David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises the Senate Republican
leadership, called the rebate an intuitive way to show voters that
Republicans were on their side.

Sharp Reaction to G.O.P. Plan on Gas Rebate

By CARL HULSE and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON --

The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the
burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude
from the very people it was intended to help.

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and
e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and
transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in
November.

"The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think
it is conservative trickery," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator
John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was
coming from across the ideological spectrum.

Angry constituents have asked, "Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you
think you can buy us?" said another Republican senator's aide, who was
granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator
had supported the plan.

Conservative talk radio hosts have been particularly vocal.

"What kind of insult is this?" Rush Limbaugh asked on his radio program
on Friday.

"Instead of buying us off and treating us like we're a bunch of whores,
just solve the problem."

In commentary on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume called the idea "silly."

The reaction comes as the rising price of gasoline has put the public
in a volatile mood and as polls show that cynicism about Congress is at
its highest level since 1994.

__________________________________________________________

Stupid is as stupid does.

These photo ops were such a staged event that all arguing about who put
up the sign is moot.

The special photographers that the whitehouse brought in must have
thought long and hard about how to get a photo with an "accidental"
effect of a halo around the lying "Decider" (a better name is
"Deceiver")... a "halo" similar to some of the art work coming out
around the same time as the crusades, to depict saints.

click on link for complete article.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Mode...

Manufacturing Consent A Propaganda Model
excerpted from the book
Manufacturing Consent
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Pantheon Books, 1988

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols
to the general populace.

It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate
individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will
integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.

In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class
interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.

In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state
bureaucracy,

the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official
censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant
elite.

It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the
media are private and formal censorship is absent.

This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically
attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance,

and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and
the general community interest.

What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the
limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in
command of resources,

and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its
behavior and performance.

A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and
its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices.

It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out
the news fit to print,

marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private
interests to get their messages across to the public.

The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news
"filters," fall under the following headings:

(I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit
orientation of the dominant mass-media firms;

(~) advertising as the primary
    income source of the mass media;

(3)

the reliance of the media on information provided by government,
business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources
and agents of power;

(4)

"flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and

(5)

"anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism.

These elements interact with and reinforce one another.

The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving
only the cleansed residue fit to print.

They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the
definition of what is newsworthy in the first place,

and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda
campaigns.

The elite domination of the media and marginalization of dissidents
that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally
that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity
and goodwill,

are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news
"objectively" and on the basis of professional news values.

Within the limits of the filter constraints they often are objective;

the constraints are so powerful, and are built into the system in such
a fundamental way,

that alternative bases of news choices are hardly imaginable.

In assessing the newsworthiness of the U.S. government's urgent claims
of a shipment of MIGs to Nicaragua on November 5, I984,

the media do not stop to ponder the bias that is inherent in the
priority assigned to government-supplied raw material,

or the possibility that the government might be manipulating the news,
imposing its own agenda, and deliberately diverting attention from
other material.

It requires a macro, alongside a micro- (story-by-story), view of media
operations,
to see the pattern of manipulation and systematic bias. SIZE,
OWNERSHIP,

AND PROFIT ORIENTATION OF THE MASS MEDIA: THE FIRST FILTER

In their analysis of the evolution of the media in Great Britain, James
Curran and Jean Seaton describe how,

in the first half of the nineteenth century, a radical press emerged
that reached a national working-class audience.

This alternative press was effective in reinforcing class
consciousness: it unified the workers because it fostered an
alternative value system and framework for looking at the world, and
because it

"promoted a greater collective confidence by repeatedly emphasizing the
potential power of working people to effect social change through the
force of 'combination' and organized action."

This was deemed a major threat by the ruling elites.

One MP asserted that the workingclass newspapers "inflame passions and
awaken their selfishness, contrasting their current condition with what
they contend to be their future condition-a condition incompatible with
human nature,

and those immutable laws which Providence has established for the
regulation of civil society."

The result was an attempt to squelch the working-class media by libel
laws and prosecutions,

by requiring an expensive security bond as a condition for publication,

and by imposing various taxes designed to drive out radical media by
raising their costs.

These coercive efforts were not effective, and by mid-century they had
been abandoned
in favor of the liberal view that the market would enforce
responsibility.

Curran and Seaton show that the market did successfully accomplish what
state intervention failed to do.

Following the repeal of the punitive taxes on newspapers between I853
and I869, a new daily local press came into existence, but not one new
local working-class daily was established through the rest of the
nineteenth century.

Curran and Seaton note that Indeed, the eclipse of the national radical
press was so total that when the Labour Party developed out of the
working-class movement in the first decade of the twentieth century, it
did not obtain the exclusive backing of a single national daily or
Sunday paper.

One important reason for this was the rise in scale of newspaper
enterprise and the associated increase in capital costs from the
mid-nineteenth century onward, which was based on technological
improvements along with the owners' increased stress on reaching large
audiences.

The expansion of the free market was accompanied by an
"industrialization of the press."

The total cost of establishing a national weekly on a profitable basis
in I837 was under a thousand pounds,

with a break-even circulation of 6,200 copies.

By I867, the estimated start-up cost of a new London daily was 50,000
pounds.

The Sunday Express, launched in I9I8, spent over two million pounds
before it broke even with a circulation of over 200,000.

Similar processes were at work in the United States, where the start-up
cost of a new paper in New York City in I85I was $69,000;

the public sale of the St. Louis Democrat in I872 yielded $456,000;

and city newspapers were selling at from $6 to $I8 million in the
I920s.

The cost of machinery alone, of even very small newspapers, has for
many decades run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars;

in I945 it could be said that

"Even small-newspaper publishing is big business . . . [and] is no
longer a trade one takes up lightly even if he has substantial cash-or
takes up at all if he doesn't."

Thus the first filter-the limitation on ownership of media with any
substantial outreach by the requisite large size of investment-was
applicable a century or more ago, and it has become increasingly
effective over time.

In I986 there were some I,500 daily newspapers, 11,000 magazines, 9,000
radio and I,500 TV stations, Z,400 book publishers,

and seven movie studios in the United States-over 25,000 media entities
in all.

But a large proportion of those among this set who were news dispensers
were very small and local,

dependent on the large national companies and wire services for all but
local news.

Many more were subject to common ownership, sometimes extending through
virtually the entire set of media variants.

Ben Bagdikian stresses the fact that despite the large media numbers,
the twenty-nine largest media systems account for over half of the
output of newspapers,

and most of the sales and audiences in magazines, broadcasting, books,
and movies.

He contends that these "constitute a new Private Ministry of
Information and Culture" that can set the national agenda.

Actually, while suggesting a media autonomy from corporate and
government power that we
believe to be incompatible with structural facts (as we describe
below),

Bagdikian also may be understating the degree of effective
concentration in news manufacture.

It has long been noted that the media are tiered, with the top tier-as
measured by prestige, resources,

and outreach-comprising somewhere between ten and twenty-four systems.

It is this top tier, along with the government and wire services,

that defines the news agenda and supplies much of

the national and international news to the lower tiers of the media,

and thus for the general public.

Centralization within the top tier was substantially increased by the
post-World War II rise of television and the national networking of
this important medium.

Pre-television news markets were local, even if heavily dependent on
the higher tiers and a narrow set of sources for national and
international news;

the networks provide national and international news from three
national sources, and television is now the principal source of news
for the public.

The maturing of cable, however, has resulted in a fragmentation of
television audiences and a
slow erosion of the market share and power of the networks.

... the twenty-four media giants or their controlling parent companies)
that make up the top tier of media companies in the United States.

This compilation includes:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2312

Drain The Swamp And There Will Be No More Mosquitoes
by Noam Chomsky
September 10, 2002

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had
better pay much closer attention to what the US government does in the
world and how it is perceived.

Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda
before.

That's all to the good.

It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of
future atrocities.

It may be comforting to pretend that our enemies "hate our freedoms,"

as President Bush stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real
world, which conveys different lessons.

The president is not the first to ask:

"Why do they hate us?"

In a staff discussion 44 years ago, President Eisenhower described "the
campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world],

not by the governments but by the people".

His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the US
supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is "opposing political
or economic progress" because of its interest in controlling the oil
resources of the region.

Post-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same
reasons hold today,

compounded with resentment over specific policies.

Strikingly, that is even true of privileged, western-oriented sectors
in the region.

To cite just one recent example: in the August 1 issue of Far Eastern
Economic Review,

the internationally recognised regional specialist Ahmed Rashid writes
that in Pakistan

"there is growing anger that US support is allowing [Musharraf's]
military regime to delay the promise of democracy".

Today we do ourselves few favours by choosing to believe that "they
hate us" and "hate our freedoms".

On the contrary, these are attitudes of people who like Americans and
admire much about the US, including its freedoms.

What they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to
which they too aspire.

For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden -
for example,

about US support for corrupt and brutal regimes, or about the US
"invasion" of Saudi Arabia -

have a certain resonance, even among those who despise and fear him.

We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a
terrorist regime.

In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions in Colombia,
Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few,

that meet official US definitions of "terrorism" - that is,

when Americans apply the term to enemies.

In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel
Huntington wrote in 1999:

"While the US regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue states,'
in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower ...
the single greatest external threat to their societies."

Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that, on September 11, for
the first time,

a western country was subjected on home soil to a horrendous terrorist
attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of western power.

The attack goes far beyond what's sometimes called the "retail terror"
of the IRA, FLN or Red Brigades.

The September 11 terrorism elicited harsh condemnation throughout the
world and an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims.

But with qualifications.

An international Gallup poll in late September found little support for

"a military attack" by the US in Afghanistan.

In Latin America, the region with the most experience of US
intervention, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama.

The current "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, of course, also
fuelled by US policies toward Israel-Palestine and Iraq.

The US has provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh military
occupation, now in its 35th year.

One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to
stop refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that
calls for recognition of the right of all states in the region to live
in peace and security,

including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied territories
(perhaps with minor and mutual border adjustments).

In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has strengthened
Saddam Hussein while leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis -

perhaps more people "than have been slain by all so-called weapons of
mass destruction throughout history",

military analysts John and Karl Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs in
1999.

Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have far less
credibility than when President Bush Sr was welcoming Saddam as an ally
and a trading partner after he had committed his worst brutalities - as
in Halabja,

where Iraq attacked Kurds with poison gas in 1988.

At the time, the murderer Saddam was more dangerous than he is today.

As for a US attack against Iraq, no one, including Donald Rumsfeld, can
realistically guess the possible costs and consequences.

Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will
kill many people and destroy much of the country,

providing recruits for terrorist actions.

They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine" that proclaims the
right of attack against potential threats, which are virtually
limitless.

The president has announced:

"There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the
homeland."

That's true.

Threats are everywhere, even at home.

The prescription for endless war poses a far greater danger to
Americans than perceived enemies do, for reasons the terrorist
organisations understand very well.

Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence,
Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading Arabist, made a point that still
holds true.

"To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their
right to self-determination:

that is the solution of the problem of terrorism," he said.

"When the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitoes."

At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtual immunity from retaliation
within the occupied territories that lasted until very recently.

But Harkabi's warning was apt, and the lesson applies more generally.

Well before September 11 it was understood that with modern technology,
the rich and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of
violence and can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

If we insist on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes,
with awesome capacity for destruction.

If we devote our resources to draining the swamps, addressing the roots
of the "campaigns of hatred",

we can not only reduce the threats we face but also live up to ideals
that we profess and that are not beyond reach if we choose to take them
seriously.

The union king pins and all their member unions suddenly realize they are no
longer the ramrods behind union labor.

This wasn't a union organized walkout.

This was a race organized walkout.

This was a criminal organized walkout of labor designed to hurt America.

Union leaders are shiiting their pants from Connecticut to Chicago knowing
they suddenly met the biggest threat to their existence ever and they didn't
even see it coming.

Had I not heard about it on the Internet, or heard about it in the media, I
would not have even known the walkout occurred.

I would have just figured my Latino neighbors were home from work because
they were fired for being drunks, drug dealers, racists, and sherkers.

Business as usual in the USA from where I sit.

Never noticed a thing accept on the Internet. I don't bother to watch the
television news anymore nor any television programming and haven't for
nearly a year.

You would not believe how much more pleasant your life is when you don't
watch the crazy box and hear all the bad news the Republican owned media
throws at you on a daily basis.

I think these racists need to stay off work a while longer, maybe an entire
week, maybe the entire month of May, maybe the entire year to punish their
employers a bit more.

After all, it's only the hand that feeds these Brown Crackas like Tyson, who
can't get enough of racism if it makes a buck, that felt the pinch.

It strikes fear into the marrow of their bones.

Union thugs from the terrorist IAFF Local 385 McDonnell Bin Ladens to the
Hoffa and Sweeney Klans, the most massive walkout of labor in the history of
the United States, all trades, all disciplines, and there wasn't one union
card involved nor required.

UNION CARDS NO LONGER REQUIRED IN AMERICA!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/01/opinion/polls/main1567675.s...

Poll: Gas Prices, Iraq Weigh Down Bush

May 1, 2006

(CBS)

With gas prices sky-high and no end of the Iraq war in sight, President
George W. Bush's approval rating hits an all-time low in a new CBS News
poll.

Only 33 percent approve of his job performance, Mr. Bush's lowest
approval rating yet in CBS News polls.

A majority -- 58 percent of those polled -- say they disapprove of the
president.

Mr. Bush appears to be losing support from his own party.

His approval rating among Republicans has dropped to 68 percent.

Mr. Bush's ratings are even lower on the issues dominating news
coverage: near-record gas prices and the war in Iraq.

The poll found that 74 percent of Americans disapprove of the
president's handling of the gas crisis.

Even more think that the administration has not developed a good plan
to get gas prices under control.

DOES BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAVE CLEAR PLAN FOR KEEPING GAS PRICES DOWN?

No
82%

Yes
8%

But President Bush is not the only politician to carry the burden of
high gas prices.

The poll found that almost 90 percent think the government as a whole
is not doing all it can to keep gas prices down.

Respondents spread the blame across Washington.

WHO SHOULD HAVE RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEALING WITH GAS PRICES?

Congress
29%

Secretary of Energy
25%

President
24%

In what could be bad news for the Republican majority in Congress, 47
percent think that the Democrats would be more effective than the
Republicans at keeping gas prices down.

Only 20 percent thought Republicans would handle the situation better.

The violence in Iraq continues to damage Americans' opinion of the
president.

Exactly three years since the president gave the speech declaring
"major combat operations" in Iraq at an end, Americans say that war
remains the most important problem facing the country, and most do not
approve of the way Mr. Bush is managing the war.

MR. BUSH'S HANDLING OF IRAQ

Approve
30%

Disapprove
64%

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose job has come under fire
from several retired generals, also receives his lowest approval rating
to date.

RUMSFELD JOB RATING

Approve
33%

Disapprove
49%

Don't Know
18%

__________________________________________________

Goodness. That's awful news for the Republicans. They're gonna hafta
batten down the hatches, there's a storm brewin'.

    I have always used the  much superior Linux Operating system ,
   it's FREE!  and  completely Virus-Proof   :-)

    Do you know how I can find a similar deal for gasoline, at least ...
(Profit-Proof).....