Anatomy of “We tortured some folks”
“…we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.” – President Barack Obama 8/1/14
I’ve had a few days to mull over those words since last Friday when our president made them at the conclusion of a briefing with reporters in the White House.
Now, As a salesman, I recognize that wonderful word “folks” sticking out like a swollen sore thumb.
It was about a year ago when a fellow salesman recommended that I start using the f-word during sales conversations. He would use the word when referring to the company he was calling with the expression, “…and I was wondering how you folks handle your [insert the service you are selling; marketing, staffing, I.T.].
He elaborated, “People are used to hearing “you folks” and “the folks” from Bill O’Reilly on Fox and it just kind of glides by without sounding confrontational.”
I swallowed my pride and tried it. It worked brilliantly. Fewer decision makers and secretaries (we affectionally call them, “gatekeepers”) hung up on me or became defensive on the phone. While it’s a primitive word it just feels all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t wanna be one of the folks? And while everybody may not collect folks music, everyone loves “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
And now I’m thinking about “folk music”…Wow, there are a million directions we could take this! Oblige me for a minute.
Consider how folk songs are often the delivery mechanism for extremely dark and terrifying subject matter. Take “You Are My Sunshine,” for example. If I were to ask you to rate that song on a ‘happiness scale’ of 1-10, 10 being extremely pleasant and happy, most of you would rate the song as being generally a happy song. Now, some of you actually know the lyrics. What could be darker than (?),
You told me once dear you really loved me
That no one else could come between
But now you’ve left me and love another
You have shattered all my dreams.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…
What about this “we” bit? “We tortured some folks.” This is the part that hit me this morning. How sick is that? Did you torture “some folks?”
O, I get it. This means that no one is going to be held accountable, right?
It’s somewhat impressive to see a post on this subject over at the leftist/socialist site DailyKos. They usually contort themselves into pretzels to defend their president:
…When were “us” consulted about this? When did “us” demand that “folks” get tortured? Didn’t “us” have some, um, laws about torture?
It seems to me that “us” weren’t in the loop. I don’t remember at any time a movement of “us” demanding that the US withdraw from the UN Convention on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Sanctimonious? Eat my shorts! Some of us “folks” are just asking you to do your job. Binding U.S. law requires prosecutions for those who authorize torture…
Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/04/1318895/-Dear-President-Obama-Eat-My-Sanctimonious-Shorts
Some more ‘folk music’ from the movie, “A Mighty Wind.”