Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:
Thou shalt not bear false witness…
Sound familiar to anyone? It should, to some folks at least. I was reminded of it while reading a piece by Bob King over at the TPM Cafe. It’s a well written piece. Kind of made my day, in fact. Anywho…
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, boys and girls. [Provided, of course, that your neighborhood isn’t flooded out, under seige, overrun by maniacs with guns or subject to sudden changes in the weather (both the social and environmental type).]
As we chart the course for the day, we should keep in mind a few things that could help us keep clear of rocks, icebergs, items that nobody could have forseen (except those who did forsee them) and IEDs. Follow me for some illumination, elucidation and snark…
November approaches, and our nation is all a-quiver with excitement as the body politic prepares for what promises to be a spectacular culmination of the current cycle of political binging and purging ever. I thought it would behoove us, as true-blooded US Patriots, to take a moment to help ensure that our capacity to purge the toxic neoconservative poison from our state and national government is bolstered by words that the neopundits themselves readily espouse in their rush to justify blatant criminal activity. It’s sort of like a purification ritual, like a surgeon’s pre-op hand washing or — perhaps more appropriately — like the way a biohazard team decontaminates both before and after entering a sealed crimescene for forensic analysis.
Remember the piece I referenced by Bob King, above? You’ll need to read the whole thing eventually, as he nails a few salient points. I’m going to quote a few items from it now — he made some great points, and I think we should share them with anyone who still seems to <s>have their heads up their collective asses</s> be under the influence of neoKool-Aid.
King’s piece, “Is there anything more helpless and irresponsible than a warblogger on a reality binge?,” makes reference to the Ten Commandments (apparently, I’m guessing he refs those items which are generically present in several versions) along with occassional random references to other various and sundry Biblical teachings. This is good. It’s important to use the language of the ones you seek to communicate with, if an important point is to be made. And this is a very important point, to be made not to the pundits but to the people that the pundits hold sway over. Check out this excerpt (emphasis is his):
You cannot gain the ethical and moral high ground by cheating, lying, stealing and murdering innocents, or indeed, anyone.
In even contemplating this war, and contemplating the means by which a state of war could be achieved it follows that this administration planned to Bear False Witness to the American people, to Congress, to the press and of course, to the very soldiers they relied upon to lay their lives down. Furthermore, they consciously decided to knowingly violate every single principle of decent behavior so clearly laid out in The Big Ten.
Beautiful.
And he was just getting started. To continue, he has this to say about our current “dabbling” in the Middle East, and Iraq in particular:
There is no serious argument that the intent of the war was to gain a strategic presence straddling the Tigris and the Euphrates. Liberating it is one thing. KEEPING it is Theft. Trying to say the one is the other… See Commandment Above. Also note Covetiousness and Envy.
When you kill people in order to slake your greed, to gain things that you can only gain if those who held them are dead, that is Murder.
Getting right down to brass tacks, this is exactly what needs to be said in the language that it needs to be presented.
He leaves us with one final thought:
When George Herbert Walker Bush took the Oath of Office, promising to Uphold And Defend the Constitution of the United States against all Enemies, Foreign and Domestic – he took the Lord’s Name In Vain.
That would be true of everyone who has sworn that oath and failed to uphold and defend the Constitution.
I’ve seen many references in and from Christian fundamentalists where hypocrisy was defined in terms of someone twisting words, like a “silver-tongued” devil. This isn’t twisting — this is uncoupling the spin from the boatload of basic tenets and presenting the unvarnished truth of the matter in language that the people should understand.
Go read the whole thing — even tho I excerpted pretty substantially, there’s a few zingers left and the article as a whole (which is actually just a partial crosspost from elsewhere) is pretty damning.
It brightened my day to see this so clearly laid out. This is a useful argument for the simple condemnation of the Administration and those in Congress, the media and televangelical neverland that blatantly confronts them and is sure to put them on the (quite obvious) defensive. And that alone will help tickle the perceptions of the people who have fallen under their spell.
We need to make simple, direct statements of truths in a language that the people under the thrall of this insidious creeping evil can understand. We have to confront the demons that infest our national spirit, and clear out the cobwebs that they’ve spun throughout the national consciousness. Opening dialogues on the many different levels and in the languages of the various sects that are bewitched by the neoconservative propaganda takes coordinated effort, but the most important aspect needed to tie it together is one we’ve already achieved — a community tied together by a common interest and working toward the mutual preservation of our nation while dispelling the paucity and falsehood inherent in the spin cycle of “the faithful” hypocrisy.
I’m encouraged by the increase in awareness across the board and the diminishing returns of the propaganda campaigns that this Administration and their co-dependent supporters have fostered. I think it promises to be a beautiful day, and that we have the opportunity to secure a few more days of unparalleled and increasing beauty for generations to come, if we can act now to ensure that reality is welcomed back into the national dialogue.
Also available in orange, white and green.
