Brutally Honest Rant - 09/27/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: All Truths Are Inconvenient
Audio Transcripts
09/27/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Former Vice-President Al Gore is a movie star.

Well I suppose if the commentators on TV and radio can call themselves "broadcast journalists", then Al Gore can call himself a movie star.

Anyway, Al Gore has a movie out called "An Inconvenient Truth" where he paints a rather bleak picture of the Earth and its environment. He believes that we’re basically killing our own ecosystem, and that this is something that we refuse to see because it just doesn’t fit into the bright and sunny future that we’re being sold on.

Well first of all, hate to burst Robobore’s bubble… but most of us don’t HAVE a bright and sunny future to believe in. Our current political climate is sorta-kinda fixated on the here and now. We can’t really look at the future if we can’t even look at what’s going to happen next week or next month, never mind in our next generation.

You know, that’s why a lot of us aren’t even fazed by news of ballooning budget deficits! It doesn’t matter to us because that doesn’t affect us in the here and now! That’s something that our next generation will have to deal with… preferably AFTER we all die so they can’t thrash us to death for doing it.

And that’s presuming that there’s even a tomorrow to begin with! Remember all of those folks who believe that we are just a nuclear bomb away from the Apocalypse? People who believe that they will be dead tomorrow do not make plans for following week.

Even I have warned people about dire futures if we don’t make some reasonable changes to the status quo. And my arguments were all based on social and economic concerns, not environmental!

Now folks, in all honesty, I haven’t seen Al Gore’s movie, nor do I have any plans on doing so. Quite frankly, we’ve heard the arguments over and over again. And if Al Gore’s version of the message just isn’t your cup of tea, then go rent "The Day After Tomorrow"; or check out some of the apocalyptic buffets of fear that were cranked out by NBC, ABC, and the Sci-Fi Channel; or search the $1.95 trash bin for those two piece-of-crap "Category 6" storm movies done by CBS. Either way, you’ll get the message hammered in.

But I use Al Gore’s documentary as an example of something a little more profound about truths and our ability to either accept or deny them.

You see, folks, even if everything Al Gore says about the environment is true… and I’m not saying that it is… there are still going to be a lot of folks who simply will not accept it, because it just doesn’t fit into their ultimate scheme of things.

Think for a moment about a man named Copernicus… staring into the heavens using a little device called a telescope. He comes across this little bit of truth… that the Earth is NOT the center of the universe. It’s simply orbiting around our sun. No big deal, right? Except that this little nugget of truth goes against established dogma. So for many years, the people who followed Copernicus, including guys like Galielo, were accused of heresy. Why? Because they accepted a simple little truth about the Earth, and the people with all of the power didn’t.

In fact, for CENTURIES afterwards, SCIENCE was intentionally, deliberately, maliciously, and systematically demonized by religion! If the conclusions didn’t wholeheartedly support what THEY believe to be true, then it was instantly condemned as heresy. It wasn’t just astronomy either. A guy by the name of Charles Darwin makes some observations about plants and he’s accused of heresy. Come up with a theory of how things happened or how old the Earth REALLY is, and you’re accused of heresy because that theory doesn’t match the literal interpretation of any given religion.

And it’s not just science and religion. It’s pretty much ANY kind of study or report that comes out.

I give you two studies. Both were conducted by the federal government at the behest of the Attorney General of the time. The first was a comprehensive study conducted by a variety of social experts. The second was a study conducted by people who already had preconceived notions on the subject matter and focused primarily on the most extreme portions of the subject matter. The first study concluded that there was NO LINK between pornography and violent crime. The second study – which focused primarily on extreme material - concluded that there was an ABSOLUTE LINK between pornography and violent crime. The federal government REJECTED the first study in 1972, but they EMBRACED the second study done in 1984.

Why? Why was the first study immediately rejected but the second one was treated as gospel? Because the second study gave the government precisely the conclusions that they WANTED. They needed an excuse to justify their moralistic crusade, and they couldn’t take any chances like they did in 1972. So they stacked the deck with self-professed "experts" and they examined the most depraved and extreme of situations just so they can come up with the right conclusions.

So now there’s a NEW study from Northwestern University that suggests that there is a relation between the reported drop of sexual assaults and the rise of online activity in the 1990’s, and suggesting that the rise in online activity also means a greater availability of sexual material. In other words, this study is suggesting – but not concluding – that porn is actually DECREASING crime, not causing it!

By the way, the person behind this study was also involved in the original 1972 study.

But you know what? Even if there was IRON CLAD PROOF and having reports coming out of our EARS to back up this kind of a study, the same gang of moralists, theocrats, and other freedom-haters will still REFUSE to admit this kind of evidence even EXISTS! You know why? Because it just doesn’t fit into their grand scheme of things.

Let’s get brutally honest here… ALL truths are inconvenient! All facts and little nuggets of information, if they are real and genuine, don’t come in through any set timetable or fit any set schedule.

In fact I believe that we should be EXTREMELY skeptical about ANY kind of news story that seems even the least bit timely. Anything that seems to come out at JUST the right time should be damned suspicious, no matter if it’s the "Swift Boat Veterans" story, or the Bush National Guard fiasco, or the recent intelligence reports on terrorism, or even your local news story.

How many times have you heard of a local SHOCKING news report that comes out and then RIGHT at the end of it the reporter bringing you this "BREAKING STORY" announces that there is some sort of government program just WAITING to be enacted? Guess what? Odds are, that story was either sitting around waiting for the government program, or it was crafted FOR that government program. Either way, its impartiality – and its accuracy - are questionable.

(Computer – something appropriate)
(Fade Music In – "Impend" by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

You know, to some extent we are ALL guilty of selectively refusing to recognize certain elements of reality. For some of us it’s a matter of vanity. It may be a matter of keeping a friendship or of preserving a relationship.

But for some of us, the reasons behind our selective delusions are for the worst of all motivations… to maintain power and control over others. THESE are the people in desperate need of a reality check. These are the people for whom we need to expose all of their warts and all of their faults and turn their power into a delusion. Then they can be delusional to their hearts content… and not pose a threat to anyone in the process.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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