush quotes with “in another burst of mephitic nonsense, Mr. Bush said,"
Bush shows Old Europe a new face of caring and sharing
From Charles Bremner in Vienna, Times Online
PRESIDENT BUSH sought to repair his tattered reputation in Europe yesterday, talking of his “deep desire” to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and conceding that his response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks had not been understood by much of the continent.
At a summit with the EU leadership in Vienna, Mr Bush rejected as inadequate Iran’s promise to reply in August to a US-European offer for talks on its nuclear programme. “It should not take the Iranians that long to analyse what is a reasonable deal,” he said.
The US has offered to enter talks once Tehran shows that it has stopped enriching uranium, a process used to build nuclear weapons. “We will come to the table when they verifiably suspend. Period,” said Mr Bush.
He also gave warning that North Korea faced deeper isolation if it test-fired a long-range missile capable of reaching the US. “It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear weapons fire missiles,” he said.
About 1,200 people demonstrated against Mr Bush’s visit, but the President adopted a conciliatory approach at odds with the more defiant tone of his first administration.
A poll published by he Pew Research Centre in the US last week suggested that a record majority of Europeans held a negative view of the US. A Harris poll this week suggested that most Europeans considered the US a bigger threat to world peace than Iran, North Korea or China.
“I think that it is absurd for people to think that we are more dangerous than Iran,” Mr Bush replied, when that figure was quoted to him at a news conference in the glittering ballroom of the former imperial Hofburg Palace. “We are a transparent democracy that debates things in the open,” he said.
Mr Bush forestalled the Europeans by raising the issue of Guantanamo Bay at the summit, saying that he understood their concerns. He spoke of his “deep desire to end the programme”, adding: “I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with.”
Some of the inmates would be returned to their home countries, he said. But “there are some that need to be tried in US courts. They are cold-blooded killers. They will murder someone if out on the street.”
Wolfgang Schüssel, the Austrian Chancellor who holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said that Mr Bush had given “a clear commitment that there would be no torture, no extra-territorial positioning to detain terrorists”.
Europe’s misunderstanding of the US dated from the attacks of September 11, 2001, Mr Bush said. “For Europe, September 11 was a moment. For us it was a change in thinking . . . I do not govern by opinion polls. I do what I think is right. I think when we look back at this moment it was right to act and encourage democracy in the Middle East.” In an oblique reference to Europe’s reservations over the invasion of Iraq, he said: “Some people say that it’s OK to condemn people to tyranny. I did not believe that it was OK to condemn people to tyranny . . . Leadership requires making hard choices.”
Mr Bush beamed when the Austrian leader hailed the freedom that America had provided for it after the Second World War when it was in ruins and threatened with Soviet occupation. “I will never forget that America fed us and gave us economic support with the Marshall Plan,” said the Chancellor, who was born in 1945.
Mr Bush and the Europeans also committed themselves to attempting to save the Doha round on world trade, which is threatened with failure, largely over transatlantic differences over farm subsidies and other items.
Mr Bush will visit Budapest today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
How many absurdities can you fit in a 652-word article?
1. A “World News” article devoid of a single fact underlying its premise that the U.S. is changing unpopular policies, such as extrajudicial prisons.
2. Instead, this news report tells us one thing: the President adopted a conciliatory _approach_.
3. Notes that Bush expressed a “deep desire” to close Guantanomo without noting the obvious: there is nothing stopping him.
4. Does not note the fact that U.S. actions belie every Bush utterance.
5. Neither does it notice that Bush’s own words belie his purported intent. To whit, how does the following statement speak to anything but Bush’s belief in his right to hold prisoners indefinitely without access to a system of justice? -- “there are some that need to be tried in US courts. They are cold-blooded killers. They will murder someone if out on the street.” [translation: some are guilty, some are innocent, although none are even charged. Someday, some will get a trial. Maybe.]
6. Promotes the idea that the U.S. government is transparent, meaning, judging from the context, that it is honest, just, and responsive to the will of the people.
7. Is unaware that “transparent” has other meanings, such as “transparent lies” and “transparent intent” as revealed by actions. (e.g. the transparent lies propagated about Cheney’s _transparent_ secret energy task force meetings.)
8. Provides extensive opportunity for Bush to scoff at European public opinion (“a record majority of Europeans held a negative view of the US. A Harris poll this week suggested that most Europeans considered the US a bigger threat to world peace than Iran, North Korea or China”) without an opportunity for an articulate proponent of this view to speak.
9. Includes completely meaningless reference to the Marshall Plan in what amounts to a world-leader-to-world-leader handjob and further exposes “news” article as PR puff piece.
10. Reports that Mr Bush had given “a clear commitment that there would be no torture” as if it meant something.
11. Allows Bush to characterize the anti-Iraq war movement as people who “say that it’s OK to condemn people to tyranny.” Again, without an opportunity for any representative of a peace and, ahem, justice organization to rebut.
12. Engages in its own form a torture by referencing another instance of Bush complaining that “Presidentin is hard.” This reference apparently in connection with the difficulty of wrestling with whether or not it is “OK to condemn people to tyranny,” even though “some people” say it is OK.
13. Tells us Bush views as inadequate “Iran’s promise to reply in August to a US-European offer for talks on its nuclear programme,” without telling us why.
14. Quotes Bush on North Korea -- “It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear weapons fire missiles” -- without noting wryly that this is precisely what Bush wants for his own regime.
15. Fails to preface Bush quotes with “in another burst of mephitic nonsense, Mr. Bush said,"
