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Looks like Matt Lee smells bullshit again.
One of the head-scratchers that I’ve been confronting over the past two years of COVID-19 is the sudden propensity of previously skeptical folks to insist that we have to take the U.S. government at its word on everything from the origins of the pandemic to the effectiveness of masks and vaccines.
***Obligatory note: I am vaccinated and boosted. I think it’s the smart play. I’ve dodged catching the Rona despite multiple close contacts, and the friends and loved ones who have caught it and are vaccinated have fared well. I’ve known some unvaccinated folks who died from it. I think people should get the jab, but I don’t believe they should be forced to do so.***
What many of these folks once knew and seem to have forgotten or chosen to shove down the memory hole is that the U.S. Government is an elite-level purveyor of misinformation and disinformation, and has been for generations. From the Gulf of Tonkin Incident to WMD in Iraq to the stability of Afghanistan, the U.S. Government has straight up lied to the American people over and over and over again.
Now it seems that the “you’re gonna have to trust us on that” and “take our word for it or you’re a terrorist sympathizer/Russian stooge” technique is failing to work. The U.S. Government peddled the story last week that Russia was going to drop a graphic video that would serve as a pretext for invasion of Ukraine. Now, that may be true. It certainly fits the Soviet/Russian playbook. But an AP reporter, perhaps remembering how a compliant press helped Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and that cabal gin up a causus belli for the invasion of Iraq, did his job and asked a State Department briefer for, y’know, some evidence. Roll the tape.
Ned Price actually offered up a transcript of his remarks as evidence to support his remarks. AP’s Matt Lee pointed out that, um…
“That’s not evidence, Ned. That’s you saying it. That’s not evidence, I’m sorry.”
Gosh, why would anybody doubt the credibility of the U.S. Government and the British government? It’s not like they’ve served up a “slam dunk” case for existential threats that turned out to be BS, after all. Have they? When you’ve got a track record of lying, condescending obfuscation and utter lack of accountability, you’ve sacrificed the right to ask anybody to take you at your word.
I am not a Grover Norquist “shrink government till you can drown it in the bathtub” radical. I believe that the Federal Government has a vital role to play in modern life. We need it to function well — and one of the ways to ensure that it functions well is to call BS when it’s purveying BS, to demand accountability for failure, and to insist that government stay in its lane. As my friend Erik Dolson points out, robust government is necessary to check the leviathan power of corporations, but it is a lousy substitute for family and congregation.
A healthy skepticism is always the right stance. It’s a wonderful thing that Matt Lee’s joust with that State Department dweeb went viral. More of this please.
Expat says
Certainly the Tuskegee Study is a great example of the American government acting in the best health interests of its own people. 😉
Ouch. Yes, right?
Jim says
Love the clip except it infuriated me to watch.
Socrates is human, I said socrates is human, therefore Socrates is human.
I would expect a little more savviness though from the feds.
My 10 year old uses that logic.
The window broke, I threw the rock, I don’t know how it broke!
And the smirk to go with it.
tom says
as far as the pandemic all the weenies that won’t get jabbed need a good taste of the nation “drafting” citizens to get jabbed for the good of the herd! i look on the vaccination as doing a good civic duty. ( moreso than getting drafted and doing a tour in the field artillery in vietnam!) i don’t think it is too much for the nation to sometime impose a compliance in the case of a pandemic? put another way, as i heard “we created stop signs for the safety of the public”, why not compare the jab with a stop sign?! disclaimer: i am a lifetime registered republican
Jim says
I think that view starts to lose steam when….the government lies about its origin, lies about the purity of a vaccine, changes the definition of vaccinated when the vaccine poops out, calls dumbass protesting trespassers in DC insurrectionists but calls rioters and arsonists peaceful or justified protesters. Tells athletes to toe the line in China but excuses that regime as long as they still produce our Apple phones and fuzzy dice. Excusing illegal aliens from vaccinations while flying them overnight to secreted locations but demanding 3 year olds to mask up or be expelled from preschool.
That government? Let me think on that…
Expat says
Aside from the political window dressings which only serve to obscure the real driving force behind everything the government does — its all about the money.
Pat McGowan says
There’s a lot to unpack in the comment above. I certainly have been pro vaccine, because as a school teacher and having the Experience of working all the way through this pandemic, I was willing to do whatever was offered to lessen my chance of infection. Even as you astutely pointed out years ago, I work for one of the most dysfunctional bureaucracies going. I do believe people should have gotten it and still do. I was curious what you mean by Dumbass protesting trespassers, because to me, my friend, that day could have gone more south that we have any idea, along with murders of police, they could have staged a coup. On one hand that may seem like hyperbole, but wasn’t it a turn down the wrong street that started a world war? I may be reading it wrong and you may be saying they ALL should be called insurrectionists, arsonists, and rioters, but that’s not what you wrote.
Jim says
I would never suggest the Jan 6 rioters were blameless rubes for their behavior but looking at the totality of events it’s a pretty long leap to insurrection.
Years in Federal prison for convictions or at least a year in pre-trial confinement. Individuals like the Qanon Shaman have become a face of that mighty attack. Really? Sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk with your feet up and you are a member of the Munich Olympics Black September organization.
Watching the video you can’t help but notice the cops loitering about giving off the appearance of armed docents answering questions. Even the supposed attacker, Ashli Babbit is chatting with cops at the same location and with the same insurrectionists that we’re there 5 minutes later when she was killed. What changed?
So many questions remain. Why was security comparatively light. Why and how were the Columbus Doors opened when it required an electronic code from the inside.
Personally I think the Democrats were more than happy leave the situation tenuous to lure these Trump rubes to act up. They certainly got more than expected and it has paid dividends.
While there are always plenty of potentially bad people and stuff happens but by and large this was a protest turned potentially violent. But “insurrection? …no way.
Ex-Sisters says
Great article. You say it as it is
The real thing.
Ugly Hombre says
I got the jabs, seemed the prudent thing to do as a ancient Orf.. I told a cute yoga girl at the gym tonight, where I was doing my lofan oldster Tai Chi ‑that my pants were older than her..
That was not disinformation. lol
The mandate’s for the jabs are un ‑constitutional imo,– up to you if you want to take the risknand turn them down. if I was a young guy they would have had to hold me down to give it to me. “What you do is up to you”- (as they say in Thailand).
The government has always lied, but in the past they kept it so it was plausibly believable, the media has always lied too covered up Stalins and that bastard Adolf’s evil capers, Lenin was not a bad guy etc etc et al,
But the new Democrat jackass’s have kicked the stall doors off the fib factory and along with their henchmen and minions in the media, the main stream news organizations etc. there is no limit, to the crazy Mule Chit that they will disperse.
You can’t keep track of it.
America is racist- Mule Chit
America is a evil country- Mule Chit
Trump Is a Russian Agent- Mule Chit
The military is full of Nazis and racist’s- Mule Chit
Biden will unite the country- Mule Chit
Humper’s laptop from hell was a Russian plot- Mule Chit
Biden will shut down the virus- Mule Chit
The Chinese who they say eat any thing that flies except a air plane, and anything with four legs except a table- started the Wuhan virus by eating bats and anteaters- Mule Chit
You won’t get the Chicom virus- if you get the vaccines- Mule Chit
The border is secure-Mule Chit.
Afgan. will not fall- Mule Chit. It was a success- Mule Chit
That diaper on your face will stop the Rona- Mule Chit.
January 6th was a deadly insurrection worse than the civil war- massive Mule-Chit
The BLM Antifa nation wide riots were “mostly peaceful- a truckload of Mule Chit
“Its a epidemic of the un vaccinated” more Mule- Chit
And so on… you get the idea.
There is no end to the Mule Chit, they never stop and even when its proven to be Mule Chit they just smirk and tell another whopper.
I am astounded at the gullibility of the American people- really is amazing, a kind of mass brain washing has taken place. But it seems there is a limit to the blatant in your face lies that Yankees will swallow. Have to wait and see.
November is closing fast.
Patrick McGowan says
I should add that I love that true reporter grilling that mouthpiece. Gadflies unite.