In an effort to pull myself away from the distractions of day to day politics, I want to refocus my attention of theory and ideas about the challenges we face as a society and provide a range of points of view about the problems we are actually facing.
One of the theories that I espouse is that the agenda of public discourse is fed TO US... that we as bloggers, we as citizens and even we as consumers do not have control over the agenda of what is discussed nor the underlying assumptions of what is true that drives public discourse. For example, you would have to believe that there actually is a "war on terror" to have a discussion about how to "win" this war.
Yet, I firmly believe that the "war on terror" is a movie played out in the cinema of newstainment and used as a propaganda tool to make people afraid and seek help from the government to allay their fears. It works perfectly into the agenda of the bomb, plane and submarine manufacturers. No war, no bombs. War, need bombs. Real Simple Math.
I came across a paper on a site managed by a non-profit online publishing entity called "Axis of Logic". In their mission statement, they say:
Presuppositions and World View
We readily confess our own set of presuppositions: Our world view consists of ideals for world peace; democracy (i.e. self-governance by the people); self-determination of all nations (people); respect for national sovereignty; noninterference in the domestic affairs of any nation by foreign governments; fair and just economic systems; responsibility for the preservation and protection of nature and compassion for ourselves and our fellow human beings.
The Enemy
We identify "Corporate Global Empire" as our common foe and the enemy of the people. We believe that all current, viable political parties in the U.S. are in service to the empire and do not represent the people. We are not to be identified as "Democrats", "Republicans", "Capitalists", "Communists" or "Socialists", "Progressives" or with any label that can be reduced to a religion, organization or any other "ism". We offer no such target for attack by the enemies of the truth.
For those of you who have read what I have to say, you can immediately see areas of agreement here... so I have great interest in what they do and the papers they publish. One paper I came across that I wish to share is from Jason Miller. Jason is associate editor of Cyrano's Journal Online... a Marxist leaning website that talks much about the antiquated "class struggle". While I found Cyrano not to be my style, I nevertheless found Jason's paper posted on Axis of Logic to be compelling, brutally truthful and perhaps a bit harsh... but sincerely passionate and mostly right... if not a bit simplistic.
The paper is entitled "The Toddler King's Insufferable Reign Is Doomed". The thesis is that we are essentially psychologically managed by TELEVISION and have become a selfish, childish and self-righteous bunch that will see its own demise... or as he states
"But there are some pretty long odds against enough of us shedding our grotesquely malformed psyches and evolving beyond our state of infantilization before the American Way of Life collapses under the weight of its own excrement or is eradicated by its hordes of victims."
Obviously, this is opinion... but its the facts that he presents that I find compelling and wish to share. Again, they are tainted...and distinctly anti-Israel (which makes me somewhat uncomfortable), but the purpose of my summer postings is to examine a range of points of view and present them in an objective manner and then discuss them on their own merits. I will plagiarize his facts and allow them to speak for themselves:
If you don’t know the stats, you’ve been somnambulating, but here are a few:
1. We are 5% of the population and siphon off 30% of the world’s goodies, while 35,000 people starve to death each day.
2. We, the land of the free, exercise a higher degree of social control than even those “tyrants” in China and Russia. We have the world’s largest prison population, many of whom are non-violent drug offenders. And then there’s our clever way of imposing our agenda in Latin America via the “War on Drugs…..”
3. We lost about 500,000 people in WWII while Russia lost over 20 million yet we arrogantly boast that WE “defeated fascism.” And that’s not to mention the fact that many of our beloved capitalists, including members of the Bush dynasty, supported Hitler until they faced potential criminal prosecution.
4. We have staged coups and incursions the world over (our interventions are far too numerous to document in this dispatch, but visit this site to familiarize yourself with the reach of our malevolent imperialist tentacles.
5. Ironically, we justify our trillion dollar a year military budget by waging wars against nations with phantom weapons of mass destruction–while we are the only nation to have deployed such weapons. Ask Japan about the devastating impact.
6. We pour billions of dollars into the support of those miserable Zionist squatters in Palestine because a very small percentage of our population (which has very deep pockets, a strangle-hold on mass media, and a juggernaut lobbying organization) has many of us brain-washed into believing “poor little Israel” is fighting for its very existence—when the reality is that it has a more formidable military than all of its alleged threats combined and has ruthlessly brutalized the Palestinians like the terrorist state that it is.
7. We slaughtered over two million Vietnamese in an attempt to keep the world safe for capitalism and are poised to consider putting one of the perpetrators in the White House.
8. We have murdered untold millions of Iraqis since the Gulf War via invasion, brutal economic sanctions, fomenting civil war and chaos, illegal occupation, and destruction of infrastructure. And neither of the performers in the theater of the absurd we call a “presidential election” has promised to bring an immediate end to this moral and legal abomination. If we enforced the Nuremberg Laws that WE crafted, all responsible would be hanged, including whoever replaces Bush and perpetuates this genocide.
And that is just a brief and very incomplete summary of the evil that we openly or tacitly support simply by being Americans, even if our role is very banal or pedestrian. As cogs in a murderous machine built on stolen land and primarily with the blood, sweat and tears of slaves and poor immigrants, we all bear a degree of responsibility for the atrocities we commit. Even those who choose to remain and fight the system from within are still buttressing the American Way to some extent.
I left in his commentary on the "facts" to provide color and help you gain more insight into his world view. I don't disagree with a single point he makes... I suppose I don't see evil in everything that's there... I see it as a reality that must change, but not something that can be judged by a higher power that we must pay for in "karma".
That said... his article had a profound effect on me in that I agree with much of what he believes, its the tone and manner that I find a bit dramatic and... perhaps... not helpful. If I go around calling people names, I'll simply turn them away. I prefer to show reality through fact, comment on it from my perspective, and then use my sense of ethics and morality to find solutions rather than screaming that we are infants. We simply ARE the result of a coming together of many forces and perhaps need to wake up to these forces to bring about positive change.
But I appreciate Jason's perspective... because I firmly believe that extremes move the middle... and ultimately its the middle that everyone seeks as we search for balance in our lives and our perspectives on reality. To read Jason's full paper, go here.
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