Thursday, March 16, 2006
Iran's "Unknowns": Face the Facts
I've talked about this before, many times. On Rush Limbaugh's website, he posts links to all of his written source material 30 minutes before the show starts, and it stays up on the main site until the next show starts. At the top of the page, the webmaster puts this quote from Rush:
"Most People's Historical Perspective Begins With the Day of Their Birth."
I disagree with that. In my experience, most people have a historical perspective that is, at best, 12 months long. Given what I have seen, Rush is much too generous.
Let me ask you a question: were you born before 1979? If you were, do not read any further, yet. Read the linked article, come back here, and finish the post.
The article linked through the title of this post is a great example of this. Amir Taheri presents numerous facts about Iran. I am sure to most of his readers these facts came as more than a bit of a surprise.
That is what proves my point. Mr. Taheri does not present any facts that are new revelations. Nothing he writes about is from some esoteric news source or academic journal. This is all information that has been presented by the main stream media.
What's worse is that we are not talking about obscure stories buried in the TV news cycle or obscure stories buried in the back pages of a newspaper. We are talking about lead, or near lead stories.
The straw that breaks the camel's back is that the pattern of behavior he chronicles about the Iranian government is not a recent development. We are talking about information that has been a constant element in main stream reporting in the US since the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979.
"Most People's Historical Perspective Begins With the Day of Their Birth."
I disagree with that. In my experience, most people have a historical perspective that is, at best, 12 months long. Given what I have seen, Rush is much too generous.
Let me ask you a question: were you born before 1979? If you were, do not read any further, yet. Read the linked article, come back here, and finish the post.
The article linked through the title of this post is a great example of this. Amir Taheri presents numerous facts about Iran. I am sure to most of his readers these facts came as more than a bit of a surprise.
That is what proves my point. Mr. Taheri does not present any facts that are new revelations. Nothing he writes about is from some esoteric news source or academic journal. This is all information that has been presented by the main stream media.
What's worse is that we are not talking about obscure stories buried in the TV news cycle or obscure stories buried in the back pages of a newspaper. We are talking about lead, or near lead stories.
The straw that breaks the camel's back is that the pattern of behavior he chronicles about the Iranian government is not a recent development. We are talking about information that has been a constant element in main stream reporting in the US since the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979.
