Monday, August 27, 2007

Why and How Governments Betrayed Our Dreams of Freedom With Lies and Incompetence


Politicians the world over have created for themselves a new role. In the past, a BBC documentary says, politicians promised to deliver a better world, to help us realize our dreams of freedom and Democracy. Political power, authority, legitimacy itself was thus derived from the optimistic visions of the world's various peoples.

Politicians have betrayed that view. They have betrayed us. A new BBC documentary claims that politicians have found new ways to cling to illegitimate power, new ways to exploit fears, new ways to terrorize and enslave the world. Having promised dreams, the best governments can do is sell a grandiose protection racket called "war".

Briefly, the governments of the world, most notably the US and the United Kingdom, exploit the phantom terrorists of al Qaeda even as radical "Islamcists" exploit US neocons, Bush and similar ilk. Part two:

Part Three:

There are a total of six parts on You Tube. Search for "The Power of Nightmares - Part I".

The conclusion is clear to everyone but Bush, the Neocons and their extremist right wing base: the "Islamacist" movement owes its existence to the likes of Bush and Bush owes his political existence to Islam fanatics. A plague on both their houses.

Governments have given up the dream of peace. The Orwellian nightmare, the state of perpetual war, has come true but cannot be sustained. Worse than "mutually assured destruction", this universal exploitation of nightmare spells an end to humankind, at least the end of those dreams that make life worth living. It was an avoidable choice forced upon us by incompetent, cowardly and corrupt leadership.

In the US, more have begun to question the Bush modus operandi of exploiting our nightmares, our fears of "radical Islam", a prospect at least as terrifying as "radical Christianity" and the equally ideological, rabid "Christianist" movement which overtly seeks to make of the US a theocracy. Should either side "win", people themselves will be enslaved to nonsense, claptrap and ideology, nothing less than a new dark age.

What is the date of America's descent into madness? It might have been Pearl Harbor. Certainly, the US helped meet the very real threat posed by Hitler's Third Reich, but, in retrospect, our leaders may have learned all the wrong lessons. Did they learn only that FDR grew in strength by promising to protect Americans from the spectres of world wide fascism and Nazism? Did Saddam become Bush's "Hitler"? Did the GOP who hated FDR learn how to manufacture a state of crisis? Why is the GOP the party of the war on drugs, the war on porn, the war on immigration, the war on Murphy Brown and now --the war on terrorism?

America's descent into madness may be traced to the assassination of JFK. Almost everyone I've talked to about this --especially those old enough to remember it --have stated in various words that those tragic events marked the beginning of the "weirdness". It was most certainly followed by the murder of John Kennedy's brother, Robert and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the sixties, a naive dream of freedom became a drug induced nightmare exploited by the likes of Richard Nixon and, later, Ronald Reagan. More recently, the mysterious deaths of Sen. Paul Wellstone and Robert Kennedy were and remain "convenient" for Bush and the corporate right wing. What are the odds that only the GOP benefits from suspicious deaths, themselves at odds with "odds"?

It was pointed out on this blog very recently that the government version of events is almost always a lie. In general, every government lies in order to cover up its own incompetence, protect the criminality of its allies, or to cover up its own criminal complicity, possibly a combination of all three. Lies about JFK and 911 are most certainly of this ilk. Those lies may be found in the Warren Commission report and, more recently, the report of the 911 Commission.

Both the JFK murder and 911 have at least this much in common:
  • Both investigations were incomplete and incompetent.
  • Both events benefited an increasingly radical, rabid and ruthless right wing.
  • Both "investigations" proposed an "official theory", a plausible cover story.
  • Both investigations demonized differing versions as conspiracy theories.
In fact, both incidents --the JFK murder and the 911 attacks --were the catalysts for the very method by which the US government maintains its power and authority over us. As the BBC documentary points out so well: the US government exploits our worst fears and nightmares. The US government encourages and feeds them.

Why are Americans so fearful of the word "conspiracy" when, in fact, almost every US Supreme Court decision of any importance deals with conspiracies of one sort or another. Check the resources of Findlaw and the Cornell Law School law library. You will find hundreds if not thousands of court decisions, case law and precedent, having to do with conspiracies. That's a lot of case law spent on something that does not exist.

More specifically, what is "al Qaeda" if not a conspiracy? What was la Cosa Nostra if not a conspiracy? What is Bush's GOP if not a conspiracy? The government will demonize "conspiracy" when it's in its interest, but will celebrate the concept when "conspiracy" benefits the entrenched power. The government's' official lie re: 911 is one of the most absurd conspiracy theories to ever come down the pike and easily disproved with but a few indisputable facts not told you by the MSM. Some seven or eight of the 911 hijackers survived to give interviews to the BBC. Only thermite or thermate will melt steel. WTC owner Larry Silverstein ordered that Buildling 7 be "pulled".

When Bush warned Americans that his administration would be intolerant of outrageous conspiracy theories, he obviously excluded his own administration, itself, like Nixon's before him, a criminal conspiracy that ought to be investigated and prosecuted under RICO statues. Every time, Richard Nixon met, in the Oval Office, to confer with the likes of Herrs Haldeman and Ehrlichman, he "conspired" to defraud the citizens of the US. Every time, Bush met with Dick Cheney in the Oval Office, you can bet he engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the citizens of the US with wars of naked aggression, punishable by death under US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441.

The purpose of commissions like Warren and 911 was not to get at the "truth". The purpose of the Warren Commission was to shoot holes (with a Mannlicher Carcano, no doubt) into the idea that JFK was offed by a conspiracy, a gang representing subversive, right wing interests. In the case of 911, the commission's job was to rubber stamp the official conspiracy theory and paper over the gaping holes with bullshit.

In a world made more dangerous by government criminality, terrorism becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy. Bush would not have survived his first term without al Qaeda and al Qaeda has grown stronger thanks to Bush. Since the murder of JFK, the government of the US cannot be trusted and the events of 911 have only made it worse. Sadly, it will not help to pinpoint the date when the US government ceased to be legitimate.

Georges Santayana once said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it; but whomever said History is a trick played on the dead may have had the fascist, imperialist government of the United States in mind.

The film that spooked the White House

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Len,

I often wondered whether the JFK fall was the fulcrum point for the final assent concerning the intelligence/militarist subversion of our government. From a historical perspective it certainly could be argued that was a key time of transition, but unfortunately only those on the inside know what may or may not have occurred in those days so long ago that are rapidly turning to dusty memories. Nevertheless, what ever it is that continues to transpire, a well laid conspiracy is not necessarily a needed ingredient to justify our entrapment.

The gradual corporatization of our military along with the broad based multi-faceted morphing technologies that were becoming their logistical support system, at some point became the mainstay of our economic engines in this country, and as time went by, a greater dependency for the oil and grease that feeds that machine had developed. I don’t believe any conspiracy is needed at this point, the system wants to survive, and we have advanced the status of the corporation and their elite well beyond the value of the individual American citizen.

I don’t believe it is a very complicated reasoning as to why we find ourselves where we are today, in the end it becomes the usual human foibles and pitfalls of greed, abuse of power and fear that may drive the stake into the heart of the founding fathers constitutional efforts in the democratization of society. It is unfortunate that so many American citizens are unaware of not just what we had been given, but what we are currently losing, as the saying goes…You sometimes do not know what you had until it is gone.

We may have to retrace the steps of our founders someday if we are that able, just to re-bridge the fallen watermarks. I am also one that believes that Jefferson considered our Constitution a living document that was to gradually continue to evolve further into progressive forms of democratic self-reliant governance, with the individual being the sole benefactor of our constitutional prerogatives, and each generation responsible for it’s mark. Few in our capitol know this, and fewer still believe it.

benmerc

Diane B said...

You are right Len, and Benmerc, it probably was when JFK was murdered which started the decent into this hell our Country is going through.

Although, Ike realized when he was President that we were going to have a problem with the Military Industrial complex. That was his final message to us.

My instinct tells me that changes will not occur until we have a financial crash in this Country.

I could be wrong but, I don't think so.

Christopher said...

Having now watched all three hours of this fascinating BBC documentary, “Power of Nightmares”, I think what a pity it is that it will never be seen by most Americans, for it is utterly subversive of everything people have been told about the War on Terror.

The film shows that the neocons and their fundamentalist Christian allies are of the same ilk as their sworn enemies, the radical Islamists. Each is dominated by intellectuals who hold ordinary people in contempt.

The theme of the intellectual in politics was long ago written about by Eric Hoffer in his book “The True Believer” and in others of his writings. Hoffer observed that what is important for the intellectual is the idea or ideology, not the people, who must be forced to live in conformance to the ideology imposed by the intellectuals who know what is best for them.

Hence governments by intellectuals are invariably autocratic or totalitarian

Hoffer would appear to have been right in his observations of intellectuals, judging by the respective philosophies of the neo-cons and Islamists, as depicted in “Power of Nightmares”.

For me, “Power of Nighmares” also shows that the “terrorist” of today has moved into that space in America’s imagination which was occupied by the “communist” of yesterday. He hides behind every door, tree, and lamppost, and will drain you of your precious bodily fluids unless you’re careful.

Yesterday’s “McCarthyist” is today’s “Bushist”.

And so it goes!!!

Unknown said...

Great comments, all.

About "intellectuals": the biggest problem with the "intellectuals" of the Neocon persuasion is that they are not really "intellectuals". Like much economic theory put forward during the Reagan era, it is "faux" intellectualism, encouraged by the GOP to dress up the party's image, perhaps in reaction to the left's traditional dominance in that era.

Christopher, your comments about neocons and radical Islam is right on target. About both, I say: "A plague o'both their houses."

Until George Gilder wrote "Wealth and Poverty", it almost seemed as if William F. Buckley was the only conservative capable of putting two or more words together meaningfully. Clearly, the "right" has tried to convince people that they are just as smart as "liberals" whom they demonize, most probably BECAUSE the left is, endemically, smarter.

Any gains the right might have made with Gilder or Friedman, however, are now undone by the anti-intellectual nature of Bush's repugnant regime, a regime that sought to make a virtue of intellectual dishonesty.

Indeed! If "radical Islam" is considered to be "anti-Intellectual", the neocons must also be so considered and for precisely the same reasons, the same standard.

I refuse to accept the idea that one who habitually argues backward from conclusions to premises is, in any way, "intellectual".

Anonymous said...

How do you make someone see the truth though, when they can wave the Popular Mechanics article, or the History Channel show at you and say 'see, those conspiracy theorists are nuts'?

Lately i have started asking people about Global Warming. Do you feel its a hoax, or, as Newsweek stated, do you feel the Oil companies are behind the 'anti-CLimate Change' propaganda?

if they answer 'i think its a hoax, Al Gore would rip us off, carbon credits, etc.' then I say 'so you feel 2500 scientists and the UN would collude together to put a global tax on gasoline?

if they answer that they feel the oil companies paid $10K to scientists to write anti-Global Warming articles, i say: "so you feel a few rich oil execs would knowingly defraud the populace, condemning future generations to mass starvation, dooming millions of acres of land to be put underwater, causing mass migrations, famine etc.... for oil profits?

Yet you wouldn't believe a few corrupt men would kill a few thousand civilians to get their hands on the second largest oil reserves in the world, and put our military in the middle of what is left of the world's oil reserves?

great article by the way. :)

do you have the link to the real AP release somehow, of Gerald Ford changing the Warren Commission? It is hard to get people to believe something when it is just on a website stating it was originally from the Associate Press, especially since it looks to be a ragtag site. (unfortunately, you could have a very knowledgable and reliable site get no trust from the people who read it, because it looked cheap, but if you make a blog or site LOOK reputable, people will believe it. weird world.)

anyway, would really like to see that Gerald Ford article somewhere people can't say back to me: "bah, that site doesn't look trustworthy, why didn't I see this on NBC?"