Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Getting Serious
I think it was Chomsky who I saw deriding the notion in which the elite media uses the word "serious". They'll discount certain positions as "not serious", for example.
Something I've noticed is that you can get ready for some bullshit to follow when someone in corporate media says "We need to get serious on/with...". For example, "We need to get serious in the War on Terrorism". Or, "We need to get serious with fixing Social Security". Or "We need to get serious with welfare reform". "We need to get serious with the War on Drugs". "We need to get serious on our energy policy".
The way that I translate the above when I see/hear those sort of sentences is that "We need to keep on doing what we've always done to address these issues, and don't bother me with the facts".
For example, if anyone was *really* going to "get serious" on the "war on terrorism", they would have to take a look at what drives people to terrorism. But anyone that brings that up is typically called a "liberal" who is "blaming America first", etc. and told that we don't need to look for root causes, we just need to kill the terrorists, and we define who/what a "terrorist"/"terrorism" is. It just baffles the mind.
As another example, if we were to really "get serious" with the "war on drugs", we'd abolish it altogether.
Something I've noticed is that you can get ready for some bullshit to follow when someone in corporate media says "We need to get serious on/with...". For example, "We need to get serious in the War on Terrorism". Or, "We need to get serious with fixing Social Security". Or "We need to get serious with welfare reform". "We need to get serious with the War on Drugs". "We need to get serious on our energy policy".
The way that I translate the above when I see/hear those sort of sentences is that "We need to keep on doing what we've always done to address these issues, and don't bother me with the facts".
For example, if anyone was *really* going to "get serious" on the "war on terrorism", they would have to take a look at what drives people to terrorism. But anyone that brings that up is typically called a "liberal" who is "blaming America first", etc. and told that we don't need to look for root causes, we just need to kill the terrorists, and we define who/what a "terrorist"/"terrorism" is. It just baffles the mind.
As another example, if we were to really "get serious" with the "war on drugs", we'd abolish it altogether.
# posted by Sean LeBlanc : 6:26 AM
