On Jean Baudrillard, Lewis Black, and the cat who had enough

In a previous post I have already connected one of Jean Baudrillard's ideas in his Simulacra and Simulation to what may happen to sets in mathematics. Just a few weeks ago I was reminded again of his treatise by Mr Lewis Black's show titled Red, White and Screwed.

One of the suggestions Baudrillard makes is that there are no longer facts, just interpretations of facts. There might be, for example, a leftish and a rightish interpretation of an event. What's worse, the interpretation of one side might be re-interpreted by the other, turning it against their opponents, creating an endless chain of reinterpretations. Consider, for example, the following scenario:

1. A member of party 'A' receives a suspicious envelope
   
2. Party 'A' claims it was party 'B' who sent the envelope
   
3. Party 'B' claims it was, in reality, party 'A', sending the envelope to themselves in order to discredit party 'B' and boost their own public support
   
4. Party 'A' suggests that ultimately, party 'B' is responsible; they sent the envelope in order to be able to accuse them of sending the envelope to themselves just to accuse party 'B' of the attack
   
5. ...

(See, for example, the Kosice attack for such an event in WWII.)

And here comes Lewis Black, who, on the grounds of common sense, would like to free us from this never-ending cycle. On the controversy over the footage showing President Bush being informed in advance of the possible consequences of Hurricane Katrina (see the BBC article), and the claim that the President was not informed, Mr Black says,

There has to come a point where Democrats and Republicans, when [they] see a piece of footage, [...] just agree on what the f**k reality is. [T]he fact is, you cannot show video of a Land Rover running over a cat, and then say: the cat was trying to kill himself.

Let us hope that one can't.