E-M:/ News suppression and manipulation

[Larry Nooden <ldnum@umich.edu>]

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Enviro-Mich message from Larry Nooden <ldnum@umich.edu>
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Empty Promises on Warming!     President Bush's Rose Garden speech last 
week seemed cynically designed to prevent others from showing the 
leadership he refuses to provide.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/opinion/22tue1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin>

Unfortunately, this is only the "tip of iceberg" .   Recent efforts to keep 
information on the plight of  polar bears in the Arctic, shifts in diseases 
with climate change, Great Lakes pollution (Science 319: 1026, 2008) 
demonstrate an unwillingness to work with the facts such as they are if 
they displease large financial backers and ideologues.

Apparently, suppression is not effective enough, so efforts are being made 
to mange the information and public opinion through ideologues posing as 
independent/unbiased experts.  In this, it is the Iraq War, but the 
principle probably extends broadly.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?th&emc=th>

Several reliable scientific sources such as Science, the weekly journal of 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (e.g., Science 319: 
1161, 2008), and the Union of Concerned Scientists have repeatedly noted 
that ideological and special interest information managers have been 
planted at the highest levels in many, if not all, federal agencies.  In 
other words, there are many "Brownies out there doing a heck of a job" and 
replacing them with job-qualified  people will be a major task for the new 
President.  I can not see how this can be done without a major change in 
political power.  And, changes in political financing seem necessary as 
well.




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