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1.  “WikiLeaks, Michael Lind, and the ‘New’ Nationalism

The authoritarian left comes out of the closet

 

Except there’s just one tiny difference between al-Qaeda and WikiLeaks: the latter isn’t commandeering airliners and flying them into skyscrapers, nor is it murdering civilians indiscriminately all around the world. Oh, but in Lind’s world, which shares a solar system with Bizarro World, al-Qaeda and WikiLeaks are indistinguishable entities, two heads of the same creature.

Like apologists for the previous administration, the defenders of this one are eager to equate their enemies with terrorism, and the Obama-ites are just as prone to this as the Fox News crowd. This is their “argument” of last resort: when all else fails, bring out the “you’re-a-terrorist” guns and fire away. It works every time.

Lind’s “new nationalism,” is, I’m afraid, the same as the “old” nationalism: a flag-waving, hysterical, ingrown doctrine of delusion and rationale for unbridled militarism. It is an ideological instrument that makes repression easier to justify, even as the epitome of an enlightened “liberalism.” Like all statists, his is the idolatry of Authority, which requires secrecy as a matter of course. His socialistic vision of a highly centralized American state, which controls much of the economy and society, far from curtailing US intervention around the globe, would make it far easier for our government to marshal national resources around an aggressive foreign policy. Once they grab power, these sorts of “liberals” are usually the first to make the most of it. In Lind’s rabid ultra-nationalism, we are seeing the future of “liberalism” as it exists under President Obama – and what a discredited, foul creature it is!”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/12/26/wikileaks-michael-lind-and-the-new-nationalism/

2.  “Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010

10. “There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan.”

 

9. Afghans want the US and NATO troops to stay in their country because they feel protected by them.

 

8. The “surge” and precision air strikes are forcing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

 

7. The US presence in Afghanistan is justified by the September 11 attacks.

 

6. Afghans still want US troops in their country, despite their discontents.

 

5. The presidential elections of 2009 and the recent parliamentary elections were credible and added to the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s government.

 

4. President Hamid Karzai is “a key ally” of the United States.

 

3. Shiite Iran is arming the hyper-Sunni, Shiite-hating Taliban in Afghanistan.

 

2. Foreigners are responsible for much of Afghanistan’s fabled corruption.

 

1. The US is in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda.”
http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/top-ten-myths-about-afghanistan-2010.html

3.  “

Finally it must be recognized that lying is an essential ingredient of statecraft in these times.  Governments lie in an attempt to uphold their legitimacy in the hearts of the people.

Democratic governments do not exist.  Not in this world.  Many attempts have been made, many faltering half-measures.  All ultimately have failed to live up to the dream.  But the people hold the dream of democracy close to their hearts.  The people understand that systems of justice are a sham without democracy.  Governments lie in order to create the illusion of democracy so that the people are more willing to comply. Governments create an illusion and then act in ways that advance the political and economic interests of a small group.

This is the political and economic reality of these times.

In the eyes of politicians the people are mere clay to be molded to be compliant to whatever governments do.  The people do not understand political realities.  The people are incapable of understanding what is in their best interests.  The people are worn down by the day-to-day burdens of survival.  They do not have the time nor the leisure to cast a critical eye upon the behaviors of their governments.  This is exactly where governments want the people to be.  Overburdened, distracted, desperate, voiceless, disorganized people are more easily led.

…

In order to preserve the interests of the ruling class the people must not thrive.  The people must not have economic security, good schools, good health care, fair bargaining powers in the work place, clean, safe non-oppressive working conditions, strong healthy families, vibrant communities, equal justice for all.  These characteristics of a good life, of a healthy, strong, unified, happy populace are well within reach.  The resources are there in abundance.   But it does not happen.  The wealth of nations is sucked up to the top of the economic pyramid into the hands of the ruling class.  They have no intention of sharing it with the dumb masses.  The dumb masses must be kept in a state of want, desperation, subservience.

The dumb masses are the many.  The ruling class is the few.  How is it that the few so effectively dominates the many?

Those who accumulate the wealth, by whatever means, own everything and can bend the political and economic conditions to their advantage.  They run governments from ‘behind the scenes’ by putting up the money and using political and social leverage to get people who do their bidding into the seats of power.  Thereby do governments and supreme courts become ‘business friendly.’  Thereby economic mechanisms are created that willfully deprive the people of the fruits of their own labor, willfully extort those fruits in the name of offering the people the privilege of working for a pittance.  The rulers rule!  The rulers have a right to rule by the mere fact that they rule.  Their wealth allows them to buy protection.  They maintain standing armies of mercenaries.  They create strong, well-equipped, obedient police forces to protect their properties, to protect the very idea of private property.  Might makes right!  The people are there to be manipulated, to be exploited, to be worked to death and then thrown in the garbage heap.  The history books are filled with the false heroics and the false humanity of tyrants.

The ruling class is composed of individuals in all the countries of the world who get together in lush conference rooms and lay out in detail how they will manipulate the political realities so that the people are always afraid.  Some enemy is about to ‘come over the wall’ to rape and pillage.  A fearful populace is more likely to acquiesce to the implementation of draconian and costly policies which claim to be necessary to keep the people safe.  The individuals that comprise the ruling class get together and lay out economic conditions that are widely advertised to be in the best interests of the people.  But the inevitable outcome of these policies is that the people are not made safe nor do they prosper but rather are increasingly cowering, increasingly impoverished, increasingly subservient.  The inevitable outcome is that those in power have even more control, more wealth, more undisputed dominance over the people.

This is the game plan!

Every human being who chooses to step into a position in the ruling class has chosen to wear a mask, to be a double agent, to say one thing and do something completely different, to live a lie.  These human beings have agreed that in order to advance their own interests they must take on the mantle of ruthlessness.  They must turn their hearts into stone.  Their eyes must no longer reflect the light.  They have agreed to offer their lives in service to a brutal machine – a government, to do everything in their power to advance the interests of that machine and to dispose of anyone who dares get in the way.  They must lie continuously.  They convince themselves that the atrocities that they perpetrate or condone are for the ‘greater good’ of the people, that the people are too innocent, too naive to understand, that they in the ruling class itself are the chosen ones to carry the heavy burden of leadership.  For them democracy is an impossibility.  As a form of governance democracy is ludicrous, laughable.  But the game of democracy must be played on the surface of brute reality because the hearts of the people have been infected by the dream of democracy.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22521

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