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Random Thoughts
Think Tank Propaganda
Machines
and the Death of the Free Press
by
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
The
unintended consequences of good policy are seen in the proliferation of
American think tanks. Congress allowed the deduction of charitable
contributions to encourage philanthropy for the public good. Along the
way fabulously rich persons have used the loophole to set up major well
endowed think tanks to serve as propaganda machines to spew out partisan
garbage to benefit their ideology and assist in enacting public policy
skewed towards their economic advantage.
The newspapers and television stations have become a platform for
advancing the bias of the owners. The skewed reporting of Fox News and
the proliferation of right wing talk shows are a classic example of this
misuse. The New York Times apologized for its reporting before the Iraq
invasion and finally let Judith Miller go, but not before her acting as
the unfiltered mouthpiece of the Bush Cheney administration had led the
nation into the Iraq debacle. The Washington Post also tendered a late
apology for parroting the administration propaganda without questioning
or investigating the truth of the deliberate misinformation. Now the
Downing Street Memos, indictment of Scooter Libby and the possible
indictment of Karl Rove and the Torture Papers have revealed the truth.
Congressman Murtha, a respected Marine has recently revealed the latest
atrocities in Iraq.
The stressed American public with time constraints gets its news from
television and with its attention deficit disorder, ignorance, apathy
and limited intellectual ability is gullible enough to swallow the false
propaganda as truth and fact until personal tragedy or economic
suffering jolts it out of its apathy. By that time the damage is done
and the powers that be, distract the public with a new false worry and
propaganda like immigration, sure to stoke the dormant xenophobic fires
that smolder in most American hearts and minds. From the Aliens and
Sedition Act passed in contravention to the First Amendment of the
American Constitution within a decade of its ratification, to the
Chinese, Japanese and Southern European exclusion acts, Palmer raids and
the internment of American citizens of Japanese ethnic background, the
history of America is a litany of xenophobic discrimination legally
sanctioned by the legislative, executive and judiciary branch with the
craven connivance of the press.
These think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute have become
parking places for ideologues currently out of government or out of
favor. They are nourished, succored and revitalized during a public
drought to become re-invigorated to serve as the nidus of a resurgent
epidemic of partisan virulent propaganda. During this sheltered
hibernation they have privileged access to write op-eds that are
slavishly published without discriminative judgment by national
newspapers. The television stations become their master’s voice. In the
meantime the public fora exclude sane opposing views and voices like
Chomsky.
The latest laughable farce is the American Enterprise Institute offering
a fellowship to the Somalia born woman, Dutch member of parliament Harsi
Ali. She is a born Muslim, renowned for the criticism of the oppression
of women in Islam. Her just criticism of Islam in the recent atmosphere
won her the election to the Dutch parliament. No wonder democracy has
become the government of the corrupt for the rich by the fools. Anyway
an investigative reporter revealed on Dutch TV that she had falsified
the facts on her application for asylum in the Netherlands nearly ten
years ago. While not placing much value on personal integrity, she has
been mouthing platitudes and using demagoguery to further her career.
Her piece de resistance of talent was to assist the avant garde
Dutch film maker Van Gogh to make a short film depicting naked women
with verse of the Koran written on their naked flesh. How is that for
creative talent? It, with the vagina monologues competes with the Iliad,
Odyssey, Mahabharata or Ramayana. Anyway in the bitterly partisan
present politics of the current Netherlands, the interior minister felt
that it was valid grounds for stripping her of Netherlands citizenship
and deporting her.
The shining knight in armor, the American Enterprise Institute rode to
the rescue by offering her a fellowship and eventually a right to earn
legal US immigrant status and citizenship. Take that you poor Latino
illegal immigrant slogging twelve hours a day in substandard farm hovels
at slavery wages to pick the fresh vegetables and fruits that we cherish
and savor. You will pay numerous fines, wait in line longer than for
Godot and be disbarred for any felony but not Ms. Ali. Why? Because she
is a Muslim willing to publicly chastise Islam. There is no doubt that
some of the practices of Islam are abominable and Salafi terrorism is a
cause for serious worry the world over. The lesson is that if you are
willing to malign our current public enemy loudly and publicly, it
doesn’t matter how many felonies you have committed. We will accept you
and fawn on you even if you have blown up a Cuban airline and murdered
hundreds of innocents like Posada. You can blow up our Pan American jet
and kill a couple of hundred Americans, but if you renounce nuclear
weapons and become a tattletale about your sources, we will forgive all.
You can develop nuclear weapons like Pakistan but as long as you are
against the Soviet Union, all is forgiven.
The hypocrisy of American policy is now obvious to the world to such an
extent that nobody pays attention to its proclamations of human rights,
spread of democracy, nuclear non-proliferation or any other preaching
without practice. They all elicit yawns of boredom from Latin America
and allies like South Korea and the EU, contemptuous disregard from
China and hostile rejoinders from Russia. America has become the
laughing stock of the world and like Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect
because of the Bush Cheney cabal.
May 21,
2006
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Random Thoughts
The Week of May 21, 2006
War or Peace? Middle-East Great Game Approaching
Climax by Rajinder Puri
Unprovoked, Unwarranted Papal Assault on India
by V. Sundaram
Did Jesus Die in India? by Kusum Choppra
BJP Needs Reinvention by Dr. Subhash Kapila
The Da Vinci Tsunami by V. Sundaram
Whither South Africa by Kusum Choppra
Children of Secularism by J. Ajithkumar
Is Equality Really Possible? by TA Ramesh
Damned by Dam by VK Joshi
Think Tank Propaganda Machines & the Death of the
Free Press by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Are the Kashmiri Pundits abandoned Dregs &
Derelicts? by V Sundaram
And, the Way Up is the Way Down ... by Pradip
Bhattacharya
Ahalya: Incest and Temptation by Satya Chaitanya
Hinduism: A Holy Water Religion by Dr. V.
Sankaran Nair
Liberty, Inequality and Enmity of State-Sponsored
Quota Raj by V.Sundaram
The Reservation Hurricane by MH Ahsan
Reservations about Quotas by Usha Kakkar
Data Backup to Avoid Disasters by Ruchi Gupta
Police Story Kolkata Diary by Dr.
Prasenjit Maiti
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
A Gallery of Failures by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
Geetli A Long Story by Kusum Choppra
Love, Struggle and the Poetry of Nepal
by Dr. Amitabh Mitra
Rama Suresh : The Rural Aesthete by
Aparna Sharma
Child Labor to End in a Decade? by Nitin Jugran
Bahuguna
Women and Worship by Humera Afridi
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