UnslaverPR is one of my minions, could you ZOT! him back to Err America please.
Posted on 08/26/2005 3:13:13 AM PDT by UnslaverPR
The Fanatic Right defines words like democracy, communism and terrorism quite differently than I do. When the Shah, Marcos, Suharto, Pinochet, and other similar tyrants were in power the U.S. described the governments they headed as democracies... and the labels communism, terrorist, or terrorist supporter were slapped on the governments of Sukarno, Allende, Castro, Mugabe, and Hussein.
My definitions are based on what I assume those words were intended to mean and not how they have been used or interpreted over time. I think Lincoln's definition of democracy as "a government of the people, by the people and for the people" pretty much says all that needs to be said. "From each according to ability to each according to need in a system where real estate and the means of production are commonly owned" is a satisfactory explanation for communism. And terrorism is "the use of threats or violence to accomplish a political objective."
Using my definitions... which I challenge anyone to counter... those tyrants listed above did not preside over democracies. As a matter of fact, the U.S. itself doesn't meet Lincoln's definition of Democracy either. It is actually "a government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation." The U.S. considers any government that permits corporations to exploit its resources a democracy. Nations unwilling to open their doors to the dubious benefits of such a corporate democracy are labeled either communists and/or terrorists.
The best known and first to be defined "communist nation" never considered itself a communist country. The name it adopted was the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics -- knowing that socialism is not communism. The Soviets may have aspired to communism but realized they were far from that stage. Of course, misnomers within the Soviet bloc existed there as well -- ergo, the GDR, the German DEMOCRATIC Republic.
Year after year... when the U.S. and its puppet media were extolling those favored "democracies," those countries were recipients of extensive financial and military aid from their generous sugar daddy, Uncle Sam. In addition, Uncle Sam provided professional training and assistance, compliments of the CIA, for controlling unruly rabble. which, of course, means anyone who was smart enough to see behind the veil of lies and make a stink about it. The diligent graduates of the Shah's SAVAK were samples of what had been achieved. But in spite of Uncle's assistance those governments were unable to survive for very long. In each case their demise resulted from an uprising of their people who defied lying rulers, brutal police, and military or political repression.
On the other hand, those dastardly communist and terrorist governments maintained the support of their people. If such governments were ousted it was by coups supported by external powers, usually the U.S. Their replacements became US-installed "democracies" that met the well-deserved fate just described.
Perhaps my definition (and Lincoln's) of democracy is too limited. Voting in free and fair elections is certainly a characteristic of democracies. Didn't those US-listed democracies qualify? And how could I possibly criticize the U.S.? After all, it holds elections regularly. They are not limited to one political party, and all citizens are encouraged to vote.
Quite true... however, they comply only in form but not in substance. The rhetoric is there... the PR is there... the hoopla is there... but the reality of an authentic choice is nonexistent. Securing a place on the ballot and obtaining fair and ample media exposure is only available to those who have proven their loyalty to the elite.
Elections are nothing more than charades these days. More and more people know it. That's why the winning presidential vote count never exceeds the number of eligible non-voters. Yet every party, the media, employers, unions, educational and religious organizations unanimously urge the public to vote. I have never heard any source in the U.S. hint that not voting might be a reasonable and logical option. Although non-voters outnumber the winners their existence is ignored. The winner's share is always the percentage of those who voted rather than those who were eligible. It's too embarrassing in this hyped-up, supposedly wonderful democracy to acknowledge that so many have lost confidence. Just imagine what numbers the non-voters might amass if there was a well organized and provocative campaign to get people to boycott elections!
Or, better yet... a campaign to get people to demand Truth, Honor, and Justice from our elected officials.
I sincerely believe that democracy should represent the voice of the people. But getting somebody to pull levers or make check marks once a year after being barraged with smear ads and grandstanding by the mass media is a weak manifestation of democracy. When people go out of their way repeatedly to expend money, picket, protest, write letters, and at times defy the authorities... that to me is evidence of democracy. Whenever one of those supposed democratic rulers was toppled it was in my mind a triumph of democracy. The Will of The People won out over those who were judged unfit to be in power.
Time and time again... a weakling stands up to a more powerful adversary and against all logic defeats him. Recent history is full of stories about US puppets getting the bum's rush from their countrymen.
Vietnam, that small, poor, Third World country, took on the French, the U.S., and troops of other nations. More firepower pounded that little land than was needed to defeat the Germans and Japanese in World War II. Years of unceasing attacks by the mightiest military power was insufficient to crush that valiant nation. Could any election possibly equal such a commitment to democracy than was shown by the Vietnamese sacrifices during those years?
How in the world can the anomaly of citizens overthrowing democracies and defending tyrannies be explained?
Propaganda!
The US government has always played it fast and loose when describing their friends and foes. George Bush went even farther when he uttered one of the most stupid phrases ever to fall from the mouth of a fool... "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists". The mainstream media, by echoing and amplifying those distortions, has been able to fool most of the American people most of the time.
Most... not all. Some of us still know how to reason and come to logical conclusions, right?
Why do you think Castro's Cuba, despite constant political and militant harassment by the U.S., outlast so many subsidized favorites? An answer might be revealed by comparing how that poor sanctioned country and the wealthy sole superpower treats their citizens when emergencies arise.
When the Soviet Union finally crumbled, vital trade and other benefits that Cuba received from the Soviet bloc ceased and an ensuing financial crisis made it look like the end for Cuba. To clinch that result the U.S. slapped more onerous sanctions on the island. The consequences for Cuba were tough austerity measures. The military budget was slashed almost in half, but high priority social spending for health and education, was maintained. Food subsidies and rationing assured a minimum of essential nutrition to all.
Then we had 9/11 and Bush and the neocons finally had an emergency to exploit. Pre-emptive wars with accompanying increases in the military budget fattened the military-industrial complex but brought death to the poor kids who had "volunteered" for the military... as Orwell called it - The Poverty Draft. Benefits such as tax reductions and subsidies were dolled out to corporations and the wealthy. The revenue loss was partially offset by reductions in essential social services. Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties went bye-bye.
Isn't it self-evident why Cubans would strongly support their country? And why the U.S., with all the bonuses and promises that military service holds out, is unable to meet its recruiting quotas... and why MANY career soldiers are leaving and refusing reenlistment?
People are beginning to stand up to the Big Bullies. Hugo Chávez, like Castro, has his people behind him. He wins elections overwhelmingly, overturns a coup, and withstands his opponents' organized strike. With eighty percent of the population who live in poverty finally getting a break, the Venezuelan elite and their American allies have met their match. Protests in other Latin American countries have also been successful. The oppressive overlords were resisted or ousted.
Peoples around the world are getting pissed off. People who have been subjected for years and years to the abuses of neo-colonial rule of the U.S., its allies and puppets have had enough. I imagine that Howard Beale's familiar outcry "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" may be resonating in their thoughts. Bush's approval numbers have dropped below 40 percent now so it's pretty obvious that people are beginning to wake up and realize they were duped... and that they need to confront those that did the duping.
The indoctrinated, Fox News fed public will instinctively characterize such actions as criminal terrorism. But is it? I don't think so and I don't think Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, would think so either. Here are pertinent excerpts from that hallowed document that justified the colonists' rebellion against their lawful government (emphasis added):
. . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security . . .
The New Insurgents can certainly find justification in those venerated assertions. We must join the millions of others who are no longer patsies to the PR campaigns of the media are regularly protesting in major cities around the world.
We are the New Insurgents. We must help others find the courage to question their beliefs and views... and question those they support.
Think about it... left to their own selves many Americans wouldn't know what to die for... let alone what to live for.
Do you know?
I'm just askin'...
Lo Phat Ham
www.unslaver.com/forum/
"Fox News fed public"
Funny how Fox takes the heat for all the left considers wrong with the media given that the left "owned" the TV media for 40+ - years prior to FoxTV's arrival.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
The most prudent move we could make as a nation is to put iron bars on the windows and doors of 95% of the Political Science/Government/Ethic Studies departments at our universities and label them as a "Mental Health Facility". It would require extensive therapy to get the inmates to accept reality, but at least we wouldn't have to furnish the drugs.
You do realize that Lincoln never gave such a definition, right?
Is it me? or is there an unusually charged atmosphere on this particular thread?
I can hear the capacitors charging as I type....;-)
Lincoln deviated from his oath of office which he swore to protect and defend the CONSTITUTION, and in his First Inaugural, twisted his vow and stated he had a solemn oath to defend the GOVERNMENT.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Viking Kitty/ZOT ping list!. . .don't be shy.
I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. World-class, A-1, top of the heap, triple whopper with cheese, supersized stupid. So stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. One-of-a-kind, global, universal, intergalactic stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularly, extraordinarily, incredibly, bewilderingly stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your life is a monument to stupidity. I am breathless that anyone or anything in our universe can really be this stupid. You are a primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of stupidity that we know. A behemoth, a leviathan, a colossus of stupidity.
You're kidding...right?
What is it with pinkos and big lies? Can anyone cite officials of the US referring to those countries when the individuals in question ran them as democracies?
It was nice that this was put up front in the second so I knew that hilarious lunacy would follow. I wasn't disappointed.
If a thug breaks into your house do you negotiate that he only will rape 1 of your 3 daughters.
This one would. This one would allow all three daughters to be raped and would help carry TV out to the get away car.
This is the peace of appeasement.
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