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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Bother with the Bailout Bill

The text of the Bailout Bill in PDF format by Fox News.

World is shocked, shocked ... House Reps throw out corporate social security act!


Video archive material on hearings: Democrats blocking Republican calls for regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The video shows what no one wants to learn: the way to hell is paved with good intentions; but the effect of selfish capitalism means prosperity for all! Point being, a system that works, in tandem with the right philosophy based on the real reality (as opposed to a perceived, or wished one) takes courage - isn't for the meek or the feeble of spirit ...

Dr Sanity: "CAPITALISM IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL-- IF YOU HAVE ONE

Until we get that (Barack), engineering and regulating will lead to more failures, crisis and mayhem!

(For your own good and) for morality read fifty times "The Fable of the Bees:"

The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turn'd Honest

A spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,
That lived in Luxury and Ease;
And yet as fam'd for Laws and Arms,
As yielding large and early Swarms;
Was counted the great Nursery
Of Sciences and Industry.
No Bees had better Government,
More Fickleness, or less Content.
They were not Slaves to Tyranny,
Nor ruled by wild Democracy;
But Kings, that could not wrong, because
Their Power was circumscrib'd by Laws. >>>


Here's the best explanation yet.

But here's the thing:

Real Clear Politics: "In Times of Crisis, Trust Capitalism", by Joseph Calhoun

The US government (...) claim this intervention is urgently needed and if we don’t act, the consequences are dire. Dire, as in New Depression dire. Have these supposed experts on capitalism forgotten how it really works?(...) There is not a shortage of capital for well run financial companies. There is, however, a shortage of capital for companies that have acted irresponsibly with investor capital in the recent past. For some reason, our political leaders believe this is a failure of the market, but isn’t this what should be expected from rational investors? (...) The biggest bank failure in the history of the United States happened last Thursday night and by Friday morning, it was business as usual. (...) The taxpayers didn’t lose anything and depositors didn’t lose anything, only investors. That is how capitalism works in case everyone has forgotten. The “crisis” we face today is not a creation of the market. (...)

There has been much commentary recently about the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the creation and expansion of the sub-prime mortgage market which many believe to be the cause of this mess. That criticism is certainly warranted, but little attention has been paid to the real culprit – the Federal Reserve.

There has always been a stigma attached to borrowing directly from the Fed and for good reason. If a bank can’t get other banks to lend it money, that tells the market something about the condition of the bank in question. Last August, Bernanke convinced three large banks to borrow at the discount window in an effort to remove that stigma. When that didn’t work, he concocted a scheme to allow banks to borrow from the Fed in anonymity via a mechanism he called the Term Auction Facility. (...) Banks will not lend to each other because they don’t know which ones are really in trouble. The rise in inter-bank lending rates is a rational market response to a lack of information.

Furthermore, why pay those inter-bank rates when the Fed or ECB is offering easier terms? These opaque lending facilities are just part of the problem created by the Fed and Treasury. (...) Now markets are waiting on pins and needles as the politicians haggle over the details of the latest bailout attempt by the Fed and Treasury. This has introduced another roadblock to the re-capitalization and reorganization of the financial industry. Companies that are in need of capital are waiting to see if the plan will bail them out of their difficulties. If Hank Paulson is willing to pay an above market price for their bad loans, why should they dilute their equity now? (...) Why take Tony Soprano terms when Uncle Sam is willing to let the taxpayer take the hit for you?

(...) This plan short circuits the capitalist model which would allow the stronger, well-run institutions to gain market share and/or expand profit margins. The long-term effect will be to lower the overall return on capital in the financial services industry. The government apparently believes that the key to economic recovery is to allocate limited resources in an inefficient manner. Does that make sense? (...) The Fed is the one keeping the market from functioning. The Treasury does not need to enter the market for it to start functioning; the Fed needs to leave the market.

Paulson has said that the cause of the current problems is the housing deflation, but that ignores the elephant in the living room. The housing bubble, which was concentrated in a relatively small number of states, was caused by the reckless actions of the Greenspan Fed. The consequences of that bubble have been exacerbated by the Bernanke Fed. (...) We got into this mess because we tried to avoid the consequences of the Internet bubble. We will only make things worse by trying to avoid the consequences of the housing bubble. We are not on the verge of a new depression. (...)

Investors who made mistakes in these markets should be held responsible and those who navigated the Fed-distorted market should be rewarded for their wisdom and prudence. Enacting the Paulson plan will not allow that to happen and our economy will suffer for it in the long run.

The Japanese tried to prop up failed banks in the aftermath of the bursting of their twin bubbles and the result was 15 years of stagnation. Why are we emulating a strategy that is a demonstrable failure? A better alternative would be to allow capitalism to work as it should and stop the interventions of the Fed in the money market. Trust capitalism. It works. >>>

There have been interviews today with a few very experienced traders who went through all the financial crises in current history. They said the following: "Banks do not lend each other- have no trust, what they need are intermediaries, so-called clearing houses." This is apparently normal practice, but investment banks do not like it because they'll make less money in that way. He ended by saying that the turning point has probably been reached.

Another in The Netherlands pointed out that propping up Fortis Bank with a relatively vast amount has failed. Stocks plummeted 23,5% today in spite of it. He said that "this must run its course".

The above may be an indication that the rebellious House Republicans may be right, specifically considering the astronomic amount of money involved. Perhaps this shake out (or correction) must be allowed to run its course. Bailouts stand symbol for distrust in markets. Per above article here too, "Trust capitalism. It works."

- Filed on Articles in "The Economics and Monetary Dossier" -

Monday, September 29, 2008

First Euro Bank Nationalized

The British press (Yahoo!News UK & Ireland) was the first early this morning to announce what has been negotiated behind closed doors all weekend without so much as a by your leave: the Belgian, Dutch and Luxemburg governments pumping 11.2 billion Euros worth of tax payers' money into an over greedy and over prestigious bank, for years high in overdrive on testosterone: Belgium 4.7 billion Euros, the Netherlands 4.0 billion and Luxembourg 2.5 billion.

Mind, unlike Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this was not a bank force-fed by politically correct government policies (and their community organizing enforcers) on quotas of toxic loans! The bank went down because its eyes were not on the bottom line, but indulged in irrational behavior, notably in buying the unaffordable Netherlands major bank - ABN AMRO - out of old world prestige. Investor confidence simply collapsed, shedding three quarters of the value.

The contrast with the US could not be greater. Whereas swathes of the Republican Party as well as a number of Democrats had qualms about handing over vast amounts of tax payers money to market parties, the silence in Europe is deafening. While the bailout bill is hugely unpopular in the US, the Netherlands only Libertarian magazine today sings the praises of the Fortis deal, calling it "a good move" (link in Dutch).

- Cartoon by Gary Varvel - more on Townhall -

The idea you see, that government money is brought up by all of us - the tax payer - refuses stubbornly to sink in. This is the defining difference between the US and Europe. Whereas Americans own their politeia and their politicians are voted in to handle the business of government on their behalf, in Europe the shoe is on the other foot.

Like the Old Testament Jews wandering in the desert, fighting to shed the mind-set of slaves and to become a free people, Europeans are wandering the continent in blind servitude to the state under a inequitable social contract: freedom in lieu for a risk-free life under a cheese-dome. The wards-of-state find their system vastly superior, not realising that that is precisely what betrays their inferiority: the inability to accurately assess value.

Yahoo!News UK & Ireland: "Benelux Governments Rescue Fortis", by Antonia Van De Velde and Marcin Grajewski

Benelux financial group Fortis underwent a shotgun nationalisation on Sunday after emergency talks with European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet to prevent U.S.-style financial contagion engulfing one of Europe's top 20 banks. The Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments agreed to inject 11.2 billion euros (8.9 billion pounds) into the banking and insurance company, which will sell the parts of Dutch bank ABN AMRO that it bought last year, precipitating its troubles. (...)

Trichet, who as ECB head is responsible for safeguarding financial stability in the euro zone, joined Belgian PM Leterme and Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos in Brussels in a frantic drive to secure the future of the cross-border group. The presence of the ECB chief -- unprecedented in a commercial bank rescue -- underlined the seriousness of concern for the integrity of the euro zone's financial system. (...)

Fortis' size, with 85,000 staff worldwide, and its cross-border structure made it too big to be allowed to fail. Its nationalisation dwarfs Britain's state takeover of fallen mortgage lender Northern Rock last year. Fortis Chairman Maurice Lippens, accused by shareholders of concealing the bank's troubles for too long, resigned.

Fortis' precursors traded with Catherine the Great and financed the U.S. purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon. Its main constituent bank, Societe Generale, was the chief financier of the industrialisation of Belgium and the Netherlands. BNP Paribas and ING Group declined comment on reports that they had bid for all or part of Fortis. (...)

New Fortis CEO Filip Dierckx joined the Belgian and Dutch finance ministers and central bankers meeting with Trichet at the Belgian parliament. Dierckx inadvertently gave an insight into rescue plans when a document he took into the meeting was photographed by Reuters. It listed a range of options including "Fortis sells its stake in ABN AMRO for x billion euros to xx" and "governments of Belgium and Luxembourg to invest xx billion euros in Fortis". Fortis' portfolio of structured credit would be written down by an unspecified number of billions of euros, it said. There was no confirmation of any write-off in the official statement.

(...) The problems at Fortis, whose shares dropped by a third last week on investor concerns about its liquidity and funding, stem from last year's 70 billion euro purchase of ABN with partners Royal Bank of Scotland and Spain's Santander. Fortis has been weighed down by its 24 billion euro outlay for ABN in a market that is neither conducive to more capital increases nor willing to pay for the assets it wants to sell.

Its shares plummeted more than 20 percent to 15-year lows on Friday despite a statement that its position was strong and a pledge to expand asset sales to as much as 10 billion euros. The group's market capitalisation slumped from 50 billion euros after the ABN purchase to just 12 billion euros on Friday. The stakes were high in Belgium, where Fortis is the biggest private sector employer and more than 1.5 million households, roughly half the country, bank with the group.

(...) Financial players around the world were hoping that U.S. lawmakers would finally sign off on a deal to create a $700 billion (381.4 billion pound) government fund to buy bad debt from ailing banks in a bid to stem a credit crisis threatening the global economy. (...) >>>

Related:

Yesterday in "Credit Cruch Critical for Survival Capitalism" we remarked that under pressure, politicians would resume the default positions of their natural philosophical alignment ... enjoy David Cameron ...

Yahoo/ITN: "Cameron slams 'banker bashers'"

- Filed on Articles in "The Ethics of Capitalism" -


Sunday, September 28, 2008

Liberty Report: the Veil is Dropping

WSJ: "Obama Is Stoking Racial Antagonism"

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before. Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. (...) >>>

NewsMax: "Obama Wants NRA Ads Banned"

The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads. The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama's longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama's real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.

They have gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence your NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF's ads. The Obama camp is particularly angry with an NRA ad entitled "Hunter" which lays out Obama's record on gun control. (...) >>>

See the NRA "Gunbanoabama.com" video. Here full text of the Second Amendment.

Disturbing? We're not done yet. Read this ...

Press Release by Missouri Govervor Matt Blunt: "Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement" - Hat Tip: Copious Dissent

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words (...) This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.(...) Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.” >>>

Here's the Copious Dissent video "Proto Gestapo: the Current Truth".

This is getting truly serious, people. Mind you, the above comes after the exploits of Action Wire as chronicled on "The Assault of the New Storm Troopers," and the exceedingly unpleasant connotations emanating from "the savior's radical connections". Fasten seat-belts for 'world historical events' ...

- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House" and "The Post-Democratic Preferences of the Neotots" -

Friday, September 26, 2008

Credit Crunch Critical for Survival of Capitalism

Who needed further proof that the current notions about the political spectrum are a myth, here it is. The financial crisis is interesting in that is leads to political players reverting to their default attitudes towards individual freedom and the role of the state. In French President Nicolas Sarkozy we find a prime example. Be prepared for the shake-out to produce more revealing knee-jerks in the coming weeks and months.

At the root of the false spectrum is the public relations stunt that was sprung by the Left after World War II with the annihilation of the ultra Right, in the defeat of National Socialist Germany. Myth-making, PR stunt, are two ways of putting it; another is defining it as 'actively altering the perception of reality'. (Only this has to be done artfully and in a coordinated fashion; not like some amateurs who are currently trying to paint Sarah Palin simultaneously as the hot and gullible hayseed, Ellie Mae in a postmodern rendition of the sixties TV series The Beverley Hillbillies, and as a gun-toting, Bible-thumbing, reincarnation of the Puritan niece of Oliver Cromwell - all at the same time.)

That aside, the dialectic myth sprung on us was that on the Left we have the humane, altruistic Socialists, whereas the Right consists entirely of vile egoistic Capitalists preying on the good hearts of the poor masses. In this dichotomy we find in Adolf Hitler the arch Wall Street Capital C Capitalist of all time; and 'third way' small l liberals as a compromise between the two polar systems, somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. There is obviously something wrong with this skewed picture.

Both Left and Right are two branch departments of the same collectivist school of thought, that demands the individual to subordinate to the collective body (group, state, race, social class, nation, etc.). Although they often subscribe to the oxymoron of regulated free-market capitalism - neutrally described as 'best practice' - a majority of European Christian Democrats are at core of that ilk. The same is true of American paleo conservatives. Which stands to reason, because the structure of collectivism is religious thought stripped from the finer theological ethics, and God replaced by whatever was taken to animate and embody the collective. This is why these ideologies often take the shape of pseudo religions, rather than political systems.

Without going at this time in to the core fallacy lurking on the bottom of this Kantian/Hegelian pond (we have done that in these pages more often than we care to remember) - this world view on the political level translates into statism, collectivism and anti-capitalism; in variations and intensity it is also suspicious, critical or downright hostile towards reason, science and technology. It is in effect directly opposed to modern thinking. Philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin coined the term, the Counter-Enlightenment.

Capitalism and free-markets are the political and economical consequences of the ethics of individual Free Will, the use of reason as the source of knowledge, and the assurance that the universe is knowable. The USA is the only country founded on these basic philosophical principles, democracy is the social translation. This Postmodern cartoon shows it is precisely that which anti-modernism opposes.

Let me at this point take the opportunity to clarify the European versus the American alignments. There are European Libertarians seriously misaligning, declaring for the crypto Socialist Obama and the severely radicalized Democratic Party, unaware that the defenders of free-markets are located at the Republican side of the aisle.

Reverting to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, even though without doubt a true philamerican, the Financial Times article "Sarkozy sets out bigger state role" is evidence that he remains at heart a statist (Gaullist) with a thin veneer of Liberalism which is shed at the first sign the principles are called upon. While singing the praises of Capitalism, he's calling for the chutzpah that is European 'self-regulation,' to be jettisoned in favor of outright state-regulation.

The coming months are critical. The crisis offers an opportunity to those who had to swallow and gag back free market capitalism for the sake of 'best practice', but who remained emotionally as well as culturally collectivist thinkers. Old ideals may well be revived. Bets are on for who'll be the first to drop the n word of nationalization into the discourse.

These true believers do not want to know that it's their own interventionism that caused the markets to fail, and when they did, it's the markets that were at fault (read "Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess" and Carpe Diem: "Flashback to the 1990s: Origins of the Credit Crisis" by Dr. Mark J. Perry). Before anything else, this circular, truly banal argument needs falsefying.


The current credit crunch will be used as an excuse to unleash a whole new generation of big government regulation on to the free world, putting it in retrograde as it is digging in. Of all the markers required for global Fascism we come up short but one or two ... nothing a protracted recession can't cure (posting will follow shortly). We can even venture a guess what the neotot system will be called: New Capitalism, or alternatively True Capitalism, entirely Islamic banking compatible.

Already the drones are buzzing that "this is obviously the end of capitalism as we know it--it doesn't work". The coming weeks and months will see defining moments in the unrolling of our future in which Hegel's 'world historical figures' will play their part: the ethics of the Enlightenment versus the next failed attempt at Building the Collective Utopia (after over 110 million deaths, this time they'll get it right ... for our own good, of course).

- Update - Yahoo!UK & Ireland: "Government to nationalise Bradford & Bingley" -

- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" and "The Economic and Monetary Dossier" -

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Savage Logic of Nihilism

This title is a fallacy. Nihilism is an assault on reason and as a consequence, doesn't follow logic. It is however not uncommon - indeed tradition - to present violations against logic as just another form of reason. Much like Hegel's anti-philosophy - which considers contradictions a sign that 'something interesting is going on' - was presented as the New Reason. We've been mentally impaired ever since.

Anti-modern' thought' is filled to the brim with Orwellian oxymora: 'true freedom' through the state, society as manifestation of 'real self' and the source of 'pure ethics'? Whatever next? A secular, Muslim broadcasting association? (in Dutch)

The politically correct thought police is enforcing the rules of Pragmatism, a branch of relativist philosophy that should not to be confused with 'the practical'. Key here is the expedient. Everything else is subordinate: the end justifies the means - pick and choose among all possible causality whatever fits your agenda and apply it unilaterally (no need to be consistent, ever).

So when a Finnish knucklehead starts slaughtering his classmates one by one in cold blood, it's not the perpetrator who is at fault, but the morally neutral means he used to commit the crime: handguns (morally neutral, because weapons don't have brains or Free Will).

The narrative (or 'logic') of the Hegel dialectic in Europe runs something like this: the American Republican Party - the gun-toting, Bible-thumbing arch reactionaries, support the Second Amendment; this party belongs to the political Right. Therefore - since we proudly declared for progressivism - our subjective position must be that we are against guns, irrespective of the merits (sub current ... and that goes for hunting (the 'murder of animals') as well ...!).

Enter the British Left's in-house news rag Al Guardian, home to unrepentant Marxists and Al Qaeda apologists: "Finland school massacre brings day of mourning and review of gun laws", subtitled "Prime minister says he is 'very critical' of easy access to handguns after gunman kills 10 at vocational college." It's the gun that did it, not the hand that moved it, goes the new 'logic.'

The Left's approach to crime does the rest: criminal behavior is not the result of Free Will made a bad moral call, but on the contrary, follows from a person's inability to conform to society's arbitrary conventions. Therefore society is at fault, not its 'victim' who is unable - through no fault of his own - to conform to arbitrary social norms (hence the frantic pursuit of genetics which - with gland activity - opens up a whole new field to attribute blame).

Very integrated piece of 'philosophy', is Leftist ideology!

Returning to the Finnish school shoot-out, we suppose this has nothing to so with the nihilist thought processes that lurk at the bottom of the subjectivist pond? Surely third millennium adolescent mass murders are unrelated to anti-modernist champion Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who gave us the organic collective's Common Will; or to Kant's ethics of sacrifice to the collective as man's highest moral achievement?

Nationalism (not to be confused with expressions of patriotism!), Communism, as well as Fascism and National Socialism can all be traced back to these notions: that individual man is Nothing, and pursues non-values in an unknowable universe, that makes a mockery of his being and capacity to reason; the existential trauma that - as the grandfather of postmodernism, Heidegger, put it: life is an absurdity.

After the subversion of Liberalism, we currently witness the deconstruction of Humanism as it is hijacked by the Scions of Nothing. Both have been perverted to the point of becoming their own antithesis. Humanism got divorced from the center principle, human life as an absolute value. For the last couple of decades or so Humanism advocates 'the option of death'. And subjected to the slippery slope that is the fate of all demoralized ideology, the message is now morphing into 'the duty to die'.

Must we be surprised that this is staring us in the face? Go ahead, blame the tools! Embrace environmentalism, the pseudo religion of anti-humanism.


- Filed on Articles in "Life Ethics" -

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Endless Queue of Useful Idiots: the Latest Crop

September 25 Rally to protest U.S. religious leaders “honoring” AHMADINEJAD at NYC Hyatt Hotel

Join us to raise your voice of conscience against religious appeasers of tyrant Ahmadinejad!

On Thursday, Sept 25, at 6pm in New York City at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, The American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker UN Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches-UN Liaison Office will be “honoring” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an Iftar (dinner to break the day’s Ramadan fast). Other organizations, political leaders and media have also been invited. Read the Text of the Invitation.

These religious leaders are about to betray their brethren across all religions, parties, and countries by “honoring” the tyrannical regime of Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs of this terrorist state.

At the same time, Women United, the Jewish Action Alliance, Stand With Us, Center for Security Policy, the Catholic League, the The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Alliance of Iranian Women and over 30 organizations of all faiths and political affiliations will hold an interfaith rally to counter this betrayal of principles, to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the United Nations, and to oppose Iran’s nuclear weapons program and outrageous threats against the USA and America’s ally, Israel. See the full list of participating organizations HERE , updated daily.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been invited to speak along with many other civic and religious leaders and politicians, both Democrats and Republicans.

Please join us at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, East 42nd St, near Lexington Ave and Grand Central Station in Manhattan, at 5:30pm. PLAN EXTRA TRAVEL TIME because the large number of attendees will affect traffic near the event.

Send a message to the Mullahs in Iran!

For more information, or to bring your organization on board, call 212-726-1124

Updates throughout available on the site of Stop Ahmadinjad (...) >>>

The People's Cube have designed the two flyers: "A few days ago we were contacted to make a flyer for the next week's two rallies protesting Ahmadinejad's visit to New York and his appeasers in the West. Since then the Sept. 22 rally at the UN has grown famous thanks to the organizers' decision to disinvite Sarah Palin under pressure from the Democrat leadership and its proxies among the leftist Jewish groups, whom Pamela Geller called Jewicidals. So we made two different flyers". (...) >>>

Said Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs is reporting on today's sad, sad gathering in New York in "2,000 strong Weak". Here's another by Michael Weiss, "Standing Up to Ahmadinejad": Brave dissident Iranians ended up the stars of Monday's rally instead of U.S. politicians. (Also, Phyllis Chesler on Why the Rally Didn't Roar and Dear Mahmoud by Michael Ledeen).

The UN has once again been exposed as the amoral institution that it is. It seems to be impossible to explain to good-meaning Westerners the immorality of bargaining with evil. The height of relativist ethics is unconditional, open-ended diplomacy at any price. Much like sending Neville Chamberlain to Munich to parley with Hitler about the final solution: can we close the deal at fifty percent?

Update: NY Sun has published the text of the speech Sarah Palin would have delivered at yesterday's anti Ahmadinejad rally had she not been desinvited on the insistence of one of George Soros' tentacles, J Street: "Palin on Ahmadinejad: 'He Must Be Stopped'".

- Filed on Articles in "Persian Power Play" -

Monday, September 22, 2008

"The Moving Finger" or Sleuthing the Smear Campaign

Who thought we'd seen it all during the last eight years of Bush Derangement Syndrome, that standards couldn't possibly be taken any lower, is in for a treat with Passive Aggressive Palin Hysterics.

But wait, there may be some good news. More than once in the last few days it has been put into question if the Obama default direction, instead of proudly pointing grassroots-up as claimed, isn't actually classic 'Leftist authoritarian' (meaning Marxist) top directing down.

While individual trolls continue to run amok making up slurs and slander as they go along, and others unhinge altogether (they MUST be desperate), whereas the MSM occupy themselves with the more serious aspects of character assassination ("Palin's town charged women for rape exams") there are some indications that the campaign's puppet masters themselves have also been pulling a few imaginative strings of their own, engaging in a bout of astroturfing (viz. simulating false viral grassroots activity - there's no unintended tautology here ;).

- Caption: Excerpt from Agatha Christie's "The Moving Finger" -

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report believes a main source of some of the more outrageous slurs (Breaking News!: "Palin supports actual witch hunts!") can be traced back to the very top.

Enjoy the sleuths of My Pet Jawa in
"Hope, Change, & Lies: Orchestrated "Grassroots" Smear Campaigns & the People that Run Them".
Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure. (...)
>>>
P.S. Let's go viral on this.


Updates:

- The Jawa Report: "Are Obama or David Axelrod Responsible for Palin Smears? Some Thoughts and Reacts"

... today we have confessions of an astroturfer - but with a twist ... as can be expected he's keeping the leaders out of the heat and egged on by sheer 'idealism', fails to retract his lies ...

- The Jawa Report: "Ethan Winner Responds: Claims He Produced Video"

- Snapped Shot: "Red Alert: Obama Campaign Flagrantly Skirts Around Federal Law"

Linked and related:

- Ace of Spades: "No Defamation Without Representation!"
- Riehl World View: "Did Obama Fund Web-based Smear Campaign Targeting Palin?"
- Michelle Malkin: "Bloggers sniff out anti-Palin astroturf campaign– and the cover up begins"
- Patterico's Pontifications: "The Cover-Up Begins"
- Hot Air: "Corporate sockpuppetry for Team Obama?"

- Filed on Articles in "The McCain-Palin Ticket" -

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Hard Choices (No Way)

The contrast couldn't be more pronounced. America is blessed with a clear choice ... and it's a no-brainer!

They may not quite know what they're getting themselves into, but the Palins are definitely the antidote to degenerate counter-culturati, cynical autocrats, demented sex-obsessed Narcissists, psychotic denialists, bomb-hurling poison dwarfs ... no wonder the trolls squirm and squeal like vampires before garlic.

Squeaky clean inside and out, healthy body and soul, the cat's whiskers; it's what the-world-gone-mad is begging for: strangers to decadence, inverted morality, false equivalence ... ah yes ... a choice for the healthy ticket - hot damn!

Here's the Todd Palin interview in four parts.

.


- Part 2/4
- Part 3/4
- Part 4/4

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign

As news is breaking in the blogosphere (the MSM are keeping mum) of the potential time bomb under Obama's carefully cultivated personality cult, evidence of yet another sinister ploy is emerging.

First the explosives. The media are nowhere in evidence in the matter, but the initial charges were laid out nevertheless in a NY Post article titled "Obama Tried to Stall GIs' Iraq Withdrawal" by a journalist of doubtful repute. He is however directly quoting a named Iraqi government official, which lends some credibility to the claim in which Amir Tehari alleges that Obama on his recent fact-finding mission in Iraq a few months ago, against official policy ...

"(...) tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined. (...)". Bob Owens in a PJs article "Obama’s Questionable Diplomacy in Iraq" has a reaction to the allegations from the Multi-National Force Iraq Press Desk. At the same time, while campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Obama also ...

"(...) has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. (...) Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations (...) "However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says. (...)

The article calculates that "judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law." >>>

So, there you have it, for what it's worth, pending confirmation (if any). Video material is available here. The McCain camp has responded that "(...) If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. (...)" >>>

Ed Morrisey in "Did Obama just confirm Taheri?" on Hot Air comments that "Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.” In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said. Which is exactly what Taheri wrote. Barack Obama went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government, in a war zone no less, by telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President. How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?"

Obama's involvement with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has also been buried by the media, but it is really far more substantial than "just a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and deflecting charges about the relation with "guilt by association."

Obama and Ayers served together on separate Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) boards for over six years. The rent-free offices of the CAC were situated in the University of Chicago, where Ayers is employed. Although a self-confessed failure as far as improving education standards are concerned, CAC did manage to funnel some $ 100 million to their allies in the Local School Councils (LSC's).

Don't be fooled by that Orwellian term. LCS's are derided by the worried Social Democratic unionist blogger on Global Labor as vestiges, not of grassroots-up democratic institutions, but on the contrary, of strongholds of Marxist top-down authoritarianism: "I do not think that the link made here between the LSC’s and “democracy” is, in fact, accurate," he writes. "I think that such “councils” look eerily similar to efforts by regimes like those in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas and Venezuela under Chavez to impose control over teachers and their independent unions by an authoritarian regime." Is soviet perhaps the word you are looking for?

"Thus, it is not a surprise to me that Bill Ayers has traveled several times in recent years to Venezuela where he has spoken in front of Hugo Chavez and has enthusiastically applauded that regime’s efforts to link education policy to the Chavez “revolution.” As Ayers stated in a speech there in November 2006 “La educacion es Revolucion!” He applauded “the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez” and he said he “share[d] the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution.” Indeed, all Marxist offshoots like to start reconstructed reality indoctrination as early as possible, preferably before the onset of concept-based cognition.

The Global Labor blogger - perturbed by the Obama 'authoritarian' influence on education - in addition asserts that Obama's eduction adviser, Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond - like Ayers - is persuaded of the justice of the 'educational debt', reparations due to black citizens as 'historically oppressed." Leaving aside the correctness or justice of this claim, chances are that Obama, should he win the elections, would advance Prof. Darling to the education top-slot of his administration.

If Obama doesn't share the Marxist beliefs with his former CAC board colleague Ayers, then why does he have Mike Klonsky serving on the campaign blogs, answering matters pertaining to education and 'social justice', as Global Labor alleges? Both Klonsky and Ayers emerged from the SDS: whereas Ayers started his Weather Underground mob, Klonsky - via the October League - founded the US Communist Party (Marxist-Leninst) (CP (ML)), which was officially sanctioned by the Chinese regime.

The unionist Global Labor blogger in another post, "Who Sent Obama?" (the answer by the way is, Bill Ayers) writes: "(...) in retrospect the Ayers/Ayers (business from above [ed. Ayers' business man father, Tom], local activism from below) joint campaign against both the Chicago School District bureaucracy and the Teachers Union is reminiscent of the kinds of alliances one finds in neo-stalinist regimes like that of Cuba, China or Sandinista-run Nicaragua. In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, for example, Mao appealed to local activists to attack the party bureaucracy. These authoritarian movements often try to build their power against democratic institutions like unions."

Yes, the revolution has a habit of eating its own children!

"Well-intentioned liberals even from the business community are often willing to support such efforts because they view the traditional labor movement as even more of a threat than the neo-stalinist authoritarians like Castro, Chavez or Ortega. While many on the left try to portray such movements as a new form of democracy, they are anything but" [our emphasis].

Get this! What precisely is Obamaism but - by his own confession - the umpteenth version of Marxism light, usually referred to as 'the real third way'? But all we get is obfuscation? All that's being micro scrutinized and discussed - and rightly so - are McCain's policy proposals: what about O's? It is beyond comprehension that in 2008 we are yet again presented with another variety of the ideology with a track record of unprecedented proportions; in the light of present financial crisis journalists are seriously asking the rhetorical question, is Capitalism bankrupt?

Should we be surprised of the sort of tactics that were applied throughout the history of collectivism in the service of the revolution? Another name for community organizer is 'agitator' (go ahead, ask Alinsky) (must we really keep on repeating history?):

The Corner: "The Obama Silencing Machine"

Much of Barack Obama's political success can be traced to a database listing contact information for millions of people, a tool that has proved invaluable in raising record sums of money and organizing a national volunteer network. Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows. It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat. (...)The latest use of the database, called the Obama Action Wire, is proving yet another new and potentially powerful tactic in the closing weeks of a campaign that has already been dominated by Internet-based messages and media. >>>
Here's an interview with Freddoso on Glenn Beck.

There are several words which spring to mind to describe such tactics, none of which have pleasant connotations. Enforcers, thugs, militias, Brown Shirts, Storm Troopers, and many more. Atlas Shrugs has the details, both of this and another occasion. It rather answers the pregnant question, what form would O's national service take (don't ever come up with "we didn't know").

Obama to date has been bullet-proof against such circumstantial evidence - cautions from Kenya on his character and associations thrown to the wind.

Increasingly it seems the future of America can go two ways: either Obama wins the elections and the land becomes a crypto semi fascist tranzy republic as admired by the EU, swathes of Latin America and the UN; or - due to 'America's inherent racism' - Obama forfeits the Presidential race, resulting in the morbid Obama intoxicants turning inward imploding in on themselves; or on the contrary, seeking external release with the wrath of Action Wire unleashed upon the nation. Richard Miniter on PJMs ventures a possible future avenue.

Younger people, born after the collapse of the Soviet Union have no idea about the depths of the Orwellian machinations from hell; older ones, lured into a false sense of security by the 'peace dividend' have allowed themseves to forget: to their benefit, here's the latest on Hugo Chavez' human rights record over the last ten years: read US for Venezuela for a preview of the dystopia of Obamanation.

Whatever the outcome of the postmodern culture war, fasten seat-belts please, very tightly.

Update: Melanie Phillips has done some research; for an overview of that read The Spectator's "The Long March To The White House". Here's an instructive sample of the classical Marxist lingo in which CPUSA supporter Frank Chapman described Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucus in the People’s Weekly:

Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,’ not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.’

Phillips concludes: "Ah yes, redefining deviancy as normality, the agenda indeed of Gramsci/Alinsky: patron saints of community organisers, apostles of deeply underground mole-like revolutionary Marxism, architects of the wildly successful undermining of western morality and society in America and Britain -- and now poised to embed itself in the White House, epicentre of the oppressive global capitalist regime, itself. Join up the dots."

- Filed on Article in "The New Storm Troopers" and "The Pomo White House" -

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A Sense of Cruelty

It's official! Bush Derangement Syndrome has a new offshoot.

No, it isn't Morbid Obama Intoxication (or MOI, French for 'Little Me'), the O personality cult that has large segments of 'reality based' humanity in its grip.

The recurring theme of the current campaign appears to be 'the womb.' To that collection can now be added hysteria (click to explain), to wit Passive Aggressive Palin Hysteria, of which the acronym reads PAPH.

As the press continues to derail in the objective information department, another section - caricaturists - implode into a passive agressive displacement hole.

This vicious piece of pamphleteering is what passes for humor in the British Leftist rag The Guardian, home to unreformed Stalinists and Mao supporters.

- Caption: Guardian humor - Hat tip: EurSoc -

What is hard to fathom is the lack of introspection sufferers display. Weren't they gripped by delusion, the thought might have occurred, "Why am I - for the past eight years or so - consumed with hatred for persons I do not even know personally? Is this normal, am I healthy?" But, no.

Dr Sanity in one of her brilliant posts, titled "Not all humor is created equal" psycho-analyzes this form of humorless humor, which she says is actually symptomatic of psychopathology.

"There are important differences between mature humor and displacement or it's cousin, passive aggression. The latter are also psychological defense mechanisms, but less mature ones (neurotic), that are not quite as effective in bringing 'pleasure to others.'"

She recalls the behavior of comedian Stephen Colbert when he mocked President Bush during the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner. She quotes at length comedian and commentator Richard Cohen who had this to say about Colbert's performance:

"(...) Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush."

The doctor continues:

"Humor is an extraordinarily mature and healthy psychological defense. It is the overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about) in a creative manner that gives pleasure to others. (...) Read the entire piece (Cohen's), which accurately deliniates the significant differences between humor and displacement. True humor offers a catharsis for more than just the person using it; and while displacement may be funny to some, it is the childish/adolescent version of humor that is more like disguised cruelty. (...)

It was very revealing precisely because it revealed something about Colbert and any of those who found it hilarious--it revealed immaturity and intolerance. To be precise, it was just another attempt at displacement, the underlying psychological motivation of Bush Derangement Syndrome. The purpose of this kind of "humor" is to hurt. It makes very few feel pleasure except at the pain of someone else. Mostly, this kind of humor is found in children and adolescents. The "ha-ha!" shout of the character Nelson, who makes fun of everyone's pain; while blissfully unaware of his own family's psychopathology in The Simpsons is an example; or one of the three stooges beating up on another. (...)

While displacement may be a bit psychologically healthier than actually physically hitting the President over the head with a baseball bat, it is hard to see how those on the "caring and compassionate" left--so sensitized to others people's feelings-- are not exactly aware of how insensitive and loutish it was to attack someone who cannot respond. They rationalize their own behavior by making Bush a monster. This is only projection (an even more primitive psychological defense), however. (...)

Such rudeness in the name of humor is actually painful to witness (i.e., not funny) because when someone resorts to it, they are unintentionally revealing their own deepest--and darkest--soul. (...) the more immature psychological defenses--such as displacement or passive aggression-- can produce a warped type of humor that is decidedly inferior and far less effective at discharging aggression and anger in socially acceptable ways that give pleasure to everyone. Not all humor is created equal when it comes to being healthy and psychologically mature. >>>

In philosophical terms the ratio goes: "Anyone who threatens our high sense of ethics - our Common Will - is only worthy of being sacrificed to it."

- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Pile" -

Monday, September 15, 2008

Sharia Alert for Britain

Attention all freedom loving Brits,

This has been in the making for years! It's getting dead serious now. The time for denial and trivialization is definitely over. If you care two hoots for liberty and the culture that made you, sign the petition against encroaching sharia law NOW. Enough is enough. Stop suicidal, cultural relativism (it's based on a horrible fallacy, anyway). Support Muslim moderates, women and children against domestic violence and honour killings. Stop condoning Apartheid and evil practices. Stand firm for the slippery slope. Stop the clock going backwards. We didn't vote for this! Tell Gordon Brown and his Neville Chamberlain clones to start acting governmental or else pack it in ... hold them to account! In fact, do that in all of Europe, America and anywhere else where democracy and individual rights are valued ... stop the pocket potentates before they become real, live dictators ... sign the petition NOW!


EurSoc: "Sharia Courts "Legally Binding" In UK"

Well, Rowan Williams will be pleased, as will those prominent legal minds who said it was vital and inevitable that Sharia Law be introduced to Britain. It is reported today that Islamic Sharia courts are exploiting a loophole in British law and pronouncing judgments on cases including divorce, financial disputes and even domestic violence. (...) The government has tolerated Sharia law for various civil law cases, but the move into criminal and family law seems to confirm warnings about "two-tiered" and "alternative" justice systems developing in Britain. Already, the courts are handing down judgements which clearly defy common British values on equal rights. The Mail reports,

"In one recent inheritance dispute in Nuneaton, a Muslim man's estate was spit was between three daughters and two sons with each son receiving twice as much as each daughter - in keeping with sharia law." A mainstream court would have demanded equal treatment. More worrying is the movement of Sharia into criminal law. (...) What next - and where will they stop? Britain has an alternative legal system developing under the noses of the authorities. Indeed, the police seem to be colluding with the courts, dropping investigations into violent incidents on the Sharia courts' say-so.

Indeed, it's possible that Muslim police officers are acting in the interests of their fellow worshippers. (...) Similarly, two Christian preachers were booted out of a Muslim neighbourhood in Birmingham. The officer, who was very aggressive, told the preachers, "We were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station." (...) Wonder if Dr Williams and his supporters still believe Sharia is essential for Britain? (...) >>>


- Filed on Articles in "The Jihad Project" (the Cultural Conquest of the West) and "Islamization=Apartheid" -

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Of Mass Mind Control and Psychopathy

A Google Alert subscription to key words which have our specific interest recently shot to attention a post on The Daily Cultist about cognitive dissonance. It is a cross-posting of a Newsletter issued by conspiracy theorist David Icke.

We need not here indulge in the finer points related to the Illuminati, the Troof about 911, the "Hidden Hands" behind the death of the Princess of Wales and the "manufactured wars in the Middle East."

What concerns us is the coinciding of mass psychology with the cabal of Common Purpose (CP). On both counts he is correct and factual, but regrettably half-way shoots out into the thin space of classical paranoia. Ironically he is oblivious to his own cognitive dissonance, and copes with it by transforming his outlandish beliefs into baseless facts.

But Icke's findings regarding the CP cabal pans out with our own investigations. His references to "The Plan" is the subject of Icke's personal paranoia which need not concern us here, nor his thinly veiled anti-semitism (he probably thinks the Protocols and the Da Vinci Code are true history too). He explains that ...

(...) ‘cognitive dissonance’ appears to have its origins with a Jewish American social psychologist called Leon Festinger, who (...) studied closely with Kurt Lewin, a German-born Jewish psychologist, who is known as the ‘founder of social psychology’ (...) ’social engineering’ or mass mind control would be a better way of putting it. Lewin was Festinger’s ‘mentor’.

Lewin was a major influence on the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in London, one of the premier individual and mass mind-control research and development operations on the planet, which based much of its ‘philosophy’ on the work of the Austrian Jew, Sigmund Freud.

The Tavistock Institute was officially founded in 1947 (though its work goes back much further under other guises) and it was funded into existence by the Rockefeller Foundation. Among its key founders was John Rawlings-Reese, commander of the British Army Bureau of Psychological Warfare. (...)

(...) an organisation called Common Purpose (...) develops the ‘leaders’ for the institutions of government, commerce, ‘education’, law enforcement and so on. Its methods are classic Tavistock.

Tavistock is a mass mind control operation and at the heart of global ’social engineering’. (...) The plan, now well advanced, is to create a massive network of ‘training and diversity’ organisations to brainwash the useful idiots to run society on behalf of the Elite. These include, as with Common Purpose, those involved with the institutions of government, commerce, ‘education’, law enforcement etc. (...)

Icke's paranoid theory that cognitive dissonance is being used as a tool by 'the Illuminati" or whatever, does not diminish the reality and its workings in any way. It sounds disturbingly familiar when transposed on the subject matter of recent posts, "The Twin Blessings of Denial and Projection", "The Perception Campaign" and "Thought for the Relative of Mind".

Indeed we are being manipulated into directions that are not of our own choosing, but as far as the sources are concerned our thoughts just do not wander with Icke into the avenues of Rovian cabals behind The Troof of 911. Indeed, the pointers go in the other direction - the ones with proud collectivist ethics of Common Will, rather than those who see the dissemination of individual freedom as the best antidote to violent and coercive collectivism. Icke stresses the importance of social and group pressure:

(...) The individual believer must have social support. (...) If (...) the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade non-members that the belief is correct.’

That is how the herd mentality works and how individuals are pressured to conform to the beliefs of the group - what is termed ‘creating the consensus’. It is also why individuals changing or questioning the consensus view are targeted, marginalised or removed (a Tavistock speciality). Such people are ‘dangerous’ because they have the potential to prick the collective reality bubble and instigate cognitive dissonance by making the others see contradictions.

It is this constant mental and emotional readjustment in the wake of cognitive dissonance that ensures the survival of all religious, political and social beliefs. When something comes along to demolish the original belief, people just find a way of explaining the contradictions so their belief remains intact (...) ...

... indeed one of Icke's own specialties. But here we connect with another worrisome aspect of the O campaign and the 'creed' in which he wants us all to 'believe': meet MyBO ...



Hat Tip: the Founding Bloggers

At first we couldn't figure out what exactly is so creepy in this video commercial. But it is the mob/hive thing, the creation of a vested interest in the O personality cult, the 'belief in O as the savior'. Combined with the other 'voodoo' features (the campaign is filled to the brim with psychological triggers, archetypal symbolism, and memes), the O Public Service proposal, the details of which yet need scrutinizing, may well be the most disturbing aspect of the developing personality cult.

A little further, Icke goes into what we very often discuss in these pages, the psychological mechanism of projection: "(...) people who have a self-identity of being kind, loving and caring for others (...) is always a fake identity because no-one lives up to that all the time, and I mean no-one. (...) ‘It was you who made me react like that’ or ‘they deserved it’ are among the [regular methods of dealing with dissonance] (...) This filters reality to fit the self-identity and (...) why it was not their fault and not their responsibility. In short, they will protect the self-identity at all costs. (...)

To overcome the negative effects of cognitive dissonance I would offer just one sentence: it's okay not to be 'perfect' and it's okay to be wrong (...) ... hear, hear!

This is the last sensible word we get from Icke et al. At this point his own paranoid beliefs take over reality. Aristotelian philosophy could gave saved him, but the subjectivist triad Rousseau, Kant and Hegel got the better of him.

He sighs: "How about those who believe that our freedoms must be taken away to protect our liberties?? That’s classic Doublethink and vast, vast numbers of people believe that blatant contradiction to be true" ... which would - had it not been a false statement- be classic Hegel dialectic, echos of "Freedom through the state."

To clear up the point he is alluding to, in all honesty he would have to concede that he, David Icke, hasn't forfeited a single liberty, and were he ground to pulp by an Al Qaeda tool, his liberties would be quite irrelevant anyway.
- Chart: mature defenses (click to enlarge) -

We also see the destructive Rousseau idealism at work, the basis of his fallacy that morphs 'is' into 'ought': "(...) millions die of hunger in a world of plenty and millions more die in manufactured wars? (...)" - surely that cannot be reality/the natural state/the will of God; there MUST be a conspiracy, a cabal of humans who 'manufacture wars' and who out of callous egoism see to it that wealth accumulates unevenly.

Reality has become part of the conspiracy theory - classic paranoia. But at least it seems to earn him a living.

Interesting article, nonetheless.

- Filed on Articles in "Dossier Common Purpose" and "The Political Pathology Pile" -

 
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