Wednesday, June 28, 2006
"Just like Mike" is so 80's, you want to be "Just like Hu" (Jintao)!
"Just like Mike" is so 80's, you want to be "Just like Hu" (Jintao)!: "
Mr. President,
The main stream medium is just pushing nationalistic pride so much today its ready to bust its buttons. Its just overflowing red white and blue everywhere today and its not even July.
Did Murdoch buy MSNBC? Today, their web site had several articles such as 'Being an American' 'Take a sample U.S. citizenship test' 'America tops patriotism poll.' If you couple these articles with the flag-burning bill before the Senate, it makes one wonder if wearing arm bands and brown shirts will be the in-thing this summer and autumn.
Meanwhile the Senate's timely proposal to make it unlawful to burn the flag and the unmerciful right-wingnut attacks on the New York Times for disclosing information most people already knew about, is indicative of the continuing assault on the Constitution.
If we pass this flag-burning bill we will join other bastions of democracies in the world such as Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. None of the other western nations have laws which forbid flag-burning.
If you use these countries as models for our new government you should choose China, because they recently passed a law which also supports your view of the mass media and how to handle national alerts.
Just yesterday you reserected a dead program by the Partnership for Public Warning. They had disbanded in 2004 because of lack of funding until $25 million in funding suddenly showed up only 4 months 11 days away from the November elections.
Call me cynical, but the system you just proposed will replace the comical yet effective color terror alert system. It was comical because of its simplistic basis yet extremely effective at keeping Americans fearful, especially around election time.
The new system is supposed to integrate many forms of communications such as: television, radio, PDA's, Blackberries, and cellphones. So in the near future I may have to pay to receive your bullshit on my cell phone?
What are you going to do, preceed each text terrorist alert message with MOTD TM. (Message Of The Day, Trust Me)?
Like I said earlier I think China is a good model for you. You like King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud's title and power but Saudi Arabia is not a large country. China is definitley the right size country you can relate to. Not only is China one of the few countries in the world to ban flag burning, they have censured the Internet and have a pretty good lid on their news medium. You want to be just like Chairman Hu Jintao. 
Yestreday they took it one step further. They imposed some stiff fines on any news media that reports any natural disaster, oil spills, health crisis or social unrest, aka riots, without prior government approval.
Only pre-approved news about bad news stories can be communicated.
Talk about dying and going to heaven. How green are you with envy?
Jiao Guobiao, a former journalism professor at Beijing University who was barred from teaching last year after writing an essay criticizing China's censorship rules said, 'We have never had such a law before.'
The censors regularly alert senior editors which subjects are out of bounds and suggest which ones need to be handled with particular 'care.'
Under the new law it would be easy to cover up their past disasters like the SARS epidemic in 2003 that allowed the disease to spread. And, more recently, there would be no news about the disasterous chemical spill which contaminated river water which flowed toward the major city of Harbin. They can also black out the news about the numerous mining disasters.
If bird flu does break out in China someday, the government, not the news media, will decide when and what the world will hear.
Your constant criticism about the 'negative press' coverage from Iraq, Fox TV and drug-addict Limbaugh's assault on the imaginary liberal media makes a pretty strong statement about your hate for American media that dares to criticize your administration. And it show's your desire for China's prefered means of dealing with those pesky news reporters.
You were serious when you told Prime Minister Tony Blair you wanted to bomb the Aljazeera television network weren't you? 
Is it just a coincidence that the three of the major powers in the world, the United States, China and Russia want to shut out all the light which may leak through the iron curtains you all built around yourselves. Reporters from all three countries have a lot in common these days.
We might as well get used to that mushroom-feeling as we sit in the dark under piles of government-approved manure; at least we are not in there alone, there are millions of Russians and Chinese there with the rest of us.
From: comments@whitehouse.gov
Date: June 27, 2006 10:48:59 PM CDT
To: guzmatom@mac.com
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House is
unable to respond to every message, and therefore this response
is an autoreply.
Thank you again for taking the time to write.
"
(Via My letters to Bush.)
