Springer and Liberal Anti-War Sentiment
Something that has been troubling me lately is the message of Jerry Springer’s radio program. While I won’t ever hinder him from attempting to make his opinions known, I do take issue with his attempts to reinterpret history. I say reinterpret because I don’t want to sound like I’m recycling the ‘rewriting history’ sentiment parroted by many Republicans, but that more nearly means what I intend.
Springer’s show promo, currently airing on WTAM and his other affiliate stations, call the audience to “think about it,” ‘it’ being the war in Iraq. The language use says a lot to me. ‘It,’ neuter, indefinite pronoun with the ability to reference anything, only represents the war in Iraq in this context. Not that I want to say the war is unimportant, but Springer’s language indicates is an all consuming concern with the war—one that I think is particularly unhealthy. I understand concern and caring for our troops, but I’ve never gotten the feeling from hearing Springer speak of or to military personnel on the program that his concern is genuine, and not a tool to draw attention away from blatantly undermining the administration. Yet, the all-consuming aspect of this leads me to believe he has lost his sense of what is really important.
This is echoed in the remainder of the Springer promo. Springer points out that the middle-east is an area where people have been “beating each other up for thousands of years” and there is a “tribal mentality.” The language here is equally perplexing. Springer seems to want to minimize the gravity of the conflict—they aren’t merely beating each other up—one odes not ‘beat’ with suicide bombers. These are intensely passionate, zealous people—in no way deserving the label of ‘tribal,’ which portrays modern people as Neanderthals. Where is the concern and regard for the Iraqis and other middle-easterners? Why are these ‘compassionate, progressive’ Liberals so eager to slander these people as barbaric? Only when convenient, when it suits their agenda, do they see need to be compassionate and fair. The hypocrisy overwhelms me, and yet the public perception seems to be backwards.
Springer moves on to guide the listener to see the fallacy of the US thinking they could stop all middle-eastern conflict and disarm the centuries old feuds there. In doing so, he blatantly misleads us, and begins the rewriting/reinterpretation I mentioned earlier. President Bush and other leaders never said the conflict in Iraq would solve or disarm any middle-east conflict. Rather, our nation attacked Iraq because the regime posed a threat to the region—potentially the entire world, and harbored and funded terrorist groups. That’s not to say Iraq sponsored 9/11, something else President Bush never said, and the media has given up trying to assert.
Springer’s blatant dishonesty really bothers me. I simply can’t understand how someone so apparently intelligent can be so deceiving—no-one since the Liberal’s own Joseph Goebbel’s, Michael Moore, have I seen someone so genuinely concerned with intentional deception, and rewarded for it.
To Jerry and everyone else demanding Iraq be abandoned, I ask you to stand up and live for the compassion you support, and stop lying. Lying and mistakes differ in knowledge and intent. I believe President Bush, along with many world-leaders, were mistaken about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—but to say that President Bush lied is beyond presumptuous and duplicitous.
Something that has been troubling me lately is the message of Jerry Springer’s radio program. While I won’t ever hinder him from attempting to make his opinions known, I do take issue with his attempts to reinterpret history. I say reinterpret because I don’t want to sound like I’m recycling the ‘rewriting history’ sentiment parroted by many Republicans, but that more nearly means what I intend.
Springer’s show promo, currently airing on WTAM and his other affiliate stations, call the audience to “think about it,” ‘it’ being the war in Iraq. The language use says a lot to me. ‘It,’ neuter, indefinite pronoun with the ability to reference anything, only represents the war in Iraq in this context. Not that I want to say the war is unimportant, but Springer’s language indicates is an all consuming concern with the war—one that I think is particularly unhealthy. I understand concern and caring for our troops, but I’ve never gotten the feeling from hearing Springer speak of or to military personnel on the program that his concern is genuine, and not a tool to draw attention away from blatantly undermining the administration. Yet, the all-consuming aspect of this leads me to believe he has lost his sense of what is really important.
This is echoed in the remainder of the Springer promo. Springer points out that the middle-east is an area where people have been “beating each other up for thousands of years” and there is a “tribal mentality.” The language here is equally perplexing. Springer seems to want to minimize the gravity of the conflict—they aren’t merely beating each other up—one odes not ‘beat’ with suicide bombers. These are intensely passionate, zealous people—in no way deserving the label of ‘tribal,’ which portrays modern people as Neanderthals. Where is the concern and regard for the Iraqis and other middle-easterners? Why are these ‘compassionate, progressive’ Liberals so eager to slander these people as barbaric? Only when convenient, when it suits their agenda, do they see need to be compassionate and fair. The hypocrisy overwhelms me, and yet the public perception seems to be backwards.
Springer moves on to guide the listener to see the fallacy of the US thinking they could stop all middle-eastern conflict and disarm the centuries old feuds there. In doing so, he blatantly misleads us, and begins the rewriting/reinterpretation I mentioned earlier. President Bush and other leaders never said the conflict in Iraq would solve or disarm any middle-east conflict. Rather, our nation attacked Iraq because the regime posed a threat to the region—potentially the entire world, and harbored and funded terrorist groups. That’s not to say Iraq sponsored 9/11, something else President Bush never said, and the media has given up trying to assert.
Springer’s blatant dishonesty really bothers me. I simply can’t understand how someone so apparently intelligent can be so deceiving—no-one since the Liberal’s own Joseph Goebbel’s, Michael Moore, have I seen someone so genuinely concerned with intentional deception, and rewarded for it.
To Jerry and everyone else demanding Iraq be abandoned, I ask you to stand up and live for the compassion you support, and stop lying. Lying and mistakes differ in knowledge and intent. I believe President Bush, along with many world-leaders, were mistaken about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—but to say that President Bush lied is beyond presumptuous and duplicitous.
posted by Hickmania at
7:35 PM
1 Comments:
Hmmm.... two major comments. The first about the 'tribal mentality'. I think you might be reading too much into it, but I also think that Springer is causing that to happen. You see, there is nothing technically wrong with what he said. The problem is that the inference that naturally follows from that statement is incorrect. I'm sure this isn't a simple mistake, but rather somewhat calculated.
Let me explain more. The tribal aspect is pretty well known; not tribal in a primitive sense, but rather in an ethnic sense. Those divisions run much deeper and are much stronger than any ties toward a national identity. This is a major part of why nation building in the Middle East is so difficult. It would be like taking Ireland and England and trying to make one country out of it. You could do it politically, but you'd have Irish and English, not Irenglish (or Engrish?). Pretty much the same reason you can't unite the liberals for any length of time. They all have their allegiances elsewhere.
The issue now becomes that in the vernacular 'tribal' implies primitive. While tribal is the proper adjective because they are organized into tribes, the implication of primitive is not correct. I think Springer is intelligent enough to realize this, so I still put the bulk of the fault with him.
I do agree with Springer being stupid about the US trying to end the Middle East conflicts. Of all the reasons brought up for the war, this was never given that I ever heard. Frankly, I hadn't heard of that before today, so whatever. Sounds stupid to me. Since he's the only one saying it, that I know of, I wouldn't give it any credence.
I'd also like to point out that while the President may have never implicated Iraq in 9/11, his VP certainly did. I'd have to dig up the quote, but I had a clip of some news show where Cheny was confronted with him saying Iraq was responsible. I don't remember his response, but essentially he denied having said it, then they showed a clip of him on the same show a year earlier and him saying they were responsible. So, while the President didn't say it, he's the one in charge so he's still responsible for his VP saying it.
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