So, the purpose of this blog is to rant, and so I have a big one just now. It may seem silly or unimportant, but, darn it, it's my blog, and this just pissed me off so very much just now, listening to a local right wing radio host.
He was talking about the UN Oil for Food scandal. I don't know much about it, I'll be honest with you. It was one of those stories that I didn't pay attention to when it first broke (for various reasons), and, thus, whenever I later saw a story on it, I would skip it, telling myself, I don't know enough about it--later I'll do lots of research. Same thing happened with the Scott Peterson case (though that one's less important... well, I guess if you're the mainstream media, that's arguable, but, alas).
Anyway--this guy was saying that Kofi Annan should step down and something about 2 billion dollars being lost.
Dude.
Have you no shame? No sense of what's going on in the world? Are you in your happy little I-only-see-what-I-wanna-see land?
The utter audacity of these people, the total fearlessness and hypocrisy. Two billion dollars, you say? A little nepotism, some cronyism?
Sure.
Is that a problem? Sure.
But OH MY GOODNESS.
Look at Iraq.
NINE billion dollars LOST.
Halliburton receiving awards from the government for exemplary service (and billions in BONUSES) when they aren't feeding the troops (which they're paid to do). They outsource the job to companies that have no money, so they're feeding them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Halliburton has also failed to deliver on $12 billion more in contracts as well. Yet it gets new contracts and bonuses for good service by the month.
Companies with ties to the Bush family get lucrative government contracts which they didn't have to bid on at all.
Lets looks at who's making money off this war... hmmm?
I'm sorry... But the Oil for Food scandal may be bad. But these are the people we have voted into office not only making money off a war that we were pulled into by deliberate deception (plans for the war were made up pre-9/11, Bush et al knew via the CIA that Iraq had no WMD while they were making the case for war, doing the war in the spring because, and I quote, that's the best time for a "product launch."), but also actively endangering our troops. The very troops that they claim to support.
It's disgusting.
Did this talk show host know this? Is he aware? Surely. But maybe not. The mainstream media doesn't report on this. Why would they? Most are owned by large companies who have a vested interest in continuing the war. Why would General Electric (NBC) report on things that would decrease popularity for the war? They make weapons. Iraq has given them a tidy profit. The military was happy to have embedded journalists. By setting the tone of the relationship (taking away objectivity by making reporters one of the troops) and restricting access of information, they were able to control the PR of the war. No, mainstream media might not have given this guy (or any of us) an objective look at the realities of war and its aftermath.
But, if he is aware, that's even scarier, that the right wing today has the audacity to be so hypocritical. Take the plank out of your own eye, please.
2 comments:
This is just my opinion but I don't see as hypocrisy as much as focusing on an issue you feel is important. His ignoring or not putting enough emphasis on stuff in Iraq irritates, you. Your not putting enough emphasis on the oil-for-food scandal probably would irritate him. You may feel your problem is bigger, but I’d be willing to be the opposite would be true. If someone focuses on poor in the United States and talks about how it is a problem, it could be said that looking at poverty around the world makes poverty in the US seem so small and not something we should focus on, but everyone has issues that are important to them. That doesn't make anyone wrong or necessarily hypocritical; it just makes them someone with a different feeling or passion on an issue that you do.
Luke
The problem is that he's condemning nepotism and corruption, while not seeing a problem at all in how Iraq is being run, indeed commending it, and Halliburton. That's hypocrisy.
If would also be hypocrisy if I, say, said, "poverty in the U.S. is bad, but I don't care about it in the rest of the world." I may say, I am concentrating on US poverty, or global poverty, but I recognize the problem of poverty.
If the guy said, "I recognize that what's going on in Iraq is corrupt, but I think that this Oil for Food scandal is worse," I would disagree with his priorities, but it wouldn't be hypocritical, you know?
But he insists that Iraq is ok.
Now, as I acknowledged, he could be just ignorant of what's going on with Iraq. That's possible in the American mainstream media environment.
That might be the saddest part of all.
Oh--do you wanna have a Star Wars release party and go at midnight or something?
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