So Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) hollered "You lie!" during Obama's big speech.
OK, that's old news now, huh? So what else is new?
Nearly every public pronouncement you hear any more is totally bogus. I can only think of very few that aren't lies, and those are cases where the speaker has nothing to gain by lying. For example, when the judge announces that Al Franken won the election, it means two things: 1) Al Franken won the election, and 2) Coleman's people did not get to that particular judge.
As Bernard Chazelle points out at the blog "A Tiny Revolution," pretty much everything you hear nowadays is a lie: You turn on the radio and hear commercials (lies), then some guy tells you we're making progress in Afghanistan (lies). Then you're stuck at the airport and the PA system tells you your plane is only an hour late (lies). The president, of course, is the liar-in-chief. He tells you Afghanistan is a war of necessity (lies) and it is part of the American character to care for one another (funny lie that one). Obama said that, without your trillions of dollars to Wall Street, the world would come to an end. We now know it was a lie. Elizabeth Warren (bless her soul) says that the world of Wall Street would have come to an end but everyone else would have been basically fine. Not long ago, another president assured us that Saddam had WMDs, etc, etc.
So Joe Wilson is kind of like a clock that's stopped -- he can still be right twice a day, as he was in this case. My only question is, why didn't he just throw his shoes?
But then, the Iraqi shoe-thrower set a standard for behavioral integrity that would be very hard to equal, much less surpass, especially by some clueless Neanderthal knuckle-dragger like Rep. Wilson of the Palmetto State.
I just wonder, as does Bernard Chazelle, why we're so docile and unoffending, considering we're getting lied to all the time. I keep telling myself that the next time somebody says to me "We're sorry for the inconvenience this is causing you," I'm going to holler "Bullshit! You're sorry all right, but not in the way you mean." But I never do. I just shrug my shoulders and suck it up, like everybody else.
3 comments:
I was talking to an old acquaintance about the root of evil for humans. I think he got closer than what I have been calling it. His pick was denial of truth.
That does make sense even though once we leave the more concrete realm involving my pick that was dog-eat-dog and every-man-for-himself, people have trouble relating it to their personal lives. I just generally call it "competition against others".
Yet his root of evil pick makes sense because society cannot exist without trust. Denial of truth destroys the very foundation of our survival.
An example of someone trying to bolster society by seeking and sharing truth is Max Blumenthal.
Dave you're still my favorite blogger.
Thanks, Joe, I appreciate it, as always.
I think your old acquaintance/friend is on to something. And I think also in the case of the USA, the biggest truth we deny collectively has to do with the residual effects of racism, racial fear, and ethnic chauvinism, and the impacts those things have on our daily lives and people's politics.
Keeping that in mind, you might be interested in Glenn Greenwald's column from yesterday: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/14/resentment/index.html
--Dave B
Thanks Dave. I know someone else who frequents a gym where the probable hate radio listeners are remarkably racist. The country has yet to face up to it.
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