Catholic Ragemonkey

Ragemonkey Red Alert! Misdirection and the Coming of 1984

This is exactly the moment to whip out my whirling spin-kick of charity and combo it with my fury swipe of justice. Ideas and observations are not abstract unreal things. They carry immense power in their wake and the fact Newsweek ran this story which proved one, untrue and two, destructive to the common good only demonstrates my point. Words on a screen, words on a page are real and are meant to convey real things. When you toy with them you toy with dangerous things indeed.

Now, as I don my Boots of Come-Uppance Rending +2, I contemplate what should happen to Newsweek. "We're Sorry," isn't going to cut it. Mansfield Fox needs to open his grab bag of legal knowledge and suggest some ideas. Given the response and the damage caused by the article, wouldn't Afghanistan be justified in charging the editors at Newsweek with treason or some such thing? After all, the reckless of act of not checking your facts, and running with Hearst's scissors in your hand, fashioning mountains out of pure imaginative vapor, have resulted in the undermining of their country. Isn't that treason? Further, what about a tasty cup of libel thrown in by our own government? Point being, heads had better be prepared to roll at Newsweek. If they don't, I can't see how anyone could take that news mag seriously anymore.

As I write these words I fully understand the irony. My words are strong, perhaps excessively so. I place the words for your consideration. I might be simply angry and feeling powerless over the reckless way some people play with the lives and emotions and safety of others. But I also take responsibility for them. That's why there is a comments box. When news companies feel this free to massage the news, we aren't too far from Big Brother. The only switch will be that those who sought to defend our freedom and protect us from the aggressor will be the aggressors themselves.