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LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by roccman » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 12:26:42
"There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by Angry_Chimp » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 18:55:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', 'W')ould you rather be a Neoconservative or a Progressive? That is a trick question. The trick is in the fact that, although there may be differences between the rhetoric and short-term agendas of these groups, their long-term goals actually are the same. They may differ over how to fight a war in the Middle East but not over the right of the President to wage such a war empowered by the UN instead of Congress. They may differ over what kind of speech should be forbidden ("subversive" speech vs. "hate" speech, for example) but not over the right of the government to forbid it. They may differ over how fast to bankrupt the nation to provide benefits for its citizens but not over the assumption that providing benefits is what governments are supposed to do. They disagree over tactics, timing, and style, but not objectives. They fight for dominance within the New World Order, but they work together to build it. That is because both groups have embraced the underlying ideology of global collectivism.
“The National parties and their presidential candidates, with the Eastern Establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes, moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms, although the process was concealed as much as possible, by the revival of obsolescent or meaningless war cries and slogans (often going back to the Civil War). … The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
~Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 1247-1248.]
"[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country, and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion, by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.
The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks, which were themselves, private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control, and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups."
~Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966) p.324
“A utilitarian civilization will always go on to its logical conclusion – forced labor camps.”
~Romain Gary
~Romain Gary
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by threadbear » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 19:05:09
I just opened another thread about Hillary's involvement with "the Fellowship", a Dominionist/Christian organization, devoted to advancing what they see as the "Christian" agenda. It really highlights the point you're making here. There is absolutely no essential difference, when it comes to foreign policy, between the two parties.
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by jboogy » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 19:27:05
Rocc your opening paragraph contains numerous errors , fallacies and incorrect assumptions.....if you keep the qualifier progressives in , substitute current mainstream democrats for progressives and your dead on correct.
Perhaps the population would be less swayed to socialism if we had fewer examples of socialism from our "Free Market Capitalists". -----fiddler dave
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by Angry_Chimp » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 19:43:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I') just opened another thread about Hillary's involvement with "the Fellowship", a Dominionist/Christian organization, devoted to advancing what they see as the "Christian" agenda. It really highlights the point you're making here. There is absolutely no essential difference, when it comes to foreign policy, between the two parties.
The Enlightenment political model never intended to offer equality to all. The framers of the constitution wished to form a government where white people of business could do business without interference from the mass. The power of the central government was established to enforce that premise. They need to guarantee that wealth would never be redistributed; “Liberty” was the freedom to accumulate wealth. They formed a stealth Plutocracy that would check imprudence of the mass:
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the Second....Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy....It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan.”
~Alexander Hamilton Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 288.
Many could foresee where the Enlightenment political model would lead. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville warned in “Democracy in America” what sort of tyranny would result from of such a system:
“I HAD remarked during my stay in the United States that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already been made, by most of our rulers, of the notions, the sentiments, and the wants created by this same social condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their power. This led me to think that the nations of Christendom would perhaps eventually undergo some oppression like that which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world.
…
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest; his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not see them; he touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
…
It is indeed difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people.2
A constitution republican in its head and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts has always appeared to me to be a short-lived monster. The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.”
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Now that the Enlightenment model has exhausted the natural capital it thrived upon the endgame is upon us. In a world of diminishing returns “Liberty for all” is no longer viable. Will the Plutocrats be able to engineer an “oppression like that which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world” to check the masses or will it all implode into chaos?
==AC
“A utilitarian civilization will always go on to its logical conclusion – forced labor camps.”
~Romain Gary
~Romain Gary
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by Opies » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 19:57:19
The United states has never had a democracy. You can vote for a democratic capitalist, a democratic capitalist, or hey! another choice! ...a democratic capitalist. Wow! What a free and just system! The choices we make-- they truly change things!
No different than Soviet Russia post-revolution, pre-collapse.
No different than Soviet Russia post-revolution, pre-collapse.
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by jboogy » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 20:07:33
Alex , I'll take "implode into chaos " for 800 . 200,000,000 people that have spent their lives in comfortable indulgence will not surrender to austerity and deprivation without first kicken' up some hell.
Perhaps the population would be less swayed to socialism if we had fewer examples of socialism from our "Free Market Capitalists". -----fiddler dave
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by roccman » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 20:14:40
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'A')lex , I'll take "implode into chaos " for 800 . 200,000,000 people that have spent their lives in comfortable indulgence will not surrender to austerity and deprivation without first kicken' up some hell.
Jboogy - there appear to be inaccuracies in your post. Replace the 2 with 3 and you would be spot on
In my best Alec Trebek voice, "I am sorry Jboogy, but that is not correct."
"There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins
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Re: LEFT VS. RIGHT: THE ILLUSION OF OPPOSITES
by Angry_Chimp » Wed 26 Sep 2007, 20:23:21
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'A')lex , I'll take "implode into chaos " for 800 . 200,000,000 people that have spent their lives in comfortable indulgence will not surrender to austerity and deprivation without first kicken' up some hell.
jboogy Congratulations that is today's Daily Double:
"Ordo Ab Chao"
What order shall rise from the chaos after the proles tire of killing and raping each other while wallowing in their own excrement?
A.) A long cold quite nuclear winter
B.) Localized oligarchs with privatized militias enslaving an impoverished proletariat. The post Soviet collapse model.
C.) The 1984 model. EU, NAU, Asian/Pacific Union in perpetual low intensity warefare.
“The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being.
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference.”
D.) None of the above
“A utilitarian civilization will always go on to its logical conclusion – forced labor camps.”
~Romain Gary
~Romain Gary
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