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12-5-04 // 10.21 am north korea loves john kerry Watch the documentary "Outfoxed". Just watch it. Obviously it has an agenda, but what I really like about it is that while it has commentators like Al Franken, the majority of the film is interviews with former Fox News employees, and often simply big chunks of footage of the channel itself. It condemns itself. My favorite bit was the "Bill O'Reilley telling everyone to shut up" montage. It really says it all, about him, the network, and the whole neo-conservative ideology -- that whole "I'm right, you're wrong, now shut up" sort of thing. I dunno, I'm just growing tired of living in a nation where dissent is slowly becoming equated with disloyalty or a lack of patriotism or whatever. I'm not even sure the word 'patriotism' even has meaning to me anymore, it's been co-opted to mean "blind allegiance". I'm tired of the conservative hissing and condemnation of liberals as "America haters". I don't hate America. I have a lot of liberal friends, they fucking love America. I love, they love America so much we want what's best for it. It's our given right to bitch and moan about the fact that we don't think the current course of action is the proper one. I think that the current administration is doing just about every single thing wrong & I want this country to get back on track. I realize America is never going to be as progressive a place as I dream it could be. But surely we can get back to that non-insane middle ground. I'm also getting sick of the derision towards facts and science. Science isn't a cure-all, but it's at least supported by facts. Facts. Evidence, not faith. Faith is fine when you're believing in a deity, but it's not the way to run a country. When all available evidence is pointing towards A, you don't pick B just because your "gut" tells you to. The thing that truly blows my mind is this. On multiple occasions, I have had to explain to people where Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al come from. I have to explain their involvement with the Project for the New American Century, remind them of its stated goals, remind them that these people have decades' worth of experience in the executive branch under various presidents. I have to tell them that in the '80s, we supported Saddam Hussein, we loved him. Rumsfeld went over there & we sold him weapons. We helped train terrorists. We helped train fucking Osama Bin Laden. The government of the United States has often supported dictators. We claim to be a beacon for democracy, but we only truly believe in democracy when it supports our self-interest. Does the USA do good in the world? Absolutely. Do we always do good, are we always motivated by altruism? No, no, no. Part of the current reality is our own fault. The mind-blower is that people do not get this. These aren't "conspiracies of the liberal media". These are cold hard facts. People do not seem willing to believe that American foreign policy has directly influenced the reality of current events. Instead, terrorism & extremism exists because "they hate our freedom". No, "they" hate us for a variety or reasons, one of which is our appalling hypocrisy. This is turning into an unfocused screed, but I needed to react after watching the film.
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