either their brains are faulty ...

  .. and their thinking fatally flawed ...

    .. or they are outright evil - effectively the same

Keywords: democracy vs. deceit, destruction and death.

Extra keywords: sophism[1] and casuist[2].

-=*=-

Preamble: If we talk about fatally flawed, perhaps the 'best' (actually of course, the worst) contemporary illustration may be terrorism; from the concept, the reaction and exploitation, then through to the current most often attempted 'remedy' aimed only at a symptom, i.e. military violence - which ignores the real and effective solution, i.e. a just cure, beginning at the source.

In particular, what about the US 'led' aggressive military violence in Afghanistan - the hapless Afghans did *nothing* to the US, did not even threaten anyone (well, any outside of Afghanistan, and internal 'only' Sharia law perhaps). Just about all the since-defeated Taliban regime did wrong was to snub an approach by the US in reference to a pipeline, the famous coercive 'carpet of gold or bombs' offer. (The story is denied with the usual tin-foil twist, and the fact that Karzai had alleged links to Unocal is mere coincidence - of course! Karzai, Khalilzad, PNAC, Unocal, Taliban, pipeline - 1000+ times together on the same pages. What's that funny stink? Oil?) More than 7 years later the killing still goes on and on (what proportion totally innocent 'collaterals?') - and sucking in Aus and NATO, amongst other quislings.

As truth and justice seekers, if we analyse terrorism - carefully, honestly, as we do - then we should be able to suggest how to solve the problem (peacefully!) to the satisfaction of all concerned. Another 'of course,' some of us have already done this analysis, so all the more the frustration as the situation continues to deteriorate - one must suppose that it is purposefully 'allowed,' even 'encouraged' to deteriorate.

Discussion: Terrorism is termed 'asymmetric warfare;' it is usually deployed by some v.lightly armed faction against some direct 'target' most often innocently civilian, again usually with the purpose of relieving some perceived injustice imposed by some (external) agency. (That terrorism could be deployed as a method of forcing some conjured-up caliphate on some region (even ours!) is held by this writer to be an evil furphy; largely propaganda invented by our own 'side,' since the objective is clearly not merely risibly improbable, but entirely impractical. Compare to 'CIA/Al-Qaeda' and 'black-ops' below.) Terrorism examples: IRA bombing of civilian targets with the perceived injustice coming from the allegedly occupying UK, Palestinians likewise with the *actual* injustice coming from the *illegally occupying* Israel.

As Pape's "Dying to Win" showed, suicide terrorism was invented by Tamils, and the objective is usually to eject an occupier. Here is a quote from a review:

  «Both recognize the importance of the underlying strategic logic that animates the campaigns, of the behavior of the enemy that provides the targets, and of foreign occupation as a motivating factor.»
[foreignaffairs/Lawrence D. Freedman]

It would be wrong to infer that any terrorism is justified; with the possible exception of true self-defence (actions directed solely at an illegal, murdering occupier could qualify as such self-defence), killing people is wrong, and killing innocent bystanders is infinitely wrong. (Which part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you understand?)

(BTW, a note on 'infinitely wrong:' I use this in the way some say 'very unique.' Both wrong and unique are like binary switches, they are either 'on' or not, and need no 'extra' (extraneous?) qualifier. Then, someone comes along and demands 'nuancing,' which if acceded to even in any small way, can make what should be a simple dissertation into a distorted mish-mash - a bit like this BTW. Take, for a pertinent example, killing. I say "All killing is wrong," then some Tüpflischiiser comes along and says "except in a self-defence-type situation." Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the same Ts-er says "military killing is neither illegal nor murder." What??! Killing is killing and is wrong, except... Now, we have to 'square the circle;' what comes 1st, the chicken or the egg? In order to have a 'self-defence' case, one needs - actually, of course, one doesn't need at all - a murderous attacker - who must clearly be in the wrong (... except!) Getting back to military killing, in the case of aggressive invasions (Palestine, 60+ years long, lately Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza... ) - aggressive invasions are Nuremberg-class war crimes, and any killing perpetrated by such invaders is both illegal and murder - since no self-defence is involved, except(!) - possibly on the part of the hapless victims. Now, we come to the law, as drawn attention to by Damian on his UNMISTAKABLE PARALLELS comment of 10:45 AM (see next para., g'day!) The apparent arbitrary, even contrary nature of some law is inexcusable; the only defensible law is just law, just as most of Israel is indefensible, on the grounds of being stolen. Hmmm, 'wandering' Jews, anyone?

Finally, as Damian said:

  «Any state or group of states can make a 'law' and then pass off various actions as being legal but that doesn't mean to say that it is in any way moral.»

As the law can obviously be as arbitrary as some corrupt types may desire (but not as desired by us, we the people - who on the whole seek justice), so lying blog-trolls can claim anything they like - that the IDF killing in Gaza is *not* murder, say, or that the US is *not* up to its ears in 'murder for spoil.' Dear reader, you may decide; end of this BTW.)

-=*=-

The reaction of the sheople to terrorism is usually as desired: "Shock, horror - and fear." The latter, fear, leads to:

The exploitation, since the usual reaction, both by the US and Israeli regimes is mostly militarily, and just as usually, wrong.

(As flawed as the terrorism concept is, it has had some success; Blair was forced to negotiate a settlement with the IRA, Israel was ejected (however temporarily) from Lebanon, the US were ejected from their military bases in Saudi Arabia following '9/11.')

But (and it's a very big BUT): ever-increasing violence is *NOT* a, the or any solution. Aggressively attacking with ever more violence (and as US/Israeli-implemented, mass civilian 'collateral' deaths) is engaging with the symptom, one *must* cure the underlying cause. In all cases the initial reaction to terrorism should be a police-type action - as opposed to military, but the source-grievance should be addressed as the priority - mediation, negotiation - but not just more knee-jerk = simplistic (WRONG!) killing. Illegal killing - or should one say indiscriminate slaughter: Afghanistan, 2001+, Iraq, 2003+, Lebanon, 2006, Gaza, 2008/09? Note: terrorism may have been claimed as the 'excuse,' but see immediately below.

However: things are not so simple. Although the US and Israeli regimes' reactions are apparently directed at the symptom of terrorism - arguably the wrong reaction in any case, there is almost invariably a not so well or hardly concealed purpose, in the case of Afghanistan it's a desired pipeline route, in Iraq it's the oil (however many times they try to deny it, it's just Oh, so painfully, bleedingly obvious) and 60+ bloody years long in now sadly mostly ex-Palestine, it's the land and water. As (deliberately!) dumbed-down as most sheople appear to be, most of them can nevertheless see the utter, criminal villainy rampant.

-=*=-

Ben-Gurion may well have said: "Well yes, there'll be a bit of blood - mostly theirs - but it may all work out for the best sometime. We'll start in Deir Yassin ..."

On being asked: «"Prime Minister, ... if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it?"»

Golda Meir did say: «"Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying."»
[ICH/Alan Hart/Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews]

  «"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Xxx] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."»
[Conned-a-sleazer on CNN/Blitzer]

A dreadful 'of course:' Israel does not deny that it may have up to 200 'nukular' bombs...

Q: Exactly who are the terrorists here?

-=*=-

Having written above that things are not so simple, the defects in our democracy can be teased apart into simpler components:

1. the filthy lies

2. the dumbed-down sheople

3. the people who really should know better

Repeating as I must, prerequisites for a properly functioning democracy include an informed, involved electorate, a fair and wide choice of honest candidates and after election, representatives who then properly represent us, we the people. These prerequisites are largely honoured in the breach.

Some propaganda:

On torture: "If it saves just one life ..."

On surveillance: "If you have nothing to hide ..."

(Request: since I don't 'do' mainstream TV, avoiding Hollywood and Madison Ave both, as well as having much better things to do, I don't see too much of the propaganda as illustrated by the two examples given above. My wish is to collect more such examples; over to you dear reader.)

-=*=-

Thesis: The answer to the (plaintive cry) Q: "But what can I do? (Little old all-alone me?)" - simply cannot be "Nothing."

With no action at all, things will likely get worse (2nd law of thermodynamics; entropy tends to increase), with no effective action, nothing will change, let alone for the better (Newton's 1st law; inertia). Since lies are deployed to deceive, we can hardly be expected to deal with real problems if we are subjected to a confusing fug of propaganda, aka lies. The absolute minimum action is to identify (with the hope of eliminating) lies wherever possible on the way to determining the underlying truth, the next step is to expose both lies and truth for all to see. After that, people must combine to effect countervailing actions; demand - and get no more lies, demand - and get a varied range of honest candidates, demand - and get proper representation, demand - and get true justice.

As to a beginning method, one could examine all one's inputs - TV, both so-called 'news' and so-called 'entertainment,' and from all sources; broadcast, recorded and print. (It would help to reject *most* so-called entertainment and *all* silly outright time-wasting stuff - life is - or should be - much more than just TV.)

Some propaganda is psychologically designed to be as hard to detect as it is effective (Q: How democratic do you think that is?) - but some is easier to recognise. How often does 'militant' or 'extremist' precede Muslim? How often does 'radical' precede Palestinian, or Hamas? Can it really be so? This is 'simple', 'dumbing-down' demonisation, exactly as practised by other propagandists now long ago, but always preceded by 'evil' - of course! (But apparently not when practiced on we the people by publicly financed broadcasters? Should that be 'of course?' Or "Traitors!")

Speaking of publicly financed broadcasters, what are we to make of the fact that the Pope's little 'holocaust denier' rabbit he set running has totally displaced any and all 'news' relating to the Gaza massacre?

More propaganda: When the beautiful-looking boy-man comes on TV, with his Hollywood clothes and sad smile, as he intones "We're only trying to protect our poor, long suffering people!" - Recall that most Israelis live on or otherwise occupy basically stolen land, that many are illegal settlers - that in all cases, they are the immoral beneficiaries of murdering crime - well, see my article on Jews.

We the people have access only to publicly available information; we can observe that we are both lied to and propagandised, and since propaganda is a distortion of reality - when not outright lies, we are, as mentioned above, forced to exist in a surreal (information) world. Also as noted, this is undemocratic. But worse are the secret operations carried out 'in our name.' Here I refer not to any 'honest' gathering of info in the national interest, but rather to the scurrilous side, as exemplified by 'black-ops;' who knows, for instance, who the perpetrators of the 22 February 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing were? (Scan down to "USA and Israel.") Secrecy can be a form of lying, as the Iraq intel-imbroglio showed - the spies *knew* Iraq was as good as totally harmless, but 'allowed' (Wilkie only partly excepted) the so-called leaders to mislead us. As lies attempt to decieve, so secrecy can be/is anathema to democracy.

All across the world, the US plots and plans, and the results are unmistakably obvious: with only about 5% of the world's pop., they consume about 25% of resources. How can that be, fair or otherwise? Israel pushes its borders ever outwards, gobbling up their neighbours' homelands. That's not just unfair, it's illegal. Both the US and Israel invade then occupy, that's not just illegal, it's Nuremberg-scale war crime. The US goes out of its way to foment widespread trouble - the CIA as good as created Al-qaeda, how foolish - how shocking, how idiotic - was that?

  «The United Kingdom politician Robin Cook, who served as the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons described Al-Qaeda as meaning "the database" and a product of western miscalculation. Cook wrote, "Al-Qaida, literally ‘the database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."»
[wiki/Al Qaeda]

(This article is directed at terrorism; the (mainly) US depredations extend into other spheres as well, say economic. As an example, consider the ostensible Aus mineral-boom; Q: Where has the money gone? A: Mostly *not* to Aus... Even during the boom, Aus continued to go down the deficit tubes, now the boom is ending...)

Without doing something - anything, all inactive people make themselves mere passengers. Is that really the preferred 'way to go,' given that the default destination looks like being 'down the gurgler?'

-=*end*=-

PS Can one have a (successful) dialogue with the devil[3]?

IMHO, no.

Fantasy as real life: According to one 'old, old story,' the devil was one of the original g*d-squad[4] (detested Ami-speak; spit!) - who split with the then 'leadership' and went into opposition. But as one of the original g*ds, s/he/it had roughly similar attributes - omniscience, infallibility, etc. Obviously, by opposing 'all that is alleged to be good,' any devil-construct was(is) essentially evil. The U-SS-rael combined regime is such a devil (on earth that is, i.e. without any of the imaginary supernatural s**t, and without much truth or justice either), and all accessories/apologists and their (corrupt!) enablers attract the same qualifier: pure evil.

So what? Well, both the US and Israel erroneously attempt to claim the high-ground, and swagger around as if they are, as they claim, to be pushing freedom and democracy, say. Simple observation exposes the opposite, well may we declare them as devils, i.e. the Great Satan, with an illegitimate satanic sprog. All one can do with devils is to exorcise them - or in this case, reform them.

Lakoff and framing: When one engages lying blog-trolls, even when one thinks one must on the highest of equity grounds, say, or just to expose their filthy lies, extreme caution and good tactics should be deployed wherever possible. Carrying on any sort of conversation allows the lying blog-trolls to repeat old (fallacious!) 'arguments' or introduce new sophisms, and as the old saw has it, any publicity is good publicity. My suggestions are a) to identify, b) to expose and then thereafter c) to ignore completely.

-=*=-

Ref(s):

[1] sophism n. false argument, esp. one intended to deceive. [Greek sophos wise] [POD]

sophist n. captious or clever but fallacious reasoner.  sophistic adj. [Greek: related to *sophism] [ibid.]

[2] casuist n. 1 person who uses clever but false reasoning in matters of conscience etc. 2 sophist, quibbler.  casuistic adj. casuistry n. [Latin: related to *case1] [ibid.] [ibid.]

[3] devil —n. 1 (usu. the Devil) (in Christian and Jewish belief) supreme spirit of evil; Satan. 2 a evil spirit; demon. b personified evil. 3 a wicked person. b mischievously clever person. [ibid.]

[4] god n. 1 a (in many religions) superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature, human fortunes, etc. b image, idol, etc., symbolizing a god. 2 (God) (in Christian and other monotheistic religions) creator and ruler of the universe. [ibid.]