House of Eratosthenes

On the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking the gulf coast, I wrote about what the occasion meant to me, which had to do with independent thinking.

You have to learn from experience to be an independent thinker. You have to admit when you’ve been duped.

And the sad fact is, most people don’t do this. Most people haven’t even spent time in an environment where they can be duped…and, subsequently, be placed in a situation where they’ll be forced to admit that’s what happened. Most people are cloistered within happy lifestyles in which they can be duped, blissfully, six different ways before breakfast, and never become aware of it.

I can prove this easily.

A society chock full of critical thinkers…we wouldn’t have, or tolerate, anniversaries of terrible events like Hurricane Katrina. What in the BLUEFUGG is the point of an anniversary? It is nothing more than a commandment from a layer of elites way-on-high, down to the dirty-unwashed commoners, to spend lots of time thinking about a certain thing, masquerading beneath a costume of “news.”…The hurricane isn’t happening. This is not news; it simply isn’t.

Of course, I would have to add that the critique about being cloistered, applies to all of us. Except for those who of us make decisions about things, unilaterally; things that come back to haunt us. Things we can blame on nobody else. It seems as the generations trickle on past, this is a situation from which more and more of us are being spared. And that’s not a good thing.

The people who are supposed to bring us facts — and, instead, are becoming energized and skilled in bringing us their opinions, which are not facts — have raised questions about their worthiness of our trust. They are placed under no supervision which could address these questions; the First Amendment, as we understand it, forbids such supervision. Is that a good thing? Maybe. But the questions still remain unaddressed. And they’re getting bigger.

Late Friday or early Saturday, reports began to trickle in that Osama bin Laden may be dead, and I commented that…

If this is true, our current President can claim just as much credit for getting bin Laden, after all, as the previous U.S. President can claim for the balmy economic climate of the 1990’s. Happened on his watch and all that.

Well, now. Nobody ever reads this blog, of course. But maybe this one time, somebody did. Here it is Sunday morning, and lookee, lookee what we have here…from our oh-so-unbiased and objective media, cleansed and purified of the tiniest scintilla of any personal agenda in the election of our leaders whatsoever.

America’s spy agencies have concluded that the invasion of Iraq has created a flood of new Islamic terrorists and increased the danger to US interests to a higher level than at any time since the 9/11 attacks.

This grim assessment is provided in a classified intelligence document called the National Intelligence Estimate, large parts of which have been leaked to the New York Times. The report is the largest US intelligence survey of the global terror threat carried out since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. [emphasis mine]

Now, look at what you have going on here. Assume for the sake of argument, God pops out of the sky and says, “that bullshit the media have been telling you about how they are oh-so-unbiased and objective…that’s true. I have been deploying my Angels of Unbiasedness, as each journalist has been hired on to each newspaper, from the New York Times down to the tiniest little Mayberry Gazette wannabe, and purified from their conciousnesses any and all political leanings to the left or the right. They speak truth. They are objective in all political events, and it is My doing.” Suppose we had some iron-clad evidence like that, that there is no such thing as a reporter or editor who wants an election to come out a certain way. Never happened.

Suppose, further, that the “spymasters” as the article goes on to call them (and Democrats) are correct and that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorism. This isn’t an issue with terrorists already converted to terrorism, looking around the world for a place to train and a way to strike the U.S., and in 2003 going “Aha! We can do it over here, let’s go!” No, let’s suppose these are peaceful goat farmers and fennel farmers and what-not, living out their lives, and since the invasion of Iraq they decided to get into the terrorism biz. That George Bush and his idiotic policies are making more terrorists. Okay…

Iraq’s been a breeding ground for quite awhile, then, right?

The “spymasters” have known this for a couple years, at least, right?

Six weeks from Tuesday, we got a midterm election. Friday night’s news might, just might, have created hundreds of thousands of voters who might have changed their outlook on what the Bush administration has achieved over the last three years. “Where’s Osama?” has been a favorite mantra among the Democrats and other assorted Bush-bashers, Move-on-dot-org-sters, Michael Moore America-haters and anarchists, etc. If Osama is really room temperature, this would be the crumbling of a keystone in the delicate liberal power structure. Can’t have that.

Can’t have that, says who? The unbiased reporters and editors? No! God said they’re perfectly objective and just want to give us facts! And yet…somebody has a bias. Article says the report has been leaked. IT SAYS SO. Look at what they’re leaking. It could have been leaked any time. Why now?

The White House and senior Republicans often say their tough line has made America safer over the past five years. This report indicates that America’s spymasters disagree with that opinion, and its findings could embarrass President George Bush in the run-up to November’s crucial midterm elections.

Uh, YEAH. Ya think?

Okay, then…let’s summarize what we’re supposed to believe here. Our journalists are paragons of objectivity, and the spooks cannot be that. Not when it comes to figuring out when to leak stuff, and what to leak…not unless you want to advance the notion that the timing is a coincidence. But as far as the stuff the spooks are leaking, how they came to put the report together, and the data that went into it, the spooks are honest and clear-headed thinkers, who only seek truth. They start to form an agenda about how our elections should turn out, ONLY, when they figure out what to do with the report when it’s put together. And, of course, when. They sit on the classified info like they have sworn to do, and when something comes along that might offer just the slightest chance of making the President look good, they pick something to leak, and out it goes.

At this point, though, if I choose to believe “news” is “objective,” I must necessarily maintain that objectivity is decided by the intent of the editor who put it together, and the reporter who got it…both of them objective and unbiased. The guy who gave it to the reporter is either biased as hell — or has a knack for timing. But I can still believe what I read. Anybody want to go for that one?

What the hell good does it do us if the reporters are objective? How does that even matter? We’re being led down a path. I can’t wait to see someone try to address this, and provide a sound argument to the effect that we’re not.

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We’re All Such Independent Thinkers IISunday, September 24th, 2006

We’re All Such Independent Thinkers II
Sunday, September 24th, 2006