I woke up grumpy this morning, mulling over the "fake news" controversy, realizing that after the Iraq war and several other examples of reporting on happenings in far away places, I basically don't trust any of it. I don't just mean healthy skepticism, I mean there are moments when I wonder if people who write for newspapers read their own newspapers. Reporting seems too often to take on the form of telephone, with reports of reports of reports of reports. It's all colored by whatever US policy happens to be at the time, and it gets really confusing when our policy is confused and nobody knows exactly who "our bastards" are that week. Was that our #2 who just got whacked or theirs? Does it matter?
And rarely is the question asked: people all over the place seem to be really good at blowing each other up, sometimes with sophisticated and expensive weapons? All the blown up people, where do they all come from?
The only solution to a fire is to claim that it's twice as big as it is and then demand we pour gasoline on it to ensure it is so.
And I don't even know why. I'll get emails as I always do when I raise this question - oil! arms dealers need money! - but it isn't just one cause. I don't believe the random asshole congressman from Texas and the current POTUS and the head of the oil company and the head of Arms Dealer, Inc., and various "think tanks" and the generals and the national security "community" and the Washington Post editorial board and "liberal hawks" all want to go blow shit up on a regular basis and start wars everywhere for precisely the same reasons. All these people come together to make it happen, of course, but that doesn't mean they're all motivated by the same reasons. Christian apocalyptic messianism for some, sweet sweet cash for others!
I just know that when all of the serious people start nodding in unison that something needs to be done, therefore we must do something, and there's only one thing to be done. A country whose soon to be controlling political party thinks taking in even one refugee is unpossible isn't much interested in humanitarian intervention, or humanitarianism at all. Still we must do something because reasons.
