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Thread 4375

Thread ID: 4375 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-01-08

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il ragno [OP]

2003-01-08 02:24 | User Profile

*It's getting to look like there's JOE SOBRAN....and then there's Everybody Else. Reese is too folksy, Raimondo too fond of hype, Gottfried too sotto-voce, and the higher-profile boys - Buchanan, Francis, Roberts, et al - are all a touch too cognizant of which side of the bread has the butter on it.

Sobran - having had that precious High-Profile Respectability the others guard so zealously torn away from him...and having survived his forced exile, emerging a better and more honest writer for it - alone possesses that uncanny knack for writing in a voice so even, calm & well-modulated that you never feel the dart until the curare's in your bloodstream.*

The Regime of the Sneaky

December 24, 2002 “When you’re from Mississippi and you’re a conservative and you’re a Christian, there are a lot of people that don’t like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame.”

Thus did Senator Trent Lott explain his downfall to the Associated Press. Daniel Schorr of National Public Radio — whom nobody can accuse of being Mississippian, conservative, or Christian — commented that Lott has resorted to conspiracy theories. And dig this paragraph from New York’s Daily News:

“‘This is like Hilary [Clinton] talking about “the vast right-wing conspiracy.” He’s delusional,’ said a GOP lobbyist, whose organization worked behind the scenes to push out Lott.”

[color=green]Let me get this straight. A guy who “worked behind the scenes” to topple Lott says Lott is “delusional” for thinking people were working behind the scenes to topple him.

How can anyone possibly believe in conspiracy theories, when the conspirators themselves scoff at them?[/color] And if you don’t believe that everyone in Washington is honest, you must be paranoid.

What is it about the word conspiracy that provokes the instant smirk and snicker? [color=green]The world is thick with dishonest people, and they don’t always act alone. They have a way of finding each other and acting corporately. Even “the D.C. sniper” turned out to be a team. [/color]

That’s why we speak of organized crime, smuggling rings, accomplices, accessories, getaway cars, spies, covert activities, secret and undercover agents, insider trading, collusion, fences, and so forth. We have a fairly large vocabulary of words that recognize the conspiratorial aspects of social life. Secret cooperation isn’t unusual at all.

People in government conspire all the time. In fact, governments budget billions for espionage and other covert activities. These huge bureaucracies keep countless secrets from us, allegedly for our own good; and the inevitable result is that we can never really know what the government is doing. [color=green]This means that we also can’t know what we are voting about, further proof that the vote is worthless and democracy fraudulent. And in times like the present, the ratio of conspiracy to openness increases, in the name of national security. Naturally the conspirators don’t think of themselves as conspirators. They believe they are our protectors and benefactors. [/color]

Of course all this official secrecy ensures that there will be some outlandish conspiracy theories. Such theories can hardly be more than guesses, and some of these guesses are bound to be wild. The wildest of them contend that there is only one gigantic almighty conspiracy, that sees every sparrow fall. There are actually countless conspiracies, often overlapping, intersecting, or competing. Many are quite informal, as in C.S. Lewis’s “inner ring.”

Can any conspiracy theory be as naive as the James Bond fantasy? Bond represents the opposite of such theories: the lone spy single-handedly discovering the enemy’s secrets and then, for good measure, defeating the enemy with a pistol and martial arts. Though Bond is a government agent, the conspiratorial is minimized: he has contact with his superiors only at the beginning and end of the story. No bureaucrat he!

[color=green]To the extent that government withholds important information from its subjects, it makes nonsense of the idea of self-government, and it can expect to be mistrusted, feared, and hated. When it also constricts their remaining freedoms, it practically makes “paranoia” a necessity of survival. [/color]

Thomas Jefferson said that the basis of free government is not “confidence” — trust and faith in our rulers — but “jealousy” — skepticism and suspicion. [color=green]The more trust our rulers demand of us, the less they deserve to be trusted. [/color]Yet many people do trust them and willingly submit, offering reasons like “I reckon the president knows more about this than I do.” Of course he knows more than we do. He sees to that. But what does he do with his privileged knowledge?

Government secrets remain secret long after they have served their supposed purpose. Conspiratorial habits are hard to break. [color=green]Even when the original enemy has ceased to exist, as in the cases of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the old secrets of World War II and the Cold War are still kept from us.

You could even get the impression that the U.S. Government regards the American people as the enemy. [/color]

Joseph Sobran

Happy Hacker

2003-01-08 19:52 | User Profile

I've seen many neocons explain that Bush has no obligation to share evidence with the American people. The truth is Bush has the obligation to share evidence with the American people but Bush doesn't meet his obligation because he knows I have no obligation to support his agenda nor even to vote for him.

jay

2003-01-08 23:52 | User Profile

Sobran is sweet. I love reading his columns. Especially poignant are his calls to cease voting. I did just that last November and I feel very good about doing so. I cringe when I see Jorge giving a speech today on "Leaving No Child Behind"

Maybe their G-dAMN PARENTS shouldn't leave them behind in the first place.

I know that people close to me are at least thinking about what I say. I would add that when I say "I'm not getting fooled into voting for the GOP", others want to know what I think I know. Then they wonder, "am I being a fool also?" Nobody wants that.

-Jay

TexasAnarch

2003-01-13 17:55 | User Profile

This is in response to Joe Sobran's ruminations on conspiracies, Trent Lott, helpfully posted Jan. 8 below.

 After succinctly divulging to his readership that he is hip to cinspiracy theories floating around Washington, and everywhere....

...detailing the absurdity of doubting their truth  "..in fact governments budget billions for espionage and other covert actions...huge bureaucracies keep countless secretrs from us..we can never really know what the governmen is doing..."

    OK. Joe.  Good work. Everybodyf has to catch on, sometime.  Where you been?  What you been doing?  Great coffee, cuffee. he he.

   followed up by:  "Of course all this official secrecy ensures that there will be some outlandish conspiracy theories."  Anybody else's ears prick up here?  I know mine did.

  "Such theories can hardly be more than guesses, and some of these guesses are bound to be wild.  The wildest of them ..."

    ..ready for this?

 "...contend that there is only one gigantic almighty conspiracy.."

  Yep.  That's me in a nutshell, if by "gigantic almighty" Joe Blow, here, means to include what Hillary Clinton called "the vast right wing conspiracy"  That one existed, alright; and when they planted the vile slur "F*cking Jew bastard" in her mouth, linked her to the attack on the USS Cole, along about then I began to realize, like many others, for reasons of their own, that it was too poisoned to vote, in '04.

  And I am proud I didn't, after registering and setting out that afternoon to do so.  She shouldn't be running for New York Senator; but having done so, she shouldn't have been so smeared.

  This is where the content comes in.  The content is, in fact, a vast conspiracy of tsunamic wave-front proportions, if by "conspiracy" one means, broadly, those sharing the right-wing mentality that placed George W. Bush in office, then changed the definition of the terms he campaigned under ("compassion" to "faith-based" "onservatism") in order to open a sluice-gate marked "GOD'S TROUGH" at the spigot end, in the U.S. Treasury, and "Catholic Charities" "Hillel Academy Outreach" and the like at the other end, where Uncle Sams war bucks turn into soup-line kitchens. featuring Red Skelton saying "GAHH BETHH" as the humble down-and-outers slink gratefully to the rear benches.  GAWW  BLETHH echo the Liebermen, the Schumers, the Wacky Patakis,  and the Tribe Of The New Millenial NEOCONS ! (Cf. justice Scalia's recent remarks on what "God" is -- as if he knew; they don't even say mass in English in his church, according to the reports on Robert Philip Hanssen, who attended there for that reason.  Sounds like "Deus" hijacking George Washington's legacy, to me.)

  Joe?  can't see him. Can you?  If so, please reveal what you think he is trying to say?

WILDEST OF THE WILD sign me off Joe millionaire 'til he comes thru What does he think this neocon sh*t is all about?

medieval

2003-01-15 02:22 | User Profile

"This means that we also can’t know what we are voting about, further proof that the vote is worthless and democracy fraudulent. "

Agreed. But then again, the premise on which this country is based is inherently flawed, in that sovereignty lies soley in the people, excluding God and natural law in the constitution. This, of course, leaves the door open for any type of evil, so long as it is justified by majority rule--a scary thing seeing as how the majority are wrong most of the time.

darkeddy

2003-01-15 03:16 | User Profile

Is there some problem with voting for America First candidates? Just not voting works out to be a strategy for having one's interests ignored.