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number 92 for 1-1-06:
Investigate the Whistle Blowers, Laud the Fools
A lot of people try and peg a single item, like the war in Iraq, with how we are perceived as a nation and why, currently, it's so poor.
Truth is, it's a number of things, from the smallest foreign policy debate, as in, whether or not we'll allow Cuban baseball players to play American baseball players (We said no (Citation)), or, hell, the largest matters.
Like the war in Iraq.
We've lost the same number of troopers this year as last year, but Bush asserts that we are winning the war.
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I suppose you can count the 225,000 trained Iraqi security forces as a start. It's a substantive force in a country of some eight million, I think it was. But then, daily many of them are killed or scared off, leaving me to wonder how the hell we can ever leave and expect them to govern responsibly. Or, for that matter, why we even made it our problem to begin with when North Korea now assuredly has the materials to make nukes, and likely has.
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The war in Iraq progresses. I will concede that. I hardly think it can be considered a victory. Violence rocks the country daily. There is no clear leadership, and what leadership is presented is protested across the nation.
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Hell, we're buying limo hummers for war games while our troopers sit on a lack of proper armor. And DIE for it.
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How are we winning anything?
The media and officials, the general public and the professional journalists all provide an impression and a mirror to the rest of the world, and the mirror we provide can be quite bleak.
Consider a president who pushes for increased power, in a government that was designed to stop a figurehead from gaining too much power. "Rapping" senators, as the news puts it, for daring to question legislation that allowed spooks to look in on libraries, all in the name of giving up freedoms for security, something the godless founding fathers had absolutely nothing to say about. Sarcasm.
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The media changes message on point in Orwellian dystopia, where right is only what public opinion demands, which is controlled by corporations. "Bush asserts victory in Iraq War", a phrase that causes some to laugh out loud, becomes "Bush's Candor on Iraq Draws Praise" in the space of seven hours. Same picture. Same article. One positive spin from the "liberal" media in the face of catastrophic inadequacy.
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The regard is also measured in the nobility of our politicians, which is, to wit, horrible. Bill Frist, for instance, the Senate Majority Leader, gave a half million dollars in consulting fees, taking from an AIDS charity, to his inner circle of cronies. Hardly conduct befitting a good person.
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Hypocritical opposition party senators condemn Tom DeLay for campaign contributions, which normally would be a righteous condemnation, if the same senators, Henry Reid notably, were not receiving similar contributions and not returning them while paying lip service to nobility.
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Our media offers us the definition of what we should want to be as a nation, and what we are, and that is seen by other nations. So when Time Magazine names the people of the year, and those people are a prima donna rock star and the wealthiest man on Earth, lauded for giving to charities despite no noticeably change in lifestyle, we are seen as arrogant, rich assholes. Hell, we even look like arrogant rich assholes to the poor people living within our borders.
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There are beacons of hope. Reports that we're pulling back our troops by about 7,000 fighting soldiers.
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This comes, of course, on the heel of reports that our allies are backing out, slowly but surely, and that we will have to bring these troops back, no doubt.
The arrogance of our leaders, their abuse of power, their flagrancy, all are at the center of the complaints of both the world and our own populace. A vice-president so asinine that he would stop reporters from filing stories that he might charge his iPod to listen to while traveling on leather seats to crow at the men who are dying for his philosophies. Look at the bottom of the article.
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We take our enemies and we turn them into slant-eyes, towel headed, kraut bastards. Instead of trying to cease war, we foster it. Unwitting bastards, seeking to find glee into turning our enemy into a whore, show pictures of Osama Bin Laden's niece in racy underwear. Ha ha. So funny. And it'll be absolutely hilarious when a militant Islamic group is so incensed by this breach of culture that they use it as one in any number of factors to blow up a pre-school. Am I suggesting that we should silence our speech because it might offend terrorists? Hardly. I am merely questioning whether the boobies of Osama's niece are as important to our national character as, say, some floozy who might not incense other men to murder.
For that matter, why glorify a member of a family who is responsible for 9/11? 'Cuz she hot?
Bring on the porn shots of Eva Von Braun, why don't we? Appropriate.
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A country whose media is so incredibly stupid and corporate that it brings attention to those who would censor an episode of South Park for being offensive without calling attention to the fact that the people who were offended were in no way forced to view the material, and were not, in point of fact, its intended audience.
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This from a media who is so easily duped that it releases announcements when "NARNIA" pulls out of the WTO talks.
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And releases an obituary as opposed to a condemnation when a man who thought AIDS a curable disease dies unrepentant in the face of modern knowledge, yesterday.
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We report about these people, because we're fascinated about the fate and lives of our worse citizens. A woman who tortured Iraqi detainees gets news coverage when she burns herself, but the dying inner city poor are ignored and curtailed into obscurity.
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We report about the sons of actors who have no real relevance on our lives or our station. The son of Marlon Brando threatening his wife merits a full article. The state of poetry in our country hasn't been in the news in decades.
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We live in a country where houses that are true works of art are torn down for being a nuisance, right next to 20,000 square feet aesthetic pill boxes with no character, but a shitload of classism.
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A country where the president can be QUOTED as calling the constitution just a goddamn piece of paper, demanding that his underlings do his bidding, law regardless.
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And when they do, and when this violates the law, no one cares. In fact, the president flaunts it.
The law breaking is broad.
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The lawbreaking is perpetuated by administration nominees.
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The lawbreaking leads other underlings to think that they, too, can break the law in ways that endanger civil liberties, like tracking internet traffic.
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And when this lawbreaking is called to task, when brave journalists (albeit slow journalists) take to the papers and try and call the president on his actions, when they step out and say, "You broke the law. Why?"
The president responds. And his response? Not, "Sorry." No. That would put forth liberty. No. He says, "You are now being investigated for revealing that I have broken the law."
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The latest violence in Iraq has left 18 dead.
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Instead of listing their names or telling us about what their lives meant to the world, they use the extra bandwidth to inform us that Donald Trump may be running for governor of New York on heresay.
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A country where there are still laws on the books that state that atheists cannot hold office.
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A media that, in the name of mocking a very serious charge, outing a CIA Agent, pokes fun at the scandal by comparing the actions of a five-year-old to a responsible adult committing a crime.
Valerie Plame's husband was on his way to a plane. The media ambushed him and interviewed him. Their son said that mommy was a super-secret spy. The media then ran an article saying that Plame was outted by his son.
Except, the boy was five and didn't know any better, and Karl Rove was running a smear campaign.
Except, the boy never would have been near a microphone had someone not risked his mothers life and then let the media take glee in it.
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A country with free enterprise where questions can raise as to who can or cannot buy something by law, in the name of PROTECTING THE CHILDREN, children whose parents have authority over what they buy as opposed to the children, so it's really a law protecting the parents from parenting.
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A country where the media is so stupid, so fucking retarded, that they see a report that a woman has swallowed a cell phone voluntarily, and they run it as possible. I then take said article down and wait eight hours, knowing that the follow-up, that it was forced down her throat by someone, would make an interesting example of how reporting is more about fascination than fact. Complete with the headline: SWALLOWING CELL PHONE MAY NOT BE VOLUNTARY.
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A country strong and selfless enough to provide relief for victims of terrorism, but a government not adequate enough to make sure it isn't given away to people who didn't need the money.
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A country full of people SO STUPID that they STILL think Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. At a rate of 22 percent. That's nearly one in four.
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A media that reports on how fun Christmas is for Muslims.
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A country that watches, listens, and does NOTHING.