] Both the war and the tax cuts began as policy decisions.
] The justifications for the policies were developed -- and
] changed as often as necessary -- to accommodate the
] policies.
]
] And a lot of people have gone blithely along.
]
] I wonder if they go along out of belief, out of deference
] to their leaders or out of partisan loyalty.

This is a well written question. Nice and open so that you can insert the theory of your preference. I want to add that just because they are obviously lying doesn't mean your conspiracy theories are correct.

Does the Public Really Believe? (washingtonpost.com)

The following is adapted from a Clemens Lecture presented in April for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.

Kurt Vonnegut lays it down.

AlterNet: Strange Weather Lately

] It is difficult to find supportive things to say about
] George Bush unless your construction company is
] rebuilding Iraq, but it would be a droll irony if it was
] him we have to thank for Neil Young's latest creative
] renaissance.

New album coming out. He is bitching about Bush, FoxNews is already attacking him..

Relevant quotes:

"The US is like a baby with a bomb," ... "The reaction to France that the administration allowed to happen is so immature. These people have their own opinion - they're French! They're not fuckin' Americans, they're French ! Vive la difference, hello? And this big deal about Bush landing on an aircraft carrier? Talk about a six-year-old kid with a Tonka toy - we got it here." ... "I think the world today, at least the US and to some extent Britain now, is experiencing this kind of Big Brother thing," ... "It's not what we thought we were gonna be doing, a lot of the people's civil rights have been compromised, and we don't know what's going on. If I keep speaking my mind, will I be deported? I'm not very happy with the state of things. Music is being banned, and we have people in control of the radio stations who are the same people in control of the concert halls. They're also tied into the [US] administration and are sponsoring pro-war rallies. It's not good. It's interesting ." ... "The real point was, somebody asked the president what he thought and he said, 'It's America, it's a free country, they can have their opinion, but there's nothing we can do about it if nobody goes to their shows or plays their songs,'" "But he's so out of touch that his advisers haven't told him that their record sales spiked upwards when that happened, and while the airplay went down the sales went up and their concerts all sold out." ... "It's a robust time, probably the most fertile time for the underground and for revolution since Nixon. I'm not talking about political overthrow; I'm talking about just general cultural revolution. Bush has polarised the country and is creating this breeding ground for an opposition. In the next couple of months, they'll probably make it unpatriotic to be Democrat. It's pretty crazy."

Guardian Unlimited | 'Will I be deported?' Neil Young blasts Bush

] These are excerpts of the inaugural Joseph M. Beck
] Distinguished Lecture in Journalism and Law, delivered by
] Anthony Lewis at Emory University on March 19. Lewis,
] winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, is a former columnist for
] The New York Times who also lectured in the law at
] Harvard University. War with Iraq broke out hours after
] Lewis made this speech.

AJC | no-one cares about civil liberties or reason 1502-B why i hate people

] WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring "it's time to say
] good-bye," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said
] Monday he is stepping down after 21 years in government
] and politics.

CNN.com - Fleischer resigning White House post - May. 19, 2003

] THE IDEA, says Sgt. Mark Hadsell, is to break a subject’s
] resistance by annoying that person with what some Iraqis
] would consider culturally offensive music. The songs that
] are being played include “Bodies” from the Vin Diesel
] “XXX” movie soundtrack and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
] “These people haven’t heard heavy metal before,” he
] explains. “They can’t take it.” Few people could put up
] with the sledgehammer riffs of Metallica, and kiddie
] songs aren’t that much easier, especially when selections
] include the “Sesame Street” theme and some of purple
] dinosaur Barney’s crooning.

All those methods would work on me too.

Psyop: The Love's Not Mutual

] 'Salam Pax" is rising as one of the media stars in
] postwar Iraq. He began blogging from Baghdad well before
] the war, and has come back sporadically since. (He calls
] his blog "Where is Raed?") He is the darling of fellow
] bloggers in the West, who light up with links whenever he
] appears on the Web. He has been written about in the New
] Yorker magazine and elsewhere, and his jottings copied
] into the Guardian in the Britain. Not bad for a person
] whose very existence has been skeptically queried. And
] who does a superb job of covering his traces, creating
] fresh firewalls around himself in the very moments when
] he appears to be giving his identity away.

Here is another take on Salam Pax..

canada.com | 'Salam Pax' plays Americans for fools in Iraq

] Actor Tommy Chong of the spaced-out dope-smoking comedy
] duo "Cheech & Chong" pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a
] federal conspiracy charge of selling drug paraphernalia
] over the Internet.
]
] Chong, 64, of Pacific Palisades, California, and his
] family-run business, Nice Dreams Enterprises, admitted to
] conspiring to sell marijuana pipes via Web site
] promotions that featured the comedian's celebrity
] endorsement.

] U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab set a sentencing
] hearing for Sept. 11 and released him on $20,000 bond.
]
] Chong's plea represented a public relations victory
] for a local federal program called "Operation Pipe
] Dreams," which targets drug paraphernalia sales. The
] operation, which began in 2000, has 17 cases pending,
] most from the Pittsburgh area.

Free Chong!

Reuters | Chong pleeds guilty, to be sentenced on Sept 11th

] Note: Salam Pax sent me this in a Word attachment
] earlier today. After weeks of silence everything's
] happening at once: yesterday I received an email
] from his cousin with his satellite phone number.
] I called it; Salam’s father decided to play grumpy
] patriarch and told me to call back in “two minutes,"
] which I did. Salam sounds fine. We discussed as many
] things as we could in a short amount of time.
] Without further ado, I present his latest posts.
] Diana Moon PS Please excuse any formatting
] weirdnesses; I've already been warned not to blog at
] work, so can't take the time to clean anything up.

Glad to see this guy is on the radar again. I've been checking "Where is Raed?" at least two or three times a day, but I wound up seeing it mentioned first on The Agonist.. Fitting, eh?

I'm likely to edit this post up after reading it over..

] Today while going thru Karada street I saw a sign
] saying “Send and receive e-mail. Affordable prices”
] I am checking out the place tomorrow. If the price
] really is affordable I might be able to update the
] blog every week or two.

With the attention this blog has gotten, a sat phone and a laptop will find its way to this guy very soon..

Salam Pax is Back!

] During this crisis patriotism as practiced in the United
] States reached alarming levels of intolerance and
] violence. The right of the other to dissent was
] unceremoniously thrown aside. If we take what happened to
] the Dixie Chicks as an example, one is hard-pressed to
] justify or even comprehend the incident. One of the
] ladies said she was ashamed of Bush being from her home
] state of Texas. She said it while performing on a stage
] in London. Had the Chicks been living under Saddam, we
] know a priori what would have happened. But knowing they
] lived in the United States one thought that the debate
] would have maintained a semblance of civility.
]
] Instead, they were attacked, taken off radio stations,
] and callers to the same stations spewed so much venom
] that it inevitably culminated in on-the-air death
] threats. Obviously, democracy is skin deep. I thought it
] was just foreigners like me who received death threats
] and viruses through their emails. I was wrong. This
] raises another issue: Could the Homeland security people
] tell the world why such people were not apprehended?
] Those who threaten to kill someone for reasons of
] ideology or a point of view are terrorists. No argument
] there. In this time of high security alert, it is amazing
] that such people get away with it. In all honesty, it is
] not very different from any petty dictatorship where the
] party clique and those close to power can do what they
] like when the rest are robbed of their basic rights.

The Dixie Chicks & Civility