Put impolitely, it requires delusion, denial, and a good dose of ignorance.
It used to be that when reality and right wing propaganda disagreed, we were supposed to prefer right wing propaganda. If it turns out that the major player in Iraq is the Sunni insurgency, but the administration insisted it was al Qaeda, then the insurgents became al Qaeda. That much hasn't changed.
Raw Story:
President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq "are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11."
Bush was speaking at a White House press conference on the same day an interim progress report on his troop surge in Iraq was released. Asked for proof of the connection between insurgents in Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, Bush said both had pledged their allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on Sept. 11," Bush said.
This is a new line of crap -- that iraqi insurgents attacked us on 9/11. That'd be a good trick, since there weren't any iraqi insurgents in existence until we invaded Iraq. And there were a grand total of zero iraqis on those planes.
On the rare occassion that the Bush administration and reality seem to agree, reality is still wrong. When Michael Chertoff's 'gut feeling' that al Qaeda was going to attack the US was bouyed somewhat by a report that al Qaeda's never been stronger since 9/11, we were thrown into really weird propaganda world -- Chertoff was right and al Qaeda's a huge threat, while a classified report that told us that al Qaeda's actually strong enough to do it was wrong. Apparently, there's no reason why your BS has to be in agreement.
Times Online:
US intelligence chiefs held a White House summit yesterday to discuss a classified report that concluded that al-Qaeda is now stronger than at any time since September 11, 2001.
Details of the five-page document, entitled "Al-Qaeda better positioned to strike the West," were leaked amid growing signs that America is nervous about the prospect of another terrorist attack. There was particular concern that Europeans could be used to launch such operations.
[...]
The White House is wary of over-emphasising the threat because that would undermine President Bush's claim that "we're winning - al-Qaeda is on the run," when the US is having to admit only patchy progress in Iraq.
It points us to a damned good question -- why are we asked to believe that we're 'making progress' in this 'war on terror' on one hand, while being told that we're in just as much danger as we ever were on the other? Wouldn't one claim disprove the other?
Seriously, I'll be glad when this administration is gone -- it'll cut down on my aspirin budget. Trying to wrap my head around all of this contradiction gives me a headache.
Chertoff's gut check was BS, of course. It wasn't meant to inform the public, it was meant to freak you the eff out and forget all about the scandal-fest that is this White House. Had he known this report was in the pipe and would be leaked, we would've gotten the news that another muslim street gang with firecrackers and chewing gum was busted for a 'major terrorist plot' to blow up the Statue of Liberty or the Liberty Bell or Grant's Tomb or something.
It sure wouldn't have been an actual threat. Reality has an unmanageability to it. It changes in ways that don't always work out in your favor. Propaganda, on the other hand, only changes in ways that do work out for you. Better to rely on propaganda than reality -- it keeps you on message. That's why Dick Cheney requires FOX News on every damned TV within a half a square mile of him. Bill O'Reilly will never let reality intrude on the message.
The message changes, sure. Sometimes within the same day. We're safer because we invaded Iraq, then we aren't safe at all and need to concentrate on fighting terrorists -- not all of these investigations and scandals and crimes in the White House. But the message is always designed to help the president.
We have to fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here -- except when we have to fight them over here. Chertoff was brilliant one day and his gut unerring, the next his gut was totally off -- must've been a bad egg for breakfast or something.
As I said before, nothing is true and nothing is untrue. It just depends on what 'truth' serves the Bush administration most today. I hope it is propaganda, I hope they don't believe these contradictory truths, because the alternative is that the people in this White House are completely insane.
And maybe they are. Nietzsche famously said, "If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." An actor will tell you that if you spend the day acting depressed, you're going to have a depressing night. If an otherwise healthy person starts drinking like an alcoholic on a regular basis, it's likely that person will become an alcoholic and not be able to stop drinking.
If you spend all day, every day, behaving as if the craziest things are true, wouldn't you begin to believe it? That's one of the methods cults use -- constant repetition of 'truths' to believe. In pushing all of this insane BS for years, isn't it entirely possible that these people have driven themselves completely mad?
As I said, I hope they haven't. But there's really no evidence to the contrary.
--Wisco
Technorati tags: politics; Iraq; war; terrorism; Michael Chertoff; Dick Cheney; Has Bush's White House become a madhouse?
1 comment:
The message changes, sure. Sometimes within the same day. We're safer because we invaded Iraq, then we aren't safe at all and need to concentrate on fighting terrorists -- not all of these investigations and scandals and crimes in the White House.
Perfect description of doublethink. To make doublethink work, you have to believ two contradictory things simultaneously. The logic and facts which destroy one claim support the other, and vice versa -- so with sufficient concentration, you can believe anything by means of doublethink.
Pol Pot tortured people into confessing that they were working simultaneously for the CIA and the KGB. Which is impossible. But in the world of doublethink, the impossible becomes inevitable and lack of evidence is the most powerful proof that a claim is true.
In doublethink, the failure of a plan assures us that it must be continued and even redoubled.
In doublethink, we make American citizens feel safe by kidnapping them without charges and torturing them to death.
In doublethink, we protect America by invading every other country in the world and stirring up a limitless number of hornet's nest of hate-maddened victims of random U.S. carpet-bombing and "extraordinary rednition" of the wong people who are innocent.
In doublethink, we sell weapons to third-world dictators and then when those crazed dictators get overthrown and the weapons we sold 'em are turned against it, we use that fact as proof that we neec to produce and sell more weapons.
Nobody seems to get it. Once you throw logic and facts out the window, anything is possible.
The proof that 2 + 2 = 5 is that 1 + 1 = 2, and therefore 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 2 + 2 which equals 5. The earth is flat because all the evidence converges to show that it's round. Water is dry and the sun doesn't rise because common sense tells us these things must be so, and common sense is the cleverest trick of the subversive liberal traitor. The evidence that liberals are traitors is that there is no evidence, because liberals are so diabolically clever they leave no telltale signs of their treason behind.
We must burn your wife as a witch because she was asleep with you when she was consorting with Satan -- only Satan would have the power to create the illusion that she was home with you at the time. You see? Proof positive.
As the mass insanity in the Executive Branch intensifies, the insanity will increase to a fever pitch. Prepare for a nuclear strike on Iran.
Why?
Because Iran has no nuclear weapons and is not preparing to attack us.
In the world of doublethink, the insane is logical and facts are mere fantasy. Anything is true even though it is simultaneously not true, whenever that proves convenient, until the next day -- when facts suddenly become reality again and delusion collapses back into unreality.
Remember, they never said there were weapons of mass destruciton, and since there were never any WMDs, that's the surest proof we must nuke Iran.
Saddam was our loyal ally against the satanic Iranians (because Reagan supported him) except that Saddam was also an evil puppet of al Qaeda (because Bush 43 needs to demonize him) but Saddam was never involved with al Qaeda and is not now involved with al Qaeda (since traitorous liberals only make up these kinds of lies to weaken America poison conservative minds), and that's why Saddam had to be overthrown -- because he was bin Laden's puppet (as Fox News constantly proves with its fact-based reporting).
Anything is possible, everything is simultaneously true and false, and the only way it ever ends is a straitjacket ina padded room.
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