Comments on: Freedom Rider: White America is Crazy for Obama http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/freedom-rider-white-america-is-crazy-for-obama/ a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:30:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Mulga Mumblebrain http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/freedom-rider-white-america-is-crazy-for-obama/#comment-13290 Mulga Mumblebrain Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:25:18 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/freedom-rider-white-america-is-crazy-for-obama/#comment-13290 I'm afraid Margaret Kimberley takes the whole sham of 'representative democracy' far too seriously. Every US presidential candidate has been vetted by the US's real rulers, the owners of society. In particular all candidates must pass the Zion test of unswerving, obsequious, allegiance to Israel. We don't want any little accidents like Jimmy Carter, or JFK and his opposition to Israeli nuclear ambitions ( a BIG mistake, as he learned)to upset the Holy State. All candidates will govern in the interests of the rich. The votes of millions will be as nought, as they supported the losing candidate, or perhaps, as in 2000, the votes of five dyed in the wool reactionaries will decide the contest. On the other hand, as in 2004, the whole process may well be rorted and the exit polls, normally unerring, and very useful in the Ukraine to support the Yankee candidates, will have to be dispensed with yet again. I myself voted once, in this land of compulsory voting, then, on witnessing the contempt of the Right for due process and basic decency as they tore down a mildly reformist social democratic Government, that of Whitlam, the coup de grace delivered by a notorious agent of US intelligence, Kerr, who Whitlam, against the advice of some of his Ministers, had appointed head of state, decided never to be involved in such a charade again. We now have the perfect system of capitalist democracy, mimicing the US pattern. Two near identical parties, whose mass membership, in the face of governmental indifference if not contempt, have shriveled, replaced by opportunists, generally of the preferred Rightwing type, seeking personal power. Corruption is rife, but now of an' a posteriori type' where political operatives, after a lifetime of faithful service to money power, retire, and become highly remunerated 'advisors', to those industries they once regulated. The media is a swamp of Rightwing prejudice, growing, in response to incessant neo-Darwinian pressures from the ruling classes, yet more shrill, yet more extreme by the day. Hatemongering is rife. On any day you can read denunciations of Moslems (every day in fact) unionists, environmentalists, gays, secularists, humanists, welfare recipients, mass higher education (it lowers the standards, don't you know, and lets in lots of mediocre Leftwingers) indigenous people (unless they've become Uncle and Aunty Toms)etc There are, on the other hand, various blessed categories of people. Israelis, naturally, at the forefront of 'the war on terror', Jews, so talented, but not those 'self-hating Jews' like Chomsky, Ilan Pappe, Uri Davis or Barenboim, Yanks, but just the rich ones and the beloved 'slebs' who ordain our magazines with spooky synchronicity. Public discourse and debate is dead. The Right, which deludes itself it won 'the battle of ideas', specialises in vituperation and character assassination, and, inevitably, lying. The use of the Big Lie was raised to the level of a cult under Howard, who earned the ironic sobriquet of 'Honest John' over twenty years ago, in mock tribute to his mendacity as Treasurer. The appellation was then appropriated, with admirable chutzpah, as a testimony to his absolutely non-existent truthfulness. The WMD lies, although they had the most delitirious results in direct destruction of innocent human life, were but one milestone in eleven years of enthusiastic untruthfulness. Howard's Climate Change Denialism, and his support for Bush in undermining Kyoto will have the greatest ill-effect eventually, but there were many others. Howard, like his fellow creatures wasting the time of the American public in the election farce, is the living embodiment of the culture of lying, so well described in 1937 by Aldous Huxley, whose observations are, I believe, even more pertinent today. 'Closely associated with the regression in charity is the decline in men's regard for the truth. At no period in the world's history has organised lying been practiced so shamelessly, or, thanks to modern technology, so efficiently or on so vast a scale....Most of this organised lying takes the form of propaganda inculcating hatred and vanity, and preparing men's minds for war, The principal aim of the liars is the eradication of charitable feelings and behaviour inthe sphere of international politics'. When I read those lines I am inevitably reminded of jaime and his fellows, the practitioners of hasbara, the eternal traducers of their victims. Quite how organised, fanatical, hatred inducing, lying can be overcome is, in my opinion, the central moral and existential problem of the day. I’m afraid Margaret Kimberley takes the whole sham of ‘representative democracy’ far too seriously. Every US presidential candidate has been vetted by the US’s real rulers, the owners of society. In particular all candidates must pass the Zion test of unswerving, obsequious, allegiance to Israel. We don’t want any little accidents like Jimmy Carter, or JFK and his opposition to Israeli nuclear ambitions ( a BIG mistake, as he learned)to upset the Holy State. All candidates will govern in the interests of the rich. The votes of millions will be as nought, as they supported the losing candidate, or perhaps, as in 2000, the votes of five dyed in the wool reactionaries will decide the contest. On the other hand, as in 2004, the whole process may well be rorted and the exit polls, normally unerring, and very useful in the Ukraine to support the Yankee candidates, will have to be dispensed with yet again. I myself voted once, in this land of compulsory voting, then, on witnessing the contempt of the Right for due process and basic decency as they tore down a mildly reformist social democratic Government, that of Whitlam, the coup de grace delivered by a notorious agent of US intelligence, Kerr, who Whitlam, against the advice of some of his Ministers, had appointed head of state, decided never to be involved in such a charade again. We now have the perfect system of capitalist democracy, mimicing the US pattern. Two near identical parties, whose mass membership, in the face of governmental indifference if not contempt, have shriveled, replaced by opportunists, generally of the preferred Rightwing type, seeking personal power. Corruption is rife, but now of an’ a posteriori type’ where political operatives, after a lifetime of faithful service to money power, retire, and become highly remunerated ‘advisors’, to those industries they once regulated. The media is a swamp of Rightwing prejudice, growing, in response to incessant neo-Darwinian pressures from the ruling classes, yet more shrill, yet more extreme by the day. Hatemongering is rife. On any day you can read denunciations of Moslems (every day in fact) unionists, environmentalists, gays, secularists, humanists, welfare recipients, mass higher education (it lowers the standards, don’t you know, and lets in lots of mediocre Leftwingers) indigenous people (unless they’ve become Uncle and Aunty Toms)etc There are, on the other hand, various blessed categories of people. Israelis, naturally, at the forefront of ‘the war on terror’, Jews, so talented, but not those ’self-hating Jews’ like Chomsky, Ilan Pappe, Uri Davis or Barenboim, Yanks, but just the rich ones and the beloved ’slebs’ who ordain our magazines with spooky synchronicity. Public discourse and debate is dead. The Right, which deludes itself it won ‘the battle of ideas’, specialises in vituperation and character assassination, and, inevitably, lying. The use of the Big Lie was raised to the level of a cult under Howard, who earned the ironic sobriquet of ‘Honest John’ over twenty years ago, in mock tribute to his mendacity as Treasurer. The appellation was then appropriated, with admirable chutzpah, as a testimony to his absolutely non-existent truthfulness. The WMD lies, although they had the most delitirious results in direct destruction of innocent human life, were but one milestone in eleven years of enthusiastic untruthfulness. Howard’s Climate Change Denialism, and his support for Bush in undermining Kyoto will have the greatest ill-effect eventually, but there were many others. Howard, like his fellow creatures wasting the time of the American public in the election farce, is the living embodiment of the culture of lying, so well described in 1937 by Aldous Huxley, whose observations are, I believe, even more pertinent today.
‘Closely associated with the regression in charity is the decline in men’s regard for the truth. At no period in the world’s history has organised lying been practiced so shamelessly, or, thanks to modern technology, so efficiently or on so vast a scale….Most of this organised lying takes the form of propaganda inculcating hatred and vanity, and preparing men’s minds for war, The principal aim of the liars is the eradication of charitable feelings and behaviour inthe sphere of international politics’.
When I read those lines I am inevitably reminded of jaime and his fellows, the practitioners of hasbara, the eternal traducers of their victims. Quite how organised, fanatical, hatred inducing, lying can be overcome is, in my opinion, the central moral and existential problem of the day.

]]> By: Mike McNiven http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/freedom-rider-white-america-is-crazy-for-obama/#comment-13287 Mike McNiven Sat, 19 Jan 2008 02:37:11 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/01/freedom-rider-white-america-is-crazy-for-obama/#comment-13287 one White reason for the craziness: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_reagan one White reason for the craziness:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_reagan

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