.. criminality to the max ...
.. the Enlightenment[1] ...
.. what eff'n Enlightenment?
-=*=-
Subtitle: Convergence; and coding in the conditional (IF ... THEN).
Key question Q: What is the difference between people and monkeys?
A: People are considered capable of planning ahead.
Follow-on question Q: How well are we doing?
A: Pretty poorly - and criminally so.
-=*=-
First, the conditional. I could conceivably be wrong - but I don't think so. IF not wrong THEN:
Second (but almost foremost), we have been, are being lied to.
This should not be news to any paying proper attention. What is remarkable, though, is the extent of the lying; to deploy a suitable cliché, we've been lied to on a breathtaking scale.
Third, Q: What is foremost?
A: Exactly what they lie about, and it's a lot.
For example, our joint-narrative has it:
1. That we (Anglo/Judaic sheople) live in democracies - we do not.
2. That our so-called 'leaders' represent us - they do not.
3. That we live in a society of laws - we do not.
What we actually live in is a pretend, a fully sham democracy, where the real power is held by a self-titled élite which resembles nothing other than a vast criminal conspiracy - no wonder that c-theorists get such a bashing. But conspiracy[2] is certainly the correct word.
Note: By speaking of Anglo/Judaic, I speak for myself (Anglo origin), with the 'Judaic' attached by unfortunate circumstance; more metaphorically, attached as a possibly fatal parasite, or as a cancer on the whole world, say. Some real parasites are known to control their hosts - what better description of the illegitimate Zionist/Israeli tail wagging the rabidly mad US dog? IF any proof were still needed, THEN consider the longed-for "All Options!" attack plans for the hapless Iran.
-=*=-
Now, convergence: the lies have been 'projected' at us for a looong time; longer than I've been alive. We can nominate a significant cusp; the renaming of propaganda to 'public relations' (PR) by Bernays. Here something on Bernays plus extra info:
Books That Counter Our "Training" To Make War
By John Pilger
August 07, 2009
«... also A Century of Spin by David Miller and William Dinan, who describe the rise of an “invisible government” invented by Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays. “Propaganda,” said Bernays, “got to be a bad word because of the Germans, so what I did was to try and find some other words.” The other words were “public relations”, which now consumes much of journalism.
...
... It is a gem from Pinter on everything from Shakespeare ... to murderous great power:
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless ... while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.»
[ICH/Pilger]
My favourite 'proof' of the vicious lies that we've been subjected to is the case of so-called 'modern' Israel; truly a crime of vast proportions inflicted on the prior to '47/8 legal owner/occupiers of Palestine. It is such an obvious - as well as odious - crime (expelling those hapless Palestinians they didn't immediately kill outright (as in the multiples of Deir Yassin), stealing Palestinian land) - it is scarcely conceivable that it could have been disguised as anything other than the disastrous crime it is - yet that is what has occurred, and my main source of info (not 'merely' on Israel of course), was and sometimes still is the AusBC - which has singularly failed to report the real facts on Israeli criminal depredations, from '47/8 right down to today. QED.
The lies are more extensive than the cancer that is Israel (at about 0.1% of the world's population plus another 0.1% Diaspora, they are perhaps the ultimate (and most criminal) squeaky-wheel); for the US as 'senior' partner, their crimes are truly world-scale vast. With 5% of the world's population, they consume about 25% of the world's resources, which they often quite literally take at the point of a gun (see Iraq, illegal invasion morphed to brutal occupation) - after all other rackets - their crooked business practices, resource-rent, corruption, i.e. Perkins' Economic Hit Man progression - have failed.
Lying itself is easy (most kids learn how from their parents), but fitting the many lies into an integrated 'narrative' is the hard bit - and that's one way of detecting lies and liars. Here, consider 'mushroom-cloud' Rice, said to be 'a bad liar.'
The convergence is part serendipity (the internet) and part hubris (B, B & H) - the lies simply became too extreme, too blatant, too obvious.
The above is the who (our so-called leaders) and the why (murder for spoil); what we need is the how; as in Q: How do they do such rotten criminality - and avoid cognitive dissonance? To answer this, we need an Ah-Ha! - and here is one:
How to order mass-murder - and still sleep at night: call yourself an élite; say "Yes, it's hard work - but someone has to do it - and really daaarlings, we're only doing it - to be kind!"
IF that sounds a bit far-fetched THEN that is because it pretty-well has to be; such deep criminality needs either totally sick minds - or some utterly fantastic excuse. I think in fact that both sick and fantastic are 'in play,' and here then, is an explication:
Who is Leo Strauss? And why should we care? (National Disgrace Exposed!)
May 18, 2009, 12:20PM
«Nothing is more threatening to Strauss and his acolytes than the truth in general and the truth about Strauss in particular. His admirers are determined to conceal the truth about his ideas.
[Canadian Professor and Strauss Expert, Shadia Drury]
Straussian/Neocon "Principles" 101 - (TheraP's cliff notes version):
1. Noble Lies (lies/secrecy as "virtue" - > 4, 10, 13)
2. Perpetual War (war as "virtue" -> 5, 6, 8, 13)
3. Fear of the masses and democracy (-> 4, 9)
4. Government by an elite (covert rule of "the wise" -> 1, 10)
5. Instilling a sense of superiority in a nation (-> 8, 13)
6. Stability/Unity via FEAR of an external threat (-> 13)
7. Exploiting moral issues/religion's hold on the people (-> 1, 13)
8. National survival - supersedes the well-being of others (-> 2, 5)
9. Contempt for dissenters (-> 10, 13)
10. Those in power make the rules and call it justice (-> 1, 13)
11. Combination of religion and nationalism (-> 7, 13)
12. Fear - greatest ally of tyranny (-> 1, 6, 13)
13. Manipulate the images (media, based on idea of Plato's cave)
[Synopsis above taken from the following sources: Shadia Drury, Brad deLong, Karen Kwiatkowski, Don Swift, Jeffrey Steinberg, and Danny Postel, who includes an extensive bibliography and interview with Shadia Drury, the Strauss expert. More below.]
The basic building blocks of this ideology are found in lying, the manipulation of fear, contempt for anyone outside the "inner circle" of devotees, and the feeling of being part of an elite, whose judgments substitute the "law". (It is an interesting side-note that one of Strauss's mentors was Carl Schmitt, the man who became a key legal advisor to Hitler.) If you take these building blocks, horrifying as they seem, you can decipher bushco. You can read the glyphs, so to speak.
By playing around with the "principles" above, you can see the outlines, the blueprint for the bushco spiderweb of deceit. You'll see cheney's machinations, the lies that led us into Iraq, the manipulation, propaganda, use of torture to gin up a war and keep it going. The Orwellian language and "selling" of every bad policy as "beneficial". The never ending obfuscations and denials, the use of Homeland, the contempt for human rights, for the poor & distressed, the secrecy and "So what?" attitude. It's all laid out, right in those so-called "principles" that are totally lacking in principle. (Naturally, given the principles of secrecy and lying, they'd deny every bit of what I've told you: All of this throws new light on one blog of mine about Systemic Deception and the Breakdown of Civic Trust.)
Not all members of the previous Badministration were straussians. But that's beside the point. For the non-straussians, like cheney and rice, were willing to sign on to the same principles, whether by personal character as sociopaths (cheney, rumsfeld), desire to be part of an elite (rice?), or perhaps as allies against a common foe. Those who did not share straussian "ideals" were cut off, like branches being pruned. Anyone who signed on was "willing to play."»
[tpmcafe/TheraP]
My comment: As the author of that quote points out, not all villains may be Straussian - or even heard of him. (And as usual, one should read the whole piece.) My big "but" here is simply this: the above fits so uncannily well to what we can see (WYSIWYG), that our ruling so-called élite (criminal, psychopathic) must be using exactly that sort of filthy 'philosophy' - or some very close parallel.
There is one more 'brick' for 'the wall' (also discussed in the citation), and it is "the noble lie." My paraphrase here; the theory is that the 'real' world is *so bad* that the truth must be kept from us, we the sheople - or (colloquially), we'd all 'freak out.' Thus the noble lie and all of the above charade - including the murdering-to-steal just happening to enrich the same lying élite. (Note that Freud/Bernays proposed an analogue; that people were subconsciously dangerous ("that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears"), and had to be surreptitiously managed to avoid chaos and/or self-injury.)
Just what could be *so bad* - and another funny thing, that the self-enriching part is hardly mentioned, if at all?
Or could it be that "the noble lie" is to disguise the actual *ignoble secret*, which is the murdering criminality of our rulers?
-=*=-
Fazit: There is nothing élite about common criminals.
-=*end*=-
PS I thought of deploying the word 'gutted' as my reaction, better are: affronted, offended, outraged and distraught.
The conspiracy is real, just 'hidden in plain sight.' Hidden, by traitors like the AusBC, say.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] enlightenment n. 1 enlightening or being enlightened. 2 (the Enlightenment) 18th-c. philosophy of reason and individualism. [POD]
[2] conspiracy n. (pl. -ies) 1 secret plan to commit a crime; plot. 2 conspiring. [Latin: related to *conspire] [ibid.]
