h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hmmm
*Gives non-violent anti-nazis his full support*

Saturnine,

I can't remember the exact passage in Naked Lunch. I haven't got my copy over here, and, considering the subject matter (sexual deviance and drug use on a heroic scale) I imagine the chances of finding one in China are less than slim...

If I was slightly more motivated, I'd introduce the fact that people never seem to mention Hirohito's boys when they talk about fascism and mass crimes against humanity. But then again, it happened outside Europe, so it doesn't really count, does it?

Or perhaps the current conflict. Saddam has mass-weapons of destruction? Really? Who cares? So has Bush...and he's the one chucking them AND soldiers around *in the name of peace and freedom*...

But then, that's not a view explicitly out in the media because they want to demonise Saddam to justify the action against him. Jus' the way it is.

*is pro-freedom, anti-censorship, pro-responsibility, and definitely *not* a Nazi sympathiser* (Just for the record)

"But then, that's not a view explicitly out in the media because they want to demonise Saddam to justify the action against him. Jus' the way it is."

Tis funny, that.

I was under the impression that the media were currently (albeit in a reserved kind of way) attacking Bush and Blair for their total arrogance at ignoring the will of their own nations.

But they are still reporting what Bush/Blair is saying as *truth*...at least that's how I am interpreting it. Could be wrong. I listen to plenty of late night talk radio and there is representation of people who both support and are against this whole conflict.

Which is a point. Does anyone actually *believe* what we're being told, or is everyone else swearing at the TV and changing channels?

But right now Bush will use a nuclear warhead 'pre-emptively' and Blair has refused to rule out the use of nukes against saddam. What kind of shitty world are we living in, the first generation to grow up free from the worries of the cold war, so they have to make a nuclear war threat, oh no , you cant have the people feeling too safe...

Saw in the paper this morning, that Bush says any Iraqis using WMDs will be tried as war criminals.
Damn good idea, as long as it applies to Americans too.

Seamus

It never f**king applies to the Americans. Hypocrites!!!!

Interestingly, in the exam I just got out of one of the questions I answered was this:

"US Foreign policy is marked by a clarity of purpose and moral certainty" Do you agree?

And you know, I decided that "Does it bollocks" was a bit on the brief side, so i just spent seven pages pointing out (in an objective manor of course) some of the major discrepancies in american foreign policy and you know what, I managed to stop myself breaking into a rant, although I may have been giving off smoke.

"But they are still reporting what Bush/Blair is saying as *truth*"

Not as far as I can tell.

They are reporting what Bush/Blair are saying, but that is just reporting. They are also reporting the demonstrations that are going on and the opinion poll results. There is very little comment being made by the media about either side of the debate about the possibility of war.

"there is representation of people who both support and are against"

So you agree that both sides of the for and against argument are being represented.

So perhaps you are putting your own prejudices onto what you are hearing/reading/seeing in the news.

"Does anyone actually *believe* what we're being told"

An altogether different question. I believe that we are generally being told/shown the truth. However I do not necessarily believe that it is the whole truth and I do not necessarily believe that it comes to us without some bias from those who report it.

With so many reporters involved and so many different routes and formats for the information to reach us, the conspiracy required to allow Bush/Blair to have ANY ability to influence what we are shown is not beyond imagining, but would never and could never happen in the Western world.

Ahhh. I love questions like that. I seem to remember getting one on Vietnam in my History GCSE paper, and I had a fine old time ripping out the details there. Got an A too, so it wasn't without merit!!

If they'd just put a- in front of the 12th word I'd have agreed wholeheartedly.

Nope, I'd still pick 'em up on the clarity of purpose.

The fact that the men Bush calls the two biggest enemies of democracies received huge wodges of funding (saddam) and training (bin laden) from the US as recently as the 1980s shows a distinct incoherence to me.

Hypocrisy! Yet people still do as they are told...

I mean, even the soldiers don't want to go to war. And as most folks know, if you haven't got the army behind you, you are f**ked.

'even the soldiers don't want to go to war'. Not the impression we're getting from the barracks round our way in sunny Colchester...

I have seen major pieces in newspapers from Sir Michael Rose, and the guy in charge of the desert rats from the Gulf War that say when the army doesnt have clear objectives and the nation behind it, it doesnt go to war happily.

i'm sure I read somewhere that there were grave concerns about the quality of equipment the soldiers were being issued with as well.

Ah well, i might be imagining it. I've had a hard morning.

Well, yesterday on the radio, a mother of a soldier confirmed the fact that they are having to buy their own equipment...

I think it's time to vote Tony Blair out now...

And who, pray, will you be rplacing him with?