political spin crash lands

If it were anywhere but America, this would be unbelievable. A couple choice juxtapositions.

First, when you read this:

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, who heads the committee and who has called the situation "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, is scheduled to hold a hearing April 3 to ask why the airline may have allegedly put its passengers in danger.

that's the editor talking, not your brain. Whither journalistic ethics? Whose interest is CNN trying to protect with that phrasing? Its own. The lawyers probably said you have to avoid making a claim, even though saying "put its passengers in danger" is an accurate description, seeing as how the laws are there to minimize the risk, and in this instance Southwest's negligence increased that risk. That's called "the truth" and what the journalists are doing is increasing the distance between you and it.

For those of you for whom English is a first and only language, another word for "risk" is "danger." The business-savvy right-wing media doesn't want to scare you about your potential death due to corporate negligence (it's too busy pushing ethnic stereotypes. 2 black guys, 1 white girl, and no cups in sight. I mean, you don't even have to say 'rape' and the idea of them going necro appears in more than half of white Amerikaz minds).

Anyway, back to the business of manufacturing consent (in this case, apathy toward your mortality, as opposed to that of the self-serving, self-perpetuating military-industrial-congressional complex (which also happens to be heavily invested in journalism). See, the word "risk" sounds like a financial term, it's been depleted of its more visceral connotations by the false fortunes of the stock market, which people already don't understand, so the ambiguity of that word is compounded by the syntactical obfuscation of the preceding sentence fragment.

So if you're a media-savvy CEO being lightly grilled by an incompetent, unethical journalist, take notes:

"We were surprised yesterday to get that notification by the FAA as well. The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported as late as last month the FAA said that it had no safety issues with Southwest Airlines."

You get that? Yesterday, a newspaper, in no way connected to the aviation industry (and now owned by safety guru Rupert Murdoch) reported that "a month ago" (also known as: before these safety violations were made public), the FAA said something noncommittal about Southwest Airlines ... (he said, she said, but the WSJ said it was safe!). So if the planes crash, are families going to seek damages from the WSJ for libel, for creating a false impression of safety? Idiots.

This is the equivalent of George Bush standing at Ground Zero and saying "this site is safe because I read last week in my briefing that the CIA did not consider the WTC at serious risk from terrorists."

Yes, I realize that some people without glazed-over sheep-eyes (unfortunately not enough) might pick up on such bullshit, but if they say anything they'll be labeled liberal commies and they'll give up b/c it's just some paperwork regarding some perfunctory air safety check, and those checks are so burdensome in these hard times, with airlines struggling to find extra losses from which to pay executives' their undeserved bonuses. Really, I know 113 people who'd disagree with such sentiments, if they were alive to share them. All it takes is a small bit of passion, combined with awareness.

It is in no way outrageous to be outraged by Southwest's negligence.