Thursday, May 05, 2011

On The Death Of A "Straw Man"

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country." - Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"According to Herbert Marcuse, the satisfaction of basic needs and cultural pursuits require a certain necessary repression. Modern society, however, generates surplus repression in response to a performance principle, which replaces the reality principle. "In place of the reality principle, to which individuals living in any historical period must adjust through repression, modern society has substituted a performance principle. That is, modern economic development has made competition, excess production, and massive consumption needs pursued for their own sake, independently of the basic needs of the individual." [145]

This surplus repression must be counteracted by "a revolt of the instincts" ("The Great Refusal"). "Such transformative theory must abandon it s role of merely describing and explaining existing society or designing new but unrealizable utopias. Instead, linking up with other affirmative aspects of art and culture, it must attempt to imagine new, emancipated forms of society based on the possibilities latent in existing society." [146]

Marcuse explained this as a manifestation of repressive desublimation -- the sexualization of all aspects of production and consumption which promotes both pleasure and "domination of the individual by the system....Through the immediate gratification produced by repressive desublimation, advanced industrial societies, in Rousseau's famous words, 'hang garlands of flowers on the iron chains that bind us'." Marcuse felt that ideology was absorbed into the production process, i.e. "ideology and the technological means of production can no longer be meaningfully distinguished from one another, rendering impossible a critique of one" in terms of the other. As a result, the proletariat has become a vehicle for the promotion of capitalist ideology. [147]

"Freedom" shifts from the Liberal Humanist notion of autonomy and self-determination to the choice one has to select from a wide range of commodities (from qualitative to quantitative freedom.)

Repressive Tolerance and Recommodification [appropriation] [149]

The legacy of critical theory includes

1. an eclectic combination of psychoanalysis and social theory.

2. emphasis on the role and contradictions of popular culture.

3. a focus on the potential for social control by both liberal democracies and socialist bureaucracies.

4. the idea that autonomy depends on radical democracy and the humanization of technology." 


- from "Notes On Surber, Critical Theory.", by T.R. Quigley, 1998
On The Death Of A "Straw Man".
Now that the Neo-Con 'boogeyman', Osama Bin Laden, is evidently dead, I feel I must opine briefly on where to go from here. I would just like to call upon our politicians to abjure their ideologies for ONE day, and try to find some common political ground quickly, and build a new world from there: A world not conditioned to the cacatopian dysfunction of "endless consumption" and "endless war" to continue to prop-up and profit the "Military-Industrial Complex" that President Eisenhower (in his Farewell Address) predicted was going to subsume the veracity of our Government, and even Democracy itself, (as I believe that it has done and is doing) to the "bottom-line" demands of the fanatics of the "Religion of 'Free Market' Capitalism".

I believe the principle of "Democracy" - the 'Platonic Absolute' of that idea - is FAR more important as an ideology whereby we, as a culture (or a "Shining City On A Hill", if you will) define ourselves, than is "Capitalism", and its 'Platonic Absolute'.  These are NOT concepts which are INSEPARABLE, never have been, never will be, but most Americans, especially those of a Conservative political persuasion, have been trained by their icons, to always believe one DEMANDS the other.  This is NOT rational thinking, as any Epistemologist will avow.  This is a skewed belief, designed to condition and attempt to ensure conformity to a certain set of principles by a majority of the population base in this country, as such, if consciously comprehended and agreed upon by a majority of the citizenry, I would have no objection to its influence, but, inculcated as it is within the culture, and insidiously and surreptitiously imprinted upon the subconscious of every citizen from childhood due to the designs of the "Father's Of Modern Industry" (men like Ford, Edison, Stanford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Keynes, etc) as I believe it has been, I must object to anyone being motivated by this belief-system without their total conscious awareness of it as such.  I shudder to think what might have happened if these, the shapers of our modern consumer society, had chosen to incorporate the ideas of one of their contemporaries, Malthus, into the warp and weft of our modern cultural tapestry (as a few of them had actually intended).  I doubt this Republic would have survived the slide down the slippery slope posed by an application of eugenics to our mileau.

As long as we fight amongst ourselves, and continue to allow the forces of disinformation, fuzzy thinking and voodoo economics (FOR ONCE AND FOR ALL: "TRICKLE DOWN" DOESN'T! FORMAL LOGIC HAS PROVEN THIS AS A MATHEMATIC CERTAINTY! EVEN ADAM SMITH, OUR FOUNDING FATHER'S THEORETICAL ECONOMIC INSPIRATION, KNEW THAT!) to prevent us from reclaiming our right to a FUNCTIONAL Government and Cultural Vision, we are abnegating our responsibility as citizens to govern ourselves! People will NOT buy "BIG LIES" forever, and there is coming to all a realization that if it is agreed that the National debt and deficit is destroying our way of life, there will also proceed from that conclusion the INESCAPABLE EPIPHANY that WE ARE WASTING 1/2 of our GNP on protecting this country FROM NON-EXISTANT THREATS!

To wit: most unaffiliated (that is neither liberal nor conservative leaning scholars) have long since believed that Bin Laden (and Al Qeada) are what in dialectical terms (or in Classical Debate, if that is a format for rational thought that is more familiar to you) is known as a "Straw Man", or what the Chinese 'communists' (sic - they have NEVER been communists, but actually always social fascists) used to call a "Paper Tiger".

BTW, Bin Laden was a terrorist trained by the best. US Foreign Policy has used state sponsored terrorism as a tactic for 200 years. We once invaded Costa Rico with US Marines, killled countless citizens there, toppled their government and instituted a puppet regime ALL BECAUSE THE COSTA RICANS RAISED THE PRICE OF BANANAS BY A DIME (look it up). Osama learned his trade from the avowed masters - us!

Neither Bin Laden nor Al Queda is enough of a threat to America to have been used as even a lame excuse for bankrupting this country to prop up the Defense Establishment, without there having been in place the kind of intellectual dysfunction, born of conditioned docility and economic fascism, I mentioned at the beginning of this piece.  Without the imprinted memes of servility, abnegation of intellectual responsibility to the "divine right of kings", still manifest here in America as the Electoral College, and the hundred years of jingoistic drumbeat to the tune of "my country right or wrong"/"our government knows whats best for us", I don't believe any well educated, responsible, rational being would accept the blatant half-truths and outright lies (both of omission and commission) that are the staple of this county's political rhetoric.  Politicians of both party's now regularly evade giving direct answers to direct questions.  THIS IS THE KISS OF DEATH,  AND A SIGN OF THE END OF ANY ABILITY TO EXPECT FROM THIS COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT THE ASSURANCE OF "LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS", not to mention "TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY."  George Orwell's concept of "doublespeak" is the only thing to expect from any elected official in office today.  If you believe differently you are delusional.  The Founding Father's did not expect the power of greed, lifetime collusion and cronyism to convert career politicians into corporate puppets.  Capitalism has defeated Democracy, and as the old axiom states: "A man cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon".  "Greed is good." was the line from the movie "Wall Street", and the moneychangers are in charge of the temple.  SHAME ON ALL WHO BELIEVE MONEY MORE IMPORTANT THAN SELF-DETERMINATION.  THE AQUISITION OF THINGS CANNOT BRE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ASPIRATIONS!

THE BUDGET WAS BALANCED WHEN BILL CLINTON LEFT OFFICE (even after freeing the Balkans from genocide). THEN:

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOUBLED THE SIZE AND COST OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

Let me repeat:

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOUBLED THE SIZE AND COST OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

Once again, I'll repeat, because it seems like half the country has gone deaf, or honestly dumb, or is from some other planet. You CANNOT argue away the facts:

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOUBLED THE SIZE AND COST OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

HOW CAN I PROVE THIS? DO THE MATH! ITS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

IF YOU SUBTRACT WHAT THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN COST & ARE STILL COSTING, AND ADD THE ENORMOUS EXPENDITURES FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LARGEST GROWTH OF THE SIZE AND COST OF SAID GOVERNMENT'S BUREAUCRACY IN RECORDED HISTORY *:

THERE WOULD BE NO DEFICIT!

Again:

THERE WOULD BE NO DEFICIT!

One more time:

THERE WOULD BE NO DEFICIT!

WE WOULD NOT BE IN THE RED - WE WOULD BE IN THE BLACK!

Also, in a quite real sense, neither Bin Laden nor Al Qeada EVER EVEN EXISTED in the form whereby and by which they have been packaged and prosyletized to the American People by both the media, feaful of a second of slow "sound-bite-bright" banter that might lead to a lull in the sussurus of "informational white noise" masking the continual subliminal supplications of rampant consumerism, or a sudden realization (like Roddy Piper donning the 'special' sunglasses in the movie "Them") of the monstously insipid "true" reason for the banality and commercial villienage passing for culture in the 21st. Century (and Bill O'Rielly would then have to speak into his wristwatch: "My God, send a squad, I've got one that can SEE!") and the anti-dielectical, "destroy-all-independent-inquiry"/"Do-Not-Question-Authority-That's-UnAmerican" Plutocratic Oligarchy.

The form that was 'marketed' to the American public, insidiously at first, and then with a rush of pain like the inhalation of cold air past a bad tooth, redolent with a mythicstink reminascent of a "Patriotic Inquisition" pheromone from the '50s triggering a seritonin cascade of "extremism in the name of liberty" fearelectrons goosestepping across ganglia, inflaming half our county's vestigal "lizard-brain's" 'Fight or Flight' responses . . . to leave them awake at 4:00am in the glennbeckbedeviled darkness . . . sweating and shivering as they imagine the Sikhs down the street (idiot thoughts of: are they Muslims? they must be! they wear turbans!; burning their brains, like the fools who should be deported to Iran for their fanatic insistence that Obama must be   .  .  .  muslim, or not a citizen  .  .  .   cause he's not their "shade of pale") sneaking up the back stairs, and slithering into their home in the dark to destroy them because their refrigerator door's turban-shaped magnets are printed with: "Ragheads Go Home" and one of their kids might have seen on the day they came to wash the windows.

Awake (but never, REALLY) aghast and afraid having been rendered bereft of their commonsense, childish concupiscience and curiosity through fear of damnation. Taught to fear knowledge, other cultures, other religions et al, from their first unconscious inhalation of JudeoChristoFascist incense as they were christened by the local pedophile Priest, their innate wonder-ous-ness supplanted by a carefully cultivated missapprehension of the nature of Empiricism, and the rigorous standards by which "truths" are tallied through the methods of observation, assertion, and experimentation to attempt to verify experience as something close to RATIONAL thought. A carefully constructed societal stucture of subtle sublimations of sexuality and egregious extirpations of any intimations of immortality, initially constucted by the Archons & Bishops & Patriarchs of the Council Of Nicea the better to ensure their sinecures and to bend the masses to their wills, edicts and elegaic self-enoblements.

Cultivated for nearly 2 millenia as a catechisms of credulity their minions trained the faithful to eschew investigation (death by impalement or molten lead milkshakes, just a few of the many million ways Christianity and the other "Abrahamic" Cultural Control Clubs to effectively slaughter the simply curious and invent memorable deterrents to attempting escape from their intellectual oppression). This selfsame inculcation of ignorance is still laboriously reiterated on TV, in insanity of a Pat Robertson diatribe against Haiti for "voodoo" or inFoxmercial "doublespeak" on their whiteboards of "mycountrytisofthee, ' and is used by the Pundits of Fear, and the "Pork Police" Politicians of the "Ruling Classes" , 'noblesse oblige' notwithstanding, to justify a standing army and a military establishment grown bloated through the use of overinflated fears and bad (I say treasonous) risk-assessment projections. (I've said it before, but it bears repeating):

FROM WHOM OR WHAT ARE WE BEING PROTECTED?

Is Al Qeada going to invade the US?

Impossible! They are either stone-age religious troglodytes, or effete theocratic ISI pensioners.

Are the Russians preparing to invade?

They already have, quite successfully. The Soviet Oligarchy began emmigrating here about the same time as the did the Third Riech Business Interests. They both are now a part of our 'Ruling Classes'.

Do we need protection from China? [Will we be overwhelmed by "The Yellow Hordes" as Barry Goldwater or Joe McCarthy or J. Edgar and other Conservo-Fascist icons used to term them in private conversations with their 4th. Reich cronies in Washington gentlemens clubs or the fraternally masturbatory (ie: 'Circle Jerk') gatherings of Prescott Bush and the 'boys' of "Skull & Bones"?]

Are you kidding? If they did they'd lose more than the current US Deficit in interest on all the Treasury Notes they now hold. THE CHINESE OWN US! BECAUSE OUR DEFENSE DEPT., AND THE POLITICIANS WHO DO ITS BIDDING, HAVE SOLD THIS COUNTRY TO THEM. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Just to maintain the "war is good business" status quo . . .

  .  .  .  JUST SO THEIR ASS-TO-MOUTH 'MOLE-RAT'LIKE TRAVERSING OF THE 'LAISSEZ FAIRE' TUNNELS BEGUN BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND NOW INUMERABLE BENEATH THE BLOATED EDIFICE OF A MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL 'MAMMON' ^, COUPLED WITH THEIR ADDICTIVE DEPENDENCE UPON THE PREDIGESTED PORK DEFECATED FROM THE ANAL SPHINCTRE OF THE IRS INTO THE FIRST MOLE RAT IN THE TUNNEL (USUALLY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FED) WILL BE PROTECTED IN PERPETUITY. ~

Finally, do we need 150,000 American troops in the Middle East to keep a few thousand religious whacko's from building nukes in Iran or taking over Pakistan to control their A-bombs?

Why should we? We have brought back the halcyon daze of the World Opium Hegemony and high-quality heroin now floods the revered world-wide "Free-Market". So all we do is tell the current drug lords ( like Karzai and the ISI): "Hey you upwardly mobile paragons of everything for which Capitalism stands - we are your market! American taxpayer dollars now pay for your militias, and your shipping costs, etc, etc. So you'd better curb and spay the rabid dogs in your neighborhood or first your profit margins will decrease, then your children will be banned from education in our Universities and if you REALLY irk us, we will have drones release in your fields, our 'new and improved' weaponized Genetically Modified Opium Poppy Sterilization & Eradication Gene (made from Arkansas Razorback Wild Pig DNA crossed with Carter Peanut plant rootstock) thus rendering your ability to even farm your own land and feed yourselves an option involving the mass employment of foreign, non-Muslim sharecroppers only!"

Hey, they don't call the U.S. 'The Great Satan" for nothing. I can assure my readers, that, as a CIA trained infamous MKULTRA 'remote viewer',  I can absolutely verify this GMOPSEG has existed since the Shah of Iran was deposed - evil bastard that he was - deserved much worse than he received BTW (we literally sent HUNDREDS of innocent, and some not so, "renditioned subjects" to him to torture to death. I guess now we use Morocco, or so I've been told. No wonder people hate America, let's just hope we stop creating more Osamas someday soon.  But without them, how will Americans be convinced that paying $800.00 for a Pentagon toilet seat is absolutely necessary for the good of the country?  Oh well, as Kurt Vonnegut said in "Slaughterhouse Five":  "50,000 people were burned to bonemeal in one night in the firebombing of Dresden.  So it goes."

I doubt anyone will see reason, though, so I will just have to ask my Cherubim 'guides' to do some more 'smiting', I guess (they do SO enjoy it though, it is for what they were created, remember?).   Me, I'll just keep "starin' at them goats", like the one I named Cheney (anyone hear from him lately? Are his electromagnetic implants still acting up? Still keeping him in lead lined, RF shielded digs?   No rogue MKULTRA remote viewer/electrokinetic adepts who think he's a war criminal around these days anyway, are there?) Nice that the FBI rounded up those 100 former 'made' CIA retirees, don't have to waste any more energy there.

. . . and we will all keep it up until it makes a difference . . .

Oh yeah - stock tip - invest in Portugal, judiciously. I've just heard some Astral entities are a bit miffed the country is being persecuted for having legalized all drugs. The black market Narco-Trafficers - meaning most of the the 'Free World's Capitalist economies, are screaming because they can't turn a decent profit there anymore, and/or rape and kidnap and kill everyone like they do in Mexico, or most major inner cities, so invest in Portugal. It is the harbinger of a new age, one in which Capitalist Gangster Oppressors will eventually, like Al Capone be nothing but a memory of "madness for money's sake"!

(WAIT- IS THERE A LESSON TO BE LEARNED HERE?  ALL THE GANGSTERS LOST THEIR PROFITS AND BECAME LOBBYISTS IN WASHINGTON AFTER PROHIBITION WAS REPEALED - NO MORE THOUSANDS SLAUGHTERED IN THE
STREETS.  HMMMMM)


Blessed Be Us All, Each And Every One.


(*The Dept. Of Homeland Security - that ever sound 'third-riech'ish to anyone else - if so, read back in my blog about who REALLY started our 'Intelligence' community.)

(MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York. - Ambrose Bierce, "Devils Dictionary")

(~ "In its famous paradox, the equation of money and excrement, psychoanalysis becomes the first science to state what common sense and the poets have long known - that the essence of money is in its absolute worthlessness." - Norman O. Brown)


PPS: to anyone who notices I type "automatically", hence there are occasional mistakes, and my metre and syntax is unique:

"GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction."  - Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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