Just Talk About It! (BBA VII)
Is it just me, or is anyone else getting tired of the oppressively meta nature of today's political discourse?
It's been months — perhaps even years — since we've just talked about some event. I mean, we used to talk about the Vietnam war, how evil Nixon was, stagflation, the Middle East, the hostages in Iran, voodoo economics …. Real conversations about things.
Today, there are only two things that we talk about:
- What the MSM is talking about; and
- What the MSM isn't talking about.
I find it rather tiresome really that, instead of just discussing an issue, we have to couch everything in terms of whether the MSM is giving enough attention to that issue. (If the issue is important, they never do; unimportant: saturation.) Then we guage how the discussion is going by how much people are talking about how much the MSM isn't talking about it.
I'm an old fart; it confuses me and it wears me out. To me, it would seem so much easier just to talk about it, and f…orget the MSM.
Take, as a random example, the Downing Street Memo. Could we just talk about it please? Discuss things like what the implications are, whether conspiracy to defraud the American people is a "high crime" or "misdemeanor"? Perhaps even discuss right and wrong?
Or must we continue talking about how the press is not talking about it? To state the obvious, if we redirected all those words talking about how no one is talking about it….
Oddly, even the "real" journalists these days seem to be talking about why no one is talking about the DSM. I suppose that's easier than actually doing some research, using all those "real" journalist things like sources and stuff, and writing an investigative report or something. Or are all the "real" journalists spending too much time in DC's underground garages waiting for the story to come to them?
Everybody's getting in on the act. Even Senator Ted Kennedy has had something to say:
The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.
In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious – that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration’s planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence. […]
[Edward Kennedy, "Senator Kennedy on the Downing Street Minutes", June 2005.]
Pretty strong stuff. He did slip in one little bit about the effort being spent to get "the media and those in government" to speak out (i.e., talk about it), and he does suggest that we can help him speak out by — you guess it! — writing our senators and asking them to talk about it!
Kennedy's statement was filled with gusto, but now there needs to be action to back it up. I suppose, since he's in the minority party, things might go more easily if he has a groundswell of grassroots support behind him, but is asking us to ask others to talk about it really leadership?
Nevertheless, I think it might signal progress, although I notice that it hasn't been talked about much.
[This continues my series of posts concerning the pre-Iraq-war actions of the US administration, aimed at increasing awareness of those activities, as part of the Big Brass Alliance (or BBA) and it's support of AfterDowningStreet.org. For more information from me, see my first posting on The Downing Street Memo: "Worth Remembering"]