You are hereBlogs / dlindorff's blog / Return of the Malaise: Up to Our Asses in Alligators
Return of the Malaise: Up to Our Asses in Alligators
By John Grant
It’s a sad reality of our day that denial and bullshit seem the most useful talents to getting elected and to govern in America.
Bullshit is meant in the sense used by Harvard philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his popular book titled On Bullshit. He defines bullshit as language with no basis in truth or fact focused on obtaining power. A liar knows the truth and tries to sell falsehoods; bullshitters simply don’t care what the truth is.
Some of the most popular candidates for the Republican Party (think Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman) are classic bullshitters who completely disdain rational analysis. For them it’s OK to say anything, like Perry and others' denial of evolution and global warming. Reason and responsible history are for the weak.
Even “liberals” like Barack Obama are masters of bullshit. You can’t be elected President of the United States as a “peace” candidate and then run three wars, expand the use of lethal drones and special ops assassination teams and attempt to jail NSA whistleblowers, without being an excellent bullshitter. Obama’s bullshit is less the counter-Enlightenment stuff of Perry and Bachman; his bullshit is the art of seeming to fight for change as he really nestles into the status-quo.
In such a climate of bullshit is it any wonder Americans are living through such unprecedented stress and difficulty? And all indications suggest it will only get worse before it gets better.
The problem is the current raft of bullshitters insist on propagating a master narrative from the 19th and 20th centuries that no longer works for the reality of the nation as it moves into the 21st Century. Master narratives are based on national myths and are found in the nostalgic assumptions of identity that people believe and want to keep alive in the future. The key myth in this context is the Myth of American Exceptionalism that says we Americans are the best of history and humanity -- a super-nation at the pinnacle of global political evolution destined by our affluence and narcissistic assumptions of greatness to be the world’s role model and policeman.
Dig a little deeper and read some responsible history and it becomes clear we’re a complex nation -- like all humanity, a struggle of opposites like good and evil -- founded and sustained by ambition, violence and conquest. Now, in the unfolding 21st century, the whole project is running low on gas. The sense of exceptionalism is becoming more nostalgic, making sustaining the myth more costly and more detrimental to a good future. This means greater and greater amounts of bullshit.
For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/750
- dlindorff's blog
- Login to post comments
-
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version
Hey kidz!!! So, what is Abe "You're an Anti-Semite if WE HATE YOU" Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League? LIAR . . . or BULLSHITTER??? . . . ;-)
John Grant writes:
"He (Henry Franfurt) defines bullshit as language with no basis in truth or fact focused on obtaining power. A liar knows the truth and tries to sell falsehoods; bullshitters simply don’t care what the truth is."
So, what do we call this latest indepth "Defamation" piece from Abe Foxman? Lies? Disinformation? Partrial Truth? Propaganda? . . . . or just flat out . .. . "BULLSHIT"??? . . . ;-)
(clipped headline and article from the ADL website)
"Ten Years After 9/11, Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories 'Alive And Well'
New York, NY, August 30, 2011 … Ten years after 9/11, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks are 'alive and well' and fueled by an entrenched propaganda industry, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which today issued a new report showing how these theories have grown and evolved over the last decade.
In 'Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later,' ADL looks at the individuals who continue to circulate distorted conspiracy theories about 9/11, including the claim that the Jews or Israel perpetrated the attacks instead of Al Qaeda. A new chorus of voices – who claim not to be anti-Jewish but simply anti-Zionist – have become the most popular promoters of these ideas."
(link to full article)
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/6108_12.htm
Once again, Abe Foxman is promoting that very tired "Conspiracy Theory" that any criticism of Israeli CRIMES is "anti-Semitism" . . . and that "Israel = 'The Jews'" . . .Is this considered a LIE . . . or just BULLSHIT?
Notice that once again Abe Foxman is careful to not mention anyone like "Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth" and their VERY successful international "Remember Building 7" campaign in this ADL article.
My grandmother always called this "Lying by omission" . . . or did she call it . . . "BULLSHIT"???? . . . ;-)
(link to video -approx. 15 minutes)
"Architects & Engineers - Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 - AE911Truth.org"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw&feature=player_embedded
Also not mentioned by Abe Foxman is anything about internationally known and admired 9-11 TRUTH champion, Anthony Lawson, who no one could call an "anti-Semite" . . . yet, he has long argued that Israel definitely had a hand in 9-11.
(link to video - approx. 10 minutes)
"Criminal State - Part 1 of 3: A Closer Look at Israel's Role in Terrorism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNjb1MGmGDc&feature=channel_video_title
You kidz may remember both Jeff Gates and Anthony Lawson before they were "run off" by the Senior Editorial Staff at Veterans Today. Now it seems Gordon Duff, VT Senior Editor prefers the writing styles of 9-11 BULLSHITTER Jim Fetzer instead.
Now, Abe Foxman talks a great deal about Gordon Duff and Jim Fetzer as if they are really big leaders in the 9-11 TRUTH MOVEMENT. Meanwhile Veterans Today appears to be purging its readership with vicious ad hominem attacks while getting rid of all those writing staff that many of us had come to know and TRUST. All the while, loading up its pages with stories that highlight the weakest possible aspects of the 9-11 TRUTH MOVEMENT. . .. flavored with Jim Fetzer's bogus science and fanciful theories like "Hologram planes, No planes, space weapons, mini-nukes with no fallout, etc."
Perhaps the 9-11 TRUTH MOVEMENT is getting set up for that particular type of BULLSHIT known as a "Poisoning The Well" tactic. I guess time will tell. . . . ;-)
Of course, North Carolina Film Maker Ryan Dawson is totally "defamed" and slandered by Abe Foxman in this ADL article for his very factual documentary "War By Deception" . .. even though Mr. Dawon took great pains in this project to remove anything and everything that could possibly construed as "anti-Semitism" . . .
Watch it for yourselves, kidz . . .and see if Abe Foxman has a case for his "defamation" of this AMERICAN film maker who is merely trying to get to the TRUTH of the matter. Perhaps, Mr. Foxman just doesn't like Mr. Dawson's conclusions. . . ;-)
(link to video - approx. 3 hours)
"War by Deception Director's Cut (911 and Iraq lies from the same cabal)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d33-Lk5Zbw
Decide for youselves if Abe Foxman is a LIAR . . . or a BULLSHITTER!!! . . . ;-)
"I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now
I've had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth"
- "Give Me Some Truth" by John Lennon
peace.