The primary system is broken. People in four states-- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida trimmed the field of democratic candidates and removed my first and second choice for president before I, and the majority of the rest of the country, even got a chance to express our opinions. I'm left with a candidate that I can't support under any circumstances and another candidate who I have no faith in or passion for whatsoever. A candidate I would happily work to defeat and one that I can't whip myself into any enthusiasm for no matter how hard I try. A candidate who represents corporations instead of real people and one that seems more interested in being "historic" than changing the direction of a flailing government in crisis.

I don't get to vote for any of the candidates who might have actually represented my interests. I don't blame this on the people of Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida. I blame it on the democratic party, on the entrenched political interests who put their own success before the best interests of the national constituency, and most of all, I blame the corporations who are the real beneficiaries of my disenfranchisement. Especially the media, whose endless mediocrity and punditry turned the most important presidential election in my lifetime into a horserace. The media that has consistently refused to give real issues of public and global consequence anywhere near as much consideration as who's got the best haircut or who said what about whom. The media that steadfastly refused to cover the candidates with the greatest potential to make significant changes in the trainwreck this nation has become.

I never got to vote for a candidate who represents me, or the ideals that are meaningful to me. America does not need a Hillery Clinton or a Barack Obama-- hell, it probably doesn't need a John Edwards or a Dennis Kucinich, although they would have been a step in the right direction. America needs a George Washington, a Thomas Jefferson, another Tom Paine or an Alexander Hamilton. It needs leadership committed to throwing out the rotten garbage wherever they find it. It needs revolutionary change, not a different flavor of the same ol' corporate rule. It needs someone who will heed Eisenhower's warning and toss the MIC into the gutter of political and economic history, along with its Pentagon toadies and its captains of industry. I never got to vote for someone who might work for me, instead of for CNN, Fox News, General Electric, Haliburton, Blackwater, and MacDonald Douglas.

I'm left with someone else's choices-- choices who are not even majority choices yet, but who have been annointed as the ONLY democratic party choices available to me even though the process of "majority decision" has barely begun. The system has allowed a tiny minority to decide for us all, and we will undoubtely be told that the eventual democratic party nominee has "majority" support. "Get over it, dude-- you're just all sour grapes because your candidate didn't win." No, I'm all sour grapes because I didn't even get a chance to vote for "my candidate." This is NOT democracy.

We've all heard numerous permutations of this demand for Congress to come up with a "plan" for withdrawing from Iraq. Some dems have even acquiesced and suggested plans, e.g. Dennis Kucinich. But such demands are disingenuous at best.

Planning how to achieve strategic military objectives, like withdrawing from a theater of battle, is not Congress's job. It's not their place to devise such a "plan." Their job is to authorize and fund war, or to refuse such authorization and funding. In doing so they define the overall strategic objectives-- either defeat the enemy, or refrain from war. In the present case, all the Congress needs to do is withdraw the authorization for war against Iraq and stop appropriating funds. It is up to the military, and the commander-in-chief, to execute a "plan" to achieve that objective.

A "plan for withdrawal" is a plan for troop movements. That is not Congress's responsibility, at least not under the Constitution.

As I've argued elsewhere, the Pentagon certainly has a "plan" for withdrawal from Iraq-- if not, then the general staff is criminally negligent. The "plan" simply awaits the proper orders for implementation.

Congress can-- and should-- pass legislation defining broad foreign policy objectives, and Congress will certainly have to legislate in the aftermath of the disaster in Iraq, if for no other purpose than to appropriate funds for reparations (or "reconstruction"). But Congress need play no role in planning a withdrawal-- it needs only to require one. The "plan" is the executive's and the Pentagon's responsibility.

...you take off the terminal one, so your's should be 3924.

A recent ABC news poll indicates that at least 57 senators would likely vote to rescind the Iraq war authority granted under the IWR if such a resolution could be brought to the floor. In fact, given the message sent by the 2006 midterm elections, I believe that even more would do so-- there is NO political future left in supporting the train wreck in Iraq, especially against the backdrop of current conditions.

The House would undoubtedly follow suit.

That would throw the authority for war back onto the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and under the most charitable conditions-- assuming that the IWR covered the time from the invasion until it was rescinded-- would force Bush to seek new authority for war or withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq within 60 days. Conceivably, if he could turn Iraq into a shining example of prosperous democracy during that time then everyone would be happy, and congress would likely give him whatever further authority he needs to pave the streets of Baghdad with gold.

More realistically, the Bush administration would be faced with a constitutional crisis. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is at best a knocked-up compromise that attempts to reconcile the authority of the president, as commander-in-chief of the military, with the constitutional authority-- and responsibility-- of Congress to declare or not declare war. This issue has been dodged for many years because when the necessity arises, neither Congress nor the President want to be diverted by the underlying constitutional issues or to risk a challenge to their presumed authorities.

Those issues are properly a matter for the judiciary to decide, but they have never been brought to the Supreme Court-- again because neither Congress nor the Executive have ever really wanted them tested. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 attempts to patch over the contradictions between congressional and presidential authority by giving the executive an out, but only for 60 days.

Every president since Nixon has argued that the WPR is unconstitutional, but none have challenged it. It is an uneasy balance between congress and the executive branch that keeps the courts out of the matter.

Rescinding congressional authority for the war against Iraq would ultimately force the issue before the court unless Bush meekly packs up and withdraws, which I doubt would happen. I believe this is an excellent time to do this because the court would be acting against the background of Iraq itself, with full understanding of the utter mess the executive can make if it has the unbridled authority to use war as an instrument of foreign policy without the check of congressional authority. It would have the Bush administration-- one of the worst presidents in history-- asking for a ruling on behalf of presidential power.

This would also add a further ironic distinction to the Bush legacy. He would be remembered as the president who screwed up so badly that the Court was forced to limit presidential power in response. It would also restrain the unary executive movement for the foreseeable future.

Let me preface this by saying that I've looked for an answer and I *THINK* I've been able to patch one together from various sources but not an unambiguous one, so I'm hoping that someone can point me to a citation.

The question: General Clark has stated pretty convincingly that had he been commander in chief in 2003 he would not have started a war of aggression against Iraq, but if he succeeds in securing the 2008 democratic party nomination and is elected president, would he end the war against Iraq with all possible dispatch? Has he made his intentions clear in this regard?

I ask because the statements I've been able to find suggest that he would be reluctant to "admit defeat" and end the war without achieving some nebulous "objective," but I'm unsure about that-- his responses lead me to believe that, but not without a certain ambiguity.

I'd like to know whether he has unambiguously said the one thing that I most want to hear from potential 2008 candidates-- that he not only opposed the war in 2003 but he opposes it now AND WILL END IT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

Anyway, I'd very much appreciate a citation that answers my question. TIA!

The Bush administration has painted itself into a very bad corner and they're beginning to see just how hopeless their position looks. Cheney and his band of evil gnomes advocate choosing sides in what is now undeniably a sectarian civil war. He wants to throw in with the Shi'a, pouring more money and firepower into the conflict on their side. This is consistent with supporting the al-Maliki government which, despite pretensions of "unification" is dominated by the majority Shi'ites.

The problems with this course are many, however, and they contradict other stated objectives of the ongoing Bush train wreck. One of the most implacable opponents of the U.S. occupation is the Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is also a powerful member of al-Maliki's government. Throwing in with the Shi'a will likely fragment them and either broaden the civil conflict or weaken the Shi'a themselves. The al-Maliki government is in a lose-lose situation here and it will quite possibly fall before long because of this internal divide among the ruling Shi'ite parties.

Throwing in with the Shi'a implies throwing in with Iran and Syria, which are closely allied with the Iraqi Shi'ites. The U.S. won't even talk directly to the Iranians. Admitting that they have common interests in Iraq is anathema to Bush administration officials and their neocon cronies. Any such common interests would crumble anyway-- there is no firm ground to stand on in that direction. Further, broader alliances are shifting in the region as the other players are becoming more vocal, threatening, and in the case of Hizbollah, much more successful. The government of Lebanon hangs in the balance, and the chances of being entrenched in the Iraq disaster when the larger conflicts begin to blow up are growing every day.

Saudi Arabia has expressed its support for the rival Sunnis in no uncertain terms, threatening to intervene directly if the United States withdraws from Iraq. It's hard to say whom is who's client state: the Saudis ours or we theirs. In any event, they exert enough influence to summon Darth Cheney for an audience with the king on short notice, and their displeasure could cripple the U.S. economy if they choose to make the point seriously.

So Cheney's proposed solution seems too bitter a pill for the Bush administration to swallow.

Alternatives include supporting the Sunnis rather than the Shi'ites in the sectarian conflict, except that they're the deadenders, Ba'athists, and insurgents against whom Bush justified the occupation in the first place. They largely oppose the al-Maliki government whom the Bush administration pinned its hopes on. Supporting them now would repudiate everything the administration has tried to do so far in Iraq, and would expose the war for the shambling idiotic lunacy that it is.

Simple escalation is another alternative, which might be better described as "painting the corner even smaller." Pouring more troops into Iraq is apparently the plan lobbied by the Pentagon and the generals, for whom fire power is the supreme panacea. They evidently advocate direct confrontation with Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Unfortunately, this will also likely lead to the fall of the al-Maliki government-- al-Sadr has so much authority in Baghdad that he was able to order a halt to U.S. operations in Sadr City through al-Maliki, who preferred standing up to the Americans rather than al-Sadr. Since al-Maliki is utterly dependent upon his puppet masters to keep him alive and drawing breath, one is left to wonder just who pulls his strings the strongest. Going after al-Sadr will quite likely bring down the "unification government" just as quickly as a withdrawal, and while it's hard to say how that will affect life in Iraq with any certainty, it's a cinch that it won't increase stability at all. The corner into which the neocons have painted us will grow smaller still.

Last, but not least, Bush must consider the wishes of the military-industrial complex captains of industry who pull the strings in Washington, and who will likely see to it that people quietly die and careers are destroyed if their hopes for middle eastern hegemony and perpetual war for perpetual profits are thwarted by "failure" in Iraq. These are the men behind the curtain, yanking the levers and pulling the ropes. It was their interests that James Baker's Iraq Study Commission ultimately represented. If Iraq is the hard place, they are the rock.

So all of the alternatives for Bush and his cronies look bad, worse, and totally awful. The Decider cannot decide. A pound or two of flesh is due but Bush is panicked at the prospect. So he dithers and delays, while the War Cabinet weighs its options and wonders how it got into this terrible corner in the first place.

My personal take is that there is no possible good solution. Furthermore, there is no one in the administration who can get us out of the corner they've gotten us into. They have no alternatives but to keep fumbling "forward" into whatever disaster awaits us because the alternatives are proximally worse for them, and the country be damned.

The only solution is to remove them from office and to scub the influence of militarists and indusrialists from our government. I doubt the latter is possible, frankly, but the short term solution to the corner we find ourselves in MUST begin with the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Congressman Kucinich has opposed the war against Iraq from the very beginning. He was one of the brave democrats who voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002 and was the first to advance a concrete plan for withdrawing troops from Iraq:




Congressman Kucinich is not afraid to play hardball with the White House. He has shown the same courage that it took to vote NO on the IWR by calling for Congress to shut off the funding for the illegal war against Iraq:




Congressman Kucinich has called for the United States to join the community of nations and cooperate with the International Criminal Court, and to protect our Constitutional guarantees of judicial protections at home:




Congressman Kucinich has spoken out in favor of election reform and paper ballots:




Congressman Kucinich has worked to realize a national health care plan offering affordable, top quality health care for all Americans:




Congressman Kucinich has called for the closure of the notorious School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, one of the blackest marks on American foreign policy history in this hemisphere during the latter half of the twientieth century:



There is much more information regarding these and other issues on Congressman Kucinich's web page. Dennis Kucinich is a true progressive-- a man who walks the walk without flinching from the label "liberal." I am very proud to support his candidacy for President of the United States in 2008!

America's honor is at stake in Iraq, and what we do about the situation will determine how the rest of the world views us for many years to come, and how we regard ourselves as well.

Our national honor is not at risk because the outcome of the war against Iraq is uncertain, but rather because we are waging it in the first place. The war against Iraq is an international crime. It is a war of aggression, a crime against humanity. It is defined as such by the Nuremburg Principles and the U.N. Charter, both of which are codified into law by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, and no internal legislation, such as the Iraq War Resolution, can supplant the international laws founded upon the Nuremburg Principles. That principle was itself established by the United States. We are surrounded by a multitude of our own petards these days; we cannot escape the fundamental principles of international conduct that we ourselves established.

Our honor is uncertain because we are engaged in a monstrous crime, and because rather than ending the crime we waste our morality debating the merits of being criminals. Surely there can be no doubt that the perpetrator of a deliberate international crime against humanity is by definition a criminal nation? Again, the rule of law is clear on that point. We are currently a criminal nation. The question now is "what do we do about it?"

The first responsibility of any criminal is to stop committing his crime. The first obligation of society is to protect the right of victims to relief from crime, whether individuals or nations. Justice can only begin when the crime is stopped. Restitution, punishment, and reconciliation must follow, but they cannot begin until the crime ceases. A period of deliberation is often necessary, and an examination of the facts, but again, this cannot begin until the crime is stopped.

All justice follows from this. No justice can begin while the crime is ongoing. No honor can be reclaimed. No reconciliation can be accepted.

America's honor is at stake because its crime against Iraq continues. Those who argue for continuing it further-- whether to "win" it or simply because they cannot face the consequences of our crimes-- they are ultimately refusing to allow justice to begin. They are demanding that the crimes continue.

The U.S. presence in Iraq is criminal. The only road to justice requires that the crime be stopped before anything else can be undertaken. American can only prevent tarnishing its honor further by withdrawing from Iraq immediately. No crime can be assuaged by further injury.

...have no intention of filibustering the "compromise" republican military tribunals legislation that rescinds habeas corpus, legalizes coercive investigations, aka torture, defines just about everyone who struggles against U.S. hegemony as an "illegal enemy combatant," whether foreign or domestic, repudiates Geneva Convention protection for POWs, institutes secret trials with a direct conduit to an Amerikan gulag, and legitimizes the Bush administration's claims of "emergency powers" in "war time." According to the report-- which I heard in the car-- congressional dems do not want to appear "soft on terrorism" during the run up to elections.

What congressional dems are demonstrating is far worse than softness on terrorism-- it's acceptance of totalitarianism. This bill is a shameful attack on basic civil rights. More to the point, it is an attack on some of the most fundamental principles that this country stands for. Habeas corpus is absolutely necessary to prevent despotism-- it is the strongest line of defense against unlawful detention. It is the foundation of our system of justice because it gives the accused the right to question why they are being detained-- and it compels the government to release them if it cannot provide evidence justifying their detention. It is incomprehensible to me that patriotic men and women would stand silent while the foundation of our nation's system of fair justice is torn down. If Goodman's report is true, congressional dems are shamefully selling our nation's future for the most illusionary of short term political expediencies. In their rush to appear strong on national defense, they will participate in the nation's destruction.

National security is about much more than creating a security state in the U.S. It is first and foremost about protecting the principles that distinguish the U.S. from dictatorships and the regimes of petty despots. That Americans would be willing to throw away their principles so cheaply is galling enough, but our leadership's cowardice in wanting to avoid a political confrontation over it is far worse. I am ashamed that we are even having this conversation in America-- I am even more deeply ashamed that my leaders don't think protecting our fundamental human rights is important enough to even make any noise about.

If this bill passes we will all be "illegal enemy combatants." Do not doubt that this administration will go to such extreme lengths to silence its critics-- after all, who would have believed that we would be having this debate in the first place just a few years ago? If this bill passes our representatives in congress will have used OUR authority to strip away the very principles that America stands for, in essence signing our names to the death certificate of democratic ideals.

Unfortunately, I think the seeds of that rot were planted a lot longer ago than we usually want to acknowledge, when Americans began to turn away from the Jeffersonian ideal and toward embracing the business and industrial ethics of Adam Smith and J.P. Morgan. When we began to apply the ideal of the rugged individualist to industrialists and businessmen success began to be defined in terms that were beneficial for individuals but costly for society as a whole. The disparity between poverty and wealth grew into a vast chasm and became a normal component of our social fabric. We became a nation of consumers, driven more by the tides of materialism than by real patriotism, and certainly more than by democratic philosophy, which has been retained largely as selfishness-- the "rights" of private property owners to trash the environment for quick profit, the right to cheap entertainment and trinkets, the right of the middle class to avoid the discomfort of ever having to see whose backs their luxury is borne opon, and the right of the wealthy to use their wealth to concentrate more riches and power into their hands. Our collective greed drives an imperial foreign policy that is unredeemably evil.

Much of the rest of the world hates us not because of our freedom, but because we construct our society-- however free it actually is or isn't-- on foundations laid upon their despair and oppression. They are beginning to get the clue that the real problem isn't just the American government, but rather the American social fabric of which that government is a part. The ugly American isn't a myth-- we have taken a noble progressive experiment in democracy and turned it into an abomination of greed, acquisitiveness, and empire. We have never ceased being a nation of slave holders-- we've simply redefined the notion of slavery to fit our changing needs in an increasingly global empire.

Jefferson would weep for what America has become. Much of what I love about America hasn't really existed for many decades now except in slogans and homilies taught to school children. We believed those homilies, we blithely accepted them as truths about America. The America we love is Jefferson's progressive vision of a land of enlightenment in which free people not only charted their own destinies, but in which they did so benevolently, guarding the central principles of democracy that afforded dignity and opportunity to all citizens. The America we're actually living in is not the America we love. That America is part myth now, and part propaganda. We will not get it back without another revolution, I'm afraid-- the people are too firmly attached to their self-destructive "rights"-- not the rights enshrined in the Constitution, but the implied rights of a mindlessly consuming society and the empire of oppression that keeps it afloat.

Take a good long look at America, without the blinders of patriotic jingoism, and the picture you'll see is not a pretty one.

...for all the self referential examples. First, I'm an athiest, so while I do repudiate Judaism, I also repudiate Christianity and Islam, and cannot imagine that I show any favor for any of them. If anything, I regard my christian history as especially repugnant, since it's the one I specifically rejected, so my biases would tend to be in the opposite direction to the ones you suggest.

Nonetheless, I admit the essential point-- I was raised in a western christian culture, and cannot escape that. However, I was also raised in a highly charged racist atmosphere-- the American deep south, during the civil rights movement-- and while I have been accused of antisemitism numerous times in this community, I have never been accused of racism against african americans or black people in general. That is only tangential to the current discussion, but I submit that it is likely that if I were a racist in the ultimate sense that an athiest would have to be to be antisemitic, it stands to reason that I'd likely be a racist in the proximate sense as well, since that is surely more deeply ingrained in my psyche. After all, I actually experienced it. The persecutions of jewish people are history to me, at best, while the persecution of racial minorities in the south is part of my own living heritage.

Further, IF I were motivated by christian doctrine, it seems that nine centuries of war with islamic empires would predudice me against muslims as much as jews.

I must concede your second point-- I did not mean that all critics of Israel are free of antisemitism-- but likewise you must concede that many are. No doubt a range of motives exists, from completely free of antisemitism to completely consumed by it. That does not excuse the broad application of the antisemitic label, which is itself hateful.

Given the range of motives that likely inspire critics of Israel, your final point seems impossible to achieve: "The challenge for left and progressive persons who oppose Israel on the merits of the matter as they see them is to do so in ways that do not summon up some of the old Medieval devils on the one hand, and that do not align themselves with enemies of Israel who incorporate these, topped with a turban, so to speak, into their political platforms." In the end, the progressive thing to do is to judge the merits of each individual's arguments individually, and to not ascribe motives based upon the motives of others, however hateful they might be. I criticise Israel, and so do islamists blinded by antisemitism, as do arabs simply expressing legitmate grievances against the zionists who took their land. We are not a homogenous group, we critics of Israel. You do US the exact disservice that you accuse us of doing Israel by failing to recognize that.

Recent calls for Rumsfeld's dismissal are interesting, partly because he has resisted any real accountability for his failures for so long, but even more so because of truths that lurk below public consciousness but which many folks calling for Rumsfeld's dismissal should be aware of.

The most important of these is that Rumsfeld and Cheney are utterly central to the Bush administration-- they are its philosphical and doctrinal "ringleaders" in a very real sense. Their longevity in the administration has never been tied to performance-- like hapless sons who inherit a thriving business and then squander its resources, they aren't answerable like any other employee because they're insiders. They can't be fired unless they fire themselves, and they're family, so they won't even think about it. Rumsfeld is a made man. He has been from the very beginning. Unless an outside body acts to force his resignation under pretty extreme circumstances, he is just about as untouchable as anyone can ever be.

Rumsfeld will never be "dismissed" in the sense of a president exercising his authority to remove a failed cabinet member from his post. I'm not sure Bush even knows-- or at least acknowledges in his heart-- that he has such authority where Donald Rumsfeld is concerned.

If Rumsfeld leaves office it will be a charade. Furthermore, it will be because his parachute is extremely golden and extremely large. If Rumsfeld accepts any public humiliation for his failures, he will only do so if he receives compensation beyond all imagination. The presumably short road through the remainder of his life will be paved with that compensation. This presumes that he doesn't leave office in handcuffs, but while that might be just, it is unlikely.

The thing that I don't understand is that folks like Hillary Clinton undoubtedly know this. What profit is there in removing Rumsfeld if he can only be removed by offering him a tastier nut to drool over? I doubt that anyone will be fooled by his leaving office in "disgrace." He cannot be disgraced among that company-- such are the benefits of being a compa and untouchable.

My response in a different thread a few minutes ago started me thinking about this question and I decided that it needed a thread of its own. The answer seems like a no-brainer-- there is no acceptable number of lives thrown away for nothing-- but everyone's plan for either "succeeding in Iraq" or their calls for "eventual withdrawal" or "phased withdrawal" implicitly accept that more will die during the interval of continued occupation, on both sides.

So I wonder, if the people who've been killed already-- on both sides-- died for nothing, then how can the death of even one more person be justified? What are the acceptable losses for no good cause whatsoever? How many lives can we simply toss away like waste, how many futures can we condemn for nothing before it becomes too many? One must always assess the human cost of war against the benefits of struggle, but what are the legitimate costs when there is no benefit whatsoever? When every death is a waste? When everyone dies in vain?

When each day of continued occupation, while politicians in Washington pound their chests and try to prove themselves brave and true while avoiding any "negative perceptions," when each hour of occupation means more dead and maimed for absolutely nothing, how can ANYONE suggest any course other than full, immediate, and unconditional withdrawal from the meat grinder we've created in Iraq? It's not a question of fortitude-- it's a question of decency. To paraphrase John Kerry, "how do you ask the last man to die for nothing?"

...without being drawn into semantic debates, if that's what it takes to end the horror of the war against Iraq. So to Hastert, and Frist, and all their colleagues I say "damn right, America should cut and run from Iraq." Anyone of good character cuts and runs from circumstances that would involve them in commiting a crime, and the war against Iraq is utterly criminal in every respect. People of good conscience cut and run from deliberate acts of evil, and aggression against the people of Iraq is evil without any redemption whatsoever.

There is no shame in "cutting and running" from shameful conduct. A coward finds it easier to stay the course than to admit his error and stop it.

I support anyone who wants to "cut and run" from Iraq. It's time for Americans to stop kidding themselves. The war against Iraq is a disaster that is doing great harm to America, both at home and abroad. Cutting and running is the only sensible course to take. Call it whatever you like, but "cutting and running" is just fine with me.

OK, to a certain extent you're correct-- I'm guilty of prioritizing for others. People have the right to choose whatever means of rotting their brain they wish, whether it's drugs, religion, or television. I would never advocate taking away those rights.

On the other hand, I do believe that television is the most effective "mind control device" ever invented-- and before you scoff and suggest I tighten my tin foil hat consider that over 75 percent of ALL human sensory receptors are in our retinas. The primary pathway for information about the outside world-- outside our bodies, I mean-- is visual. Some of the most complex information processing networks in the central nervous system handle all that visual information. We're hardwired to absorb and respond to visual information at our most fundamental sensory levels.

Television taps directly into that pathway. It really is like an information IV plugged right into the biggest vein in your head. It's a flood through the wide open doors of consciousness. If that sounds a bit grandiose for a medium used to deliver sitcoms, well, what did I say up-thread about wasted electrons?

Much (most?) of that information is processed nonlinearly and noncontextually. That's why an educational program about, say, particle physics is no better at teaching you particle physics than a good book on the topic or attending a lecture series by a good teacher. But a television program about particle physics CAN reinforce your predjudices against hispanic immigrants, for example, if the narrator is hispanic and dresses sloppily or otherwise reinforces stereotypes. It can't teach you physics, but it excels at influencing your thinking at lower levels. That's a rather contrived example, but before you dismiss it, consider that ALL television advertising uses exactly that principle-- it relies on the direct pipeline through your visual cortex to create associations between ideals and values, and products someone wants to sell you.

Television is arguably the most potent advertising medium that has ever existed. Its advertising efficacy is the primary reason that it exists so ubiquitously. Advertising is nothing more than behaviour modification-- in a word, mind control. If television is so excellent for selling soap, what makes you think it isn't just as good at creating and maintaining cultural and political memes as well? In fact, it is the best tool ever invented for doing just that.

Sorry for the OT rant, but I rank television in the same category as crack cocaine-- fun, but dangerously addictive, and ultimately capable of utterly warping ones's perspectives on life. It is your right to do so, but not necessarily a smart thing to do.

Just say no to television.