Let's See Dick Dance

 

 

 

 

"The report’s full of crap, excuse me. I said hooey yesterday -– let me use the real word," he thundered.

 

The investigation was "deeply flawed" and "didn’t bother to interview key people involved in the program," he said.

 

Let us be frank; the report is crap, key people weren't interviewed.  Discount the whole thing, people - Dick has spoken and spoken forcefully.

 

Perhaps former US Vice President Dick Cheney and like-minded individuals/organizations should invest in ads that reinforce their message.  When you dominate the airways and forcefully repeat one core message and focus on the flaws of what you dislike (with facts, cherry-picked if available or with heated rhetoric if not), the people will believe you, right?

 

That's how attack ads work.  It's how politics works; we hear that again and again.

 

You simply need to be in a position of great enough power that you have the clout, capacity and coin to get your message out.

 

Sensing an opportunity to poke its traditional foe, Iran seized upon the report to throw back some of the human rights criticism that its own notorious prisons regularly receive.

 

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to Twitter to declare the United States a "symbol of tyranny against humanity" -- not just in the CIA torture program but in domestic law enforcement.

 

Iran's Ayatollah is hardly one to point figures.  But does it matter?  He's not interested in defending his practices; that's not the point.  See the Cheney approach, above.

 

It really doesn't matter if Cheney produces a mountain of evidence that "enhanced interrogation techniques" produced information that stopped some terrorist from blowing up the White House.  Torture happened.  The US is clearly hypocritical.

 

The US declares itself a light in the dark, a beacon of civilization, a land of equal rights and equal opportunity - yet Abu Ghraib happened.  Ferguson has happened.  Eric Garner happened.  And that's all just domestically.

 

It would be simple and even fun, from a Machievellian perspective, to craft a clear, evidence-based image of the US as the embodiment of every threat they have ever claimed to stand against.  All one has to do is connect the dots.

 

Of course, those dots - cops in New York, cops in Ferguson, bombs in Iraq, CIA interrogation techniques - they're not one narrative, are they?  They're independent actors acting independently.  It's fallacious to suggest some sort of pattern or narrative from such disconnected pieces.  Just ask the rational actors being unfairly brought into the spotlight.

 

And don't listen to social media.

 

One can't but feel a bit sad for these, history's actors.  Everyone is watching; there are no more shadows to hide in.

 

If you're going to dance on the public stage, it's worth dancing like everyone's watching.