From 9/11 to the Arab Spring

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

And why not? It's funny you bring that up, because my view of totalitarianism is derived from what I've read of George Orwell. As a child I'd never been convinced by the idea of hell, it seemed like a lot of bollocks, but when I learned a bit about North Korea, the prototype Stalinist state (the only country in the world ruled by a dead man, Kim Il Sung, the eternal leader) I was convinced. That is hell on earth.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...eaks/index.html

 

Do you actually have an opinion of your own, or are you strictly down to these 'what he said' posts now? At least you've moved on from Juan Cole.

 

When people get into the game of predicting how Eric Arthur Blair may have felt about events well after his death, it can get a bit silly. What can we take from his books? People tend to misappropriate 1984 as some kind of brilliant vision of the future, because now there is lots of CCTV. Like the conspiracy nut I work with said, "I don't need to read 1984, I'm living it!" Orwell's intention was not to predict the future, but to capture as best he could the essence of totalitarianism, based on Stalin's Russia. He did so so brilliantly, that the leaders of such regimes were shocked at how a man who had never lived in such a society had rendered one so accurately. Greenwald can cite the '2 minute hate' and say the US is employing similar techniques towards Wikileaks, and there'd probably be something to that, to an extent.*

The '2 minutes hate' comes from Stalin's Russia where such an event would be a regular occurance. Failure to take part would result in your arrest. In Libya, you would be forced to take part in the worship of Gaddafi and his green book daily, failure to do so would result in your arrest. The North Korean army regularly parades, watched by large swathes of the public, and they all chant death to America. You see a common theme? Let's think of another example of a totalitarian, Saddam Hussein. We can be pretty safe in saying that E. A. Blair would have truly hated him, far moreso than the U.S.A. under Bush. Orwell would recognise that there is going to be a dominant superpower in the world, and given the choice he would take the U.S.A. over China. He made the observation when writing about the European Empires, that some countries were inevitably going to be ruled over by these superpowers, and given the choice you'd have to take the British over the Belgian. Of course he was one of the leading critics of the British Empire and recognised its inevitable demise. He also recognised the truth that sometimes you have to behave like a complete madman given the circumstances of the world, and the best you can do is only the lesser evil.

With regard to totalitarianism and its overthrow, he was anything but conservative, to the point where he volunteered to combat fascists in Spain, and again in WW2 even though he was unfit for combat. And I sympathise with his beliefs in this regard. That's where you lot differ from Orwell, because your conservatism knows no bounds, to the point where you'd rather have stuck with Saddam than have a man who campaigned for democracy and Kurdish rights during his rule be able to become the freely elected president of Iraq.

 

 

edit* In fact, reading back, there is nothing to the 2 minute hate comparison at all with regard to wikileaks or any of the 'hate figures' he listed. He has fundamentally misunderstood Orwell's intention and that is a misappropriation of his work, I can expand on that if you care to discuss it.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[Meenzer 15449]

@karunchandhok What is going on at UK immigration today ?? dad took 2 hours at Heathrow, friends in Luton 1 hour & I'm at Stansted where it's horrendous !!

 

Bless.

[Happy Face 29]

Do you actually have an opinion of your own, or are you strictly down to these 'what he said' posts now? At least you've moved on from Juan Cole.

 

I haven't read the article yet....just got the headline on my phone and thought you'd be interested given you'd brought up Orwell on the same day GG had.

 

I get a whole slew of writers sent to my phone using Newsrob. It's a brilliant App you should try. John Pilger, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Paul Krugman, Matt Taibbi, Jeremy Scahill, your boy Hitchens, Robert Fisk, Tim Harford, Charlie Brooker, Juan Cole,....

 

I've been hoying up Glenn Greenwald's stuff on here for years, long before Juan Colio.

 

I've had enough of debating this shit on here to tell the truth. I still read up on it, but it's a futile exercise.

[Happy Face 29]

When people get into the game of predicting how Eric Arthur Blair may have felt about events well after his death, it can get a bit silly.

....

Orwell would recognise that there is going to be a dominant superpower in the world, and given the choice he would take the U.S.A. over China.

 

 

Always Remember going to Seaworld in Florida and being freaked out by the militarism.

 

When we went to see Shamu the 5 year old kids that said they wanted to be soldiers when they grew up got to go and pet the whale, a round of applause and a medal.

 

Gave me a shudder, but better to bribe kids than force them into it.

[McFaul 35]

Monsanto is the biggest threat to the world now that America is winding down the war trumpets.

You remind me of that Bet365 advert sometimes Parky, "to communicate is in our nature" etc....

[manc-mag 1]

And why not? It's funny you bring that up, because my view of totalitarianism is derived from what I've read of George Orwell. As a child I'd never been convinced by the idea of hell, it seemed like a lot of bollocks, but when I learned a bit about North Korea, the prototype Stalinist state (the only country in the world ruled by a dead man, Kim Il Sung, the eternal leader) I was convinced. That is hell on earth.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...eaks/index.html

 

Do you actually have an opinion of your own, or are you strictly down to these 'what he said' posts now? At least you've moved on from Juan Cole.

 

When people get into the game of predicting how Eric Arthur Blair may have felt about events well after his death, it can get a bit silly. What can we take from his books? People tend to misappropriate 1984 as some kind of brilliant vision of the future, because now there is lots of CCTV. Like the conspiracy nut I work with said, "I don't need to read 1984, I'm living it!"

 

love that quote, what a complete cock end. Can only imagine what it must be like cooped up on a long shift with him.

[Park Life 71]

Monsanto is the biggest threat to the world now that America is winding down the war trumpets.

You remind me of that Bet365 advert sometimes Parky, "to communicate is in our nature" etc....

 

Haven't seen the add, but it's normally compliments you throw my way.

 

Google up superweeds taking over american farms now weeds are resistant.

[Happy Face 29]

Best and most succinct 9/11 piece I've read

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

 

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

 

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

 

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening —took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

 

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/1...n&seid=auto

 

Absolutely spot on.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58372028@N00/6140836618/

 

[Park Life 71]

Best and most succinct 9/11 piece I've read

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

 

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

 

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

 

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening —took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

 

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/1...n&seid=auto

 

Absolutely spot on.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58372028@N00/6140836618/

 

 

[Happy Face 29]

 

"They wanted to terrorize us, but, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear," Obama said

 

"These past ten years have shown that America does not give in to fear," Obama said.

 

 

How could anyone there keep a straight face?

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Sorry HF, didn't realise that. Apologies for the bitchy remark. I'll quickly type out why Greenwald's comparison doesn't hold up after we beat QPR.

[Happy Face 29]

No problem you catty cow.

 

I've had a read of it now and while he does go overboard on the dramatics I think the bile directed at Krugman this week for repeating what he was saying 7 years ago anyway is indicative of his "hate" point. Like Michael Moore, The Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher, what he said being factual becomes lost in the overreaction to his "repugnant" criticism. How unpatriotic.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

No problem you catty cow.

 

I've had a read of it now and while he does go overboard on the dramatics I think the bile directed at Krugman this week for repeating what he was saying 7 years ago anyway is indicative of his "hate" point. Like Michael Moore, The Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher, what he said being factual becomes lost in the overreaction to his "repugnant" criticism. How unpatriotic.

 

My issue is just with the '2 minute hate' comparison. That was based on the commonplace rituals that are a staple of any totalitarian government, and the whole point of the exercise is that it is mandatory: failure to take part would have you sent straight to the gulag. The very fact that Greenwald can freely write and publish a piece of writing like that renders his comparison obsolete. There have been some very obvious anti-wikileaks smears and propaganda, but it is nothing compared to the idea of the '2 minute hate', or the propaganda that would be seen from a totalitarian government. For instance, the US government (was it the Pentagon?) freely admitted that there was no evidence to say someone had been harmed as a result of a leak. It would have been fairly easy for them to cobble together some fake evidence if they really wanted to, and it would have been lapped up by those who hate Wikileaks, FOX would probably have run a special on it with Glenn Beck throwing darts at a picture of Assange's face.

I know some adults, in their 40s, who probably wouldn't recognise the name 'wikileaks' (I'd be very surprised if they had, they'd never heard of Murdoch/Brooks during the height of that kerfuffle). They make a point of not watching the news and pay no attention to any current affairs. I would guess that they are not alone in this attitude, there is probably a large group of these kind of people in the UK and US. Then you will have another large group who have heard of wikileaks but have no real clue what it is, and don't particularly care about it. The groups who love and hate wikileaks are probably quite small. So really, if the US government and organisations within were conducting a propaganda campaign comparable to that of totalitarian governments, it's been completely ineffectual. This is nothing new though, people on the left and right regularly invoke Orwell in the worst way possible.

[Happy Face 29]

No problem you catty cow.

 

I've had a read of it now and while he does go overboard on the dramatics I think the bile directed at Krugman this week for repeating what he was saying 7 years ago anyway is indicative of his "hate" point. Like Michael Moore, The Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher, what he said being factual becomes lost in the overreaction to his "repugnant" criticism. How unpatriotic.

 

My issue is just with the '2 minute hate' comparison. That was based on the commonplace rituals that are a staple of any totalitarian government, and the whole point of the exercise is that it is mandatory: failure to take part would have you sent straight to the gulag. The very fact that Greenwald can freely write and publish a piece of writing like that renders his comparison obsolete. There have been some very obvious anti-wikileaks smears and propaganda, but it is nothing compared to the idea of the '2 minute hate', or the propaganda that would be seen from a totalitarian government. For instance, the US government (was it the Pentagon?) freely admitted that there was no evidence to say someone had been harmed as a result of a leak. It would have been fairly easy for them to cobble together some fake evidence if they really wanted to, and it would have been lapped up by those who hate Wikileaks, FOX would probably have run a special on it with Glenn Beck throwing darts at a picture of Assange's face.

I know some adults, in their 40s, who probably wouldn't recognise the name 'wikileaks' (I'd be very surprised if they had, they'd never heard of Murdoch/Brooks during the height of that kerfuffle). They make a point of not watching the news and pay no attention to any current affairs. I would guess that they are not alone in this attitude, there is probably a large group of these kind of people in the UK and US. Then you will have another large group who have heard of wikileaks but have no real clue what it is, and don't particularly care about it. The groups who love and hate wikileaks are probably quite small. So really, if the US government and organisations within were conducting a propaganda campaign comparable to that of totalitarian governments, it's been completely ineffectual. This is nothing new though, people on the left and right regularly invoke Orwell in the worst way possible.

 

 

All fair enough. But Greenwald isn't equating the 2. He can say an apple happens to be red, like a bus. That's not to say a bus is identical to an apple.

 

Another difference is it's 24 hours a day, not just 2 minutes. I remember he similarly compared Bush (or Obama) to the Queen from Alice in Wonderland - "Sentence first -- verdict afterward". That's not to say every court in America behaves in that fashion, or that the president chops off heads. Just that the president takes that approach in breach of the constitution in certain cases.

 

Greenwald clearly values the freedom and the law of the US above all those other countries. This isn't a question of either of those being violated, it's a scathing attack on the media elites in the pockets of Washington that choose to propagandise on their behalf despite the evidence.

 

On it being ineffectual I can't agree. There are a great number who don't follow any of this...and Washington don't care about them. There are a smaller number who follow it in great detail, who can get all the info they like and Washington don't care about them. But the majority are people who show a glancing interest. They get their news on a breakfast show, 15 minutes a day, or on the drive to work on the radio. The fact is that none of these people will have heard the ACLU's report on the threats to freedom marking 9/11, because the news networks are more interested in demonising Paul Krugman ang regurgitating what Obama said about how they've retained their values without question. Here's Tom with the weather.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Happy Face

[Asprilla 96]

Hard to disagree with most of what Christopher Hitchens says.

 

Had to laugh at the interview he did with Paxman though...

 

JP: "Are you still a Marxist?"

 

CH: "Yah."