Watching the television news at lunchtime…hmmm…a case of willing suspension of disbelief?...a cynical exercise in ironic distance?...well, here the satellite company offers quite a full menu, from Spanish public TV news to the Spanish version of CNN (much higher quality than the international version), to BBC international (better still)…down to the weirdly hallucinogenic, futuristically frightening, empirical-proof-of-the-existence-of-evil Fox News (apart from the twisted, perverted, hateful politics, it’s just so damn ugly!), to the international French news channel (quite good), to Al Jazeera (in general, journalistically outstanding)…
In any case, we come upon the news that the Obama administration, after fully admitting to the prisoner treatment atrocities and war crimes committed by the CIA, has also fully absolved all those involved in said crimes. No point in dwelling over the past, they say. Better to look to the future. I’ll bet those folks who sat on the hot seat at Nuremberg before swinging on the noose wish the world would have been so “forward looking” back then.
This was followed, almost in sequence, by another piece concerning the Administration’s approach to Cuba…loosening up a bit…ah, but of course no thought about lifting the embargo. Hell no. As mentioned by an Administration spokesperson, the Cuban government must make some human rights progress first. Now, while the (CNN) newscaster was reading this news, I watched her face. I may have been imagining this, but she seemed to go just ever so slightly cross-eyed. Talk about cognitive dissonance! Or, ahem…was there? Is the world so utterly stunned, dazed, atontado, ajillipollado…so as not to be knocked on the head by this painful piece of hypocrisy? And this not from the Bush Administration any more…but from the sainted Obama Administration. ¡Hay que joderse!
By the way, has anyone noticed that the project (best illustrated by the Republican Party in general, Fox News and other corporate media giants, etc., and many others) which involves trying to convince the lower-to-middle classes (the massive majority) that their interests are the same as the ultra-rich - just keeps going on and on? I’ve always been amazed by this process. The elite have always done this - how else is less than 10 percent of the population going to lord over the other 90 percent?. But since the age of Reagan and Thatcher, I can’t help but marvel at how absurd and preposterous this project has been and continues to be. The latest example are these anti-taxation “Tea Parties”, organized, it would seem, by Fox News itself, but with substantial support from a good number of blithering idiots. I don’t know…my bafflement and rage are quite beyond words for today…better to take up the subject in another entry.
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