May 23, 2003
The Waking Dream
I'm driving home tonight and I scan around the radio and land on WQXR, The Radio Station of the New York Times (that hallowed institution). I heard a great piece by Dvorak that stopped me in my tracks so I left it on the station and then the music ended and they announced the news.And the typical, sleepy sounding announcer comes on, he sounds like Roy Rogers or something he's just so folksy, and he starts reciting the daily news and my temperature shoots up and keeps shooting higher. My heart is pounding, I'm gritting my teeth. I may strangle someone if someone accidentally touches me. The stuff they are saying! I can't take it.
He's telling me that the whole UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution granting the US and Britain power to rule Iraq. All these guys who were supposedly standing for principle against the phony, unjust war are all falling all over themselves to congratulate the US, to legitimize its invasion and occupation, to reward it in effect.
Okay, so I'm there now too. Screw Chirac. Screw Putin. Screw Schroeder. Those manipulative hypocrites. I won't, however, blame the people of those countries, who really did oppose the war. But these guys are garbagemen.
The announcer goes on to talk about how they are trying really hard to get Iraq's oil production flowing again so it can pay for the reconstruction of Iraq, which may take $800 billion, or whatever, and he's saying it as if there's nothing bogus about it at all. I can't take it. I can't leave a station like that playing.
It's like if I murdered my next door neighbor, destroyed his home and said I would have to steal his money to pay to fix up his apartment. Then I bring my brother-in-law over to do the clean-up and he gets paid those billions of dollars it's going to "cost."
But the Times reports this outrage as if there were nothing at all questionable about it. You have to have your head buried awfully deeply in the sand to just let all this go by as if it were not in flagrant violation of the most basic principles of law in the most rudimentary human civilization.
And the New York Times got all bent out of shape over this Jayson Blair character.