# Matthew Cadbury on truth and the power of words

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2003-03-17T19:43:04Z


Matthew Cadbury, the always insightful GLT posted this on our list today. Relevant to the revolution and the pursuit of truth thread today.Matthew CadburyI was disturbed (but not surprised) to read in the newspapers that a recent NBC poll shows that 42% of the US population believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11th attack (the reality, of course, is that none of those involved in September 11 were Iraqis and there was no Iraqi involvement of any kind in the attack). How do so many people come to be so misinformed?

The misinformation is certainly deliberate and has been done by "Team Bush" to justify attacking Iraq. Rumsfeld mentioned Al Qaeda 8 times in his last press conference on Iraq, this constant drip feed of Saddam/Al Qaeda eventually influences people.

We have discussed the importance of a free press before in this group, so where has the free press been in the USA the last few months? Has the free press not been able to counter government misinformation or has it not tried?

One problem with a free press is that it might produce the news that gets the sales, so how do you guarantee that truth is involved?

Why do US citizens tolerate being lied to by their government?
Has the USA lost respect for the truth?





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US Policy and Politics