This article is devoted to fooling examples provided by my readers. I received three such examples and I am publishing all three of them. I thank very much to these readers.
In my recent article titled "We are still at war against Bin Laden", I had said that President Gorge W. Bush fooled the American people about the Iraq war. The following research gives more details on the extent of this fooling. The Turkish Newspaper Milliyet got it from an American source. It was sent to my attention by Mr. Metin Camcigil. I translated it back into English.
"The journalism organizations have determined by research that the U.S. President George W. Bush and his responsible people have made a total of 935 false statements, previous to the occupation of Iraq, in the claim that Iraq constituted a threat. The research was published in the independent internet site of the Journalism Fund. In their statements, President Bush and other government responsible said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that that country had connections with Al Qaeda. President Bush comes at the head of those making false statements with 231 statements on weapons of mass destruction and 28 statements on Al Qaeda. Bush is followed by the then Secretary of State Collin Powell with 244 false statements on weapons of mass destruction and 10 statements on Al Qaeda connection."
Here is the letter by David Richman:
"I value your letters and the information and thoughtful analysis you provide. Your experience with statins is tragic.. I too was "encouraged" to take the "latest" statin drug to lower my cholesterol several years ago.. I searched the web and found the side effect information on it. I did experience a muscle pain within a few weeks and stopped using it. The "fooling" involved was brought to my attention by this experience. As an engineer who continues to view nuclear power as an important alternative to coal and oil, and one who worked on the concept of radiation treatment of food and radiation sterilization of medical equipment 40 years ago, I am well aware of the opponents of these technologies insisting that even a one-in-a-million danger of something being amiss was unacceptable. Yet the side effect of drugs, such as the statins, are reported as 2 or 3 or even 5 %, and there may be several side effects observed, yet odds of 1 in10 or 1 in 20 are presented to the public as minor and ignorable"
"Right now there are members of congress concerned that biofuels made from corn are becoming competitive with corn and other grains as food crops and driving up the cost of food.. When I retired from the Department of Energy in 1992, this potential issue had already being identified as a concern, but the advocates continued to ignore it. Similarly, the advocates for a "hydrogen economy" have continued to ignore the facts about how hydrogen is produced and continue to speculate on there being near-term future technology available to produce it that won´t yield huge amounts of carbon dioxide."
"But for me, the major creator of "foolishness" was the termination of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment which was created to explore the potential for secondary and tertiary effects of legislation. The concept of advocacy has driven out the objectivity. Competition is presented to our youngsters as the major driving force for success and, coupled with the advocacy approach, led to us being a society that accepts this foolishness (half-truths, lies) without question and as a way of life."
Dave Richman.
Here is the letter by Robert Dickie:
"Dear Orhan,
After reading your previous letter , and in response to your suggestion below, I would suggest substituting the word "greed" for "fooled" and ask your readers to respond with examples of greed. Almost all of the examples which you cited as people/citizens being ´fooled´, I think the operative word was "greed´ . The (financial) greed of those perpetrating the misleading information in order to reap financial benefit. "
"Example: When the Federal Reserve lowered the prime interest rate (several times) for money borrowed by the banks and financial institutions throughout the country, to ease the pain of their losses from greedy behavior, a comparable lowering of interest rates/financial charges on credit card purchases was not passed along to the consumers. The banks kept the high interest rates on the credit cards to help recover the monies they lost on their bad loans. The people aren´t being ´fooled´, they continue to be taken advantage of because of the greed of the financial institutions (with the tacit approval of the Administration and Congress.) The benefit (payback) of large campaign donations by all of the major business/lobbying groups is blatantly obvious."
"More closer to home, the utility bills in Maryland. The utilities were de-regulated to encourage competition among providers with potential benefit to the rate payers. Instead of competition, the rates went up 70-80 %.I would suggest that instead of competition between providers, there was more like collusion. My financial stimulus, to support the economy, is paying $700 - $ 800 per month in utility bills."
"Just a thought"
Robert Dickie
EDITOR´s comment: Greed is an entirely different subject. It is defined as :"a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed" . There might be greed in some of our fooling examples. But the greed of the foolER is not enough to fool . There must be also a foolEE. Greed is a quality attributable to the foolER only. I thank Bob for giving me a subject for a future LETTER on greed. Then we might ask examples on greed to our readers as he suggested. (MOT)
In my recent article titled "We are still at war against Bin Laden", I had said that President Gorge W. Bush fooled the American people about the Iraq war. The following research gives more details on the extent of this fooling. The Turkish Newspaper Milliyet got it from an American source. It was sent to my attention by Mr. Metin Camcigil. I translated it back into English.
"The journalism organizations have determined by research that the U.S. President George W. Bush and his responsible people have made a total of 935 false statements, previous to the occupation of Iraq, in the claim that Iraq constituted a threat. The research was published in the independent internet site of the Journalism Fund. In their statements, President Bush and other government responsible said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that that country had connections with Al Qaeda. President Bush comes at the head of those making false statements with 231 statements on weapons of mass destruction and 28 statements on Al Qaeda. Bush is followed by the then Secretary of State Collin Powell with 244 false statements on weapons of mass destruction and 10 statements on Al Qaeda connection."
Here is the letter by David Richman:
"I value your letters and the information and thoughtful analysis you provide. Your experience with statins is tragic.. I too was "encouraged" to take the "latest" statin drug to lower my cholesterol several years ago.. I searched the web and found the side effect information on it. I did experience a muscle pain within a few weeks and stopped using it. The "fooling" involved was brought to my attention by this experience. As an engineer who continues to view nuclear power as an important alternative to coal and oil, and one who worked on the concept of radiation treatment of food and radiation sterilization of medical equipment 40 years ago, I am well aware of the opponents of these technologies insisting that even a one-in-a-million danger of something being amiss was unacceptable. Yet the side effect of drugs, such as the statins, are reported as 2 or 3 or even 5 %, and there may be several side effects observed, yet odds of 1 in10 or 1 in 20 are presented to the public as minor and ignorable"
"Right now there are members of congress concerned that biofuels made from corn are becoming competitive with corn and other grains as food crops and driving up the cost of food.. When I retired from the Department of Energy in 1992, this potential issue had already being identified as a concern, but the advocates continued to ignore it. Similarly, the advocates for a "hydrogen economy" have continued to ignore the facts about how hydrogen is produced and continue to speculate on there being near-term future technology available to produce it that won´t yield huge amounts of carbon dioxide."
"But for me, the major creator of "foolishness" was the termination of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment which was created to explore the potential for secondary and tertiary effects of legislation. The concept of advocacy has driven out the objectivity. Competition is presented to our youngsters as the major driving force for success and, coupled with the advocacy approach, led to us being a society that accepts this foolishness (half-truths, lies) without question and as a way of life."
Dave Richman.
Here is the letter by Robert Dickie:
"Dear Orhan,
After reading your previous letter , and in response to your suggestion below, I would suggest substituting the word "greed" for "fooled" and ask your readers to respond with examples of greed. Almost all of the examples which you cited as people/citizens being ´fooled´, I think the operative word was "greed´ . The (financial) greed of those perpetrating the misleading information in order to reap financial benefit. "
"Example: When the Federal Reserve lowered the prime interest rate (several times) for money borrowed by the banks and financial institutions throughout the country, to ease the pain of their losses from greedy behavior, a comparable lowering of interest rates/financial charges on credit card purchases was not passed along to the consumers. The banks kept the high interest rates on the credit cards to help recover the monies they lost on their bad loans. The people aren´t being ´fooled´, they continue to be taken advantage of because of the greed of the financial institutions (with the tacit approval of the Administration and Congress.) The benefit (payback) of large campaign donations by all of the major business/lobbying groups is blatantly obvious."
"More closer to home, the utility bills in Maryland. The utilities were de-regulated to encourage competition among providers with potential benefit to the rate payers. Instead of competition, the rates went up 70-80 %.I would suggest that instead of competition between providers, there was more like collusion. My financial stimulus, to support the economy, is paying $700 - $ 800 per month in utility bills."
"Just a thought"
Robert Dickie
EDITOR´s comment: Greed is an entirely different subject. It is defined as :"a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed" . There might be greed in some of our fooling examples. But the greed of the foolER is not enough to fool . There must be also a foolEE. Greed is a quality attributable to the foolER only. I thank Bob for giving me a subject for a future LETTER on greed. Then we might ask examples on greed to our readers as he suggested. (MOT)
