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02/28/2003 Archived Entry: "Bush lies..."

On the Political Front:

...but, first, a touch of humor. The Monty Python's Completely Useless Web Site contains scripts, pictures, sounds, video clips, news and more information about Monty Python than anyone could ever use! I recommend it. But, as John Cleese admonishes in Fawlty Towers, "Don't Mention the War!" Of course, I *must* disobey.

I have not been commenting on the Bush v. U.N., Bush v. Saddam, Bush v. [fill in the blank] breaking news that alters every ten minutes and, yet, remains strangely the same. Watching major media is like eating Count Chocula in the hope of catching some brave nutrients that cling around the edge. You gag and sicken before you reach any substance. One reason the news is so news-free is that Bush *lies* and journalists scramble -- out of gullibility, laziness, or indifference -- to report the lies as "developments" and information. Dennis Hans has an excellent piece entitled "Lying Us Into War: Exposing Bush and His "Techniques of Deceit" in which he details and documents the style of lying adopted by the Bush administration. (Of course, in this, Bush is no different than other Presidents. For more on this, I recommend a wonderful article by Robert Higgs entitled "To Make War, Presidents Lie." ) And so the lies take on lives of their own and journalists contribute in two ways:

1) the major media will self-censor to say whatever the Pentagon wishes to hear. The superlative commentator Robert Fisk explains one small aspect of this tail-wagging phenomenon: "A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about."

2) there will be no perspective -- e.g. accurate historical context -- presented for any facts that happen to be true, those facts presented to further an agenda rather than to enlighten. Charley Reese, who is climbing the charts as one of my favorite commentators, gives his take on the propaganda machine gearing up for war.

On the Personal/Movement Front:

Day three of Brad's absence...and, boy!, have I got a lot of work done while waiting for that man's return. The project in which I am currently immersed is a strange combination of creativity and tedium, both of which are attached to a high-pressure delivery date. At times I feel both utterly bored and under pressure at the same time...it is an odd combination to which I'd best become accustomed because the project (if successful) will be ongoing and in my life for years.

Best to all,
mac