Sucking Up

Napoleon

One of then most outstanding examples of the tendency of media to suck up to power is a series of Newspaper headlines printed in Paris in 1815 about the return to power of Napoleon.

Now after Napoleon was defeated in 1814 he had been exiled to the island of Elba, which is just off the coast of Italy.

Napoleon for various reasons tired of his exile and decided to try to regain power in France. So he left the island of Elba and landed in southern France in early March of 1815. And here are various Headlines from Paris newspapers up to Napoleon's entry into Paris on March 22 1815.

Evasions

De Man

and 

Avoiding Responsibility

Paul de Man

The late Paul de Man was one of the most influential Postmodernists.1 Paul de Man was born in and lived his early life in Belgium after World War II he moved to the USA where he taught at Yale University. Paul de Man's writing were rather turgid and difficult but beneath the verbiage we sometimes find stuff that is unintentionally revealing, such has this passage:

Yet without this moment, never allowed to exist as such, no such thing as a text is conceivable. We know this to be the case from empirical experience as well: it is always possible to face up to any experience (to excuse any guilt), because the experience always exists simultaneously as fictional discourse and as empirical event and it is never possible to decide which one of the two possibilities is the right one. The indecision makes it possible to excuse the bleakest of crimes because, as a fiction, it escapes from the constraints of guilt and innocence. On the other hand, it makes it equally possible to accuse fiction-making which, in Holderlin's words, is "the most innocent of all activities," of being the most cruel. The knowledge of radical innocence also performs the harshest mutilations. Excuses not only accuse but they carry out the verdict implicit in their accusation.2

“Freedom” Under a Tyranny

Isaiah Berlin

One of the most important attributes of tyranny and living under a tyranny is that intelligent people are forced to “trim their sails” in order to survive. Thus they are forced to compromise their intellect in order to stay both safe and alive. The corollary  that goes with that is that the holders of power can dictate what is “reasonable” and “rational” and their holding of power over people enables them to enforce their views against the will and intellect of others.

The Eccentric and the Asshole

 A note on the Freeman / Mead controversy

Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman

One of the “joys” of our media saturated culture is that it both manufactures controversies and creates opportunities for media junkies to get a fix. The Mead / Freeman “controversy” is one such manufactured controversy and both of the participants can be described as “media pushers”.

Of course in this case one of the participants in the “controversy” was dead so that it was basically one sided. The other participant thoughtfully waited until his victim was dead before shall we say going public with his hatchet job.

E. H. Carr and Prophetic History

Moral Cretinism Part XI

E. H. Carr

The late writer and Historian Irving Howe wrote concerning the Historian and political ideologue Isaac Deutscher that: 

He never learned that unpredictable as human history may be, History is a bitch.1 

Lenin

A Note on his Politics

Young Lenin

Probably the most influential politician of the 20th century both directly and indirectly was Lenin. Sadly in many respects his influence was negative and in fact his career is a perfect of example of that old cliché the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Fellow Travelers and Conducted Tours

Moral Cretinism Part X

I have in several previous postings mentioned the various examples of moral cretinism concerning Communism and Stalinism.1 Here I will briefly discuss the phenomena of Stalinist Fellow travelling in the 1930’s and 40’s through a very useful and informative text, The Fellow Travellers.2 The book supplies a gold mine of information about moral corruption and intellectual incompetence.

The Fall of the Khmer Rouge

A Note

Map of IndoChina

In 1975 a brutal regime of obsessed fanatics gained power in Cambodia and instituted through a combination of fanaticism and incompetence a reign of terror that killed c. 1.5 million Cambodians.1 In a previous posting I took apart what can only be described as a truly lame defence of the Khmer Rouge that in effect regurgitated much Khmer Rouge propaganda.2 Here I will concentrate on the foreign connection, being that Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge with a military invasion.

Coercion

Works

Book Cover

One of the most telling of popular myths regarding history is that history shows that force, coercion etc., do not work. Sadly this is simply not the case all too frequently violence does in fact work and work quite well in ”solving” problems. And this idea is allied with the notion that somehow success “proves” that the idea etc., was right.

The Ticking Time bomb and the Terrorist
An example of a Forced Hypothetical

Ticking Clock

Since 9/11 there has been resurgence in the use of torture by states and along with that resurgence in the attempts to justify it.

Kant’s

Cant

Crossed Fingers

A few Years ago I responded to individual in a forum who accepted a great deal of what Kant said about lying.1 The result was a stew of nonsense. When someone brought up the hiding the Jews in the basement / attic situation the person hemmed and hawed outrageously. The following is the main tenor of a discussion I had with the individual over lying. I have chosen to exclude a tangential discussion where the person engaged in an ad hominem attack on me and my family. The individual in question made a totally un-evidenced comment about lying always ending badly and responded with a personal attack when I pointed out the comment was absurd.

Knowing Better

Gulag Camp

In 1956 Khrushchev gave his secret speech outlining and denouncing the crimes of Joseph Stalin and the Stalinist regime.1

Many people, usually Communists, reacted with shock and horror. Thus the Communist party of the USA and it members said such things as referring to: 

...the shocking disclosures... 

Mr. Foster, the party chairman mentioned: 

...the sweeping revelations of the Stalin cult of the individual.

 Another figure  in the Communist party, Max Weis, of the USA claimed:

...the disclosure of the mistakes made under Stalin's leadership came as a stunning surprise to our Party leadership and membership,... 

Finally the party leader, Mr. Dennis said: 

... the facts disclosed about the errors of Stalin ... are of course, new to us.2 

Was any of this reaction the least bit credible? Or was it nothing more than evidence that the minds of members of the Communist party of the USA were set in concrete like true - believing fanatics?

Moral Cretinism Part IX

The ban passages, Genocide and Himmler.



William Lane Craig



The following is, in full, a blog posting by the so-called Theologian William Lane Craig in response to two questions concerning the infamous ban passages from the Old-Testament. The terrible passages that talk about how God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone and in some cases “all that breathed” in the towns they took and that they exterminated the Canaanites from the land with fire and sword.

Plato’s “Empathy”

Bust of Plato

In Plato’s dialogues there is sometimes the fact that the context, or set up, to his dialogue’s issues tells us more about Plato’s social attitudes than the overt statements of what the dialogue is about.

A Note on Child Sexual Abuse

“Dude. You have sex with children!”1

South Park Episode - Cartman joins NAMBLA

Here in Canada we had a major dust up more than 30 years ago in an article published in a Gay magazine, (The Body Politic), Called Men loving boys, loving men,1 at the time it stirred up a lot of controversy to say the least. A contingent of the Gay Liberation movement bought the argument that pedophiles were being stigmatized and oppressed for their feelings by a sexually repressive society. Thus some bought the idea that pedophiles were a repressed minority. Further they bought the idea that children were sexual beings who were prevented by a sex-phobic society from using their sexuality which included if they so desired sex with adults.

Cruel Hindsight

Map of Afghanistan

In a previous posting I briefly reviewed a book published in the Marxist Regimes series that gave an overview of then Marxist governed Ethiopia.1 In that review I mentioned that The Marxist Regimes series was stunningly oblivious to the signs of the imminent implosion of Marxist regimes worldwide. That the alleged value neutral approach basically led to obliviousness to the serious structural, institutional and economic problems of those regimes and tended towards moral capitulation in the face of evil and atrocity is also clear. The book about Ethiopia by Peter Schwab was an outstanding example of moral obscenity given its celebration of a vicious regime and its fawning over Dictator Mengistu.

Pure Idiocy

Moral Cretinism Part VIII

Ethiopian Famine Victims 1985

In the 1980's there was published books in a series called the Marxist Regime Series. The books in the series were under the overall editorship of Prof. Bogan Szajowski of University College Cardiff Wales.

Libertarian Shit

Famine India, 1901

A While ago I had a series of exchanges with some Libertarians.1 Here are some of my replies to their nonsense; slightly reworked.

Nomenklatura

Some Notes on the Soviet elite

Part I

Soviet Politburo

In 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power practically nobody expected the emergence of a new type of society with a new type of class structure. Well that is what emerged. The few who saw in the Marxist-Leninist theory the emerging of a new elite and its ideological justification were a small minority.1