From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2005 - 16:51:41 GMT
MSH:
> Just a brief and incomplete recap: The plot to overthrow the popular
> governments of Iran and Guatemala, as well as the plot to invade Cuba were
> hatched in the Eisenhower Administered; Kennedy invaded South Vietnam;
> Johnson dramatically escalated the assault based on a lie (The Gulf of
> Tonkin); Nixon and Kissinger played politics to keep that war going well
> into the 70's, and extended their crimes to include massive and illegal and
> secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos, as well as the overthrow of a
> democratically elected government in Chile. The Carter Administration gave
> financial and military support to Indonesia in its genocide against the
> people of East Timor. Reagan in Central America. Bush the first in Haiti,
> Panama, Iraq, Libya. Clinton continued the the bombing and murderous
> sanctions against Iraq all through his Presidency, launched missiles
> against Sudan, and was behind the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia which pounded
> that country back to a pre-industrial era, causing exponentially more human
> misery than it prevented. And that brings us to Bush the Second, the Force
> of Freedom.
So all these Presidents and all the people who supported them were wrong.
Am I correct to assume you take pride in thinking of yourself as being
like Pirsig's brujo, and are out to change the world for the better?
> In trying to understand the relationship of Power to Quality, it is
> futile and confusing to focus on the imagined liberal-conservative
> elements of party politics. In fact, when we do, our intellectual
> energy is directed away from possible dynamic solutions to very real
> Quality problems.
What Quality problems are you thinking of?
> platt:
> In other words, people are too stupid to recognize when they are
> being manipulated? The election showed that most people weren't
> fooled by leftist propaganda that Bush lied about WMD.
> msh says:
> It's not stupidity so much as psychological comfort. People cannot
> comfortably believe in the truth about the actions of their
> government, when those actions grate against everything they've been
> taught since the cradle. It's hard to see blood dripping when it's
> dripping on your own hands. This is the essence of cognitive
> dissonance. And there's another factor: most people have to work
> their asses off to make ends meet. When they get home from work, the last
> thing they want to do is embark on a detailed study of American foreign
> policy, so they watch the commercial media. Therefore, Power has a vital
> interest in controlling the information available through radio and
> television and, more and more, through the internet.
>
> So, when the average Joe or Jane gets home from work and stumbles
> across a list of crimes against humanity (such as the one offered
> above) they are likely to be completely, and understandably,
> incredulous. They've never heard such unbelievable ideas; this guy
> must be from Neptune; and though these historical facts can be
> verified, few people have the time or desire to check them out. It's just
> easier, and much more comfortable, to disbelieve them, and to turn on the
> TV set.
Seems to me I've heard this argument before. Where was it? Oh yes, now I
remember -- it's "the right-wing conspiracy."
> Every once in a while, however, someone does take the time to verify
> the crimes mentioned and, when they do, they experience an
> irreversible paradigm shift in their understanding of power in the
> world. This shift is a Quality latch-up, and when enough co-existent
> organisms have completed the shift, the species as a whole takes another
> step toward Quality.
To believe that to order a soldier and his gun to fight against crime is
itself a crime is to have an upside down view of reality which I'm happy
to say Pirsig doesn't.
> IMHO, of course.
And mine, of course.
Platt
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