>>> Dennis Menard on Ethics 
 WE> Down load the file, and you'll get some insights.  
 DM> I've sent off the request ... they seem to be slow, though; perhaps I
 DM> will get it tomorrow.
About a couple of days.  They have lots of stuff.  The guy who runs the file 
server is in the fido echo FLAT_TAX.  PAUL_REVERE is another echo for these 
guys, pro gun, pro militia, anti-liberal, anti-government, conspiracy 
theorists as is the file server.  If you have the patience to poke around you 
may find some interesting stuff.
            Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression
                          by David Martin
When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques
must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a
cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party. 
1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you?" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors".
   If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to
   learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors".
4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the
   weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up
   wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk
   all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics and victims names like "conspiracy theorist",
   "nut", "ranter", "kook", "crackpot", and, of course, "rumor monger".
   You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the
   people you have thus maligned.
6. Impugn motives. Suggest strongly that the critics, including
   families of the victims, are not really interested in the truth
   but are simply pursuing a political agenda or are out to make
   money.
7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition
   can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news".
9. Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance"
   or "taking the limited hang-out route". This way, you create the
   impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively
   harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes". This stratagem often
   requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from
   the one originally taken.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as
    ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance.
    With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is
    irrelevant.
12. Require the skeptics and victims to solve the crime completely.
13. Change the subject.
"I really look with pity on the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading
newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what
has been passing in the world of their times."
   - Thomas Jefferson
"All they know about public policy is what we tell them."
    - David Brinkley,  speaking of the American people to a meeting
                       of the American TV/Radio Broadcasters Association.
 
 DM> Police violence?  Recently, at the APEC summit in Vancouver, B.C.,
 DM> there was some controversy over the police use of pepper spray on
 DM> protestors who were peacefully, and legally, exercising their rights
Same here.
 DM> (ie, though the most concern involved the apparent role of the federal
 DM> gov't in requesting, um, aggressive measures be taken to avoid
 DM> embarrassing those attendees who may have been most sensitive to
 DM> criticism of their record re: human rights). 
Now that's an interesting notion.  How come we don't have that going on here. 
 We don't even get to unconstitutional complaints.  Logging protestors here 
in USA are targets for pepper spray.
 DM> Tsk tsk, in Canada, for goodness sake; shame.  I am certain there is
 DM> far more abuse in this country, too, than we ever hear about.  I note
 DM> that checking News for December on www.amnesty.org makes no mention of
 DM> this incident, at all.  However, it was a major item on both the BCTV
 DM> News as well as the National News in Canada.
At least it's covered.  Amnesty International is looking for bigger stuff 
than pepper spraying.  Maybe the human right abuses of the politicians would 
be more to their scrutiny.
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