On one thread I just replied to about Al Gore, Lord Helmet repeated the oft- repeated lie that Al Gore claimed to have "invented the internet"- which most folks on this board, I think, have heard is an urban legend. As I have watched the campaigns fairly intently since the Reagan era, and have seen sound bites really take over and actual issues go away- it occurred to me, that we no longer are informed voters in this nation, but swayed by one side or the other's straight up lies and propaganda. "Swiftboating" is now in the lexicon- basically, you gather a bunch of liars together, and they tell their lies over and over, and despite obvious lies, a bunch of folks begin believing it. Same with the internet comment by Gore.

It seems that both sides play the lies, soundbites and propaganda to the max, it is just that the right wingers gather more ready believers and simply do propaganda much better than the lefties. It is hard to make, say, losing jobs due to de-forestation halted by some "greenies" look cool and honorable, than to trot out the loggers family that the breadwinner is now out of a job, in the end, not due to the "greenies" - but rather to rampant mismanagement of our resources. Yes, the 'greenies" speak in hyperbole and rhetoric and soundbites and lies - but they just don't seem to do it as well!

But what perplexes me is, why do we buy into it so easily? You would think, at some point, we, as a society, would start actually getting fed up with this cycle, and become a little less lazy and more inclined to search the original source to our best ability. Look at the Gore comment- it took all of 5 seconds to type in "Al Gore invented the internet quote" and you could look at what was REALLY said and the context of what he said quite easily. Instead, the false quote, the lie, is continued until it is LITERALLY in the lexicon of US language!

So my questions are as follows:

Does the corporate media have any ethical responsibility in corrected obvious falsehoods such as the Al Gore credited comment?

How is such an outrageous lie burned so stubbornly into the American psyche?

Is there anyway on a societal scale to prevent, or at least check, this kind of societal ignorance?

BTW- here is an excerpt of some of the stubborn lies told about Gore that the RNC managed to make stick:

http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm

But the real question is what, if anything, did Gore actually do to create the modern Internet? According to Vincent Cerf, a senior vice president with MCI Worldcom who's been called the Father of the Internet, "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."

The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania's Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today."

Joseph E. Traub, a computer science professor at Columbia University, claims that Gore "was perhaps the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country.

Does the corporate media have any ethical responsibility in corrected obvious falsehoods such as the Al Gore credited comment?

Corporate media can be ethical if they have high editorial standards. There are no real laws about this though, so it's the honor system.

Media that distribute falsehoods on purpose are not ethical. Media that do this by accident and don't retract are unethical.

Only ethical media do not knowingly spread lies, and if falshoods are accidentally made, retractions and corrections come out.

How is such an outrageous lie burned so stubbornly into the American psyche?

There has to be a high desire to accept and promote lies. How this psychology works is anyone's guess, but I bet money and power are involved.

Is there anyway on a societal scale to prevent, or at least check, this kind of societal ignorance?

The Internet that Al Gore helped to grow so well in the 1980s, as you've pointed out, is a pretty convenient source of information that refutes the lies.

However, certain individuals don't care. That's their perogatives, as is mine to ignore poor argumentation techniques, such as ad hominems against Gore, Kerry and so many others.

Does the corporate media have any ethical responsibility in corrected obvious falsehoods such as the Al Gore credited comment?

How is such an outrageous lie burned so stubbornly into the American psyche?

Ummmm, because it's true?

Here is the exact quote: .

So, I guess to be fair, his critics sometimes insert 'invent' instead of 'create'...however, the meaning is essentially the same. From dictionary.com



Gore did indeed do a lot of things to push technology in government, none of which lend any credence to the statement he made here. But, at least he doesn't think the Internet is a series of tubes....



The simple fact that you believe this demonstrates why it is done...because it works. When you tell the big lie to people that are predisposed to believe it...they do. This statement is a classic example...you couldn't think right wingers were any worse about this than left wingers except by buying into the lies being repeated by the left.

Normally, I would love to jump into a debate such as this...as the basic questions being asked here are quite valid. However, it also seems clear that there isn't much intent or ability to be fair or open, so I don't really see the point.



It is also an excellent medium to spread those lies, and is used far more often for that purpose. In fact, it is being used for that purpose right here.

I have to admit that my knowledge about this topic is minimal and I do not want to get involved in U.S. political debates, but I would like to react what you are saying here Hobbes.

You focus mainly on the word "creating" in the sentence "I took the initiative in creating the internet". Of course the word create is similar to the word invent. But in my opinion the focus should be on "initiative". I think he didn't mean to say that he created the internet, I think he tried to say that he took (political) initiatives that benefitted the creation and use of the internet. This would correspond with the opinions and views of Vincent Cerf and Marc Andreesen.

I think he actually intended to say, "I took the initiative in the creation of the internet", but misspoke in the moment. He had a good sense of humor about it, though. I don't believe this has had any effect on his career whatsoever...if anything his subsequent wit (he said something to the effect of "I wasn't thinking when I said that because I was up all night creating the camcorder") worked to his advantage. Frankly, before he came across as a little too wooden and this incident added affability, IMO.

Does the corporate media have any ethical responsibility in corrected obvious falsehoods such as the Al Gore credited comment?
Could you reference any legitimate media outlet that incorrectly quoted Al Gore? If they misquoted him, they should have said something at the time. As far as I know, that wasn't the case. This has been circulated via political blogs, entertainers, and SPAMers. If you go this route, I can think of about a Brazillian misquotes and outlandish garbage running rampant on the net that I'd like the "corporate media" to correct. In fact, I'd say it would take a long, long, long, LONG....time.

How is such an outrageous lie burned so stubbornly into the American psyche?

This is a bit hyperbolic, don't you think? There are outright lies and falsifications, at this moment, that run rampant and are even used as propaganda to kill us. Perhaps a modicum of perspective is in order? To answer the question, it's the same reason Mikey crippled the poprock industry by choking on them. Many people seem to believe whatever they hear or read.

Is there anyway on a societal scale to prevent, or at least check, this kind of societal ignorance?

Snopes and Truthorfiction.com have helped a lot, I think. The internet, 98 percent of which peddles garbage and lies, is useful for finding the truth if you look hard enough. Unfortunately, sometimes believing the lie is too easy, especially if it confirms what the reader is already predisposed to believe. People tend to see what they want to.

Renger (and others here in this thread),

I am not one of the those who really cared that much about this statement to begin with. It was political hyperbole, and Gore is hardly the first and will certainly not be the last to employ it. As Mrs P stated, he handled the issue quite well, and I admitted in my initial post, Gore was indeed an advancer of technology


CruisingRam, to get back to your original questions,

Does the corporate media have any ethical responsibility in corrected obvious falsehoods such as the Al Gore credited comment?

One would like to think so, but we are clearly going in the opposite direction, with corporate media becoming more the spreader of such misstatements than a voice of reason. I'm not sure anyone does any investigative journalism anymore....all you get is sound bites. Most journalists seem to pander to their audience, and anything that might go against their predispositions is frowned upon. You can't get unbiased news anywhere anymore. I had been watching MSNBC quite a bit more lately, until Keith Olberman issued a vilification (again) of O'Reilly that was, to any neutral observer, actually a bit scary, like he might have lost his mind and been ready to do something criminal (his point in that piece was actually very correct, but his tone completely overrode the message). I couldn't watch CNN or most of the network news because of their leftist bias, and have stopped watching FOX because of their right bias. I still think a 'real' news network that actually sought to provide unbiased news would get a large audience, but at the very least all the networks think differently, and they probably know more than I.

Is there anyway on a societal scale to prevent, or at least check, this kind of societal ignorance?

Stop breeding stupid people?

Seriously, I'm not sure. Corporations are in business to give the people what they want, and apparently they are. So, you are correct in that this is a societal problem. Changing society isn't easy. The real problem, I think, is that most people just don't care to be informed on most things...they're too busy with their personal life. That might change if media actually tried to inform them on the issues, but I don't see that happening. Politics has essentially become the Coliseum of our time...people tune in to be entertained. They want to have their opinion validated, not questioned. You mention those on the right being predisposed to believe this stuff. Those on the right have the same opinion towards the left (remember the right being accused of baby-killing...something far more sinister and far less justified than those comments you mention against Al Gore...yet it was widely repeated by politicians, therefore by the media, and hence by their constituents). So, everyone is doing it...because its been very effective. As you say, the media is soundbite driven. What makes a better soundbite..a lengthy discourse on the issue explaining all the various factors of an issue, or a quick phrase which immediately demands attention, even if hardly factual? I remember Bush (the older one), when asked why he didn't talk about details on programs in his press conferences, say that he and his opponent put out position paper after position paper, yet no one ever reads them, and they never get any questions about them. He was right then, and if anything its even more true now. We are in a climate of politics of divisivness, and provided a balanced view on any issue isn't going to win anyone any votes. It won't stop until we demand that our politicians work together to resolve issues, and I don't see much of an outcry for that right now.

Um, Mr. Hobbes, I have my doubts that those who continue to be critical of Al Gore for his Internet statement actually knew about the Internet in the 1980s. This is becoming rather irritating to me because I was on the Internet back then. It was pretty amazing for those who could do a handful of Unix (not UNIX) commands. Most of it consisted of university sites and had reliable information, not the crap we often see on the current Web.

The bill that Gore brought to Congress, 1988 or so, was NREN (National Resource and Education Network), and among techies of the day, including yours truly, it was an astounding view, a quantum leap forward for humankind. Part of Gore's vision was to get the Library of Congress online. He also envisioned ecommerce and was hooted down by those lacking in clues.

From the viewpoint of politics, Al Gore wasn't simply an advancer of technology. He was a politician who shared the vision of Vinton Cerf, the actual father of the Internet from a technical view. Gore inspired me to pursue a career change from FedEx to MCI (a few jumps between), a company that had one third of the Internet pipes (can be viewed as tubes too), also known as the Internet backbone, in the US. MCI is now Verizon, but the pipes are still there, over which we are now communicating. These pipes run at, last time I saw numbers on this, 80 gigabits per second. They're probably at least twice that fast today.

And so, the lies are baldfaced and ugly. They keep getting repeated over the very systems that Al Gore envisioned. It's richly ironic and basely human. Let's not minimize this situation.