American Politics Journal -- The Cafasso Vanishes!

The Cafasso Vanishes!
FOX News does a Soviet-style "disappearing" of all their articles referencing their phony "military expert"
by Tamara Baker

May 1, 2002 - Saint Paul, MN (APJP) -- Ever hear of a book called "The Commissar Vanishes"?

It's all about how, during Stalin's time, his lackeys were kept busy 24/7 falsifying photographs and news articles -- and occasionally eliminating from the historical record, via clever airbrushing and editing, certain political figures who had been liquidated at Stalin's orders or who were otherwise suddenly "unpersons".

One year, a comrade would be in a photo with old Uncle Joe; the next year, after this person's sudden disgrace and removal from the scene, Stalin's propagandists would go to great lengths to pretend that Stalin had never had anything to do with this foul traitor, and so the air brushers would paint over the new unperson.

FROM: Mark Hull-Richter
TO: APJ
DATE: May 1, 2002
YAAAAAAAAAAARRGH! I love APJ, I really do, and I also really really like Tamara Baker. But there are some GLARING errors that HAVE to be corrected, or you lose all credibility in an instant, almost like people down the Memory Hole.
Oceania was where "1984" took place. They were always at war with Eurasia or Eastasia, depending on with which one Oceania was currently at war.
"We were NEVER at war with Oceania, you (Eur|East)asian commie pinko sympathizing radical hippie leftist fascist marxist leninist traitor!"
I love Big Brother, don't you?
Mark Hull-Richter, U.S. Citizen & Patriot
U.S.A. - From democracy to kakistocracy* in one fell coup. (* government by the worst)
Tamara Baker Replies:
Well, hey, Mark: Don't you know Oceania's governed by that dirty Commie Tony Blair? The Bushies have conned him into backing them to the hilt, a move that will guarantee Labour's demise at the polls in the next election -- and the Tories will clean up big-time. (See, we only pretend to be part of Oceania, when we're really trying to undermine it from within.)
Huh? That still won't fly?
How about if I say that, since Orwell was trying to make the point that totalitarian states are depressingly similar in their methods of control, that my bollixed quotation could very well be something said by an Eastasian or Eurasian propagandist?
Weeellll.... that's a leeetle better, but not good enough.
OK, I admit it, I admit it --
I GOOFED!
I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy! I SUCK!!!!
There. Satisfied? Now leave me alone before I make like Susan Schmidt and forward your e-mail to your boss.
Have a good one -- and thanks for setting me straight!
Tamara Baker
This, in other words, was what George Orwell would later immortalize as "the Memory Hole", the effort by the totalitarian state to purge and control The Official Story ("We have always been at war with Oceania").

But, just as George Orwell's 1984 was meant to apply to the "free world" every bit as much as it was to the Commies, we here in America have noticed the workings of the corporate Powers That Be, trying to promote their version of The Official Story by trying to shove certain things -- such as George W. Bush arrest and military service records -- down the Memory Hole.

I've lived with this for so long that I've been taking it for granted, treating it as background noise. So it was good for my jaded senses to be brought up short once again by yet more fresh evidence of the Powers-That-Be's efforts to ravish the truth.

As reported in The New York Times, Rupert Murdoch's very own FOX News had hired a certain Joseph Cafasso as a "military expert". Cafasso had claimed oodles of military experience and training, including the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Special Forces, and, as David Brock tells us is par for the course with right-wing outfits like FOX, nobody bothered to fact-check this "expert".

For over four months, FOX News had taken this colonel to their bosom, cherishing him as fondly as they did James "I Hate Clinton" Traficant, their favorite Democrat, before his indictments.

But then, someone discovered that "Colonel" Cafasso's only military service consisted of forty-four days in boot camp in the 1970s, and suddenly Joe Cafasso wasn't FOX's buddy anymore.

In fact, not only is Mr. Cafasso no longer employed by FOX News, he has now, in true Stalinist fashion, been "liquidated" from the FOX News website.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself:

Joe Cafasso, once a mainstay of what passes for reportage over at FOX News, has now vanished like an out-of-favor commissar from the FOX News website, which has been wiped cleaner than was George W. Bush's Texas driver's license records in March of 1995. Down the Memory Hole goes he, a new "unperson" whose existence, much less friendship, FAUX News will never acknowledge.

We have always been at war with Oceania.