I'm not into starting or embellishing 'witchhunts' where the wrong man, woman, party, or people get(s) nailed to the cross for something they don't, and/or didn't say, do, believe in, and/or deserve. I will write 'fingerpointing' essays (a term I just borrowed from the movie, 'I'm Not There') if I think the fingerpointing is deserved. Indeed, I will write a fingerpointing essay at Bush -- he's got a long list of fingerpointers pointing their collective fingers at him these days -- The Republican Party (old and new), McCain, Palin but I do not want to be stereotyped as a 'partisan' journalist. I am not 'anti-Republican' per se, nor am I 'pro-Democrat' per se. I will point my finger at Obama if I think he is distorting or fabricating the truth, or at Joe 'what's his name' if I think he is too invisible or too quiet in this close election race, or being outperformed by Palin, or put his foot in his mouth by plagerizing another man's speech and not at least giving him due credit for his contribution to the speech.
Furthermore, if I think I have been too hard on The Republicans (old and/or new), too hard on McCain, and/or too hard on Palin -- if I think that I have flown too far away from the truth, dived too far off the deep end, started engaging in 'rhetorical sophism' myself, even as I rail against those politicians who are in the habit of engaging in political and rhetorical sophism for the purpose of falsely stereotyping their political opponent, and/or their opponent's political position, and finally if I have crossed a line of journalist ethics, hit somebody below the belt with a comment, a piece of imagery, and/or a crude negative stereotype, then I will not be so proud, so arrogant, so uncaring about what I've written to retract a statement, even apologize for it, and try as best I can to correct what and where I've gone wrong -- in short, point my finger back at myself if it be so deserved.
I will not take responsibility for anyone who copies one of my essays onto another website and uses it in ways that are contradictory to the aims and goals of DGB Humanistic-Existential Philosophy. Nor will I take responsibility for anyone who quotes a passage from one of my essays without taking into context everything that is said within that essay. 'Snapshots' taken out of context can distort meaning.
However, I will take responsibility for anything that I have written within the context of this or any other essay that I have written in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. I will 'satirize' Governor Sarah Palin if I think that my satire is getting to the essence of something that is important. I, like millions of Americans -- and Canadians -- these days, is trying to get to, and at, the 'essence' of who Sarah Palin is, what she is made of, what makes her tick, what about her is real and what is fake, how close her words stay to the truth of what she is all about, vs. putting on a 'sophist, rhetorical, theatrical show' for the American people in order to get her and Senator McCain elected. Most important in all of this perhaps is the queston of just how 'right wing' she is and whether she is going to take us deeper and deeper into war, vs. eventually helping America and everybody else get out of the 'current hellhole in the Middle East' -- not to mention, opening up any possible new ones in, and around North Korea, Russian.
We have to remember that 'The Masters of War' live -- and die -- off of statements like: 'I am proud my son is going off to war for the right reason' -- as if there is any 'right reason' for war.
We have to remember too, that it is easy to label anyone a 'terrorist'. You just go to the person's country and shoot up the person's family and/or friends. Then you label him (or her) a 'terrorist' when he (or she) comes back looking for you. We used to use the term 'Communist' in the same sense -- to embellish fear and paranoia, and to justify more 'witchhunting' and more killing. It is a 're-cycling of McCartyism'. These types of terms -- 'terrorists' and 'insurgents' -- are constantly used by 'The Masters of War' (with credit going to Bob Dylan for borrowing his term), the 'marketers of war', the 'propogandizers of war'.
So if I get partly carried away with my negative comments, my negative analogies, my negative imagery, it is because I am becoming more and more sick of war, more and more sick of innocent lives being lost -- with American troops now crossing the border of Afghanastan into Pakistan to do 'raids' in a country they have absolutely no right to be in without the explicit consent of a country that is supposed to be America's 'ally'. How long can we expect Pakistan to stay an American ally when America is crossing their border in 'covert raids' that kill their innocent citizens in the 'bombs' and 'crossfire'... Does America really think that the rest of the world will support this type of action when each and every country knows that they could just as easily be the next country that is invaded? This is not 'international democracy'; it is a continuation of the policy and philosophy of 'Republican unilateralism'. How can America believe that it is in any way 'teaching the rest of the world democracy' when it keeps invading new countries unilaterally -- with absolutely no type of international consent -- supposedly in the name of democracy? This would be absolutely laughable if it was not so terrifying to world peace. And meanwhile, Governor Palin continues to stand up there on platform after platform preaching that 'we are going to war for the right reason -- democracy'. America -- please see through hypocrisy!
This introductory paragraphs above were written on the morning of September 20th, 2008in response to a deservedly negative American reaction against a Canadian journalist's article that has been on a government-sponsored Canadian website for allegedly about a week now in which the author goes deeper off the deep end in her rhetorical attacks against Palin using very crude language that you will never see used or supported here. My goal here is to try to stop all the innocent people who are being killed and/or otherwise traumatized by war -- and in doing so, to stay as close as I possibly can to the 'truth'; I do not mind my work being examined by the 'truth police'. I would rather modify my rhetorical statements if I deem them to be false, than 'prop up my argument and tear down my opponent with negative sophism'.
Enough said for this morning. I will take some time to re-read and re-examine what I wrote yesterday. -- dgb, Sept. 20th, 2008.
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Has anyone read what is happening in Pakistan right now? I included two articles on American forces invading Pakistan looking for Al Queda both above and below this essay. I shudder and shake my head. This is unbelievable.
Can you imagine what would happen if another country invaded America looking to kill terrorists? Where innocent Americans were killed in the 'crossfire' and/or 'coalateral damage'?
Where are the brains of the people working at the whitehouse? Who gave American soldiers the right to invade Pakistan? Again -- unilaterally! No consent from Pakistan? Of course not -- what leadership of what country would give America permission to kill their innocent civilians? Terrorists or no terrorists within the country. Again, no permission from the United Nations. No word from NATO. Just America going it alone -- regardless of what country and what people they blow up in the process!
With all due respect to 'America As A Whole' -- which is a critical distintion that needs to be made and which is where both the Reverend and Mrs. Obama got into serious trouble for not making this distinction: specifically, differentiating between 'the goodwill of the American people as a whole' who I want nothing but the best for as if I was an American myself, and this 'type of pathological Bush-led Republican leadership' that seems intent on starting up another war before they leave office. What greater disaster can they add to their legacy?
You don't think that telling the world that America wanted to plant missiles in Eastern Europe was just about as stupid as stupid can be! How do you think Russia and all those Eastern Europeon and Asian countries would feel about this? How would America like it if Russia told the world that they were going to plant some missiles in Cuba? Or in The Arctic above Canada which they were to claim was 'international territory'. How do you think Canadians would feel about this let alone Americans?
Did everyone one of The Republicans currently in the Whitehouse executive decision-making circles -- fail 'international relations and diplomacy'?
Does the George Bush-led Republicans believe that is absolutely immune to any and all forms of international law and justice?
This present Republican Party must have watched 'Dr. Strangelove' -- and taken it seriously rather than as a satire.
Again, I shake my head in total disbelief!
Afghanastan was one thing -- America had the support of the world on this one as they pushed into Afghanastan looking for Al Queda -- and even the Taliban.
Iraq was a whole different matter. Sadaam Hussein was obviously a sociopathic leader -- but there are lots of those in the world, and nobody to my knowledge, every connected Sadaam Hussein to 9/11. Nor any 'weapons of mass destruction' that Sadaam was intent on letting off at a moment's notice. Sure, he might have done it if he had the capability -- but false 'war propoganda' as it would seem now was being used to connect Sadaam to capabilities that he did not have.
And besides, the hunt was supposed to be for Bin Laden. Again, the world was all in support of America hunting down Bin Laden. Surround him, contain him, prevent he and his men from escaping into Pakistan -- this would have to be lesson 101 in any military and/or SWAT training manuel.
And yet, Bin Laden and his men escaped into Pakistan! What kind of military stupidity was this?
Not only that -- but even worse -- America split its military into two fronts! Now they were invading Iraq! Bin Laden was all but forgotten. American troops were barely even chasing him anymore! Their main focus became Iraq and Sadaam Hussein! How in the heck do you explain this? To the American people, let alone the world?
Here's what you do: you feed them false 'war propoganda' exaggerating both Sadaam's connection with Al Queda, and his capability in Iraq for 'creating mass destruction' in enemy countries -- mainly America -- where he didn't even have the missile capability of flying and closing the distance that separated Iraq -- and a lot of ocean -- from America.
But the CIA had 'pictures'. Remember that! Fear-mongering -- that's what this was. If you want to start a war, just convince the people of your nation that you are about to be attacked! Then it becomes: 'Pro-active, pre-emptive, self-defense'! How many judges and juries have heard that line a million times? I killed the man, Your Honor, because I thought he was going to kill me. So I killed him first! 'Pro-active, pre-emptive self-defense'! Never mind that the man I killed didn't have a weapon to kill me. He just looked like he wanted to kill me. It's my thoughts that count, even if they turn out to be totally empirically unsupported, and most of you might therefore believe them to be untrue. But I knew -- and still know -- better. I was totally justified in what I did. We live in a dangerous world, you know. It's 'Lord of The Flies'. It's 'Darwinian Survival of The Fittest'. It's 'kill or be killed'.
How many judges and juries would believe that line of reasoning.
Let's put it this way -- very succinctly: The American People and The World as A Whole were 'bamboozled' by a group of Republican 'sophists' and 'war-propogandists' with seemingly no ethical regard for the 'unembellished and undistorted truth'.
It destroyed Tony Blair's political career and left him with a legacy that will be almost as bad as Bush's for the one blunderous move that they both made at the same time, hand in hand: invading Iraq without the consent of The United Nations and, more than that, as it turned out later, any 'epistemological justification' that had any co-relation to the 'objective reality in Iraq' that they were claiming to be as real as the recent collapse on Wall Street.
And in doing so -- again, hand in hand while they thumbed up their respective noses at The United Nations and The World as A Whole -- it destroyed both of the respective economies of the countries they were supposed to be leading. Not to mention destroying the international relations reputation that both countries held in the world before this collosal double-headed foreign relations and economic disaster.
The soon-to-be, McCain-led Republican Party doesn't get it either. They keep differentiating themselves from Bush. Tell the American people how they are going to ride in on their 'dual white horses' -- the totally legitimate and respected war hero on the one horse who still doesn't seem to understand that 'for every enemy you kill, 'crossfire and colateral damage' is likely to create ten more; and the barracuda or pitbull with lipstick on calls herself a 'pro-lifer', seems to enjoy and support recreational hunting -- even aerial hunting -- has no problem 'not blinking' as she sends at one of her sons off to war.
I keep hearing how 'proud Ms. Palin is to be sending her son off to war for the right reason'; I would just once like to hear react as most mothers would and say that she is scared to death to send her son off to Iraq. I know, as a father, that would be by far my dominant emotion. With all due respect, from what I am hearing you say -- and mean -- you can take your 'hard right' Republican pride back to your hunter friends in Alaska -- and/or even better, take them on 'a hunting trip' to Iraq or Afghanastan. Then they'll get a 'real thrill' -- when they find that their 'hunting game' shoots back! (And let me try to be perfectly clear here: I am not negatively sstirizing the type of hunter who has to hunt for a living, or hunt to feed his family -- not at all; rather, I am satirizing the 'recreational hunter', the hunter that hants and kills for the 'thrill of it all', the worst of the worst being those 'aerial hunters' who we saw pictures of on CNN. Also, I am satirizing those hunters and/or 'hard right wiingers' who proclaim to be 'pro-lifers' or 'anti-abortionists' on the one hand -- they may even go to Church every Sunday and proclaim or even believe themselves to be good 'Christians' -- while at the same time they are the first people to have our young kids go marching off to war, to proclaim that 'they have the right to bear arms', to keep a gun in their house, and quite frankly, 'enjoy the power of a gun', whethr you want to give a Freudian interpretation to that or not. These are the people I am satirizing -- and right now, unless or until I view her differently, I include Sarah Palin in that category.)
My experience with 'Republican Pride' is that it keeps starting up new wars in the name of 'democratizing the world' and/or in the name of 'national security'. I'd like to know how it can be in the name of national security to have about half the world as your enemy -- and growing. Here's how you do it: just keep invading the countries that are now your allies.
I hear not a whisper or a word of protest from either McCain's or Palin's mouth (or for that matter Obama's) as word leaks out as the American army has invaded a part of Pakistan and killed innocent civilians -- as I hear Bush's new head of defense -- Gates -- just finish apologizing for killing innocent civilians in Afghanastan. And these 'new' and 'old' Republicans call themselves 'pro-lifers'. Are there any 'real pro-life' Republicans out there -- someone with real courage who can say enough is enough: we are not invading any more new countries?
The American Republican Party -- old and new -- are, to use the Dylan phrase, 'Masters of War'; they are not 'Masters of Self-Defense'. If they were, they would not constantly be looking for excuses to invade new countries.
How many more countries does America need to invade in the name of 'pro-active, pre-emptive, justice, freedom, democracy, God, and country -- before we all take one gigantic step back and say to ourselves,
Maybe Madonna -- and the Nazi imagery that she showed at her concert -- wasn't so stupid and grossly out in left field after all.'
Isn't it time that somebody got their head back on straight? And if the Republican Party can't do it -- which it certainly looks that way to me -- then, how many people have to die, how many new war fronts have to be opened up -- Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, North Korea? -- before the American people get it right and vote Obama and The Democrats into power.
Obama is the only leader in this election campaigning in the name of 'differential unity' and 'integrationism'. With The Republians its all about 'divisionism'. It's all about 'either/or'. It's all about Nationalism. It's all about Patriotism. It's all about 'not blinking'. Send your child to war -- and don't blink. Be a 'real' man or a 'real' woman. Shoot up testosterone. Be a Republican. Be a pitbull or a barracuda with lipstick on.
To my memory, there was only one political party, indeed, only one political leader at the start of this election process that was talking about 'reforming Washington and eliminating the ability of lobbyists 'to pull strings and control the political, legal, and economic policies in Washinton'. That was Obama. To me, the difference between Obama and the McCain-Palin 'reform ticket' is the difference between a rolex watch and a replica. It is the difference between a 'real' essay or speech -- and a 'plagerized' one. (With all due respect, that applies to you too Mr. Joe Biden because plagerized speeches don't look good on you. Surely, you should have enough good speech writers in the Democratic Party that you do not have to recycle someone else's old speeches -- and worse, not give them credit for it. Right now, Mr. Biden, rhetorically and motivationally speaking, Mrs. Palin has been out-performing you even though you may have a ton more experience than her, and you may have strong character qualities in your own right. Still, it's all about the 'now' -- and getting the 'Obama-Biden' tandem back on the right track with the American people without being 'derailed' by Republican shananagans.)
I remember someone saying not too long ago that, 'You can wrap up an old fish in new paper. But it's still going to stink.' Obama had a perfect right to make this complaint against the Republican's 'new, Convention-engineered, get on the Democrat boat and reform Washington stance'. America, don't be fooled by the Republican's 'Johnny come lately-let's jump on a winning horse' rhetoric. I call their 'maverick' and 'reform' stance 'flip-flopping'. This kind of talk was not on their party platform before Palin arrived on the scene. The Republicans 'stole' from the Obama playbook. They liked how the 'anti-lobbyist play' was working for Obama so they copied it -- with a young (by political standards), vibrant, beautiful, rhetorically-sharp female vice-president who seemingly came out of nowhere (Alaska) to give her own unique rendition of what Obama was doing from the start.
Same with the direction out a bankrupt economy. The direction here is not the Republican direction to lower taxes for the richest people in America. This makes their 'anti-lobbyist' political stance seem very shallow if not downright fake.
The McCain-led Republican Party looks to me like they are chastising these Washington lobbyists with the finger on one hand in front of the American people -- while they still have their other hand reaching out for 'political support' in the back meeting rooms of the Republicans and lobbyists.
I loved Obama's line earlier this week some time. He called the meetings the Republicans had with the seven biggest corporate lobbyists in America -- a 'staff meeting'. This to me, is the 'same old, same old'. It's the same 'GOP' (Good Old Party) -- the same 'GOB' (Good Old Boys with the addition of one 'Good-looking Middle Age Woman with strong 'GOP' principles).'
Call these 'Republican-Lobbyist meetings the 'oil of mutual back rubbing'. And then The Two Republicans -- The 'Maverick' and 'The Barracuda or Pitbull With Lipstick On' get on stage and do their best 'Obama impressions' (Palin does it much better and is so good she is almost believable if it weren't for the context and the history of the whole situation. They both stand up there -- separately or together -- shaking their respective fingers at 'those bad, bad lobbyists'. Meanwhile, lobbyist deals continue to be negotiated and finalized under the cloak of privacy and darkness, not under the transparency of what should be a 'real democracy' and 'equal opportunity Capitalism' -- where every American is involved; not just the rich and elite. McCain calling Obama 'elite' -- that is laughable. Who is the prospective President here who wants lower taxes for himself and his elitist buddies while the rest of America does not get to enjoy anywhere near the same kind of tax breaks -- or even the same kind of percentage of tax breaks. Who needs the tax breaks more: McCain and his lobbyist friends? Or the rest of the working middle and lower class American people?
McCain says that Obama is going to add an extra tax burden onto the American people. No, Mr. McCain, Obama is simply going to add extra taxes onto you and your lobbyist friends -- as well as himself. That's what I like -- a politician (Obama) who is willing to pay for the sins of the Greedy in Washington and on Wall Street that hurt the American people. Out of his own pocket. That's one thing that I rarely hear about a rich politician who is willing to pay a bill or take a hit out of his or her own pocket book. Unless there is something coming back on the other end. Usually that is from a corporate lobbyist.
So yes, Senator McCain and Govenor Palin -- your 'anti-lobbyist stance' is great American theatre. But (have I used this analogy already?) it's like a replica of a rolex watch. The rolex watch -- i.e. the real anti-lobbyist -- is Obama.
Kudos for Bush on one move that may actually turn out to be a good one. His 'half a trillion dollar bailout on Wall Street' seems to have done immediate wonders for the confidence of Wall Street investors. So far, so good. Time will tell.
However, let us not forget that it was the Republicans that created the mess in the first place. And aside from the lending fiasco that cannot be undone, the direction out of a bankrupt economy is the same direction as the direction in. And that is out of Iraq. Out of a 'double war-created deficit'. Reduce the huge, huge amount of money going to two different warfronts.
There is only one party in America that seems seriously interested in doing that.
And I don't think I have to tell you any more which party that is.
Goodnight.
-- dgb, Sept. 16th-19th, 2008.
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