Addicted to codswallop -- or: Why you deserve to be raped

Blogger was down for a bit, and I had a project -- hence, no post for the past day or so. Besides, I wanted to leave the previous piece up, just in case someone wanted to have a look at it.

Not many did. That inattention makes me a bit sad. During this same period, a depressingly large number of people clicked on my notorious April 1, 2006 post. That makes me sadder.

Do people prefer sensationalistic codswallop?

The Amanpour affair is potentially very important. Some of you may think: "Oh, her source was probably speculating, or offering an opinion." Come on. Think about it. A CIA officer (former or active) does not simply ring up a reporter of Amanpour's stature to offer blue-sky conjecture -- especially not on a topic of that sort.

The officer in question -- whom I suspect to have been Mary McCarthy -- probably felt impelled to make this revelation because Porter Goss had already revealed that he knew the location but was restricted from action by politics. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated. We really could have a congressional investigation into this matter -- if the public could overcome its apathy, if people like you understood that chic cynicism functions as a tool to keep you disempowered.

Obama recently made headlines by suggesting that elements of the Pakistani government knew where Bin Laden was. But what if the Bush government knew? What if Obama knew?

Even before the Amanpour prediction came to light, there was excellent reason to believe that such was the case. In 2007, Emmanuel Razavi made a remarkable (albeit little-seen, at least in America) documentary called The Search for Osama Bin Laden, which not only indicated Pakistan's role in hiding the terror leader, but also provided excellent evidence of covert American aid to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. (There are a couple of documentaries with similar names; Razavi's is here.)

Some of you may also be familiar with another documentary called 9/11: Press for Truth, which investigates the possible role of ISI in the attacks -- and presents convincing testimony that the United States government literally flew Al Qaeda terrorists to safe havens in Pakistan.

That's the real thing.

But the American public doesn't know about this. On the other hand, everyone is familiar with the bombs-in-the-buildings codswallop. Most people you know have seen or heard of Loose Change, a codswallop masterpiece. You probably don't know anyone who has seen the two documentaries listed above.

(On a side note: I was distraught and disheartened to learn that Daniel Hopsicker, whom I once greatly admired, has turned into a raving toon who cites neo-Nazis as though they were responsible authorities. More on that unhappy development anon. I'll de-link his site soon.)

Bottom line: The conspiracy theories you hear about -- the ones that right-wingers like Alex Jones talk about, the ones which "everyone" knows, the ones which function as the Official Alternative Reality -- are invariably diversions. They are disinformation. They were designed to keep people stupid while flattering them with the illusion of hipness.

The same could be said concerning widespread views about how to fix our economy.

The financial disaster which came to light in 2008 was caused by libertarianism, neo-liberalism, deregulation, call it what you will. The Establishment pundits soon offered their response: We need belt-tightening, austerity measures, small government. We need more deregulation.

Those countries which have heeded that advice -- Ireland is a good example -- are miserable, and are going to be miserable for a long time to come. Meanwhile, Iceland -- which did not heed that advice, even though many thought that the devastation would last a generation -- is rebounding nicely. Indeed, Iceland got into that mess in the first place only because too many people there listened to neo-liberal liars.

Yet in this country, the majority of Americans have been "carefully taught" to think that the main problem facing us is, of all things, socialism.

Not Wall Street deregulation. Not the way big bankers have corrupted our political establishment. Not free trade. Not outsourcing. Not the wholesale abandonment of the pro-worker principles which kept us prosperous and mighty for a generation after WWII.

No, two decades after the fall of the USSR, American ninnies actually believe that all of our problems are caused by Marxists.

Taxes on the wealthy are much lower than they were in 1992, the twelfth year of the Reagan/Bush era. Yet armies of propagandists will try to convince you that the rich are overtaxed.

Everywhere you go -- the internet, cable news, the radio -- you'll run into people telling you that we need more libertarianism to fix the problems that libertarianism created. How to put out a raging oil fire? More oil!

That's not a mainstream media viewpoint: That's what you read in the so-called alternative press. The people who buy into this "blame Socialism" codswallop actually think of themselves as hipper-than-hip outsiders, as radically cool anti-mainstreamers.

I'm beginning to think that there is no point to writing. If my audience would rather read this than this -- well, what can I say? You people are too fucking stupid to live. You deserve to be enslaved and raped.