It would be funny if it weren’t so frightening.
The Associated Press ran an article this morning informing us that two nonprofit journalism organizations collaborated on a study which yielded the following result: The Bush Administration issued 935 false statements concerning the security threats posed by Iraq in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.
Nine hundred and thirty-five false statements?
In an article reporting on a study exposing the ongoing bullshit propagated by the administration, the premise, indeed the banner headline, is utter and irrefutable bullshit.
Note to the Associated Press: The study does not, or at least should not, conclude that the Bush Administration issued 935 false statements.
Note to the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism: Check the methodology of your study. It should not have concluded that the Bush Administration issued 935 false statements.
Wake up, academics. Wake up, mass media. Wake up, America!
The Bush Administration did not issue 935 false statements concerning the security threats posed by Iraq in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.
THEY LIED!!!!!!!!!!!
How far are we going to mitigate our own dear English language, to what degree are we going to equivocate anything and everything we actually mean, all in the interests of not being mistaken for people with actual positions on the issues, opinions on the events, THOUGHTS IN THEIR HEADS?
*****
Some years back, George Carlin did a bit where he traced the evolution of military language from WWII to the present day. (What follows is a paraphrasing of Carlin’s remarks.)
In the 1940s, soldiers who returned from the unimaginable horrors of war and proceeded to lose what was left of their minds were described as suffering from “shell shock.”
In the 1960s, soldiers who faced an identical experience were described as suffering from “combat fatigue.”
Today, soldiers, and apparently anyone else who witnesses someone stepping on a bug, is said to be a victim of “post-traumatic stress disorder.”
And maybe, just maybe, if we’d continued all along to call it what it really is, instead of dumbing it down for the “let’s not say anything that might be offensive to anyone now or ever” crowd, we might have done something about it. In the extreme, we might have even been more reluctant to send our boys off to experience the horrors of war.
*****
The Associated Press ran an article this morning informing us that two nonprofit journalism organizations collaborated on a study which yielded the following result: The Bush Administration issued 935 false statements concerning the security threats posed by Iraq in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.
Nine hundred and thirty-five false statements?
In an article reporting on a study exposing the ongoing bullshit propagated by the administration, the premise, indeed the banner headline, is utter and irrefutable bullshit.
Note to the Associated Press: The study does not, or at least should not, conclude that the Bush Administration issued 935 false statements.
Note to the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism: Check the methodology of your study. It should not have concluded that the Bush Administration issued 935 false statements.
Wake up, academics. Wake up, mass media. Wake up, America!
The Bush Administration did not issue 935 false statements concerning the security threats posed by Iraq in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.
THEY LIED!!!!!!!!!!!
How far are we going to mitigate our own dear English language, to what degree are we going to equivocate anything and everything we actually mean, all in the interests of not being mistaken for people with actual positions on the issues, opinions on the events, THOUGHTS IN THEIR HEADS?
*****
Some years back, George Carlin did a bit where he traced the evolution of military language from WWII to the present day. (What follows is a paraphrasing of Carlin’s remarks.)
In the 1940s, soldiers who returned from the unimaginable horrors of war and proceeded to lose what was left of their minds were described as suffering from “shell shock.”
In the 1960s, soldiers who faced an identical experience were described as suffering from “combat fatigue.”
Today, soldiers, and apparently anyone else who witnesses someone stepping on a bug, is said to be a victim of “post-traumatic stress disorder.”
And maybe, just maybe, if we’d continued all along to call it what it really is, instead of dumbing it down for the “let’s not say anything that might be offensive to anyone now or ever” crowd, we might have done something about it. In the extreme, we might have even been more reluctant to send our boys off to experience the horrors of war.
*****
Our goals in the current circumstance seem to be even a bit more craven.
Reporters and editors don’t want to risk making clear and unequivocal statements about the ever-rising tide of shit we’re drowning in, lest they be dubbed by the never-subtle right wing bloviators (who themselves are nothing but mouthpieces for the bullshit artists in question) as “liberal.”
Politicians don’t want to risk calling a water fowl with webbed feet who quacks “a duck” for fear of losing a single vote from the all-powerful water fowl political sensitivity lobby.
And everyone in the center and to their left is more concerned with “bridging the gap” and reuniting a divided populace than with saying what needs to be said.
That President Bush and Emperor Cheney should be impeached.
That they should be held accountable for the nearly a trillion dollars of our money they wasted.
That they should be held responsible for the thousands of lives that were lost on their greedy, self-serving, misguided and flat out stupid invasion of a country that they KNEW posed no imminent threat to America.
Not because they issued 935 false statements.
But because they told 935 outright lies.
THEY LIED!!!!!!!
Say it, shout it, out loud.
THEY LIED!!!!!!!
Over and over and over again, THEY LIED!!!!!!!
They knew what the facts were, they knew what the truth was, and because the facts and the truth wouldn’t give them the outcome they wanted in order to galvanize their political power and line their pockets, THEY LIED!!!!!!!
Say it again.
THEY LIED!!!!!!!
Feels good to finally say what we mean, doesn’t it?
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