Bush Administration Policies Erode Bill of Rights While Supporting Advocates of Theocracy

Interview with Mark Crispin Miller, author and media critic, conducted by Scott Harris

As the presidential election campaign goes into high gear with just several weeks remaining before the Nov. 2 vote, the U.S. corporate media continues to focus its coverage on marginal issues. CBS television's "60 Minutes 2" program cancelled its broadcast of an investigative piece on the Bush administration's use of forged documents to back its pre-war claim that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear weapons program. Instead, the network aired what is now known to be a flawed story on President Bush's Vietnam war era National Guard service using suspect memos.

While U.S. soldiers and civilians continue to be killed and injured in an increasingly violent conflict in Iraq, much of the media is covering election horse-race issues, tracking the candidate's advertising campaigns and interpreting poll numbers. Meanwhile, an intelligence report given to the White House two months before President Bush launched the U.S. war against Iraq predicted that an American invasion would increase support for radical Islamic movements, result in a deeply divided Iraq prone to conflict and warned of a possible insurgency.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University and author of the book, "Cruel and Unusual, Bush/Cheney's New World Order." Miller discusses the threat to democracy he sees in the Bush administration's authoritarian policies at home and abroad, and support for religious groups working to establish a theocracy in America.

Mark Crispin Miller's "Cruel and Unusual, Bush/Cheney's New World Order" is published by W.W. Norton. Visit the website www.patriotnation.us to find out more about Miller's new film titled, "A Patriot Act."

Related links:


"CBS Nixes '60 Minutes' Story on Iraq War," by the Associated Press, Sept. 26, 2004

"The Story That Didn't Run: Here's the Piece that '60 Minutes' Killed for Its Report on the Bush Guard Documents," by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenba, MSNBC, Sept. 23, 2004

LISTEN to this week's half-hour program of Between The Lines by clicking on one of the links below:

www.btlonline.org
*
"Between The Lines" is a half-hour syndicated radio news magazine that each week features a summary of under-reported news stories and interviews with activists and journalists who offer progressive perspectives on international, national and regional political, economic and social issues. Because "Between The Lines" is independent of all publications, media networks or political parties, we are able to bring a diversity of voices to the airwaves generally ignored or marginalized by the major media. For more information on this week's topics and to check out our text archive listing topics and guests presented in previous programs visit: httC://www.btlonline.org
*
"Between the Lines," WPKN 89.5 FM's weekly radio news magazine can be heard Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. ET; Wednesdays at 8 a.m. ET and Saturdays at 2 p.m. ET (Wednesday's show airs at 7:30 a.m. ET during fundraising months of April and October).
*
For an email subscription of "Between The Lines Weekly Summary" which features a RealAudio link to the week's program for Between The Lines, send an email to btlsummary-subscribe (at) lists.riseup.net
*
For an email subscription of "Between The Lines Q&A" which features a RealAudio link and weekly transcript to one of the interviews featured on Between The Lines, send an email to btlqa-subscribe (at) lists.riseup.net
*
betweenthelines (at) snet.net
*
www.squeakywheel.net/
*
Distributed by Squeaky Wheel Productions, Inc.
(c)2004 Squeaky Wheel Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.