Back in late 2004/early 2005, President Bush started up his new soapbox, SAME SEX MARRIAGES ARE WRONG! He tried to get all sorts of legislation passed that took rights away from the GLBT community. He encouraged civil unions only between a MAN and a WOMAN. He created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community initiatives (because that doesn't go against the Constitution as far as separation of Church and State). While all this was going on, it was right in the middle of the War in Iraq, and he was wasting all this energy on getting the rights taken away from the gays as he spent 200 million dollars on the war effort.
And after that died down in the press, it became the war on sexual molestors, which I agreed with completely, but still, the government used this as a ploy to keep American attention on other issues besides what was going on in Iraq and what they are actually doing, all of the cover-ups, the secret agendas, the human losses, etc, etc.
Then, in August 2005, there was this big uproar over intelligent design being taught in schools. However, in previous years, before Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court had found that teaching any sort of creationism was against the separation of Church and State. This was yet another inconclusive battle against a popular issue that took the attention off of the war.
Then it was illegal immigrants, and how they need to be stopped and sent back. They can work here only if they pay 2000 dollars and take a test to learn English, just so they can pick oranges in a field. Everyone got upset about this one. The Bush administration struck GOLD! This media frenzy must have covered up something major: nuclear power in Iran. They didn't want the public to focus on that.
And don't get me started on abortion. Every time they want to create a little bit of a stir, they bring up abortion bills and new legislation to limit pro-choice. That's a freebie for our government to use any time they have something to take our attention away from what they don't want us to get too interested in.
The truth is they do this every other month to get us all riled up, in order to keep us blind to what is really going on. There are virtually no reports on the news about the war anymore, yet it is still going on. There are still people over there. Bush's rating is at an all-time low, because we are tired of these oil crisis warnings and our soldiers still being "over there." the government is really afraid of the American public, and I think that we need to realize we have more power than we give ourselves credit for.
If this was the 60s, we would be marching on our nation's capital and starting up a campaign for peace, but where has our voice gone? Why do we continue to let ourselves be blinded by these faux issues pushed on us by our government? Do we really just not want to think about what's going on, because we have our own lives and we're just trying to make it through the day? Are we lazy? Is there anything we can do to change the government's opinion that we are just pawns to persuade as they see fit? Are we even pawns? Do you disagree with the cover-up theory? Why? Tell me everything.
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I don't think it's the presidents fault. If anything it is the result of the media. The media sets the public agenda by how extensive the news coverage on a story is and how predominately positive or negative it is.The news media plays an important part in determining the relative importance of political issues.
Yea but the President and the government are who establish these bills and laws to get the media going. It's their agenda, not the media's.
I think the government will try to blame immigrants next.
they already have.
I think Bush keeps picking a new scapegoat to steer attention away from himself and his own administration's wrongdoings.
Definitely. Every time something major happens in the Middle East, he brings up new legislation to keep or mind off of what's going on and to hide.
It's true- all of the issues occurring in America do seem to detract from the news in Iraq. However, I don't think this is done on purpose.
There is a war in Iraq, and the people need to know about it; but the public still needs to be informed about things happening in their own country. The fact that there is a war going on doesn't mean that we should dispense with all other news besides the things that pertain to war.
I think the President would not be doing his job if he didn't focus some of his attention on other issues that affect other's lives (i.e. abortion, immigration, etc.)
It is difficult for us, as citizens, to receive a full account of what is going on in the world. Blame it on faulty media...not the President.
I don't think you got the point. Have you noticed that all of these bills and legislation go nowhere? They're never passed. They get a rise out of everybody, but then it just fizzles out slowly--until a new "problem" arises that no one knew about until the government created it. Honestly, would any of us be worrying about immigration if it hadn't been brought up by the President first? The media can't help that once published, everyone wants to know more about it. There are some honest media, like Times magazine did a wonderful piece of immigration in last month's issue.