Monday, February 21, 2005

Lies, Disinformation, the Media and What Is the Truth Exactly?

By Mom Anonymous

When I was a kid, a big (and punishable by being grounded, which for a young person developing socially is a big deal) offense was lying. Really didn’t matter about what, the lie wasn’t tolerated in my family. Some “smaller” lies were deemed okay, like not telling Mom you were late coming home from school because you stopped off to get her Mom’s Day gift. But overall, I think my parents tried to teach their kids some sort of integrity. Being human means you screw up from time to time, which was also taken into consideration, as far as doling out punishment goes or how often us kiddos got called on it. As a result of this parental teaching, I took away a real hatred of being lied to.

On some political websites lately, there’s been some debate over “our US media,” and how honor bound they are in reporting the truth. A few leaning right have said that the “liberal” (bwahahahaha!) media is ruining this country on the rare occasions they happen to actually expose a lie. The left leaning counterparts counter with such tired arguments as “what about all those WMDs that never existed, huh?”

Here’s a new thought folks:

The Truth, is, the Truth. And the truth here, regarding current events, is that a few people in power are getting rich at the expense of a lot more than “just” human lives. That’s what war is about in these here United States, the economy and money, obscene amounts of money. Money isn’t the root of all evil, but the LOVE of money is. Actually, it’s not even that in my opinion: the root of all evil is more along the lines of emotional and moral bankruptcy. The money is only a fringe benefit.

Dollar signs aside for a moment, let’s talk about Depleted Uranium shall we? Because really, it’s not being explored much at all, and also because of the insanity it takes to even invent such things, let alone unleash them on the planet. We also should perhaps explore for a bit our use of language as a balm for lack of conscience.

Depleted is an interesting term here, I think. In context, most of us would assume that depleted would mean something along the lines of not being too threatening. Depleted would insinuate something less powerful than its original form, before all the depleting happened. In this case, how depleted this uranium is, is well, a stupid argument because it doesn’t reduce one whit the complete annihilation of any life in its path. A gift that keeps on giving, for a MINIMUM OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS. Experts on this particular subject tend to throw out figures of either more or less time wise, but let’s just stick with 10,000,it has a nice even ring to it.

Now, if a government and “the military industrial complex” would even CONSIDER using this heinous substance, would fund the manufacture of it, and send young people (OUR young people) to eat, breathe, and occasionally sleep in a place where it swirls all around them, and do that knowingly and willingly, why is it so surprising that these same people would lie about anything they possibly could? Lying, like killing, gets easier the more you do it. And if you can sell the biggest lie of all, it’s not a big leap to figure out that other lies will be a much softer sell to the public. Again, as I will continuously emphasize in this essay and others to follow, some common sense is sorely needed across the board here, political, religious, and moral leanings aside. With the impending US “involvement” in Iran looming ahead, what we should be concerned with as a supposedly “great nation” full of “humanity” is looking at those responsible and not just bitching about what they do, but ACTIVELY and deliberately planning and discussing ways to STOP it. And then DOING exactly that, whatever it takes. Unfortunately, I’m sad to say, I don’t believe for even half a second that’s going to happen. A whole industry has sprung up around political name calling and DC bashing, those on the left and right are making a good living doing just that. And meanwhile…

http://www.denniskyne.com
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/RI_DU.html
http://www.idust.net
http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html


Fun huh?

What continues to baffle me in all this is the actual need for any more “study” on this topic. Hello, it’s URANIUM kids. Enough of the studies, enough of the whining about being lied to. This is akin to catching a spouse fucking your best friend and having them respond with something like “oh honey, it’s not how it looks, really.” What, you accidentally wound up naked and tripped and your penis slid inside her (or vice versa)? Come on, no one is that stupid, are they? Someone is getting fucked while being lied to in the process, no matter how you spin it.

Instead, what the vast majority of US citizens do is busy themselves with rooting for sports teams, casting their vote for the next American Idol, rabidly watching the daily dose of hatred spewing out of Fox News, planning the next family vacation (and if it were me, the last place I’d go near would be Nevada or any other “National Sacrifice Area”), shopping for new cars, clothes or home furnishings, looking for some new self help technique to “fix” their lives, and on and on…And meanwhile…

http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm

Plugging the phrase “depleted uranium” even into a shitty search engine like MSN’s yields over 35,000 sites dedicated to this topic alone, and the vast majority of these sites seem to be able to agree on one thing: This stuff is BAD,VERY,VERY,BAD.

There’s an opportunity here that’s being missed Dear Readers, abandoned in the need to scream the loudest and be the most righteous. And if you think that this stuff isn’t here, on US soil, you need to go back and look closer at the links provided above. If this isn’t something that can bring on MASSIVE and collective solidarity, along with the courage, bravery and decency needed to eliminate those who sign off on things (and before I get a visit from the feds or whomever I am not advocating assassination of those responsible per se, but I DO advocate STOPPING them. ALL of them, by whatever means necessary) of this nature without so much as a pause, then I am afraid we are signing our own death warrants. Not just ours, but the planet’s as a whole. Think about that one as you fight over whether elections are scams, discuss the gay porn connection recently discovered all over DC (and I do have to admit, it is fun to say that aloud, but that’s about all), Ward Churchill’s Indian Blood Quantum, or who is more sexy, Paris Hilton or Nicole Ritchie. Or whether a democrat, republican or libertarian is a better presidential choice, if peak oil is a myth, or the countless other things this collectively ADHD ridden culture has decided to amuse itself with. Because really, if we as a nation can’t do a damn thing about this, and refuse to even put anything else aside to stop it, the rest of the endless shit we amuse ourselves doing means nothing. A Scorched Earth won’t support ANY life, let alone the right party being in the White House.

The eloquent and thought provoking work of Vine Deloria, Jr. comes to mind here, in his essay entitled, “Non Violence in American Society” (published in 1974, available in the collection entitled For This Land: Writings on Religion in America). Deloria asserts that those whose voices call for non violence in protests and action operate on the assumption that those in power operate with the same scruples, honesty, morality, outrage, demands for justice and desires as those doing the protesting, petition signing and debating. Read that again, and think about it, I’ll wait…

Has it hit you yet? If not, once again I’ll refer you to the links posted above.

Also, I’ll say this again. I am not advocating mindless, stupid and random acts of violence here. All that does is put more activists in prison and tied up with legal fees and maneuverings which in turn keeps feeding the current fire burning about what constitutes being “un-American.” It also would behoove me to point out here that “violence” oftentimes is mistakenly defined as actions done to destroy property and NON LIVING things, when really, violence, in the true definition of the word is actually action taken to maim, injure or murder a LIVING being. Just to clarify my stance on that definition. I realize this does nothing to change legal definitions or legal ramifications, but what we consider to be violent acts and how we classify those things by our use of language is very telling about our priorities as a nation.

The time for talking has nearly come to an end, and maybe even stating that is a huge disservice on my part. What to do you ask? What would really have a lasting effect, what would really be able to do to put a stop to this insanity? To be honest, I don’t think just one thing is called for. What I can say with a pretty large amount of certainty is this:

It’s going to require more than just a majority of a few percentage points. It’s also going to require far more courage and strength than most people have or are willing to dig deep enough to find. That’s the reality we face, not just here in the US, but globally. We’re long past the time to “see the good” in those people who make these decisions, often in secret, willingly calculating “collateral damage” as just so much human waste, and then looking right into those TV cameras and lying right to our faces.

Mom Anonymous lives in Metro Atlanta, far too close to the CDC, a Lockheed plant and an air force installation for her comfort. She welcomes insight, shows of even peripheral solidarity, and comment directed to her via gardenspirit1@hotmail.com. Any hate mail or death threats will NOT be responded to, and if need be traced to their source.

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