In court recently Bradley Manning read a 35 page document detailing the reasons he released the lowly classified military information to Wikileaks. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights reports that his group is attempting to get this document released to the public.
Archive for the ‘American government’ Category
The Bradley Manning 35 page document
March 10, 2013On George W. Bush’s verbal affectation
December 11, 2008This is a reply to Myles Hoenig on Dissident Voice:
” Fool me once shame on you.
You fool me you can’t get fooled again.
– GWB
Spoken like the true idiot that he is. ”
No, spoken like an affectation.
This way of speaking by GWB is an affectation, occurring only in his recent years. GWB is a political monster and made the calculation that speaking in this way would be beneficial to the Neoconservative cause (by condescending to the American public and thus angering and depressing them).
It is a way for GWB to say: “See, this is what I think of how Americans speak”. The media got in on it, saying that GWB is trying to “talk like Americans do”. What an odd remark – I’ve never heard an American speak like GWB does, not even drunk ones.
By repeating calling GWB an “idiot”, Americans justify not doing anything about him. Him being an “idiot” is a substantial amount of the reason why GWB isn’t sitting in jail. Who’s the real idiot?
Modern US presidents are primarily PR spokespeople. Developing a condescending way to speak is (potentially) a very potent way of conducting the presidency. And since Americans were manipulated successfully, taking the bait and thus the hook of GWB being an “idiot”, we might as well take our hats off to a man who has gotten the best of us.
GWB did exactly what he wanted to do in office – help his cronies and buddies get richer, be re-elected for a second term, and get away with it scot free. He succeeded in all of this with flying colors. Yet somehow he’s the idiot?
So indeed, “Fool me once shame on you. You fool me you can’t get fooled again”.
Public Relations isn’t about speaking *clearly* or *articulately*, it’s about speaking *powerfully*. Americans fell into the trap GWB laid.
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