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Random Thoughts In richer, advanced and powerful countries, the privileges accruing to alumni children or to minorities lead to foolish uneducated persons becoming presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries of state or national security advisers to the detriment of the nation that they mislead into wars and disastrous fiscal and foreign policies. They ignore the Constitution they had sworn to uphold, lie with brazen shamelessness to further enrich their corrupt cronies who finance their lust for power and are manipulated by the crooked because of their lack of intelligence, integrity and knowledge. This is what leads to secret torture and spying on citizens intimidated by fear. This promotes xenophobia and sets up straw victims to misguide the citizens and direct their anger to these, while overlooking the far more egregious sins of the rulers perpetuating their tenure. In totalitarian states the powerful leaders themselves become the source of fear and deprive the citizens of freedom. The combination leads to paranoia and ratting on their fellow citizens with mutual distrust and solidifying the powers of the tyrant. America from its founding was never a democracy. The restriction of franchise to free white males who owned property and the multiple filtration processes like the selection of senators and the electoral college for the presidency assured an oligarchy. Much of the high minded Federalist papers were to usher in a plutarchy and prevent a tyranny of the majority that led to the rebellions in Massachusetts and Western Pennsylvania. The tug of war between the Federalists and then Republicans was whether the rich merchant and manufacturer class or the rich landlord class would rule. The Civil War settled that issue. Interested persons may wish to read Charles Beard’s thesis on the economic foundations of the US Constitution. This governance for the benefit of a privileged minority has persisted to the present as Chomsky, Herman, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal and even Andrew Bacevich have clearly espoused in their books. The US Presidency was created in the image of a philosopher king and only George Washington played the part mainly by the script. His refusal of kingship, his quelling of the seething rebellion by the Continental Army at Newburgh, New York by a single sentence, earned him the title of Cincinatus and the leadership of that society. His feet of clay were in his petty greed for land and the attempted abuse of power in trying to reclaim his slaves after the war by unethical means. Again "An Imperfect God " and "His Excellency" by Henry Winicek and Joseph Ellis document the real Washington who still stands out as a beacon of light in comparison to Hamilton and Jefferson. Joseph Ellis’ "Founding Brothers" is a must read for the acquaintance of a petulant Adams, an amoral and duplicitous Jefferson and an ambition obsessed Hamilton. Adams is redeemed by his personal integrity which far outshines his desire for recognition and greatness. That is more than can be said of Hamilton and Jefferson. Four years of the first President is all it took before the high minded structure of the American government disintegrated into internecine squabbling and factionalism between Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr and their henchmen.
So much for the virtues of elected governments. Virtue incidentally is
oft a camouflaged manifestation of selfish motives supported by severe
self-deception to prevent the truth to be out by any torturous
circumstance using a scopolamine like truth serum. Torture is the modus
operandi of all governments as America and Israel prove. Two recent
books Jennifer Harbury’s "Truth, Torture and the American Way"
and Alfred McCoy’s "A Question of Torture" document our sordid
history, not to mention Harriet Beecher Stowe’s first exposure.
Interested readers should read Naomi Klein’s article at
www.zmag.org -
1. Naomi Klein : 12/13/05 Many readers think that I am overly critical. My intention is to show that even sufferers of the Holocaust can indulge in one and history is usually a lie propagated by victors to brainwash and manipulate the foolish and gullible. Only victors can have Nuremberg trials and terror is a weapon used by the powerful like states, and the weak like Palestinians, Basques, fanatic Islamists etc. There is almost never a realistically true justification for torture despite the false arguments of Dershowitz, and firebombing London, Dresden, Vietnam or nuking Japan are all instances of terror, unredeemed by posthumous justifications. Gulags, Renditions, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo cannot be transmuted from base torture into noble justice by the alchemy of mouthing Geneva Conventions or extraordinary legal doctrines of any hue, offerings of rice, holy ash, crafty judgments of Hispanic Inquisitors, or beating around the bush. January 22, 2005 The Week of January 22, 2006
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