biggav continuing..

The journo's certainly don't report things favourable to theAmericans, such as building schools, hosptals, other infrastructure, hundreds of new newspapers etc. They are certainly not "pro-American".

I will be away from my computer for a week from Sunday, so if this subject gets the chop in the meantime, maybe we will cross swords on something else.

Al, enjoy your holiday or whatever - its been fun.

I hope you read or watched some of the things I recommended - maybe slowly some of your brainwashing will fade and you'll understand some things better.

Please study the media a bit more carefully - once upon a time (not that long ago) there was a culture in journalism to study the facts and try to present an objective opinion without any political slant.

Media concentration, constant cost cutting on news reporting and Rupert Murdoch's push to use his media empire as a way to spread his political views have ended that culture, to the detriment of democracy.

If you can't bring yourself to watch something like "Outfoxed" or "Orwell Rolls in His Grave", then at least read some blogs covering the topic - this is a good one (and its apolitical):

http://dangillmor.typepad.com/

As for the oil argument - study the oil market for a while (its quite fascinating, particularly if you invest in energy stocks or trade oil futures) - the truth will become apparent over time.

"Peak oil" explains everything the US has done in the middle east since the Carter doctrine was first announced in 1980 - and it reflects very poorly on them.

I also think you need to understand politics as something other than a simple commie / conservative one dimensional continuum - things are a lot more complicated than that - there is an excellent diagram (grabbed from a thread at DKos that you'll no doubt find as offensive as everything I've told you - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/30/35851/5400) that might make things a little clearer:

http://liberationlearning.org/graphic/_tradlib.gif

The libertarian position today is simple - authoritarianism can rear its ugly head on both the left and the right - and today its the right that is afflicted.

Thanks for your good wishes biggav. That was like a handshake after going 15 rounds! My wife works unselfishly for the family and needs a break every now and then,

The newspaper business has always had its own agenda in the form of the the political aims of its owners going back for yonks. I remember back in 1949, my Mother cancelled our paper because Sir Keith Murdoch [Rupe's father] was blatantly biased against the Chifley Government.

I will take a look at the blog on newspapers when I come back. It's been a challenging slog, and we'll probably do it again on a different subject. Next time I'm sure it will be a lot more polite.

Got to go. Goodbye for now.

A handshake is always good - I treat debating like I do sports - go as hard as you can but don't take anything that happens personally (feel free to come by either of my blogs when you finish your break and leave some dissenting comments - i quite enjoyed this).

I agree that media owners have always applied their own political slants - but when cities had 2 morning papers and 2 afternoon papers and you didn't have the concentration of ownership across all markets that we now have it wasn't so bad - you could find a media outlet to match your own views...

America is not doing managing Iraq well, and needs to change its priorities-fast. Currently the US is more focused on the "offensive" than the defensive. Although offense sounds better, it never works in wars that include guerilla war fare. When America jumps from town to town they only destroy terrorists that are on the surface, and when they leave any town they allow the terrorist to cultivate. This type of war fare does not work. Instead, America needs to stress its "Clear, Hold, and Build" plan far more. The Iraqi people will not have faith in their government, or the US if they do not feel they are stable. As Kenneth M. Pollack said in "the Right Way", "If the people are afraid to leave their homes-or worse still, if they are afraid even while in their homes-the guerillas and other forces of chaos have effectively won."