I wandered over to the Democratic Undergound to see if they had yet discovered the emerging Democracy in Iraq. Well they had.
And they are besides themselves with worry:
One writer lamented:
How Do We Fight Against The MSM's Iraqi Election Propaganda?
What's our strategy? All I hear on TV is, "freedom, freedom, freedom, success, bush was right, things are going to well, freedom, success, democracy, success, freedom..."How do we fight against that? How do we show Americans that in the grander scheme of things this election is meaningless & Iraq is still a disaster, and at the same time detach W's name from being synonymous with "freedom and democracy"?
Yes, well that's a problem. I suppose one thing that hadn't occurred to the author is that they could be happy about and support the idea of freedom and Democracy. That way it wouldn't be just the President that was for such concepts but instead all Americans. But that's too much to expect given that it appears that the idea of freedom and Democracy is not their chief concern.
Another writer advocates that they should just ignore the news:
Turn the teevee off. It's not hard. No 'news', no 'information'. Just watch shows for entertainment...
Turn the teevee OFF.
Which is pretty much what the Conservative Left has been doing for a very long time now; ignore the news and make up the story you want to be true. Hell, CBS even thought they would combine the making up the news part with the watching the news part in order to reinforce their own map of reality.
The original writer was at least swift enough to see the hole in that particular piece of logic:
Well that's all well and good, but while you turn the TV off...millions of Americans are keeping it on. That's the problem.
Well, yeah. But at least you can maintain your particular world view without having to adjust to the pesky facts.
On another thread, a writer observes:
Saddam had elections Only he was running against feeble old women and if you voted against him you risked death.
We're much better at propaganda, though. When we fix an election we make it look like a close race. That way it looks legitimate.
Well, actually, Saddam ran unopposed. You could only vote yes or no. And no only if you had a few excess body parts or extra family members.
And the current race in Iraq is not between two people but instead a bunch of parties which will serve as a "Congress" to draft a Constitution. But being informed doesn't seem to be a priority to the DU.
Another simply chooses to believe that the whole media (including Reuters and the BBC if you can belive that) is part of a conspiracy to help Bush:
Ok, how about a million dollars for the 1st MSM strory that does not lie? Never happen. Our media is FAKE.
Well if that's the case, then how do they even know there are terrorists in Iraq at all? I mean the war may not have even occurred and Saddam is still in power and is really Santa Claus, benevolent and humble benefactor who serves his people.
But again, it is more likely this individual absolutely believes the "MSM" when the news fits his or her preconceived notions and disbelieves it when contradictions occur.
One individual, out of all the stuff I read, had a decent perspective on things:
Congratulations to those Iraqis who voted especially those in areas which were under threat of violence. The human spirit and determination required in some cases is always respectable.
Sadly I have very low expectations that these elections will lead to any real change on the ground for the many Iraqis in terms of economics (record unemployment), security (both related to the insurgency and related to the ongoing high rate of crimes), and the situation that will arise if/when the new government wants to dictate actions of hte US Military (eg to pull out of a particular area, or to pull out of the country altogether). THis is but one event, albiet one with the potential for historic importance, in what must be a chain of many, many more events if Iraq is really moving towards stability, self-governance and democracy.
I can quibble but, why? At least he accepts the facts on the ground and sees the potential.
Hey! Who let him in?
