Wednesday, March 15, 2006

POLITICS - Suppression of Descent

From "Fifth Columnists" by Geov Parrish, Working For Change.

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," says New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller. Remember, it was Keller's decision, in fall 2004, to sit on the NSA warrantless domestic spying story all through the November election -- and for over a year more after that -- that may well have given George Bush another term. When Bill Keller is crying wolf, you know things must be getting bad.

Keller's comment, coming from a newspaper wed to the hip to the country's political and economic elites, shows just how sweeping and dangerous is the Bush administration's secrecy fetish, its anger over leaks (including aggressive investigations to find and prosecute the whistleblowers who revealed the illegal NSA program and the equally illegal existence of a gulag of secret CIA prisons), and its hostility toward any and all critics, particularly those in the news media. "Critic," in this case, extends to anyone who reports or comments upon unflattering news the White House would rather not see publicized.


Heir G.W. Bush now only needs to have his congressional puppets pass a stronger "enabling act" (stronger than the so-called Patriot Act) and he can have his own official SS to protect his nation, i.e. from any criticism of his policies.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Secrecy isn't suppression of dissent. Confusing logical conclusion...