In light of everything that has transpired here, it might help to go back and revisit the words of a “White House official” to Ron Suskind back in 2005:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
That’s widely thought to be a chicken-dancing Karl Rove, but I would not be surprised if it was Cheney – the phrase “judiciously, as you will” sounds more like him. Suskind, typical of American journalists, finds it better to keep secrets from us in order to better preserve his role as bearer of official truth. I wonder if he caught the condescending tone of the remark towards the intellectual class, the dung beetles in the feedlot of power.
The remark does contain a powerful message, however – we must move on. 9/11 is done, they got away with it. It’s officially “true.” We have to be prepared for the next event.
Even if we pay attention in our news environment we are mostly clueless, but not helpless. We can anticipate general trends. American journalism exists to provide the illusion of information, and is not helpful.
North Korea, for example, is rattling sabers. Why? The answer is easy looking outside the mainstream of American news – historically they have always responded in kind. When they are approached in a civil manner, they respond with concessions and cooperation. When they are threatened, they threaten back. Our news reports only on their belligerence (while another part of our propaganda system portrays their leadership as clownish and vain). We are obviously missing the other half of the story. (Maybe Suskind knows, but he ain’t sayin’.) Our military must be threatening them in some fashion – recent redeployment of American power to Northern Africa the Pacific might be the cause. Each revolves around threatening China, and as a side effect, North Korea.
As Ron Paul, otherwise the village idiot, said, “truth is treason in the empire of lies.” We must try to stay on top of things, but with so many false sources, not knowing what is real and what is planted news, all we can do is try to weigh each event and connect dots where dots seem connectable. But for a small group of skeptical and curious citizens in a land of extreme ignorance, what good does it do to know things? Our knowing in advance about 9/11 would not have changed things for history’s actors, nor for us.
Did you catch my condescension there? Don’t take it personally. I am but a Warner Brothers cartoon character, pancaked by the steamroller of events.
Piece of Mindful 