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This article provides an interesting analysis of the recent political rhetoric of the BuShites, comparing the political rhetoric to techniques of mass hypnosis, specifically those used by Hitler. It’s an interesting comparison, actually. The article makes several good points:

Perhaps the clearest likeness between the two men [Bush Jr. and Hitler] lies in their use of emotionally induced hypnosis to plant in the mass consciousness an image of themselves as protectors of their subjects from threats to national survival both inside and outside the fatherland.

Change “fatherland” to “homeland,” and you begin to see the parallels. This strategy, appropriated by Bush in his demonization of Saddam Hussein, reflects some advice given by Hitler in his book, Mein Kampf: “The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of the people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.”

A salient example of Bush’s technique can be found in this analysis of his state of the Union address in 2003:

In search of support for shaky WMD charges against Saddam, Bush found the torture issue and put it on the front burner in his January 2003 State of the Union address: “This dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues and rape.”

Bush went on to urge Americans to come together in an orgy of fear induced self hypnosis by mentally imaging the dreadful prospect of Iraqi sponsored terrorists attacking the U. S., and tried again to link the Iraqi leader to the 9/11 attack on the twin towers: “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans – this time armed by Saddam….We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.” If Saddam had not existed, Bush would have invented him.

The key point of hypnotism is the nature of the information being expressed in the address. On one hand, there is the clear, reasoned transfer of information. On the other hand, hypnosis is the intential limiting of the listener’s consciousness, which can take several forms. Intentionally oversimplifying the problem to narrow or dualistic terms is probably the simplest, ie, “you’re either with us or you’re with The Terrorists(tm).”

The author of the article is himself familiar with hypnosis. Regardless, an interesting analysis.

I just came across this article, called Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War. Looks interesting. DU could be responsible for the Gulf War Syndrome. Hard to say. But this issue — a form of nuclear war — needs to be addressed in the American consciousness.

I just discovered the writings of John Chuckman. From his bio statement:

John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. He is a member of no political party and takes exception to what has been called America’s “culture of complaint” with its habit of reducing every important issue to an unproductive argument between two simplistically defined groups. John left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the government embarked on the murder of millions of Vietnamese in their own land because they happened to embrace the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling “the peaceable kingdom.”

Interesting background. He’s certainly angry at America, his tone is seething. There are two articles. The first is Insanity In America, where he gloats over recent reports “that there is more mental illness and insanity, far more, in America than you find in other advanced societies.” In the study,
“a Harvard Medical School researcher, found evidence of mental problems in 26.4% of people in the United States, versus, for example, 8.2% of people in Italy.” I can’t say I’m surprised. The structure of American society requires such intense cognitive dissonance that millions of people crack and go bugfuck. I wonder how many of those 26.4% are Bush supporters?

The second article, America’s Pathetic Liberals: The Sequel, is the most scathing critique yet not only of Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11, but of the American Liberal culture I’ve ever seen. From the article:

Michael Moore’s role is to make American liberals feel good about themselves without having to question the practices of a society which cast an increasingly long, cold, dark shadow over the planet. The job pays well, and Moore is becoming a wealthy man, a kind of well-kept court jester for those with occasional twinges of liberal conscience or human decency.

Moore’s film revels in exactly the kind of inconsistent thinking, full of unwarranted assumptions, thick with suggestions of undefined conspiracy, typical to one degree or another of most media in the United States. The thinking also is typical of a President who keeps telling us he decimated Iraq and spent a hundred billion dollars to save American lives.

You may ask, we know Bush is a brutal, rather psychopathic man, so how can he be like so much of middle America? You see, middle America is not the harmless, gentle place it seems in Hollywood’s confections. It is the place where thirty-year old couples assume they are entitled to a five-bedroom home on a sprawling lot in the suburbs with at least two lumbering vehicles in the driveway. It is the place which ignores the ugly parts of its own society, the ghettos, the broken-down schools, the lack of healthcare. It is the place where the relentless demand for still more endangers the planet’s future. And it is the place that drives America to global empire.

Bush is not, as so many American liberals claim, out of step with American history. Childish slogans about taking back America or, even worse, “Dude, Where’s My Country?” are just that, childish. Bush is an awkward, unpleasant exemplar of enduring American behavior and values. Did the invasion of Iraq represent different values or attitudes than the “Remember the Maine” invasion of Cuba? How about the invasion of Mexico, or the seizure of Hawaii, or the holocaust in Vietnam and Cambodia? Does the Patriot Act represent anything different than the Alien and Sedition laws of John Adam’s day or the dark excesses of the FBI under Hoover?

Be very careful how you vote to get rid of Bush. Kerry has never so much as condemned the war. He has never condemned Bush, except by repeating official-report findings all thinking people on the planet understood a year before the official report. Kerry’s view of the Middle East, frantic pandering to Israel’s darkest interests, promises no end to future troubles. He is an unrepentant, unimaginative supporter of global empire.

That brings us to the real tragedy of America and the real cause of 9/11 and so many other horrors: America’s swaggering readiness to play the game of global empire with all the brutality and incivility that it implies. You tell me how a confused film like Moore’s, even if it contributes to toppling a confused President like Bush, adds anything to resolving America’s great dilemma of insatiable greed and willingness to do terrible deeds while mouthing high-sounding ideals.

Not much to add to that. Though I do think that Chuckman is conflating “the people” and “the government” into something called “America.” You have to distinguish the two; despite the illusion the the government is “of, by, and for the people,” it clearly is not these days.

Furthermore, if it is indeed true that America has thrice the insanity rate of the rest of the west, then it follows that there is an external cause to this insanity. Therefore, these “American nutcases” are victims, and are therefore worthy of compassion. Mr. Chuckman doesn’t seem to be exhibiting much in the way of sympathy. It’s easy to rail agaist those at the top of the hill, but the question is, what can be done about it?

OK, yet another good definition of neoliberalism. This one comes from George Caffentzis, in his piece (credited to Midnight Notes), called Respect Your Enemies–The First Rule of Peace: An Essay Addressed to the U.S. Anti-War Movement. George says the following of neoliberalism:

We are told that Communism collapsed in 1989, but many have argued
that the political economy of post-WWII capitalism, Keynesianism,
collapsed a decade before to be replaced by a system that was called
at first Thatcherism and Reaganism, and later neoliberalism and/or
globalization. This system claimed that the basic institution of
modern society ought to be the Market not the State, and that the best
form of all social interactions is the commodity form. This conception
of social life had a great propaganda triumph with the dissolution of
the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist bloc. More
importantly, it set into motion a remarkable shift in the economic
policies of most Third World countries (under the name of Structural
Adjustment Policies) that opened them to foreign investment, lower
tariffs, and unrestricted movement of money across their borders.
Finally, it undermined the guarantees of subsistence (early
retirement, unemployment benefits, health care, free education, etc.)
that the working class in Western Europe and North America had won in
a century of struggle (Midnight Notes, 1992).

The early 1990s was a remarkable period of triumph for neoliberalism
and globalization. Never before had the economic policies of the
planet been so homogenous, while institutions like the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization were
given the financial and legal power to keep the governments of the
planet true to the rules of the neoliberal global economy.

Up until July 1997, the supporters of this political economy seemed
invincible. Then, the “Asian Financial Crisis” struck. Ever since,
there have been breathtaking reversals that have put neoliberalism
into question more rapidly than the rapid pace of its triumphs. We
need not detail the recent stock market bubble burstings, the
recessions, the financial system collapses, the dramatic devaluations,
and the dot.com fiascoes. They constitute an international crisis of
neoliberalism and globalization — but not simply because the 1990s
globalization boom ended in the “loss” of trillions of dollars in a
very short time.

That’s a much more concise history than I gave. Read the rest of the article if you’re curious.

OK. So the definition of neoliberalism in the previous entry is verbose and not at all concise, though I still think it’s valuable. I want to give it another go.

So what is neoliberalism? And why am I so obsessed with it?

The best answer to this question requires some background. I come from a fairly white-bread, middle class background. When I was a kid, I thought I’d be a lawyer or an engineer, and be making 6 figures by now. After all, I was an intelligent kid, and an intelligent kid in my situation of white, upper-middle-class privilege should dream about how he will be able to profit from The System, right? I was a Republican. I hated cats. I can actually remember cheering when the US bombed Libya in 1986.

So what has this to do with neoliberalism?

First of all, neoliberalism is an economic term, and not precisely a political one, except to the extant that economics is politics. Secondly, the “liberal” in neoliberalism does not apply to what Rush Limbaugh calls “liberals.” Funny, but the rest of the world regards the term “liberal” to be very different from how it is regarded in the US. In the US, “liberal” means roughly “left wing,” whereas throughout the rest of the world “liberal” indicates a stance on the right.

Liberalism, from an economic perspective, refers to the laissez-faire attitude in capitalism, that the market governed by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” phantom will take care of itself. It is the fundamental belief that the profit motive is the best way to ensure progress as a society. That by encouraging the relentless pursuit of profit for personal, selfish gain, society is best served, because people will strive to be most productive, which benefits everyone in society.

Sounds OK, on the surface.

But there problems with it, and most of the problems have to do with how this attitude has developed historically. Around the end of the 19th century, the notion of a “corporation” came into being in the way it exists today; basically from a legal perspective, corporations are equivalent to persons, and are entitled to the same legal protections under the US Constitution that people receive. This was decided in 1886 by the US Supreme Court, in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company decision. If you’re interested, you should read the previous link. The basic story is that the judge in that case asserted without question the doctrine of corporate personhood, and since that doctrine ended up “on the record,” it was assumed by law from then on. This case has been the foundation for corporate law since.

So I ask again: what has this to do with neoliberalism?

The problem comes when you apply the classical liberal economic principles of “free market” economy to the present political/economic climate, in which corporations are persons.

If a person — or a corporation; there is no distinction in the eyes of the law — can operate freely without government intervention, then the relentless pursuit of profit (the goal of any corporation) can run unfettered. And since a corporation is just another kind of person, then there is no putting the needs of people ahead of the needs of corporations.

So this is the essence of neoliberalism. Liberal economic policies, applied anew to corporations. Neo-liberalism.

Now even still, what’s wrong with that? You also have to consider the notion of globalization. Corporations are now multinational, although most corporations are controlled in the US. Virtually all the land in the US (and for that matter the world) is already owned. The corporations cannot continue to grow their profit margins with only the US population as its customer base. Furthermore, American workers have, by global standards, high wages and decent working conditions, a result of a very long labor struggle. Labor is much cheaper overseas, so we see more and more products being made in different countries from where they are sold.

Furthermore, there are international money organizations that control how these international commerce situations develop. These are the IMF (International Monetary Fund), The WB (World Bank), etc. These organizations are largely controlled by the US, and more specifically by US corporate interests. So while corporations are, legally, on an “equal level” with persons, the reality is that these organizations manipulate global economic conditions to favor the corporations over the people. Their biggest tool for doing so is the “Structural Adjustment Program,” which has historically had very negative effects on poor people worldwide.

So it comes back to the title of Chomsky’s book excerpted below: profits over people.

This mode of capitalism (neoliberalism) took hold in the early to mid 1970s, replacing Keynesianism which was dominant from WWII until then. It can be no coincidence that 1973 was also the peak of the earning power of the American working class. The oil crisis took hold then. The upheaval and hope of the 60s gave way to the complacency and consumerism of the 1980s. Underlying all of these changes is the spectre of neoliberalism.

Several people have asked me about the term “neoliberalism.” I’ve tried to provide good defnitions of this term, but I recently came across a very good one, written by, of all people, Noam Chomsky. This definition decomes from his book, Profits Over People, a title that is in itself a fairly apt description of neoliberalism. But Chomsky’s definition is this:

The Washington Consensus

The neoliberal Washington consensus is an array of market oriented principles designed by the government of the United States and the international financial institutions that it largely dominates, and implemented by them in various ways-for the more vulnerable societies, often as stringent structural adjustment programs. The basic rules, in brief, are liberalize trade and finance, let markets set price (“get prices right”), end inflation (“macroeconomic stability”), privatize. The government should “get out of the way”-hence the population too, insofar as the government is democratic, though the conclusion remains implicit. The decisions of those who impose the “consensus” naturally have a major impact on global order. Some analysts take a much stronger position. The international business press has referred to these institutions as the core of a “de facto world government” of a “new imperial age.”

Whether accurate or not, this description serves to remind us that the governing institutions are not independent agents but reflect the distribution of power in the larger society. That has been a truism at least since Adam Smith, who pointed out that the “principal architects” of policy in England were “merchants and manufacturers,” who used state power to serve their own interests, however “grievous” the effect on others, including the people of England. Smith’s concern was “the wealth of nations,” but he understood that the “national interest” is largely a delusion within the “nation” there are sharply conflicting interests, and to understand policy and its effects we have to ask where power lies and how it is exercised, what later came to be called class analysis.

The “principal architects” of the neoliberal “Washington consensus” are the masters of the private economy, mainly huge corporations that control much of the international economy and have the means to dominate policy formation as well as the structuring of thought and opinion. The United States has a special role in the system for obvious reasons. To borrow the words of diplomatic historian Gerald Haines, who is also senior historian of the CIA, “Following World War II the United States assumed, out of self-interest, responsibility for the welfare of the world capitalist system.”

You can see that this definition comes dangerously close to the pseudo-Heideggerian or conspiracy theorist’s “They,” as in “They” are pulling the strings of world government. And indeed, these “They” are somewhat phantomish. But the description is apt. All of us, at least all of us in America or in the west, participate in the neoliberal system to some extent. But many people profit greatly from the system, and seek to protect it. Thus the close ties between American policy and global economics. This is the essence of neoliberalism; it is important to realize that the economic policy goes hand in hand with the state power and associated military might to protect it. Hence perpetual war, most recently in Iraq.

Yeah, I know. Yawn. I’ve been saying “switch to Linux” for probably 2 years now. But now, with all the security issues surrounding Microsoft products lately, eWeek is asking whether Isn’t Now the Time to Try a Linux Desktop?.

Well, yeah. Duhhhh….

Anyone who reads this website(or my old one) knows that I have been a free software activist for several years. The points I have been making for a long time are just starting to reach public awareness. It’s to the point where I just can’t abide working on Windows, like I have to do when I’m at work.

The author of the article does make some good points in regard to how IE bugs and Mozilla bugs are fixed. First, he looks at Microsoft’s policy:

Let’s look at the latest security news about Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Microsoft’s fix for one of the latest Internet Explorer holes was to deactivate the broken part, ADODB.Stream. Some fix.

The folks in Redmond still don’t have solutions to IE’s other problems, and they can’t even give users a straight answer on when you can expect a fix.

Yes, it appears that XP SP2 will take care of this set of problems, but what about people using other versions of Windows? Will there be a similar broad-ranging patch for them? They sure won’t be getting an updated version of Internet Explorer, since Microsoft has made it clear that there will no future standalone versions of IE because IE is now part of the operating system.

Now, he compares this to Mozilla’s response to similar bugs in their browser:

Now, let’s look at the latest Mozilla bug. This bug affects the Mozilla suite, the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client. Just like the IE ones, it enabled crackers to run remote programs on Windows computers—no others—and it had been described in theory long before anyone demonstrated an exploit for it.

In early July, a way was shown on how to exploit the problem. By July 7, it was fixed. IE bugs? Still unfixed.

You know there might be something to this whole notion that open source speeds up security development.

Gee. Maybe. He. Has. A. Point.

Sorry, I can’t help but be self-righteous and indignant on this issue. :-)

There are more critiques of Fahrenheit 9/11 that I’m reading, and they are interesting. In “Why Does ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Pursue Conspiracy Theory?” Yoshie Furuhashi writes:

In order to analyze the problem of decades of collaboration between Washington and Riyadh as well as other unsavory allies, fighting against the Communists, nationalists, and other official enemies of Washington during and after the Cold War, he [Michael Moore] would have to go beyond the crimes of the George W. Bush administration, but doing so would implicate Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (as well as all presidents of the United States, especially the ones who came into power after the US decidedly replaced Britain and France as the hegemonic imperial power) in the violent project of repression inside and outside Saudi Arabia.

This is a more detailed articulation of what I’ve been saying; the policies of the BuShites are not new in themselves; the only novelty is that they seem to be operating more openly and recklessly than in the past. There is no reason to believe that Kerry won’t continue this decades-long tradition of American imperialism.

In another article, “Manufacturing Dissent: Michael Moore’s Noose for the Left”, Shlomo Svesnik makes some very pertinent points, pointing out many cognitive dissonances in the film. Among them:

For starters, the film can’t make up its mind if it is taking an anti-war, pro-tolerance position or faulting the White House for being too lax in pursuing the War on Terrorism. That the film gets away with this equivocation seems indicative of prevalent sloppy thinking on the American left–which will come back to bite us on the ass in due time.

This article may be one of the angrier critiques of Fahrenheit 9/11 that I’ve seen. But there is a lot at stake; though ousting Bush is currently the largest preoccupation of The Left(tm), there are larger issues at stake. Painting the problem of the BuShites with such a large, oversimplistic brush can be very damaging to The Left. This article concludes:

Michael Moore, whatever his much-hyped working class origins, has become a part of the otherwise hated “media elite” no less than the networks and newspapers that manufacture consent for the endless war. If we let our cheering drown out any misgivings about the subtly dangerous (if garbled) ideas he is purveying, we are still being empty receptacles for propaganda–just propaganda that we like this time.

Beware Mooremania–this is manufactured, mass-produced dissent. And it is no substitute for the real thing.

I like this concept of “dissent lite.” It feels good, and it gives people a place to put their rage toward the BuShites. But the hollowness of Moore’s arguments in the film demonstrate that The Left is overripe for rejuvenation.

It comes down to the fact that the American Two-Party system has managed to consolidate power too narrowly. People still think in terms of political dualism, with each pole represented by “Democrat” and “Republican,” or more generically “Liberal” and “Conservative.”

It will be interesting to see what this overripeness on The Left will result; can another party gain enough strength to seriously challenge the Democrats? Or is the current state of the Democratic party the response of Empire? Right now, many on The Left are so worried about the BuShites that they are railing against others on the Left — Ralph Nader, for example.

The “anyone but Bush” meme, therefore, can be taken as a defense tactic by Empire to preserve its power. And it appears to be working quite effectively.

I just found a new online magazine, The World War 3 Report. According to the site, the WW3 report

monitors the global War on Terrorism and its implications for human rights, democracy and ecology. We scan the world media and Internet with a critical eye for distortions and propaganda. Our only loyalty is to the truth.

Every week, we cover the top stories in the War on Terrorism, as well as important stories overlooked by the mass media. Everything we report is sourced, and we endeavor to fact-check and probe deeper when something smells funny–whether it comes from the New York Times or a fringe web site. We annotate with historical, cultural and political context when it is relevant and overlooked by our source.

Sounds good to me. I’ve started reading around, and so far the articles look good. Yet another source of info…

I’ve been thinking more about Kerry, Michael Moore, and the political dialogue in America. I think that one effect of Fahrenheit 9/11 is that it will definitely shift the political dialogue to highlight the wrongdoings of the BuShites. This is, in part, a good thing; public awareness of the blatant, reckless, and overagressive actions of the BuShites should be higher in public awareness.

The problem is that I fear this shift in dialogue will reinforce the “anyone but Bush” meme. Moore’s polemic against the BuShites creates the illusion that everything was hunky-dory until they stole power. This is simply not the case.

As an example of what I mean, look at the recent speeches by Kerry, according to CNN:

He accused Bush of misleading America over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, and said the president had broken his promises to build “a true international coalition,” honor the U.N. weapons inspection process and go to war only as a last resort.

But while Kerry says this, he and Edwards also defended their decision to vote for the war in Iraq:

“Based on the information we had the time that we had it, it was the right vote,” Kerry said. “The problem is the president did not honor what he said he would do in the exercise of the authority that he was given.”

Edwards, eating a lunch of salad and pasta beside Kerry at a conference table in the Boeing 757’s front cabin, added: “Not only that, he abused the authority.”

So again, they’re correct about the actions of the BuShites. But they seriously gloss over their own part of the responsibility for the Iraq invasion. When the BuShites were making their claims about Iraq, Saddam, and WMDs, nearly everyone knew or suspected that they were lying. Kerry and Edwards themselves claimed, above, that the BuShites should have respected the UN inspections process. Yet they still voted for the invasion.

Why? There is cognitive dissonance here.

It is interesting to look at some of Bill Clinton’s comments about Iraq. Remember, sanctions continued under the Clinton administration, sanctions that had grave and devastating consequences for the Iraqi people. In an interview on CNN, Clinton defends his decision to continue the sanctions:

I basically believe that the policy that I inherited, which was basically to keep Saddam Hussein in a box and under sanctions, unless and until he fully complied with the U.N. resolutions, was the right policy. It wasn’t so great for the Iraqis, but he didn’t present a substantial threat to anyone else.

This policy is questionable, even for someone like me who isn’t privy to all the details of the Iraqi situation. The sanctions obviously had little effect on Saddam, but devasted the Iraqi people, a reality that Clinton himself admits.

It is policies like this one that lead to such international hatred of America, and ultimatley to things like 9/11. Everyone who dies as a result of American foreign policy reinforces this hatred.

I’m just not convinced that Kerry and Edwards will reverse this trend, though I do concede that they probably would not operate as recklessly or as openly as the BuShites.