<nettime> The Ministry of Disinformation

[Randall Packer <rpacker@zakros.com>]

It's looking bad. With six days to go before the election, George Bush has 
locked up most of the "red" states and is now closing in on the "blue" 
states. Despite the fact that he is losing the battle on nearly every 
issue, from the War in Iraq to the home front, this completely failed 
President is gaining ground with the electorate.

How is this possible? Disinformation. They have mastered it, they have 
redefined it, they have perfected the art of spinning events to suit their 
objectives. They have learned to play the media like a fiddle. When John 
Kerry calls them on 380 tons of missing weapons in Iraq (whoops!), enough 
to blow the entire planet apart many times over, they declare that Kerry 
is not paying attention to the facts. The facts! What does an 
administration that declared nuclear Armageddon from overblown CIA 
intelligence know about the facts! Who is calling the kettle black?

No, deep in the heart of the Ministry of Disinformation, the Minister 
himself, Karl Rove, is concocting his latest propaganda cocktail. He's 
brewing up the next scene in this B movie of a Presidency that has done 
nothing if not thumb its nose in the face of reality.

The frightening thing about all this, is the gullibility of the American 
people. They buy it. They believe him. They are going to vote for him and 
he may very well win this election and we are going to have four more 
years of a plot that seems to know no end to its thickening. The question 
is: can we survive four more years of disinformation?

This quote from George Orwell speaks to the predicament we now find 
ourselves in, in which the government runs the country like its directing 
a reality TV show:

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary 
act."

There was never a better moment than now to declare that here in the 
seemingly distant space of our discussion lists and personal blogs, the 
revolution, in fact, has begun.





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