 |
truthaction.org
9/11 TRUTH NOW
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
TomT
Joined: 12 Jan 2008
Posts: 136
Location: NORTH TEXAS
|
 Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:09 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
Danse, I enjoyed reading this write-up.
| Danse wrote: | Interesting post. I think many would prefer these issues not be broached because they might cause antagonism between factions of the 911 truth movement, but ultimately the best way of reducing antagonism is to discuss this stuff openly and honestly.
Alex Jones often refers to a “fake left right paradigm”. I agree that a fake left/right paradigm exists in the form of the Dem/Repug parties. It’s not necessary that the donkey and elephant be identical – there are important differences when it comes to issues like abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, a willingness to grant small concessions to the working class and so forth – but overall you have two very similar animals.
On the major foreign policy issues the two parties are essentially the same. On issues of “free trade” – meaning corporate “rights” – the two parties are essentially the same. On the drug war and the prison industrial complex the two parties are essentially the same.
Polyarchy is more effective than brute dictatorship. This is why most of the world’s people are now permitted to engage in elections. The formal trappings of democracy are more effective than overt repudiation of democracy. Walter Lippman understood this. The “Manufacture of Consent” is more effective than the iron fist. Harold Laswell was more prophetic still: he argued that the manufacture of consent must be supplemented with the “scientific” application of violence.
It is disingenuous to talk of a “fake left/right paradigm” while simultaneously advocating the round-up of illegal immigrants (which would presumably include children), the building of “border walls”, the outlawing of abortion (which wouldn’t stop abortion, just make it less safe), of opposition to universal health care (because the gubmint would be involved) and so on.
There is a fake left/right paradigm but there is also a real left/right paradigm. Pretending otherwise isn’t going to solve anything. We should be debating these issues not pretending they don’t exist.
The right wing – be it the neocon drones or the more intelligent populist right – plays on patriotism to a significant degree.
But what is patriotism?
Mark Twain wrote that “My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.” Decades later, George Orwell came to a similar conclusion: that “Patriotism is a devotion to a certain place and people, contrary to nationalism which is inseparable from lust for power.”
It was really during WWI that the modern form of American “patriotism” became dominant. Numerous “Patriotic” organizations sprang up to spy on peace activists, immigrants and labor organizers. They supported war with a vengeance. The most successful of these groups was the Ku Klux Klan.
In fact, the Creel Committee basically created the idea of the modern “American”.
Creel estimated that 72 million copies of thirty different booklets about American ideals were sent across the United States, with millions more sent abroad. In addition to influencing the minds of Europeans, the goal was to redefine for the home population the very concept of what it meant to be “American”. The new American would not interpret reality from what Creel called “a class or sectional standpoint”, but rather as a unified collective. In this manner, the new American could be herded into “one white hot mass instinct”.
When Alex Jones talks of “patriotism” he isn’t talking about supporting war or spying on neighbors, quite the opposite. The modern populist right conceives of patriotism as support for the founding institutions of the American state. Obviously this is far better than the pseudo-patriotism of the neocons or the Klan, but it is also problematic in that (excepting Jefferson) the founding fathers were fierce opponents of democracy. At its heart, the patriotism of the conservative is still fundamentally authoritarian. The “masses” cannot be permitted to take part in the decision making process, otherwise “property rights” might be infringed upon. It is never discussed why some people have the “right” to obscene wealth; the arrangement is portrayed as a “natural” phenomenon and a product of meritocracy. That great wealth negates the property rights of the many is not mentioned. Wage labor is not acknowledged as a form of perpetual property theft born of coercion.
Most of the populist right describe themselves as “libertarians”. But what does this mean?
“The French communist-anarchist Joseph Déjacque was the first to employ the term libertarian in a political sense in May 1857, in an 11-page pamphlet De l'Etre Humain mâle et femelle (Concerning the Human Male and Female), an open letter criticizing Pierre-Joseph Proudhon published while its author was in exile in New Orleans. From 1858 until his return to France in 1861 Déjacque published in New York a journal called Le Libertaire: Journal du Mouvement Social. According to the anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the first use of the term libertarian communism was in November 1880, when a French anarchist congress employed it to more clearly identify its doctrines. The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure, later founder and editor of the four-volume Anarchist Encyclopedia, started the weekly paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895”
So “Libertarian” was originally used to describe the difference between authoritarian socialists and socialists who rejected centralized power. In this sense the American “libertarian” is far more “Marxist” than he or she would like to admit. “Libertarians” advocate centralized power as a crucial component of an orderly society. Often, they insist that this power must be “limited” and the government kept “small”, but the very nature of elitism and centralized power is to create more elitism and centralized power.
--
Concerning the passages quoted by Diane, I’m troubled by the ubiquitous use of the term “conspiracy theory”. By now, we should all be aware that “conspiracy theory” is essentially a propaganda term.
The problem is that there ARE kooky conspiracy theories, mostly of the macro variety. In their cowardice, many on the left have conflated real or obvious conspiracies (and their important relationship to the class structure) with mega conspiracies involving Jews, the “illuminati”, Satanists and so forth.
In fact, the two modes of “conspiratorial” analysis have very little in common. You don’t hear Peter Dale Scott talking about the Knights of Malta – he talks about real, proven conspiracies created by known institutions which have major effects in terms of “social engineering”.
Macro conspiracy theories are essentially a means of passing the buck. It’s not that there’s something wrong with the institutions of the state, they’ve just been hijacked by “Satanists” or “globalists” or what have you. Frequently, the 18th and 19th centuries are portrayed as the Halcyon days. So Aaron Russo “America was a free country before the founding of the Federal Reserve”. Really? Because to my understanding, child labor, 18 hour work days and mass killing of strikers does not constitute “freedom”.
--
Aside from the flippant use of “conspiracy theory”, there are other problems with the quoted passages in the original post. Home schooling is denigrated, as is “anti-tax” activity. I think both of these tendencies are perfectly healthy. Mandatory public “education” was introduced to prepare children for life in mass industrial society (see John Taylor Gatto’s work on the subject), while taxes are used to fund the war machine.
I’m also uncomfortable with the maligning of Christianity. I’m not a Christian, but I see no reason why Christianity has to express itself in the form of hatred, chauvinism and violence.
One other thing: to Alex Jones' credit, he sometimes suggests his listeners read the anti-Federalist papers. He should do this far more often, and stop lionizing the slave-holding scoundrels who established the American state.
The Anti-Federalists were frighteningly prophetic:
“The natural Course of Power is to make the many Slaves to the few”, one anti-Federalist wrote. Another objected to the new government because “the bulk of the people can have nothing to say to it. The government is not a government of the people.” The “men of Fortune” would not feel for the “Common People.” An “aristocratical tyranny” would arise, in which “the great will struggle for power, honor and wealth, the poor become a prey to avarice, insolence, and oppression.” “In short, my fellow citizens, it can be said to be nothing less than a hasty stride to Universal Empire.”
--
Overall, however, I agree with much of Diane’s post. To me, the frightening thing is the possibility of a right populist revolution. It happened in Italy. It happened in Germany. And it can happen in the United States.
Since the 1980s, a new set of theories about fascism has gained attention in academia. These include the work of Roger Griffin (fascism as a right-wing populist movement calling for heroic rebirth — palingenesis) and Emilio Gentile (the sacralization of politics). According to Griffin:
"Fascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence”. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Scott N
Joined: 24 Jul 2007
Posts: 1525
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Danse, I enjoyed reading this write-up. |
Thanks. I enjoyed writing it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
