What do you think the U.S. would do if warships from a foreign nation “engaged in transit passage” a few miles off our coast? Do you think we might want to check them out? Now imagine: That foreign nation had the most powerful military on earth, often speaks of bombing you, and had already invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico. That should give you an idea of how the Iranian people feel every day. They want the same thing most Americans want--to get through the rest of George W. Bush’s term without a war between our two nations.

      On the same day the Iranian video appeared, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the 5th Fleet, told reporters that the commanding officers of the American warships did not feel threatened by the Iranian patrol boats, they did not issue any warnings to the boats, and they were never “on the verge” of firing at anyone. Admiral Cosgriff couldn’t have made it any clearer; but the media has continued to portray the incident as a provocative confrontation, and Bush has continued to warn and threaten Iran at each stop on his Mideast tour.

      Regardless of what the Bush Administration and the media tell us, the greatest danger to America is not Iran, or al Qaida, or Islamofascist extremists. The greatest danger to America is that the Bush Administration continues to lie to the American people, and the corporate media continues to amplify and spread every lie--no questions asked.

      The Founding Fathers did not give constitutional protections to the press, so it could act as a propaganda machine for the government.

 ·        “The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”-- Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black (1886-1971)
 

     The mainstream American press has misused its power and failed in its duty to the American people.

 ·        “The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.”--Gore Vidal, U.S. novelist, critic, 1991

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