Leftpedal

“In a rare public appearance, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends the military’s practice of planting stories in the press — and called for a new U.S. agency for propaganda. “The internet is there, pods are there, talk radio is there, e-mails are there. There are all kinds of opportunities,” he says.”

Makes me think of his poetry.

Happenings, by Donald Rumsfeld

You’re going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don’t happen.

It doesn’t seem to bother people, they don’t—
It’s printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone’s so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story’s there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven’t happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn’t happened.
It’s going to happen.

-Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing