Categories: In the News

My United States of Whatever

I concur with these lines atrributed to Einstein: “Science without

religion is lame; religion without science is blind”. I also think that

if you were to replace “science” with “reason” and “religion” with

“faith”, the aphorism would still be applicable. With that in mind,

consider this excerpt from the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s article, Without a Doubt:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that

the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications

director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.

He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me

something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now

believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the

reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe

that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible

reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment

principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the

world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and

when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that

reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other

new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort

out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to

just study what we do.”

The arrogance (“We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to

just study what we do.” — smacks of Denzel’s “King Kong ain’t got nuthin’ on me!” from Training Day, doesn’t it?) and the sheer insanity (“Reality-based

community?”) sounds more like satirical dialogue written by a

first-year Political Science student trying to be funny in the school

paper than something a grown mental-problem-free adult would say.

If you’ve read 1984,

the “we create reality” line will  sound familiar. In a scene

which takes place after it is revelead that O’Brien is actually working

for the Party, not agaist it, O’Brien brags about how reality is

whatever the party declares it is.

Let me state for the record that I am a proud member of the reality-based community. Maybe a web button is called for…


From the American Spectator:

Whine whine whine Jon Stewart whine whine whine.

Whine whine whine Atkins Diet whine whine whine.


The Guardian

turns into Slashdot for politics! Uhm, guys, it’s called “trolling”. Or, prior to the internet, “baiting”.

And finally, for your listening pleasure, the George W. Bush version of Liam Lynch’s United States of Whatever [1.3 MB MP3]


“Whatever!”

Joey deVilla

View Comments

  • I lost my respect for Atkins when I read on a message board, "eat low carb white bread instead of whole grain, it has less carbs."

  • Arrogant and insane just about sums it up. It's one thing to say "we're powerful, so what we do is important", but it's kind of crazy to think those things actually alter the nature of reality.

    And hearing "Empire" and "reality" juxtaposed so closely makes me think of Phillip K. Dick: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." and the "The Empire Never Ended" schtick from his weird visions.

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