Making no mistake

Hard kernels of cliche meant to lend the appearance of strength and steadfastness spew forth from the powers that be on a regular basis. If you watch much news you’ll recognize them instantly:

Up or down vote
We’re not ruling anything in and we’re not ruling anything out

But the greatest of these is “Make no mistake.”

This seemed to preface every other statement from a military or administration official just after 9/11.

It’s actually seductively fun to introduce statements in every day conversation with “make no mistake.” Try it, but be careful not to get addicted.

“Make no mistake, this chicken is delicious! Make no mistake, I think it’s about 8:30.”

Maybe it’s the Republican answer to the whimpiness of “sense.” (see “Sensorrhea” below)

Well, now it’s back in force, more hideous jetsam of Katrina’s evil winds.

I guess I’m slow, because I’ve only just connected this chest-inflating introductory phrase to the semi-official position that this administration doesn’t actually make mistakes.

I guess it’s kind of a blessing, as in “we don’t make any mistakes, so don’t you start doing it either.”

Will any mistakes be admitted to in the aftermath of this tragic, yet frequently predicted, mess? Accountability is fun.

Sensorrhea

As you listen to members of the press (especially NPR) interview politicians, experts, and each other, keep your ear out for the echolalic use of the word “sense.”

“Can you give us a little sense of…?”
“Is there a sense there that…?”
“What’s the sense of the sense of…?”

This may seem like a trivial point in the face of so much tragedy, but I believe language use is an important clue to worldview and motives.

This “sense” clue, I believe, begins to explain why the press is so tentative in their coverage of important stories, especially the questioning of public officials. Reporters could easily just drop the “senses” and go right to the question, but they generally don’t.

Maybe it’s laziness. People can be held responsible for getting facts wrong, but not “senses.”

I think what this really reveals is a sad mistrust of reality, a defeatist, post-modern capitulation to the fluidity of fact. The corollary is a susceptibility to spin.

The result is the cowed, bourgeois press we have seen for the last few years. I hope the naked reality of Katrina will shake them out of it enough for them to hold certain people, and even certain popular ideas, responsible.

Some are more equal than others

The quickest way for a politician to shrug off irrefutable criticism is to claim that “everyone was doing it.” If a Republican is accused of making outlandish negative political ads, they will quickly claim that the Democrats do the same thing. The question of degree, of whether the Republicans produce measurably more or more inaccurate ads than the other side, is too complicated to fit into what passes for mass media political dialog and is therefore never addressed in a wide forum.

A lot of people and political/economic ideologies are to blame for the mess New Orleans is in, going back to the original sin, the choice of location. This provides a lot of fodder for those who would minimize their own blame, a chronic habit of the Bush administration. Currently the response of the powers that be when pressed on who is responsible for the instant third world country (just add water!) we find on our gulf coast is “there’ll be plenty of time for that discussion later.” But we can be sure that once that discussion is in full swing every citation of the many clear warnings, FEMA budget cuts, tardiness of relief, etc. will be met with some conveniently parallel sin of the other side.

I can’t wait to find out precisely how this is entirely Clinton’s fault.

Single Prayer Health Care System

Thousands upon thousands of Katrina victims, most of them poor, need urgent and long term medical care. Their medical records are destroyed or unavailable.

They are clearly being treated for free now, but how long will that last? At what point will people discover that Katrina has swept them out of their “preferred provider area?” How much will the nation spend treating these people? How will the hospitals be set up again?

Suddenly a universal health-care system with national disaster contingency plans and safely archived easily accessible record keeping seems less like galloping socialism and more like a practical necessity.

Patron saint of filthy water

Is it ironic or appropriate that Dave Matthews has announced a Katrina benefit concert?

Debt of credit card companies

It is time the Credit Card companies pony up in return for their sweetheart bankruptcy legislation passed last session which takes effect on October 17. (Just in time to add extra misery to all the Katrina victims by foiling their inevitable bankruptcy claims !) Get this, it’s actually entitled “Bankruptcy Reform and Consumer Protection Act.”

Politicians should demand that they exempt from monthly interest or other charges all donations to the Red Cross and perhaps other charities in the name of Katrina relief.

Right now credit cards are the easiest, fastest way to donate, but many Americans are already shouldering too much credit card debt.

In addition, it is unseemly for these companies to make profits from kind hearts and human misery. They should stick to making money off compulsive consumerism and human shortsightedness.

What’s with this century?

2000: Election chaos, Bush “elected”
2001: World Trade Center attack
2002: Invasion of Afghanistan
2003: Invasion of Iraq
2004: Bush re-elected, Madrid Bombing, Beslan tragedy
2005: Tsunami, London Bombing, Katrina

You get the point.

Mad Dads

Growing up, was your dad an angry dad? Were any of your friends’ dads angry dads? If so, then you know the tone of voice and demeanor of a man who comes home from work and doesn’t want to be bothered by his children. A man who doesn’t know how to handle teenagers during a famliy dinner and creates a quiet, sullen fog throughout the household whenever he’s around. I was always thankful my dad wasn’t an angry dad whenever I was over at friends’ houses run by mad dads.

Many a mad dad insists on being referred to as “sir” by his children if not his wife.

The reason I bring this up is that almost every official in Republican leadership gives me that mad dad feeling, especially at press conferences when anything they say or do is challenged. Even Condi Rice seems like a mad dad.

Cheney, of course, is the ultimate Mad Dad. Can you imagine what it was like for his daughter to come out to him as a lesbian?

Yet, in spite of the ubiquitous mad dad veneer, I constantly find myself asking where the real, responsible, grown-ups are in this administration.

Dumbocracy In Generica

Will George Bush be seen as the worst president in U.S. History? How soon?

Have the Straussian neocons and the Project for a New American Century now assured that this will be America’s most ignoble century?

Will the nation ever recover from our current misguided brainless factionalism?

Will the media ever be able to criticize the powers that be without the appearance, real or accusatory, of bias?

Will my picayune peeves about NPR’s style and substance ever be heard by the actual on-air “folks”?

What is the nature of our cultural decadence and can we dig our way out of it?

These are the kinds of questions you will find discussed here.