powerclown

I almost choked to death drinking water as I read this.
I'm at a loss here too...

host, I agree with you that there needs to be questions asked, and transparency from the government. I can understand the dilemna one might have if one disagrees from the start with the notion that islamic fundamentalists were responsible for 9/11. I just don't buy that it was an inside job. Too much evidence - both here and in the rest of the world - says otherwise. Did not al-Qaeda themselves take credit for 9/11 in the world media, as well as for other major anti-american (and non-american) terrorist events in the world prior to 9/11? What about the rabid anti-american sentiment thats been simmering away in the Middle East for decades? All fabricated? I could understand a disconnect if the opposite were true - if America and the Middle East were strong allies with a long history of trust and cooperation.

I'm not sure what the pictures are supposed to show...? It looks to me like a large-scale cleanup operation, many trucks, a large tent, heavy machinery, mangled buildings.

Ustwo

Host - I mean this honestly and with concern. I think you need a information time out. I am just getting back from one and its quite nice. Based on the amazing number of quotes you paste, you are obviously looking all over for this stuff and it must take a good deal of your time.

For the last 5 months I have been totally out of the loop politically. I am still mostly 'out' of it. Its not a bad thing. My life didn't change for the worse, and I didn't get mad at things I couldn't really affect.

This is starting to remind me of the illuminati trilogy (and its been about 15 years since I've read it). One of the more amusing bits was where the main character is put in jail by a stereotypical racist/abusive southern sherif. The punch line is the sherif is actually a communist who is acting as he does in order to make people more sympathetic to workers/communist agenda. So yes in some world Moore could be another tool of the Bush's, but if he is then you might as well give up, because you are dealing with people far more clever than any of us are if they can pull that kind of ruse off. Of course if Moore hates Bush more than he loves money maybe he can claim this.

So just for a week try this. Don't go to the political web sites, don't watch it on TV, don't listen on the radio, and don't come here. If it comes up, change the channel. I did it for a week and I enjoyed it so much I kept doing it for 5 months. There is no need to keep getting mad and confused, and it may help you put it all into perspective.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

matthew330

Host. I don't recall what thread and how long ago you said it, but you said something to the effect that you were [recently pardoned from avoiding the vietnam war]. Probably vague for other people, if you remember what thread perhaps you can link it., but this quote makes so much sense to me:

"In a real way, the events of 9/11 and the reactions of the government officials, the populace, and the media, that has followed, in a sequence of events that is still playing out today, has been a catalyst in setting my belief systems "free""

Don't take this as a personel attack, it's just the way i see it. Of course it's set you free. There's a very large segment of our population post-Iraq that embraces not just questioning of the government, but a complete distrust (tempted to say hatred) for it. It's the home you've been looking for since 1973. But that population has always been there, Iraq didn't cause that distrust it was just a conventient catalyst for a public dislplay of it. I'd almost suggest you wanted Iraq for that reason alone more than neo-cons did.

Ustwo

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

powerclown:

two or three quick points (maybe):

1.
i qualified what i meant pretty clearly in the posts above--what i guess i would say is the following--that the elements of bushworld i pointed to are variations on options that seem to be constantly available within american political discourse. it is always possible that any administration could find itself confronted with something like 911--it is lilkely that any administration would have operated on a state of emergency footing thereafter. it is not obvious that another administration would have chosen the same path that the bush squad did after 911--the particularly simple-minded response to the attack, the refusal of any coherent analysis of it, the reversion to a particular style of hypernationalism, the instrumental use of war (afghanistan, iraq), the clamping down on dissent (mercifully confined mostly to the cultural level), the contempt for law (iraq being the most obvious example), for democratic process (here bushworld is but a particular symptom), etc.

it is also not obvious that another administration would have operated in such a tight relation to a media apparatus like that the right has developed--which is impressive as a formation, no matter what you think of the contents disseminated there.

2. even if you strip away all the qualifications above, there would still be problems: i dont see fascism as a state of affairs--it is a process, like any other ideological formation is. so the full-blown phenomenon would only gradually become present, and in significant ways would not be fully present (except analytically). ideological shifts unfold across time...it is not as though you simply flip a switch somewhere and turn fascism on and off like a light in the bathroom. so the idea that one is "in" fascism now and that sometime after bush and his pals fully enter into the ash-heap of history suddenly we would be "out" again is absurd.

3. what makes bushworld alarming is not so much the administration proper--it is this administration and its mode of ideological coordination with a wider conservative media apparatus. folk like to think that earlier forms of fascism were imposed entirely by force--which of course makes the system impossible--while elements of the german system relied on phsyical violence, the ideolgy that enabled/shaped that violence was lrgely disseminated via radio, which was the main mass media of the period. now it's tv. that is a problem.

4. bushworld is a variant on possibilities that seem structural, given the nature of american mass political disourse. in other words, bushworld invented almost nothing in terms of signifiers, but the administration and its correlate in conservative media have developed particular ways of framing signifers that are persistant aspects of american politics. but you could say the same of almost any political order that uses nationalism as a mobilizing tool. the states simply has a funny relation to nationalism--you see a kernel of it in the absurd providential history that you run into in elementary school which presents the entire history of the united states as if it metastisized from the puritans--city on a hill blah blah blah. this notion of privdential nationalism is key for any variant of fascist ideology. but the reverse does not necessarily hold--that anyplace which retains such an ideological element is necessarily fascist. it simply is a way of talking about a possibility. particular agents made particular choices that use this signifer for their own ends--these ends is what matters, not the presence of the signifier.

5. capitalism at this point is becoming a basic enemy of nationalism in general. the type of response particular to bushworld is a reaction against this tendency. when you get down to it, the main ideological problems the neocons have with clinton is that he was too willing to enter into multilateral agreements, too willing to participate in the main dynamic of globalizing capitalism--in short clinton was insufficiently nationalist for them. american mass politics is not talking about contemporary capitalism in anything like a coherent way. bushworld has no way to do it, frankly--they can cheerlead the system as a whole.treat it as an unqualified good, etc.--but the fact is that in the longer run, nationalism is outmoded and will eventually collapse. the structures that will become more visible in the context of teh global capitalist order once the fog of nationalism begins to dissipate is far less responsive to any type of democratic pressure than anything which has preceded it--how responsive to pressure from citizens is the wto? the world bank? the imf? the eu?
one thing marx was right about is that capitalism is a most revolutionary formation. all that is solid melts into air.
bushworld is not a coherent response to developments that have unfolded over the past decades in the organization of capitalism--it is a way of running away from them, even as the ideology they embody can do nothing but cheerlead these developments.
so in this case, the question of bushworld and capitalism are seperate.

more generally, capitalism requires a minimum level of social stability in order to operate. unleashing the fiction of free markets on people without some type of mediation is a way to bring about massive social destruction--left to itself, capitalism as a system would not long survive. but it is never present as a discrete system, it is always also a politics, a social policy, a system of social reproduction, etc etc etc. for about a 150 years, nationalism has been an important signifier in the production of this requisite social stability. that signifier is slowly collapsing.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

roachboy,

1) While I agree with you that another administration's response to 9/11 might have been different, I fundamentally disagree with your characterization of the current one's as simple-minded and without careful thought or planning. It's my belief that there was extremely careful, intense, and intelligent analysis - from very, very bright people in the know - of the situation from a geopolitical perspective, as opposed to a philosophical one. Desperate, uncompromising and unprincipled terrorists (in this case) care little for the nuances of Marx, Jefferson or Nietzsche. So the question becomes: How to deal with such uncompromising brutality? From everything I've seen so far, I think the term 'clash of civilizations' is a logical and accurate representation of the ramifications of globalization. In saying that, it might be helpful to realize that the first criticism of the 'imperial colonialist' (a term I disagree with as it pertains to America, as there are no large and significantly permanent 'societies' of Americans outside America) - that she beligerently strayed from her borders without provocation - I see as questionable, when, for example, America was invited into Saudi Arabia by the Saudis themselves to help them with their oil-extracting technologies, to the fury of the Wahabbists. Globalization meets Old-Tyme Religion. But how can the Saudi rulers be to blame, when they are trying to exploit a natural resource for the benefit (one imagines) of their own people, including, ironically enough, the Wahabbists.

2) The power of nationalism shouldn't be underestimated. Again, it's sometimes unclear where to distinguish the lines of philosophical discourse and political reality. Speaking relatively, 'Fascism', or a fascist regime, formed in Germany practically overnight. I don't think it absurd at all to characterize the formation of Nazi Germany as practically an overnight occurence. 20 years, give or take, for a relatively 'benign' society to be completely transformed into an destructive, homocidal juggernaut is an historic instant in the timeline of humanity. One can debate an inherent war-like tendency of the indigenous people elsewhere. The point is that HitlerWorld successfully 'flipped the switch' and transformed a country 'overnight'.

3) While I agree completely that mass media can be used as a powerful tool of state-sponsored propaganda, I just don't see a link between the Bush Administration and a sympathetic Media in it's service. How to explain the numerous and flagrantly hostile anti-Bush Administration media-driven public relations disasters that have been reported? To me it almost seems a case of checks and balances gone awry. "The lunatics are now running the asylum". Now if one wants to characterize these media public relations disasters as a campaign of deception orchestrated on the part of the Bush Administration, as possibly a funtional means of releasing psychic tension on a grand scale masqerading as something more sinister, as it were, there could and should always be room for further such disucssion and exploration now and in the future. Suffice it to say I don't see things this way.

4) I must admit honestly that I sense a certain amount of alienation on your part in the current (and not so current) history of American political discourse which is fine, insofar as the discussion here is concerned. I am in no position to validate (or invalidate) the entire political history of any country. Of course, it pays to be attentive when using broad strokes. I believe it is always helpful in one's political analysis to consider the nature of the surrounding world as well, the nature in which a given political system arises, as nothing 'good or bad' is ever formed in a vacuum, of course. As it pertains to your post, I must once again deny a Bush/MassMedia complicity, and I certainly wouldn't go so far as to characterize the media as 'conservative' by any stretch of the imagination, UNLESS one sees a hostile media environment - this current media environment - as a creation from on high. As well, I do not miss out on the facts that drives certain conspiracy theories, such as the preponderance of media control and content in the hands of Jews, for example.

5) I must admit that I found this paragraph to be the most interesting of the 6. If there is one thing that can almost universally be attributed to the current american administration, it is in it's benevolence not only to american business, but to large (and not-so-large) businesses around the world. Did you know that IBM just recently sold off its ENTIRE pc computer division to a chinese company? It was a curious and telling circumstance that, when quoted to speak on bush's re-election, many world leaders praised the fruitful working business relationships that existed between america and their respective countries. Ironically, in a world political climate characterized time and again in the media as 'strained', 'stand-offish', and downright hostile, the world business/financial climate amongst the major nations has flourished almost completely unimpeded. It is business as usual alongside the 'global war on terror'. Politicians play their games - Moneymakers play theirs. In this information age, I see capitalism as being somewhat disconnected from politics when viewed on a global (inter-connected) scale.

roachboy

powerclown: interesting response--thanks for it.
luckily i think this response can be shorter.
the numbers track as yours do.
1. i guess i should have simply said this: i opposed the bush administration on political grounds before he was elected the first time (quarrels about that aside)--but i did not imagine that the administration would veer in the direction that it has since 911--any more than i think the administration itself did. so my sense of what is happening, as it relates to the title of the thread, is that the administration found itself in a curious, unexpected position after 911 with an urgent need to react--which it did--to my mind--in a really quite simple-minded manner that seemed much more about a reaction to a percieved psychological need domestically--for some response, even one that narrowed the meanings of the action on 911 to a surreal extent--the problem i see is not even the response in itself (though i found it foul at the time) but that it did what i expected it to do from the outset, which was to box the administration in politically--the way of seeing the "war on terror" that you outline is to me a restatement of the effects of these earlier choices. i dont find it compelling analytically and see little but damage and hysteria resulting from it.
for all this, i understand that some kind of response was required right after 911--i simply think that it was at this point that this particular administration made really poor decisions.

2. on germany: from the a viewpoint that equates the alteration of an ideological context with the capturing of power by means of an effective coup d'etat, you'd be right. i see the two as related by seperat processes--the alteration of the ideological climate was quite rapid, but not as rapid as you make it out to be. on this, there is a body of newer social history grouped together as "the history of the everyday" in german, written by folk like martin brosazt (i am not sure of the spelling at this point--sorry) that is about trying to work out how this type of cultural alteration/domination happened, when, what reinforced it, what ran against it, etc. when i think about this type of question, i route some of it through this type of research. so we may be talking about the same thing from differing frame of reference that arent (until now) made explicit.
as for the speed of it--well, if you alter the timeframe, everything and anything can be seen as overnight, yes?

3. the press question is interesting--that there has developed a conservative media apparatus over the past 20 years or so seem unquestionable--this works within the dominant media, which i for one DO NOT see as "liberal" or "l;eft" at all--if anything a kind of diffuse moderateness conditioned by a tendency to defer to whomever is in power. so the two terms--mass media in general, the conservative media apparatus--do not cover the same area. the line is pretty obvious, if you think about it: on cable news, fox furthest and most obvsiouly to the right...in print, things like the washington times--in addition to the older-school weeklies and monthlies--the colonization of am talk radio by the right is evident as well. the rest of the institutions within/aroudn this scene are pretty well known.
that there is tight co-ordination between this apparatus and the present administration is pretty obvious--to say that there is direct control is wrong.
there are lots of older, other examples of tight co-ordination without formal control between types of organizations--i could go on at great and tiresome length about the co-ordination between the french communist party and the cgt, the biggest industrial trade union.
there is no need to slip into conspiracy unless your thinking does not allow you to see co-ordination for what it is. it odesnt require direct control of one institution by another. for example, if you think that there is no co-ordination between riger ailes and karl rove across talking points that shape how fox shapes its coverage of "news" then i would argue you are simply mistaken.

4. maybe you're right about a sense of alienation--but i am not sure what you mean exactly...anyway, in my regular life, such as it is, i do research on western european history and have spent alot of time juxtaposing western european and american political discourses/spectra of positions. so i dont tend to see americna politics entirely from the inside. maybe that is alienation--the terms doesnt really interest me, so there we are.

other tasks in real lilfe press on me, so the remainder will be suspended for the moment.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

roachboy,

Thanks for the response. Although this board by and large lends itself over to a visual, short attention span audience, what's a few lines of text between board members? Continuing with the current format:

1) You bring up an interesting point, which helps lead me to this. While you suggest that Bush reacted to 9/11 in a simple minded manner, I would suggest one take additional time to reflect upon just how complex are the actions (and reactions) of any civilized, modern day society. In this day and age of short-attention span theater, it is all too easy to rush to questionable judgement on major and far-reaching decisions taken by a huge and cumbersome entity such as the american government. All should not be what it appears at first, second or even third glance in such a system, anymore than there should be quick and simple answers to complex mathematical equations, for example. One can feel free to call Bush's decisions anything one might want; but I don't believe it is accurate to characterize them as 'simple'. As i mentioned above, I do think there is some amount of 'truth' to the saying going around: 'clash of civilizations'. I think the problem is semantic in nature in this particular case of labeling certain activities in the world, where provocative phrases are tossed around for political gain. One thing 9/11 did to this artificial conversation was to blow a hole right through it; a hole blown so violently as to get everybody's attention - in a proper, prudent and evolving way - and in doing so, alerting law-abiding people (everywhere) to a (potentially) very real danger.

2) germany, 2b.: I hadn't heard of brosazt in particular, but there's always room for more on the subject as far as I'm concerned. The nice thing about Hitler is that he was so unique, such an unambiguous example of a given pathos, that it makes him a relatively easy subject to examine and understand. Read from the top down starting with him - and allowing room for the entire spectrum of activities within the Third Reich and immediate environs - it is definitely one of the few examples in modern history (due to accurate and minute recordkeeping) unclouded by extraneous (read: partisan) public opinion. Precisely because Hitler made no secret of his ambitions of world domination, was he therefore relatively easy to deal with by force. While the security concerns of the world are in one sense the same today as then, insofar as religion is being channelled as a devisive lever, the methods of warfare, heretofore straightforward generally speaking, have strayed into the unconventional. A side-effect of the Information Age? In the end (whenever that is), and as it has always been, the greater intelligence, logic, reason, cunning, ruthlessness etc. - will have the day until the next crisis forms itself.

3) the press: god love em. If they can't make history, they might as well simply talk or write about it, to whomever will listen or read. Perched forever under their miraculous First Amendment, they are like pigs at the trough, enjoying (in the West anyway) unprecedented creative license and editorial recreation. I think that journalists - the truly, deeply, spiritually committed ones - must enjoy the highest job satisfaction of any profession anywhere. Narrowing the focus to this thread for the moment, I would offer this: for every conservative voice in the (again, western) media there is a liberal counterpart on the other side of the aisle. Fox has cnn, limbaugh has franken, moore has coulter, soros has trump, stewart has letterman, newsweek has the national review, rove has reid (senate), dailykos has powerline etc, etc.. Without their ideological counterparts, each side is by definition voiceless. Each side builds the other up to the fever pitch banshee wail we see around us today. Nobody would have a job if their ideological opposites were silenced. Would limbaugh have his radio show if he had nobody to bitch about? And on, down the line. For all my looking, I can't make out a central processing unit controlled exclusively by one side or the other.

4) the description here was simply meant to question an impression I had - admittedly one dimensional by definition due to the restrictions of internet discussion boards - of the curiously persistent and hostile commentary towards the present american administration, at the expense of similarly focused and vitriolic commentary on, say, saudi arabia, north korea, russia, turkey, egypt, iran, etc. But then again, if your viewpoint wasn't documented here, no one else's would be either, and further, no one would be motivated to think either in a similar or opposite fashion so nothing personal.

Pardon the length...

Lebell

People looking for the Skull and Bones/Bohemian Grove material are directed here:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=89646

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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