ABC and F as in fail
Here's another controversy that shouldn't be. It's about ABC's propaganda movie, a sloppy wet kiss to Republicans, called Path to 9/11. It's the hottest topic in the blogosphere. If you haven't heard about it then you also probably think Saddam and Al Qaeda had ties, operational or not. They didn't. Even though 43% of Americans still believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11 the unclassified Senate report issued today say there were no ties. That's the same conclusion of the 9/11 Commission report. But no matter. ABC is probably editing in a scene of Saddam and Osama as college roommates along with Michael Moore and Bill Clinton. I've read about the scenes, made up from the imagination of the conservative and evangelical producers and director, claiming the Clinton Administration basically sent flowers and love letters to bin Laden and it's a disgrace. What is so difficult of just portraying the facts straight up? Why does 9/11 have to be "kicked up a notch?" What, it's not bad enough as it is?
It's such an easy call. It's so depressing to have to waste time and energy fighting about this. Whatever you think of Bill or George or Condi the truth is dying before our eyes. It's going from truth to truthiness to everyone is entitled to their own reality and if they own a network or are in the Oval Office so much the better to get that reality injected in the nation's veins. We are becoming, have become addicts to falsehoods. Celebrity magazines reporting on love affairs that never happened, WWF showing wrestlers hitting each other with metal chairs, David Blaine convincing people he can levitate. We can't get enough. And now recent events, current events, not even history yet since it's so young is being deconstructed and re-arranged for political propaganda. If a student in 5th grade wrote as an assignment the history of 9/11 as the producers of Path to 9/11 imagined it, he or she would fail. ABC might know about the abcs but as far as history and truth and fairness and decency, it fails miserably. And anyone who watches Path to 9/11 with get just a bit more ignorant about the path to 9/11.
It's such an easy call. It's so depressing to have to waste time and energy fighting about this. Whatever you think of Bill or George or Condi the truth is dying before our eyes. It's going from truth to truthiness to everyone is entitled to their own reality and if they own a network or are in the Oval Office so much the better to get that reality injected in the nation's veins. We are becoming, have become addicts to falsehoods. Celebrity magazines reporting on love affairs that never happened, WWF showing wrestlers hitting each other with metal chairs, David Blaine convincing people he can levitate. We can't get enough. And now recent events, current events, not even history yet since it's so young is being deconstructed and re-arranged for political propaganda. If a student in 5th grade wrote as an assignment the history of 9/11 as the producers of Path to 9/11 imagined it, he or she would fail. ABC might know about the abcs but as far as history and truth and fairness and decency, it fails miserably. And anyone who watches Path to 9/11 with get just a bit more ignorant about the path to 9/11.
posted by Crankyboy at 8:20 PM
3 Comments:
REPORTER: What did Iraq have to do with that?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
REPORTER: The attack on the World Trade Center?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/08/1349253
"and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack."
and what about this from W:
"I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it - and I will not authorize it."
Andrew Sullivan gets it right again:
I knew it reminded me of something and yesterday, it hit me. Bush's statement is true in his own private universe, and the criterion of his version of truth depends entirely on what the meaning of the word "torture" is. I think what you have to do is think of George W. Bush's statement in the same light as Bill Clinton's famous declaration that he had not had "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. Both statements are semantic evasions to avoid a direct lie. Each man is using a private dictionary to redefine a word otherwise clear to any other rational person. But the broader conclusion is obvious: Clinton lied about an extra-marital affair in a civil sexual harrassment lawsuit. Bush is lying about one of the core featurs of a civilized and decent society in the middle of a vital war. The Republicans ridiculed Clinton for his linguistic somersaults - and even impeached him for it. They are mostly silent today. A telling contrast, I'd say.
There was of course no mention of Saddam in last night's epic shlockumentary, but we note that despite the confessions of Rummy and George, the Republicans are still running TV ads saying that we are fighting in Iraq becuase of 9/11 and if we stop fighting 9/11 will happen again.
Maybe we have to recognize that the opportunity for democracy in the US has passed. We're just too stupid and the propagandists are too scientific and too rich and too good at creating passion plays.
Maybe the natural state of mankind is servitude and exploitation - a bootheel on the human face, forever.
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