Earlier today, we linked to a BuzzFlash interview with Laura Flanders. Besides Flanders being a community favorite, I wanted to note something from it:
BuzzFlash: In a way, the men in the Bush administration use them as a front, though in many ways they share the major characteristics of the males of the Bush administration.
Laura Flanders: Oh, absolutely. I think the way they get used is that the spinmeisters can rely on stereotype. Again, if Condoleezza Rice goes in front of the nation and says the war and invasion of Iraq is about the liberation of the Iraqi people, and it's the civil rights struggle of our day, which is what she said --
BuzzFlash: And Laura Bush, of course, said it was about liberating women.
Laura Flanders: That was the bombing of Afghanistan. You don't hear it in the same way; or, rather, you hear it in a way that you wouldn't if it was Dick Cheney or George W. saying it. Dick Cheney, at this point, epitomizes the oil man. You can almost see the oil contracts in Iraq sprouting out of his head when you see his face on the TV. That association is there in people's minds. Condoleezza Rice, for better or worse, doesn't ring those same alarm bells, even though she has a very comparable history in the oil industry. She is an oil man; she just doesn't look like one. And Laura Bush can talk persuasively about liberating women from the Taliban in a way that George W. Bush never could.
Let's narrow it down:
Again, if Condoleezza Rice goes in front of the nation and says the war and invasion of Iraq is about the liberation of the Iraqi people, and it's the civil rights struggle of our day, which is what she said
Now let's contrast that with a report from Democracy Now! today:
Iraqi Police Open Fire On Demonstrators
U.S. backed-Iraqi police offices opened fire on a crowd of Iraqis demonstrating in the town of Samawah. More than 1,000 people had taken to the streets to demand electricity, jobs and water. This marks the third summer that the residents of Iraq has suffered without regular electricity or water. Demonstrators threw stones at the governor's office and members of a Shiite militia were seen moving around the streets carrying grenade launchers. According to the Times of London, more than 50 people were wounded including 18 police officers. One demonstrator died.
The "civil rights struggle of our day?" Using that (false) analogy, does Rice care to explain why we're on the side of Bull Connor? People taking their issues, owning their issues and the answer in this "civil rights struggle of our day" is to open fire?
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