No, it’s an expression to probe the point made by another. The gist of the statement is the writer feels people are not supporting the war according to his views of how a nation who supported the war would act.

The counter point challenges this idea by reminding the writer that the military can’t take everyone and sometimes all someone can do is show a yellow ribbon of support in mind and spirit. Imagine you are fighting for your country and you know that when you come back one of two things will happen. People will spit on you and call you baby killer or you will receive applause and see yellow ribbons everywhere just for you.

Which would raise your morale? Which would show you support? Talk to a vietnam vet and ask if he/she would have liked to have come home to applause and yellow ribbins everywhere?

Look up slippery slope, I think you mean something else here.

What would you propose the war supporters do? Do you want lines of 40 and 50 year olds trying to enlist? Do you want kids dropping out of schools of all kinds to join the military? That is why we have a volunteer army, the people that really want to enlist in the miliary can do so and those that don’t aren’t forced to.

This is pure slippery slope logical fallacy.

Right Thinker Says: May 8th, 2005 at 9:12 pm e
I agree the media can’t be blamed for a military failure but in the case of Vietnam the media can skew the reality of a situation so badly that ingorant members of the public take action against governemnt that is detrimental to the military. The media, focusing on and magnifying the horrors of war created a frenzy of backlash that, had the situation been portrayed accurately would never have happened.

My impression of the Vietnam war era from what I read about it was that the press, for the most part, was silent during the first few years. LBJ’s critical decisions made early on went through without scrutiny, and with this absence of press coverage, the situation there was allowed to be construed as something it wasn’t…meaning, the decision to drop napalm and send over more troops when the generals on the ground over there were misleading the President on the actual effectiveness of our efforts…that is what allowed that situation to balloon like it did. The same idea with the situation in Iraq existed in South Vietnam where we were going to train them to defend themselves. When it came time to fight though, a Vietnamese man would not. I’ve read many accounts and seen documentaries where Vietnamese men explained this by saying something to the effect of, ‘we were being paid, and as long as the Americans were there, that was a good way to feed my family. But neither I or anyone else I knew was actually willing to kill a Vietnamese for the sake of an American. Someday they will go back home and we will have our country back. We all just waited for that day to come.’

This string of poor decisionmaking and blind faith led our troops and the country as a whole into a place we hadn’t been before. The people expected success and were told that the mission would be successfull. It was a few years of no results and outright lies from the government before the press got on the ball and started covering the war.

When this happened, a segment of the population was angered by it. Veterans were being treated horribly in terms of the amount of support the government was willing to provide, and now the press was reporting that they had lost their limbs for a series of lies. Not only that, but the tactics they used…the tactics their commanders had ordered, were now being scrutinized. People took it personally.

Where we go wrong though is to blame the media for any sort of military loss over there, as they had plenty of time to do that job…it’s just that the job couldn’t be done. We could have stayed over there for another ten years and came out with the same result. The population numbers of Vietnam and Laos would have been slashed even more brutally as they were already, and thousands of American soldiers would have died, but the end result in terms of our nation’s interests would have remained the same.

Blaming the media for a failure in the Vietnam war is to ignore a host of evidence that suggests not only that the war was unwinable, but that LBJ had been snowed by his military advisors in getting so deeply involved.

Media whips up a frenzy among a liberal ideological base. Liberal ideological base spreads flames of ignorance to moderates and moderates pressure conservatives. Support for actions in Vietnam wains, politicians are voted out of office based on false reporting of the war and liberals new to power sabotage their own country. This was Vietnam and almost Iraq except the public was too smart for the media this time and bloggers reported what the media refused to, the liberal monopoly of media is being broken.

I really don’t think the country works as a bellows in that exact way anymore. More flames are spread in the opposite way from what I’ve seen in the past few years. Compare the Terri Shiavo story, Clinton impeachment with any such media roasting of a Republican or a story meant to energize the liberal base…it’s just not like that in this country. The myth that such a mechanism still exists is a base conservative argument these days. I could say the same about the ‘liberals want government involved in your life and we don’t’ argument. It’s become an inaccurate assessment of the landscape. Things evolve, but the rhetoric remains stuck in cement until the day comes when it’s no longer true.

Under Bush and this Congress, the role of government in our everyday lives has increased. FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC and the bloggers can get the flamethrowers pointed at any one ridiculous story they want to…as evidenced by the ‘runaway bride’ story. It just doesn’t hold water here in 2005. I’m only 26, and I’m quite sure that the liberal-to-moderate-to-conservative dynamic you described was a reality at a time in the past, but not now. If anything, it works in the opposite way.

Here’s a link to offset your NYT link, haha http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155833,00.html

This was an article about the Pope asking for fairness in the media. I wonder what specifically prompted him to make these statements. I’ve expected a backlash or some level of rhetoric from the Vatican against any American media entities that continue to report on molestation cases for a while now. The Boston Globe was the primary investigative source for a lot of the print on this case…I read the book they published a year or so ago. My grandmother and I exchange books that deal with history for the most part, and she asked me to read t hat one. I couldn’t get through it…only half and a skim of the rest as the material was just too disturbing.

I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that his statements are an encoded message to the American media that, ‘you’re either with us, or against us’. What do you make of his statement?

Media has the power to influence opinions and actions. If I tell my neighbor every day that I think I saw the guy down the street destryoing his landscape or that I heard it might be him and he goes down there to confront the guy and something happens, a fight or some altercation am I not responsible in some way? I don’t like the guy down the street and it sounds like something a jerk like that would do so I’ll just fill my neighbors head, reinforcing the belief that the guy down the street did it, am I free of blame? Sure, maybe I know the guy down the street was on vacation when the damage happened but he’s tricky that way, he could have come back just to break the stuff up, kinda like Kennedy’s magic bullet theory. I’m beginning to ramble but I think you get my drift.

I agree with you 100% about most of what you’re saying here, as the first impression is often the lasting impression when it comes to public opinion in this country. What I’m bothered by though is the amount of brand loyalty and it’s role in politics today. FoxNews is just as guilty as the worst ‘liberal’ offender you can find. What I try to do is stay away from the cable news…or ‘drive-thru news’ outlets altogether, only watching them when I want to take a ‘trip to the zoo’ if you will. Then taking my print news from the WSJ, NYT and online from various sources. From there it’s 80% CSPAN (LOVE Washington Journal in the morning) and 20% McLaughliln, Meet the Press, etc.

Then I try my best to wrap it all up with a little Ben Franklin wisdom…’believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see’. Take the politics with a grain of salt, always asking ‘who stands to benefit’…and relying on the history at hand to determine my point of view.

The majority of political junkies subscribe to a brand name and never question the output from that paticular brand. Arguing the issue with someone who does this turns into a tit for tat discussion that goes nowhere. Point out a lie told by Bill O’Reiley and you’ll hear about Dan Rather. And while the correct answer is to shut it all off, people stand by their brand and appologize for their brand, draw literary blood for the sake of their brand…almost like it was their religion.

Media, through reinforcement of a particular ideology, creates a public perception which the public then acts upon.

This can happen for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. What gets lost in this neverending newscycle is when someone lies. Nobody suffers for lying. Dan Rather did…but the hosts of primetime FoxNews, CNN and MSNBC can lie every night and it never gets dealt with appropriately.

Media whips up a frenzy among a liberal ideological base. Liberal ideological base spreads flames of ignorance to moderates and moderates pressure conservatives. Support for actions in Vietnam wains, politicians are voted out of office based on false reporting of the war and liberals new to power sabotage their own country. This was Vietnam and almost Iraq except the public was too smart for the media this time and bloggers reported what the media refused to, the liberal monopoly of media is being broken.

Here’s a link to offset your NYT link, haha http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155833,00.html

Media has the power to influence opinions and actions. If I tell my neighbor every day that I think I saw the guy down the street destryoing his landscape or that I heard it might be him and he goes down there to confront the guy and something happens, a fight or some altercation am I not responsible in some way? I don’t like the guy down the street and it sounds like something a jerk like that would do so I’ll just fill my neighbors head, reinforcing the belief that the guy down the street did it, am I free of blame? Sure, maybe I know the guy down the street was on vacation when the damage happened but he’s tricky that way, he could have come back just to break the stuff up, kinda like Kennedy’s magic bullet theory. I’m beginning to ramble but I think you get my drift.

Media, through reinforcement of a particular ideology, creates a public perception which the public then acts upon.

Right Thinker Says: May 3rd, 2005 at 11:40 pm e
I advise against using the NYTimes as any sort of reference or source, attaching the NYT name to any “evidence” immediate renders said evidence contaminated. If I read in the NYT that the sun came up this morning I would have to actually go and check before I put any stock in that.

Would you agree that a quote offered by their paper would equal words actually spoken by someone being interviewed by a reporter? I don’t think you can disregard anything the Times has to offer. If FoxNews had footage of a politician making a statement, that’s different than a story being told completely through commentary.

You can take an opinion piece with a grain if salt if that’s your choice, but the news articles offered by the Times and most other news papers can be trusted for what shows up in quotations. You have to be carefull about statements that are snipped or contain elipses (…) obviously. The article I refered to concerning recruiters and the troubles they’re facing contained statements from actual recruiters and their supervisors.

A full two weeks after I read that, there wasn’t much else out there on the subject. This kid runs his sting operation and the story breaks. The NYTimes has already been diminished by the immediate negativity some respond with when they’re stated as a source for a story, but in this case, they had it right.

There’s a difference between manufacturing a story and predicting the weather with a story. More manufacturing is done in the industry these days…Terri Shaivo comes to mind…but the Times does some heady reporting. There’s a lot of money and a lot of mileage spent on their newsroom. The news portion of their Sunday paper is the standard others try to match, but I haven’t seen a news organization that even comes close.

Opinion and commentary are different from news reporting. It’s oil and water if you ask me. The portion of our country who denounces the Times will accept commentary as news way too often. Plenty of FoxNews and right-wing radio heads trash the paper on a daily basis, but in order for their schtick to work, it requires an enemy…a completely vile representation of everything they they despise about our country. They need an enemy, so the Times takes their lumps…but it doesn’t make everything they say right.

With that said, I agree the Bush should be saying more, much more. I think the question of the war has been won and Bush needs to act like a winner. I believe that we need to pull forces out of Europe and into Iraq to both secure Iraq quicker and ween the Europeans off of the American nipple.

The forces in Europe are not guarding Europeans against anyone. First ID is in Germany and they deploy all over the globe. The benefit of having units on that hemisphere who can deploy from a closer home base is a good thing. I’ve heard this on some of the right-wing blogs I’ve been frequenting, that somehow having soldiers stationed in Europe deters from our mission in Iraq, but that’s absolutely not true. One has nothing to do with the other, as the forces in Europe can be deployed to Iraq just as often and easily as forces who reside stateside.

I also agree that the environment of the enlisted personnel could be better, when I was asking about the mentors, officers and parents I was refering to once the people are in the military.
And where are the parents? The clergy? The officers? Sargeants? Mentors? Where are the people who can listen to a young persons issues, make recomendations and generally look after the troubled youth for a while?

A quick story…when we were going through pre-deployment checks for Kosovo, the batallion chaplain admonished me for having Buddhist on my dog-tags…he was trying to convince me that unless I put Christian on there, my funeral would be less than what it could be.

Leaders in the military are often much better at what they do than leaders in the civilian world, but the bottom line is paramount, even moreso than in the outside world at times. My broken ribs while on alert one time were ignored by the batallion doctor because we couldn’t go under the number required for deployment. I went 30 days before being granted an x-ray. I would have been on the ground with my gun and 4 broken ribs…all for the sake of a Lieutenant Colonel’s career.

My leadership skills were greatly due to my military experience…having seen the best and the worst in action. The idea that the military can scare some people straight is valid, but when you’re in you’re expected to act like an adult. Front line leaders are there for their soldiers and responsible for growing them as men or women, but the mission is what’s in front of them…so if they’re in Iraq, the sergeant’s mission is keeping his soldiers alive and not really ensuring they’re growing in a positive way. And if too many people are in the military to be scared straight and not necessarily because they want to be, the sum of the whole gets diminished.

The State Highway Patrol of my state are the lowest paid of all the law forces and I brought that up because they are in a very dangerous job but they go out there and do it, it’s their choice.

I’m sure they’re not struggling to get people to sign up though. The distinction lies in whether they’re able to fill the squad cars. If they weren’t able to, then government would have to figure out how to fix that. And a lack of cops would be fixed or the leader would get sacked. These things aren’t put up with on a local government level. On a national scale though, there’s a lot of talk by people who have no interest than to promote one party over the other, and with this mechanism in place, something like the problem with our military can balloon without so much as a word about it from our president. If the NYTimes is the only organization putting money into researching and reporting on it, the talking heads can just say, ‘look at the source’ and half the country continues to believe that it’s a non-issue.

This dynamic is exactally what you pointed out above. Only it WAS a story, and just because the Times first reported it, a certain amount of us choose not to take it seriously. The righteous indignation I heard when it came to Terri Shiavo would be coming from the right-wing on this very issue if it were a Democrat in the white house intead of a Republican.

You will know that the situation is bad when the draft is instituted. We’ve made it this far with a volunteer army and zar-cow-ee is on his way out. Iraq will be self sufficient in a few years and I think when we look back we’ll see it went pretty well with what we had and the time we had to do it. Liberals won’t be remembered so favorably especially now that we are learning that North Vietnam was on the brink of collapse but liberals made us surrender before we were able to win. The media screwed us in Vietnam also, but that is another story.

The media cannot be blamed for a military failure. This has been the mantra for twenty years from people…my dad included, who seem to ignore the decisions made by our government that led us down that road. You can say, yea…LBJ pushed too hard and his advisors miscalculated how the Vietnamese would react to our actions, but the press covering the aftermath was what really lost the war…it’s a cop-out.

If the AP has a reporter on the ground and reports on a car bombing in Baghdad that kills 10 people and wounds 30 more…that headline is what someone will blame if Iraq has a civil war, but is it right to do so? I don’t think so. It’s a way of saying that the truth shouldn’t be told. I think that keeping such headlines from the people is a lot more damaging than anything else. What’s good about hiding the truth from the people? On Vietnam, the press was lax in the outset…and that’s what allowed the government to louse it up as badly as they did. The lack of exposure early on facilitated the bad decisionmaking.

The same has been said about Iraq. When Wolfowicz states that it would be very surprising for an insurgency to take hold of the situation, or very surprising that more than the number of troops they’re sending in would be needed…that wasn’t scrutinized in the press like it should have been. If the number had been scrutinized, perhaps more troops would have been sent initially, and perhaps more of the country could have been guarded against looters…like the museums for starters. The absence of press is worse than what some people hate about bad headlines.

Hope your friends over there are doing well and they need to know that they served an important role in history and to ignore the hate the liberal media has spread upon them. I always here the bad on TV but I hear the good from the people who are actually over there. And thank you for your service as well.

Thanks! I agree with you here Right – we don’t hear enough of the good. The government sometimes manufacturers good news, when FoxNews, CNN and other organizations could spend some money and go out to find the good story. Networks aren’t willing to spend the money needed to get this stuff though. The reporters embedded respond to news, and when the elections went off with minimal violence, there were plenty of positive stories. Could more positive stuff be reported on? I think so…but at the same time, I think that more of the negative could be reported on as well.

The inner workings of the Iraqi parliment and the personalities involved…the regional differences between these people really fascinates me. But outside of the high-end political magazines…both left and right leaning…it’s hard to get that kind of in-depth reporting on the ins and outs of all that. The mainstream press is all about ratings. The story about liberal bias is a strong pull for commentators on CNN and FoxNews, so instead of reporting on the good or the bad, they’re reporting on the reporting.

This argument over bias has eaten up hours that could have been spent actually covering what’s going on…but it’s all about the bottom line! So the point of view that ’since I don’t see good headlines, they’re out there, but bias prevents them from being reported’ takes hold. I think there’s enough out there but you have to seek it out. The front sections of the Times and WSJournal are what I rely on in terms of a daily update. The cable news never hits my screen. With these two inputs along with what I read on the internet, the perspective I receive is alright…but it’s the Nation, National Review, Harpers…that’s where the gaps get filled.

I’m going on here. I think we’ve tapped into something here Right. If you get a chance, check out this…one of my old ones:

http://deadissue.com/archives/2004/08/25/crosseyed-and-painless/

With that said, I agree the Bush should be saying more, much more. I think the question of the war has been won and Bush needs to act like a winner. I believe that we need to pull forces out of Europe and into Iraq to both secure Iraq quicker and ween the Europeans off of the American nipple.

I also agree that the environment of the enlisted personnel could be better, when I was asking about the mentors, officers and parents I was refering to once the people are in the military.
And where are the parents? The clergy? The officers? Sargeants? Mentors? Where are the people who can listen to a young persons issues, make recomendations and generally look after the troubled youth for a while?

The State Highway Patrol of my state are the lowest paid of all the law forces and I brought that up because they are in a very dangerous job but they go out there and do it, it’s their choice.

You will know that the situation is bad when the draft is instituted. We’ve made it this far with a volunteer army and zar-cow-ee is on his way out. Iraq will be self sufficient in a few years and I think when we look back we’ll see it went pretty well with what we had and the time we had to do it. Liberals won’t be remembered so favorably especially now that we are learning that North Vietnam was on the brink of collapse but liberals made us surrender before we were able to win. The media screwed us in Vietnam also, but that is another story.

Hope your friends over there are doing well and they need to know that they served an important role in history and to ignore the hate the liberal media has spread upon them. I always here the bad on TV but I hear the good from the people who are actually over there. And thank you for your service as well.

Right Thinker Says:

May 2nd, 2005 at 11:31 pm e
How can one claim to support something on a millitary scale such as this, yet not feel obligated to contribute?

I support the State Troopers Fund but I don’t go out and try to catch criminals. I support relatives in college but I don’t go and physically teach them lessons. I support the war in Iraq but have medical conditions that have kept me out, and now I’m too old were I completely healthy.

I draw a distinction between municipal work where there’s a waiting list for new hires and work that is in need of people to serve. If the state police was in need of recruits, it would be something that the governor of the state should be on right away. It’s the public servants we cannot do without. If the firehouse was short ten people and your neighbor’s house burned down because of it…I think I’d be filling out an application. We have freedom in this country, but it comes at a price.

Not all of us are physically fit and prepared to contribute, but on the other hand, they’re signing up kids with bi polar disorder. Do you want him next to your kid holding a rifle on minimal sleep in Iraq?

The consequences of ignoring this is going to make things much worse for the ones who put their lives on the line who do have bright futures ahead of them if they can just get out alive. It’s not fair to them that the entire thing get diminished in such a way due to lack of attention. If we can do that, then everyone needs to take the stickers off of their cars and zip their lip when it comes to praise. Shut down the bar. The talking heads are staggering around drunk on the stuff already…they need to earn the right at this point.

What would you propose the war supporters do? Do you want lines of 40 and 50 year olds trying to enlist? Do you want kids dropping out of schools of all kinds to join the military? That is why we have a volunteer army, the people that really want to enlist in the miliary can do so and those that don’t aren’t forced to.

I want the President to open up his mouth and deliver a speech that will envoke a sence of duty in this country of ours, which at the moment desperately needs it. If he put a call out to Americans to enlist, the numbers could be met. He doesn’t say a word, and it gets worse every day. Every day he stays mum on this problem is another day a kid with bi polar and a drug habbit has the chance of going nuts around a friend of mine over there. It’s serious business this hired killer gig, and it’s absolutely NOT for a segment of our society. The vetting process is being ignored now for the sake of getting the numbers.

Basically the country is being run like a dysfunctional corporation when it comes to the military. For the sake of the bottom line, which in this case is political capital and an approval rating, people are being mistreated. Just like any corporation out there, only they’re not in a position where they can just have a lay-off and start with a better looking balance sheet. The White House does not understand this distinction.

My brother couldn’t even tell us where he was most of the time but we know part of it was in Iraq. He’s kinda tall and lankey and has a knee condition that is forcing him out. He wants to stay but now he’s forced (I joke about forced) to use all that high tech training in the private sector. My sister refueled and maintained helicopters in Iraq and now she’s headed for a career of her own in something to do with aircraft.

I am sincerely glad to hear that they’ve had positive experiences. They deserve it…along witih great success once they’re done.

Problems people have in the military are not due to the military itself or any war. It’s sad that people feel forced to marry or make bad decisions to alter environment to meet their comfort needs. I would ask, though, is a transfer not available? Can you not change your MOS or apply for different jobs? I would imagine a stink on Guam or Okinawa would be soo boring but aren’t there ways to offset the discomfort? Sports, schooling, hobbies, volunteering or anything to make a bad situation better.

I’m speaking first hand about the marriages. It’s an element of the mechanism put in place…especially in combat arms units…to mold the single soldiers into something more ‘convincible’ come time to re-up.

And where are the parents? The clergy? The officers? Sargeants? Mentors? Where are the people who can listen to a young persons issues, make recomendations and generally look after the troubled youth for a while?

I imagine those people are telling them that if they’re thinking of joining that it’s not worth it. The reason will be the lack of support you receive once you’re in.

To be honest I am really “buyer beware” in this situation because everyone already knows the down side, watch GI Jane, Biloxi Blues and Appocalypse Now. No one goes into the military thinking this is a cake walk, I’m sure the recruiter, while boastful, did not promise you a room at the Hilton for your entire tour. Why did you join and what would you have done differernt? And no easy answer like “I wouldn’t have gone.” What could you have done to have made your military experience more positive?

No, he didn’t. And my idea here isn’t really about the culpability of the recruiters, but moreso the current design and how it’s detrimental to so many things our culture relies on now. Bush’s approval rating or something else is preventing him from simply asking America to serve…a national prime-time speech is warranted right now. It could be that easy of a fix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/national/03recruit.html?hp&ex=1115092800&en=8c46bf8d528ad413&ei=5094&partner=homepage

In the article it explains how the number of instances has risen, with commanders actually encouraging their recruiters to bend the rules. The rate of recruiters being punnished for indescretions has droped from 50% to 30%. Perhaps the exposure of the two recruiters who were taped will factor into a less forgiving punnishment for them, but before this broke, the practice was condoned by the leadership and was punnished less often than it would have been prior to the difficulties they’ve had in getting the numbers.

This should be a significant moment in the war, as it requires attention now rather than later. That’s a huge understatement. My main reason for saying this is that while the Army cannot stock their units properly, our fellow citizens who put it on the line and signed up for our sake are going to have to serve longer terms against their will.

For many soldiers it’s already a case where their ‘enlistment’ has been changed into a ‘sentence’. I feel that if a single soldier has to deal with the government reniging on the deal, it signals a problem that needs attention. Our president and Congress need to understand that they’re representing the people, and the individuals being involuntarily extended are the ones they owe the most attention to right now.

Not a woman whose been on life support for fifteen years. For the media…they need to get real and quit wasting our time with these non-stories involving the inner workings of everyday people’s lives. Big Media is jumping the shark at this very moment, right in front of our eyes. Let’s pray that the same can’t be said for President Bush should he continue to ignore this particular reality of the war that’s currently turning soldiers into slaves.