Upton Sinclair noted that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it”. Television pundits have recently been proving his point brilliantly. There are very clearly areas of thought and speculation which are verboten for anyone on the airwaves, owned and operated largely by military contractors, to enter. If someone brings up one of these
"outside the bubble” ideas on their show, these gelded TV personalities can be seen to freeze and blink vacantly, suffering from the rapid onset of a lacuna of thought brought on by contemplating where such a discussion might lead. I call this phenomenon Career-Protection-Induced Temporary Amnesia/Lobotomy, or CaPITAL for short. Appropriately enough, many sufferers of CaPITAL work inside the beltway, where the chatter of Washington DC cocktail parties informs their sense of boundaries for what may or may not be spoken of in “polite” company.
CaPITAL is most noticeable by the viewing audience when someone says something on a television show that is patently true on its face, yet the host of the show fails to be able to grasp the blindingly obvious because they are not allowed to. Some examples:
1)
Chris Matthews interviews anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. He asks her to answer the unfathomable: “Why do you think President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, the other hawks in this administration, why do you think they took us to war?” By now, the answer to that is obvious. The benefits of this war are fourfold: control of Iraq’s oil, regional hegemony in the Middle East, domestic political control (as you shout down your opponents by reminding them that we are “at war”), and war profiteering by the military industrial complex. Sheehan gives a great, cogent answer which touches on most of these points, ending with “It’s for the war profiteers and that’s why wars are usually waged.” Matthews is suddenly afflicted with CaPITAL. His face goes blank, he starts blinking rapidly, and his eyes start shifting left and right as he searches for a way to pretend she isn’t exactly right. “You believe that this was . . . this war was fought, because people in the Whitehouse decided to make some money for their pals in business – you really believe that?” Chris stammers out.
2) It is obvious to the least conspiracy-minded among us that Bush commuted Libby’s prison sentence to buy his cooperation in protecting Cheney and Bush. They were both complicit in creating the conspiracy to out Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA agent. Just as Bush’s father pardoned Weinberger when Cap made it clear that he wouldn’t spend one day in jail to protect Poppy’s ass in the Iran Contra investigations, Bush commuted Libby’s sentence to keep him quiet. In
this discussion between George Stephanopoulos and John Conyers, when Conyers states the obvious, Steph needs to stop Conyers and have him clarify what he is saying, in an incredulous voice with a dumb, blank, CaPITAL-stricken look on his face, as if he can’t believe anyone would think this way.
CONYERS: But what we have here — and I think we should put it on the table right at the beginning — is that the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House, and that there was some kind of relationship here that does not exist in any of President Clinton’s pardons, nor, according to those that we’ve talked to — and this is why we’re doing the hearings — is that it’s never existed before, ever.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So it’s really…
CONYERS: We’ve never had…
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me stop you there, because you seem to be suggesting that President Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence in order to keep him quiet.
3)
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/12/giuliani-firefighters-gold/">Chris Matthews again, this time interviewing a representative from the International Association of Firefighters, an organization which is extremely pissed off at Rudy Giuliani. They claim that they were allowed to search for the remains of their co-workers in the debris pile after 9/11 only until $230 in gold and silver from the Bank of Nova Scotia was recovered from Ground Zero. The following day, again according to the firefighters, recovery efforts were abandoned. Now, emotions were running high at Ground Zero. Certainly recovery efforts did have to end at some point, at the very least with regard to the health of the survivors. But if the timing did happen this way, it certainly makes it appear that Giuliani was only letting the firefighters dig through the rubble until they recovered the precious metals, and that that was what was important to him. Matthews, who has a huge man-crush on Giuliani because he perceives the bald, lisping, Nosferatu-visaged politician as tough, a real “street fighter”, cannot grasp what the man is saying. CaPITAL strikes him again and again, as he repeatedly asks “What do you mean, I don’t get this. What is the connection between finding $200 million dollars in gold and stopping the search for bodies?” “Well, explain that because I can’t figure that connection out. What is the connection?” “Oooh oh, you’re saying he only kept the search going long enough to get the gold.” Yes, Chris, you CaPITAL-addled fool. That is what he’s saying.
Any more examples? :)
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