Post by bot on May 22, 2004 23:50:58 GMT -5
The Karma of Spin
January 6, 2004
By Rodger Stevens
"At a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
It isn't nice to knowingly deceive others. It isn't nice to mislead them, to present in a self-serving manner motivations and events which eventually affect everyone else in a negative way.
Religious and philosophical teachings throughout history disparage those who deceive others, and propose, one way or another, that such deceit will rebound eventually to the detriment of those who instigated it. Whether or not one accords with such declarations, be it the Golden Rule or the so-called Laws of Karma, most people understand that all actions are somehow answerable in their results... the greater the moment, the greater the effects.
But "always tell the truth" has come on hard times, particularly among those who in recent years have ascended to positions of influence and power. No longer is honesty seen as an advantage; too often, the pretense of rectitude has masked its absence. This state of things is painfully apparent in considering the pervasive influence of advertising, wherein the 'sizzle' of the ad eventually cools to reveal the congealed grease of the real product. Spin is little more than false advertising, and no more honest.
So I find it very interesting that over the span of the past couple of years, White House-generated spin has begun to congeal in a most karmically revealing way. Events which were grandly presented as having happened one way turn out to have happened in quite another. Those of us who yearn for peace, and for honest disclosure by those in power can hope that maybe we're seeing an emerging trend.
Consider these few among the many such instances:
The president's May 1 'Top Gun' burlesque on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, while at first praised as a rousing, gung-ho endorsement of the success of the Iraq invasion, soon evolved into the shallow PR ploy it was from the beginning… the flight suit worn by a man who shirked his own military commitments was fittingly stuffed with an appropriately unmasculine cod-piece; the huge "Mission Accomplished" banner strategically placed in the background turns out to have been not a spontaneous gesture by the crew of the carrier, but a White House-provided prop. The carrier had to be turned back to sea and positioned so the nearby California coastline remained out of camera view, and so that the afternoon sun would provide the most striking shadows. The whole event was a very expensive cheap shot, particularly in light of the continuing devastation of humanity on both sides in that war. One must wonder just which 'mission' was 'accomplished'… it certainly wasn't the one advertised. And since this arrogant and self-serving event is now generally held to be such, you will probably be spared seeing reruns in the upcoming campaign.
Pfc. Jessica Lynch's experiences turn out to have been starkly different from the spin given them by the Pentagon. She didn't fight it out heroically - her gun jammed; she wasn't stabbed and shot - she was knocked unconscious in a vehicle mishap; she wasn't mistreated by Iraqi medical personnel - they saved her life; she wasn't rescued from the clutches of bands of bloodthirsty Iraqi terrorists - her rescuers staged an assault against an unprotected hospital which was guarded by exactly zero enemies. Lynch herself, in most heroic fashion (when you're a Pfc, everything else that moves is a superior) bucked the PR and insisted that she was just a normal person who only joined the Army because there were no jobs available in her part of the country and she needed the money for college. You will probably not see footage of this farce either in the upcoming campaign.
The heavily-spun reasons for going to war in the first place - enormous stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons available for use in a mere 45 minutes, nuclear weapons programs on the brink of deploying working bombs, operational links to Al Qaeda, aluminum tubes for nuclear materials centrifuges, and the enormously overblown threat to the United States which must be crushed at the earliest moment - all turned out to be false, and those who accuse others of revisionism are themselves frantically respinning those intense PR efforts to sell America on why we should subdue the entire oil-rich Middle East. The outing of the wife of Joseph Wilson, the ambassador who effectively debunked the oft-repeated claims that Iraq was seeking Nigerian yellowcake, has yet to be accounted for, but even despite the continued spin, the prospects are not encouraging for those in the administration who orchestrated this treasonous rebuke to the truth.
The harebrained trip the president took over Thanksgiving to Iraq to 'serve turkey to the troops' also turned out to have been rife with deception. The reported contact with a BOAC pilot en route was later shown to have been a total fabrication. The hastily organized turkey dinner served to the troops consisted not of turkey and all the trimmings, but airline meals, served at the traditional Thanksgiving hour of 3 a.m. local time. And the famous picture of the president toting a tray heaped with holiday fare turns out to have been just another sizzling deception, because the turkey was made of plastic. This costly but ultimately farcical extravaganza, like the others, will probably not serve its intended purpose as campaign footage, since too many people now see it for what it was: Pure spin. Pure deception.
"Who makes the fairest show means most deceit." - William Shakespeare
January 6, 2004
By Rodger Stevens
"At a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
It isn't nice to knowingly deceive others. It isn't nice to mislead them, to present in a self-serving manner motivations and events which eventually affect everyone else in a negative way.
Religious and philosophical teachings throughout history disparage those who deceive others, and propose, one way or another, that such deceit will rebound eventually to the detriment of those who instigated it. Whether or not one accords with such declarations, be it the Golden Rule or the so-called Laws of Karma, most people understand that all actions are somehow answerable in their results... the greater the moment, the greater the effects.
But "always tell the truth" has come on hard times, particularly among those who in recent years have ascended to positions of influence and power. No longer is honesty seen as an advantage; too often, the pretense of rectitude has masked its absence. This state of things is painfully apparent in considering the pervasive influence of advertising, wherein the 'sizzle' of the ad eventually cools to reveal the congealed grease of the real product. Spin is little more than false advertising, and no more honest.
So I find it very interesting that over the span of the past couple of years, White House-generated spin has begun to congeal in a most karmically revealing way. Events which were grandly presented as having happened one way turn out to have happened in quite another. Those of us who yearn for peace, and for honest disclosure by those in power can hope that maybe we're seeing an emerging trend.
Consider these few among the many such instances:
The president's May 1 'Top Gun' burlesque on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, while at first praised as a rousing, gung-ho endorsement of the success of the Iraq invasion, soon evolved into the shallow PR ploy it was from the beginning… the flight suit worn by a man who shirked his own military commitments was fittingly stuffed with an appropriately unmasculine cod-piece; the huge "Mission Accomplished" banner strategically placed in the background turns out to have been not a spontaneous gesture by the crew of the carrier, but a White House-provided prop. The carrier had to be turned back to sea and positioned so the nearby California coastline remained out of camera view, and so that the afternoon sun would provide the most striking shadows. The whole event was a very expensive cheap shot, particularly in light of the continuing devastation of humanity on both sides in that war. One must wonder just which 'mission' was 'accomplished'… it certainly wasn't the one advertised. And since this arrogant and self-serving event is now generally held to be such, you will probably be spared seeing reruns in the upcoming campaign.
Pfc. Jessica Lynch's experiences turn out to have been starkly different from the spin given them by the Pentagon. She didn't fight it out heroically - her gun jammed; she wasn't stabbed and shot - she was knocked unconscious in a vehicle mishap; she wasn't mistreated by Iraqi medical personnel - they saved her life; she wasn't rescued from the clutches of bands of bloodthirsty Iraqi terrorists - her rescuers staged an assault against an unprotected hospital which was guarded by exactly zero enemies. Lynch herself, in most heroic fashion (when you're a Pfc, everything else that moves is a superior) bucked the PR and insisted that she was just a normal person who only joined the Army because there were no jobs available in her part of the country and she needed the money for college. You will probably not see footage of this farce either in the upcoming campaign.
The heavily-spun reasons for going to war in the first place - enormous stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons available for use in a mere 45 minutes, nuclear weapons programs on the brink of deploying working bombs, operational links to Al Qaeda, aluminum tubes for nuclear materials centrifuges, and the enormously overblown threat to the United States which must be crushed at the earliest moment - all turned out to be false, and those who accuse others of revisionism are themselves frantically respinning those intense PR efforts to sell America on why we should subdue the entire oil-rich Middle East. The outing of the wife of Joseph Wilson, the ambassador who effectively debunked the oft-repeated claims that Iraq was seeking Nigerian yellowcake, has yet to be accounted for, but even despite the continued spin, the prospects are not encouraging for those in the administration who orchestrated this treasonous rebuke to the truth.
The harebrained trip the president took over Thanksgiving to Iraq to 'serve turkey to the troops' also turned out to have been rife with deception. The reported contact with a BOAC pilot en route was later shown to have been a total fabrication. The hastily organized turkey dinner served to the troops consisted not of turkey and all the trimmings, but airline meals, served at the traditional Thanksgiving hour of 3 a.m. local time. And the famous picture of the president toting a tray heaped with holiday fare turns out to have been just another sizzling deception, because the turkey was made of plastic. This costly but ultimately farcical extravaganza, like the others, will probably not serve its intended purpose as campaign footage, since too many people now see it for what it was: Pure spin. Pure deception.
"Who makes the fairest show means most deceit." - William Shakespeare