“understanding Deep Politics” Featuring Michael Parenti
Understanding Deep Politics featuring Michael Parenti
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This is one of Michael Parenti’s best lectures, if not the best. I have posted it before, but I would like to use it again to discuss and tackle the issue of word manipulation, which in turn manipulates our thoughts, ideas, and perceptions. As Michael Parenti said, this is a “struggle and battle over words.” Later, I would also like to address the issue I raised in my last post: the “Scary Phobia of Socialism.”
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In 1978, I came across a quote by somebody from the Business Council—his name wasn’t given—but he was saying things like, “What’s going on? The income gap between the highest and lowest is more narrow than it’s ever been. Human services are increasing. If we don’t watch it, we will end up as a social democracy,” he said. Now, I found that very fascinating because I think there are only about 600 people in all of America who know what the hell social democracy means or even use the term. I mean, the term is simply not used in America, and that’s a victory right there. The ability to keep certain words out of political discourse, like social democracy, is a very real right-wing victory. The ability to inject certain words, like “conspiracy theory,” which puts a closure on any kind of thinking about something, that also is a tremendous victory. So, this struggle, this battle over words, is something to be taken very seriously. And if anybody asks me tomorrow on that panel, “What will you do?” I’ll say, “Struggle and battle over words.”
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Carter was acting like Reagan. He started cutting back on human services, called for an increase in the military budget, and was moving in a rightward direction. But Carter couldn’t really do the thing they wanted, which was a massive rollback. Carter was still beholden to the labor unions, the Black vote, progressives, liberals, and those people. So, they went with Reagan.
Now, fast forward 30 years. In those 30 years, you’ve had an ideological war that these guys have waged. They understand something that the liberals still don’t understand. They understand something in the Republican Party that the Democrats still haven’t been able to grasp, because the Democrats are too busy saying, “We don’t disagree that much. We really can work together. We can be bipartisan.” They understand that ideas count, that ideology counts, that the words you use count, that those words control those ideas, and those ideas control those people. And they have been hammering that home for those 30 years.
So, you go 30 years forward to the year 2008, and David Frum, a GOP strategist, quotes, “The core task that the Republican Party has had was to stop and reverse, to some degree, the drift of democratic countries after the Second World War towards social democracy. And that is what we did in the US. We stopped the drift towards…” And there are those two words that jumped right back up out of the page at me—it was in the New Yorker magazine—”social democracy.” We’ve got to stop the drift towards social democracy. These guys know about social democracy, and they know they have a conscious agenda to prevent it from happening.
Now, people like Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer claim the US is a force for good and that the US fights against communism. Now, this communism, to them, is the social democracy in Europe that Michael Parenti speaks about – some remnants of socialism in Europe that improve people’s lives. I don’t understand how, for example, Alex Krainer can complain about removing healthcare, education, and all the things that make life better for people in Europe while at the same time praising the US, which is actively fighting against these things. So, removing social programs in Europe is bad according to Alex Krainer, but at the same time, the cancer of this ideology – fighting those programs and increasing military spending – comes from the US. Where is the logic in this?
Both Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer are libertarians who oppose social democracy and the very programs that improve people’s lives in Europe, while at the same time, Alex Krainer claims that removing these programs is bad. How can you claim these programs are bad? Because they are socialism and communism while also claiming that removing them is bad? Where is the logic in this?
This cancer of libertarianism came from the US and was spread to the UK by the US with the goal of infecting Europe. So how can you say the US is a force for good? The US is not controlled by the UK. Instead, the US is using the UK as a cancer for Europe to dismantle social democracy – those remnants of socialism in Europe – so that profits for the oligarchy increase. Removing social welfare and increasing military spending is making Europe more like the US, so if the US is a force for good and Europe is bad, they should be cheering this on. They praise libertarianism and the US, so according to them, removing all these social programs – this so-called evil socialism and communism in Europe – and making Europe more like the US should be a good thing. So why aren’t they praising it? If the US is so great and socialist-communist Europe is so bad, then making Europe more like the US should be something they celebrate.
People like Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer, in my opinion, don’t understand the world and are manipulated by ideology. They both claim socialism and communism are evil because they supposedly push transgenderism and other things like that – which is absurd! The people who rule over us this capitalist cabal don’t have an ideology, they don’t have souls; they only care about profit, money, and power. This ruling capitalist cabal could not care less about ideology. They will hide behind the rainbow flag or the Christian cross to get money and power. They only care about money and power.
All this transgender stuff did not come from communists and socialists; it came from the right-wing libertarian capitalist cabal that Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer praise. This ruling capitalist cabal created this transgender stuff to neuter real Marxism and socialism, pushing them into ideology and away from materialism. It’s this capitalist cabal that created all this transgender nonsense to neuter socialism and Marxism – so that socialism and Marxism are no longer about material conditions and class struggle, but instead about ideology, like transgenderism, race struggle, gender struggle, and all sorts of ideological struggles – everything but class and material struggle.
So, people like Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer claim others are evil based on ideology while failing to understand that the ruling cabal doesn’t give a damn about ideology. They don’t care about the rainbow flag or the Christian cross, but they will use any ideology to distract people from the material struggle – which is the core of real Marxism and socialism.
There is no real socialism or Marxism in the West! Marxism’s main issue was not transgender nonsense, but improving the material conditions of the average person. Marx only touched on ideology to show that capitalist cabals use it to divide people. Marx’s fight against cultural constructs was not his main issue; he wanted to improve people’s conditions, but he saw that people were divided by these social constructs and that the capitalist cabal used these constructs to prevent people from uniting and improving their material conditions.
The main goal of Marxism was not ideological struggle, but material struggle – class struggle – a struggle to improve material conditions. The ideological fight was not the main goal; it was only a small part meant to unite people so they could improve their material conditions. Marx touched on this subject only because he saw that ideological constructs were preventing people from uniting and improving their material conditions – but it was never his main goal.
All this was well explained by the son of Michael Parenti in a video that I have linked many times and referenced in many posts like this one.
In this post, there is a video of Christian Parenti with segments explaining this on the basis of Federalist 10 by James Madison. If you want a deeper explanation of how the Marxist and socialist movements were transformed into this woke, transgender stuff by the capitalist cabal to dilute and divorce Marxism and socialism from their main goal of class struggle with purpose of bettering material conditions for average people, I recommend exploring more works by Christian Parenti. Here, you have a great example.
"The Cargo Cult of Woke" | A Q&A with Christian Parenti
Christian Parenti talks with Class Unity about the "compatible left", so-called Wokeness, contemporary politics, and institutions like the CIA. He is the author of "Radical Hamilton" (2020) and "Tropic of Chaos" (2011). You can find his article here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2024/06/the-cargo-cult-of-woke You can find Class Unity here: https://classunity.org Please consider making a donation or joining today!
All this is achieved through ideology and the manipulation of words, which in turn manipulate our thoughts, ideas and perception. As Michael Parenti mentioned in the main video, this is a "struggle and battle over words," which ultimately becomes a fight over the human mind since words shape our thoughts, ideas and perception. As Orwell said, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
Let’s go back to Michael Parenti.
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he structure of organizations has orchestrated and propagated a mass line ideology that has been guided by a deep ideology—that is, the deep ideology that serves the interests of the owning corporate class. Sometimes it peeks through in the mass line ideology when there are denunciations of socialism and when equating government regulations with totalitarianism, and progressive income tax and inheritance tax on the rich are equated with confiscation and communist theft.
You know, the right over the last 40 years or more has been really pushing this line. Now, what I'm saying here is that this is a conscious, intentionally disguised agenda by people who know what social democracy is and say to you explicitly, in English, your mother tongue, they say, "We want to destroy social democracy. We don't want that in this country or any country." So, they've got this, and they mobilize broad constituencies on behalf of the interests of the few.
We say the super-rich, the less than one-half of one percent, who really own most of the wealth. Now, whenever you ascribe conscious intent and pursuit of self-interest at the top, you will hear someone say, "Well, what are you, a conspiracy theorist?"
You can say farmers consciously organize to pursue their interests, and everybody will say, "Uh-huh, the farmers are organized." You can say machinists or auto workers are organizing, and everybody says, "Uh-huh, they're consciously organizing and pursuing," or school teachers or other people. But if you say that the people who own most of America and most of the world, if you say they consciously organize and pursue things to get what they want, then you hear people saying, "Oh, you have a conspiracy theory. You think—you think they really do that?"
The alternative to a conspiracy theory is an innocence theory. That is, they do all this stuff, but they're not pursuing self-interest; they just do it, you know. The other alternative is a somnambulist theory. Somnambulism is the tendency to walk in your sleep. David Rockefeller gets up in the morning and he says, "What am I going to do to advance my interest and protect my interest?" No, no, that would be conspiratorial. Hey, that stuff happens, whatever, hell, you know, it's okay. Another alternative would be coincidence theory. It's just a coincidence that this happened. What an - or sometimes a variation of coincidence theory is uncanny theory. Then there's stupidity theory and incompetence theory. Don't laugh at that one; that's used all the time.
I have had about a 20-year argument with my co-politicos on the left to stop calling Ronald Reagan stupid, to stop calling George Bush stupid. It's good for a joke or something, but that guy knew what he was doing, and he did it. He got rid of the inheritance tax for the super-rich. He cut corporate taxes down to almost nothing. He doubled the military budget. He waged two major wars and got this country into war and left it that way. He deregulated—well, actually, another creep before him named Bill Clinton deregulated the banking system and all to create this disaster that we've been facing. These guys know what they're doing, and they know who they're doing it for. They're doing it for themselves.
But they will actually even use - they'll even use this idea of incompetence theory to save their asses. When Reagan was on the line and brought before that court because of Iran-Contra, after Poindexter fell on the sword for him and said - and said, "Um, oh no, the president didn't know." Yeah, like they were going to do this whole scheme, these billions of dollars down to the contras, uh, conniving with Iran and all; they're going to do this without telling the president, without clearing it with him. Cabinet-level people are going to just do this, of course. And then, and then Weinberger and and all these others, it turns out Reagan knew all about it. Reagan was the guy who okayed it. And Reagan's defense was incompetence theory, saying, "You know, I - I just really got to get a better grasp on what's going on here. I should be more hands-on," and everybody going, "Oh, Ronnie, what a dumb doo-doo head. He didn't know." All right, he doesn't go to jail, all right.
So then there's—there's also stochastic theory, stochasticism, among intellectual academic circles, which is filled with people who have too much time on their hands. They make up words like stochasticism. It means, uh, it - it means everything happening by random. There's really no causality as such. So, you know, stuff just happens. So and so history is this - is just these eventualities that just tumble down on top of each other like that, and and stochastic.
Let me give you an example. Walter Karp, and it hurts me to take Walter because he was a wonderful guy; he's dead now. He wrote a book called Indispensable Enemies in 1974. He writes as follows: "When it can be established," and he's writing about conspiracy, "when it can be established that a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question." Yes. "When it can be shown, in addition, that the actors have an interest in producing these results, the presumptions become a fair certainty." And then he says, "No conspiracy theory is required." You see, he has to disassociate. He's making a very intelligent conspiracy analysis, but he's got to disassociate, and he's got to genuflect by saying, "I'm not making a conspiracy theory here. No conspiracy theory is required." That's right, no conspiracy theory. A conspiracy analysis is being made, and you just made it.
I'll tell you more, he says, because it's really good. He says, "On the other hand, those who make blanket condemnations of conspiracy theories base their own view on a far-fetched theory indeed, namely that whatever those in high office actually do, they are essentially men of good will." So, you have those people who say there can't be such conspiracies because our leaders are people of good will, they have good intentions, and that's the way they are. I'll return to that point later. According to this school of special pleading, the "king can do no wrong" doctrine, suitably updated, it is entirely proper to praise an American president for skillfully engineering some desirable result, but to ascribe to him the same skillful engineering of an indefensible one is to fall victim to political paranoia and conspiratorial fetishism." I mean, that's not Karp doesn't believe that; he's saying that's the way these people think, that when the president does something craftily and cleverly and succeeds and it was a victory, everybody says, "Oh, that was good political leadership; that's what that was." But if you say he would use craft and guile and skill to perpetrate unsavory ends, like starting a war of aggression, then that's conspiracy theory that you're having. And there are these other two words he mentioned. One of the other two words, if they don't—you see it in the press regularly—if they don't say you're suffering from conspiracy theory, they'll say you're being paranoid or you're being cynical. The cynical view, that's the other term that's sometimes used.
So, what we're facing, and not only from mainstream media and conventional academics, but even from among some leading progressive writers, we're facing a knee-jerk resistance to ascribing intent or covert actions and such by dismissing such ascriptions as conspiracy theory. So, the term "conspiracy theory" is used to dismiss: one, the idea of a conscious design by policymakers; two, a hidden but knowing intent; three, a secret plan for a secret interest. The term "conspiracy theory" is applied in two dimensions. The first dimension focuses on specific actions and events - an assassination, an act of terrorism, a mysterious disappearance of giant skyscrapers, a dirty deal in business which is an illegal one. Or the second ascription is to dismiss an entire class interest, an entire social and ideological agenda. Rulers do not rule from secret intent. Do you get the difference? I mean, one is about specific actions, and the other is about the whole system and structure.
This explains why somebody like Noam Chomsky, who does very good and very valuable work - this is not to take away anything from him in other areas - but I've had differences with him over the JFK assassination. Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Chip Berlet, they denounced this conspiracy theory, and they say, "If you're a radical, you don't go looking at these little hokey-pokey secret plots, most of them imagined, even a few might be real. So what? Because there's the larger, bigger picture you've got to look at." He's surprised, and they are surprised, to find out that they themselves are thought of as conspiracy theorists. There are people who think Noam Chomsky is a conspiracy theorist because of that second use of the term, that is, using it to mean a whole class power, systemic intent that's directed toward certain kinds of forces behind the left.
The rejection of the concept of conspiracy theory in academic circles is this structuralist-functionalist debate that's gone on. Many of you have not heard about this structuralist-functionalist debate over the years. You have every reason to be grateful that you haven't. It shows that you haven't been wasting your goddamn time on this issue.
Well, the debate goes something like this: explaining things. If you try to explain things through incidental or idiosyncratic analysis, this is very poor analysis. You know, if you try to say, "Well, the Spanish-American War happened because McKinley was all sort of scared and weak, and Teddy Roosevelt was a real bombastic," and these personalities of the actors, and that brought the war on. Or King Louis - who was it? King Louis gave aid to the American Revolution because - I forget - somebody killed his pet cat, and he got angry at the guy, and so forth, and somebody, you know, little incidental stories like this or personalities and such, that is a very limited and dubious analysis of trying to explain historical phenomena. That the more impersonal and the more systemic than the more radical and the more systemic, the less volitional, the broader is the scope. When you have a systemic analysis and the deeper is the depth of your analysis, it is assumed—but what they're assuming here, you see, is a conflict between structural factors and functional factors, volitional factors, where people are consciously acting as actors with conscious intent. Because in fact, the structure plays itself out through volitional forces. You have to have volitional forces. The CIA itself - neither is the CIA structuralist, nor is it functionalist. Functionalist - n other words, functionalism is discarded. Conspiracy theory is discarded as a form of functionalism. And Michael Albert and Noam Chomsky had an article on that in Z Magazine. They call themselves structuralists, that they have structure. And I had a - I had a contract on a book I was writing at the time, Against Empire, with - um, what was that? - the publishing house in Maine, Common Courage. And he - and he, uh, and he wouldn't want to go on with the project, and I - I canceled - I canceled it with him, and I - and I switched it over to City Lights as my publisher. He - and he said - he said on the phone - this was after I had written that thing on - on the JFK assassination - he said, "Well, you're a functionalist, and I'm a - I'm a structuralist, you know."
Now, here Michael Parenti touches on Chomsky, whom I discussed before. Chomsky, as Michael Parenti said, did some good work, but at the same time, he was controlled opposition, as I explained before. Chomsky was promoted to silence people like Parenti since this kind of analysis could not be fully suppressed. They preferred someone like Chomsky over Parenti because, unlike Chomsky, Parenti had the courage to speak the truth about issues like the JFK assassination and 9/11, which could not be allowed. Because of that, Chomsky was promoted so that people like Parenti would remain unknown and silenced.
Many people have heard about Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky, published in 1988, but almost no one knows about Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti, which was published in 1986. Chomsky was promoted so that Parenti could be ignored, as Parenti’s analysis was better and more dangerous to them.
I'm saying, "What is wrong with these guys?" They suffer from - see, in academia, academics are never happier than when they can choose up sides and dichotomize an issue. "Well, you're a structuralist, I'm a functionalist," or "You're a - you're a - you know, you're a something else-ist, and I'm a this-ist." And then they choose up, and they start fighting, and they have little - "You're a behaviorist, and I'm an intentionalist," "You're a this-ist and this-ist, and I'm a that-ist." That's when they're really happy. And of course, most of the time, these things aren't mutually exclusive. These functions play out. The CIA, as I started to say, the CIA is a structured conspiracy operation. You know, you can say, "Is the CIA a systemic agency that's part of a whole overriding class interest that must mobilize power in a certain way and does these things and operates that way, or is it a bunch of conspirators who are doing that?" And there are those of us who say, "Why can't it be both? Don't A and B serve each other perfectly well?" Uh, but as I say, if you're so busy choosing up sides to keep yourself busy, they have too much time on their hands. History plays out functionally within the confines of structural developments. Did you get that down? That's a direct quote from Michael.
Here's another thing: conspiracy theory. For some people, conspiracy theory, by definition, cannot be proven true because when it's proven true, it's declared to no longer be a conspiracy theory but a fact. I mean, I've had arguments with people on the phone, and I realized - I said, "So, then the conspiracy theory does apply." I said, "What conspiracy theory? That's a fact." You know, you proved to me that that's a fact. I said, "But that's - it's a conspiracy fact. It's—it's people colluding in secret to pursue illegal and unlawful and immoral goals with the intent of advancing the interests of people who are not acknowledging their association to this action."
Okay, I've said - I've said - and I'm glad to see that Mickey Huff made the same point yesterday, but I have said it years ago, that I don't have a conspiracy theory, but I do have a conspiracy analysis, and that should be our answer when any work you're doing - when somebody brings this thing up like a little knee-jerk, like a bell ringing, "Oh, where do you have?" And it's not that innocent or all that stupid; it's a very effective weapon. It's a way of putting closure on your investigation or argument. It's a way of delegitimizing what it is you have to say by just using this term. The terms have become so charged, as I showed you with the Walter Karp one, that even when someone's making a brilliant conspiracy analysis, he has to—he has to acknowledge a distance and saying, "But this is - this is no conspiracy theory," you know.
Like there are actual conspiracies. Conspiracies exist. In the law, they use the term all the time. It's a feature of law. Here, 2006, a federal court adjudged the major tobacco companies to be guilty of a 50-year conspiracy to deceive the public about the addictive and health-damaging qualities of cigarettes. Millions in the United States and abroad, quote, "have died as a result of this conspiracy." But you don't find any tobacco executives in jail. That's another whole question about systemic analysis and class power and such that we might pursue.
If we conclude - if we conclude that 9/11 is an inside job, we have to say why. And I guess there have to have been some books written about that, hasn't there? Why—why was it necessary to commit this inside job? It was a Pearl Harbor to legitimize an action that followed immediately after. I remember on day two, when the - that same day when the buildings came down, I heard Tom Brokaw on the radio saying, "This is war, war, this is war," and he kept saying, "This is war." I'm saying, "No, no, it's not. It's a building that came down. What do we —"
But here's another one. In Missoula, Montana, W.R. Grace, the federal government charges they conspired knowingly to violate the Clean Air Act, knowingly releasing asbestos into the air for us all to breathe for three decades. Grace kept meticulous records documenting the extreme potency of its asbestos fibers, the ease - I'm sorry, the ease with which they became airborne, and the decline of the miners' health. Now, the people of Libby will have a chance to tell their story. Now, isn't that interesting? For years, they were saying how many were dying and where this is going, knowingly doing that.
Here's another interesting story. Two journalism groups did an analysis of U.S. comments by U.S. leaders, top leaders, that effectively galvanized public opinion to engage in war against Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attack, 9/11. And the studies found that the statements made - the studies counted 935 false statements in the two-year period after 9/11. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews, and other venues, Bush and administrative officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to Al Qaeda, even though they never came up with a shred of evidence on any of those things. Of course, there, you could ask, "Are these false statements that they were making? Were these statements mistaken or incorrect?" That's Christopher Hitchens' fallback position on this. "They had every reason to believe there were weapons of mass destruction. It turns out they were wrong. They were misinformed, faulty data. They got the CIA to fall on the sword for that one." Was it - so was it incorrect, or were they outright mendacious lies and fabrications? Well, what do you think? If you think George Bush is just a stupid little dooby-doo-wa, then they were innocent mistakes. If you think he knows what he was doing, then you know what he was doing, and you don't sound so stupid then.
Okay, we have today Wall Street conspiracy firms like Goldman Sachs knowingly selling mortgage-backed securities at top prices with full knowledge that they were worthless and were walking off with other people's money, billions, we're talking about billions here. Yet no one has used the word "conspiracy" yet, you notice that. And in fact, the case against them is a civil case. No one's even being charged with a criminal crime. Should be going to jail. Well —
I also want to point out when you're looking at conspiracies that the establishment, the powers that be, the conspirators, those at the top, policymakers, corporate America, all those people, they constantly assume that conspiracies exist when it's their enemies. They talked for 40 years. Since I was a kid, I can remember, they talked about communist conspiracies, communist parties all over, communist parties here, communist parties in Hollywood, communist parties infiltrated trade unions, communist parties in policy, communist parties in the peace movement, communist parties going to grab your mama, communist parties everywhere. Um, I remember that all the time, working secretly, with subterfuge, and pernicious intent. They consciously operate with conspiracy theories when it involves other people, not themselves.
Just this past week, Times Square, an SUV, smoke comes out of the SUV. What did it take the New York Times and the FBI and the White House and the CIA and Homeland Security and all the other guys and the New York Police Department? What did it take them, about an hour or two hours, to leap into a conspiracy theory and say, "There's a conspiracy here. We've got to find the conspirators." I thought it was a lone assassin. I said, "I think this is just a disturbed, lonely assassin guy, like one of those Middle Eastern guys with an accent who can't really get along so well in our society." That's what I said. I mean, he leaves the car, the propane doesn't ignite, it's an amateurish job, and then he's going to escape the country. How is he going to escape? He takes an airliner with a no-fly list and all that, and they nail him at the gate there. I mean, if you have a conspiracy, you know this. And people say he had connections with people in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in Massachusetts. I said, "Lee Harvey Oswald had connections with people in New Orleans and in Dallas, and still he was just a lone, simple assassin." But apparently, this is a conspiracy. But you notice they didn't have any trouble. Nobody said "conspiracy theorist." They all said, "Let's find the other conspirators," you see?
So, these are the ways we can decide how something is a conspiracy or not. If there's been intentional planning, another way to find out is by monitoring what the conspirators themselves say. Here's a guy you all know, Dick Cheney, when he was vice president of the United States, 2001, quote, "We'll have to work—" I'm going to work on my Dick Cheney imitation. "We'll have to work—" I can't do it. "We'll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world." I mean, who's that? Is that a spooky cook one of us talking, or is that the vice president of the United States? He's saying it himself. Let me say that again. "We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion. It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically to achieve our objectives." That's awfully nice.
I give you another one, John Foster Dulles. I think a lot of you remember who John Foster—no, well, none of the ladies are old enough to remember John Foster, but some of you guys along with me, we remember John Foster Dulles, wealthy corporate lawyer, conservative Republican, Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. His brother and fellow multi-millionaire, Allen Dulles, was head of the CIA, CIA director. John Foster was keenly aware of the need to stoke popular fears and manipulate people to serve—to serve the few—in order to mobilize support for the enormous costs of empire, and he wrote about it as follows. After he got out of office, a lot of these guys, you know, they become a lot better. When they're out of office, they start saying certain things, and they act human. Jimmy Carter is another example. You know, he starts talking much better. So, he wrote this in one of his memoirs: "In order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments, it is necessary to blow up the Twin Towers—no, no, I made that up. Let me start all over. All right. In order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments, it is necessary to create an emotional state akin to war psychology. This is war," as Tom Brokaw said. "There must be the portrayal of external menace. Once that ideology has been perpetrated, the nation is—" That was my line, "ideology perpetrator," quote—this is Dulles—"a long way on the path to war."
In this video, Michael Parenti explains the "struggle and battle over words," which serve to manipulate our thoughts, ideas, and perception of reality. In a recent video from the Jimmy Dore channel, I found another example of such manipulation of words to influence our thoughts, ideas, and perception of reality, which is a more current issue. Here is this fragment.
New Canadian Prime Minister Is A Globalist Puppet!
Canada has a new Prime Minister! That's right, Justin Trudeau is out and stepping up into his place is... Mark Carney. And if you thought the Canadian political scene would shift away from authoritarianism and globalism in favor of populism, well, sorry to disappoint!
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So look at this headline: Mark Carney failed to stop Brexit but hopes to save Canada from populism. Yeah, that's the worst. He's not going to save Canada from illegal immigration or inflation; he's going to save Canada from listening to the voice of its own people. That's what populism is. Isn't that a slur that oligarchs came up with for democracy itself? It’s like, what, populism in power? Yeah, the papers - that’s in that guy’s book, Listen, Liberal. He wrote about how they invented the term 'populism' as a dirty word. So now they’re saying he’s going to try to save Canada from listening to the will of its own people.
Now, let’s take this word “populism,” which is recently used and which, in my opinion, is a great example of the manipulation of thoughts, ideas, and perception of reality through word manipulation. We hear that we need to fight “populism.” In the US, we have the case of Trump being a so-called populist, and in my state, Poland, we have the current government of the PO party with Donald Tusk (which is a puppet government of the Germans, supported by the EU and Ursula von der Liar) saying they are fighting the populist opposition.
Now, let’s tackle and analyze the words “populism” and “populist.” I would argue that statements from Jimmy Dore show that the term "populism" is a slur that oligarchs created for democracy itself, similar to how they made "conspiracy theory" a slur. Because they can’t say openly that they are fighting democracy, Tusk, Ursula von der Liar, or our other rulers can’t openly say they are fighting democracy—but they can say openly and loudly and proudly that they are fighting populism. But isn’t it the same thing? Who is a populist? Someone who listens to the people, someone who listens to the demos—so, in other words, a democrat (not in the sense of a political party, but as a system).
So, you see how they position our thoughts, ideas, and perceptions by creating the word "populism" and turning it into a slur, similar to what they did with the term "conspiracy theory." By creating the word "populism," they poisoned the concept of democracy. Because if our leaders openly declare that they are fighting populism, and populists are simply people who listen to their people, then they are fighting democracy. Now, they can’t openly and loudly say they oppose democracy and don’t want to listen to the people, because normal people would understand what is happening and might protest. But now, they can stand and openly and loudly declare that they are opposing and fighting populism—and people clap and cheer for it—while it means the same thing. This shows how words can manipulate our thoughts, ideas, and perceptions.
Now, I want to point out that some people, like Trump and Elon, who are called populists, are not really forces for good. Trump is part of the libertarian crowd that fights against social democracy, as Michael Parenti mentioned at the beginning - something I don’t support and that I do not consider a force for good. People may call Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer populists, but in my opinion, they are also not a force for good because they are part of the libertarian ideology, which represents the same fight against social democracy - so, people who don’t want the US to become more like Denmark.
Like I said before, I don't understand how they can praise the US and libertarianism while at the same time claiming that dismantling social welfare in Europe, which provides a good standard of living for people, is bad. I don’t understand people like Alex Krainer, who claim that dismantling social welfare in Europe is bad, yet at the same time, they oppose the national healthcare system or national healthcare insurance, which represent those very social welfare systems. How can you say dismantling something is bad while simultaneously claiming that the thing being dismantled is bad? If he is a libertarian and against social welfare, shouldn't he praise the dismantling of social welfare since, according to him, it makes this horrible socialist-communist Europe more like the wonderful US that he praises?
If the US is so wonderful and Europe is so bad, then isn’t dismantling social welfare - which he hates - and increasing military spending, which makes Europe more like the US, a good thing? Since the US is good according to him and communist-socialist Europe is bad?
This is brainwashing, anti-socialist brain rot, and this “Scary Phobia of Socialism,” which I mentioned in my last two posts. In my last post, I used the example of my friend who has this brainwashing, anti-socialist brain rot, and this “Scary Phobia of Socialism,” which I also see in people like Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer. I have touched on the case of my friend in my last post.
Funny enough, those people call Europe communist while most European countries, like my own state, Poland, have laws making it illegal to support both Communism and Fascism. My friend went so far as to say that people supporting Communism should be "given a bullet to the head and buried six meters underground," while at the same time claiming he supports freedom of speech.
Recently, Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer stated that democracy is bad. How on earth can someone say democracy is bad and claiming that kings and authoritarian rule are good, and at the same time be called a populist? Kings and authoritarian rule are about taking voice and power away from people, while a populist is someone who listens to people and wants them to have power. Sometimes, I really don’t understand what is happening. People who fight populists call themselves democrats and claim they are fighting to defend democracy, while people opposing democracy are called populists. Has logic died in our society?
Both the US and EU are not democratic. I have explained how European communism makes the EU undemocratic, while indirect voting and Citizens United make the US undemocratic. While the EU is a little more economically democratic because of the remains of social welfare, and the US is a little more ideologically democratic because of freedom of speech protections, neither of them is truly democratic. Just look at Trump - because of Citizens United, he had to sell his soul to the Zionist lobby to win the election, and because of this, we have all these terrible things happening in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the EU cancels elections and suppresses free speech under the guise of fighting populism, which, in reality, is fighting democracy. The US is also not democratic because there are no direct elections, and Citizens United makes US elections simply bought by oligarchs. So there is not much difference between the US and EU when it comes to democracy.
Anyway, it does not matter since the EU is being Americanized to Nazify, as I explained and warned before, saying Thatcherism is coming to the EU. This is coming true with plans to dismantle social welfare and increase military spending, which will make the EU more like the US, representing the Americanization and Nazification of the EU. I still don’t understand why people like my friend or people like Tom Luongo and Alex Krainer - who hate socialism and praise America - are at the same time saying that what is happening is bad. After all, if this socialist, communist Europe is becoming more like their wonderful America, shouldn’t they be happy?
I will end with the conclusion of Michael Parenti's video.
52:57
So, a student of mine said, "You know, I can't believe that - I can't believe that the president of the United States, that President Bush, would misrepresent and mislead us into a war because he disapproved of what some other leader was doing in his own country. I can't believe that they would use power like that." I mean, he was a sweet, nice kid, you know. And, um, he said, "That's the difference between you and me. I have faith in the president." I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Faith? Is that the word you - I mean, what are we doing here, politics or religion? What is this? Uh, what do you mean you have faith? You mean the way my Italian grandma had faith in St. Anthony? Um, he said, "Well, I trust the president. I trust him." I said, "Trust? That's another word. What do you mean you trust? We don't trust. Democracy isn't about trust. Democracy is about distrust. Democracy is about the people mobilizing and challenging and calling for transparency, for investigation, for showing what this is about. No, trust is a blind faith. You know, trust is something you reserve for your loved ones or close friends, and even them, check them out once in a while. And, um, so we know what the answer is. The answer is democracy—real democracy, right in their face democracy, kick them in the ass democracy. Thank you very much.
Stop believing that some rich individuals like Trump or Elon have your best interests at heart! Stop having blind faith and trust in these people. Real democracy is about distrust, about questioning everything and everyone in the search for truth. The search for truth is completely opposed to faith and trust, and as Jesus said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Anyway thanks to anyone who has stuck with me till the end of the post and like always.
“Knowledge will make you be free.”
― Socrates
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“Knowledge isn’t free. You have to pay attention.”
― Richard P. Feynman
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“Freedom is not free, you need to pay attention.”
― Grzegorz Ochman
Please pay enough attention, or we will all be screwed. God bless you all.
"From afar, Bolshevism presents hope for a better tomorrow for the poor and oppressed, (…) but from close up, it turns out to be a denial of the socialist idea."
― Józef Piłsudski
"Ultimately, my reflections and books (after being disillusioned with Spencer, I reread Marx) solidified my belief in socialism. I realized then that it's not merely an idea held by noble individuals dreaming of humanity's happiness, but a genuine necessity for the vast majority of working people, once cultural and social development allows them to grasp its principles."
― Józef Piłsudski
“Sometimes I dream of saving the world. Saving everyone from the invisible hand, the one that brands us with an employee badge, the one the forces us to work for them, the one that controls us every day without us knowing it. But I can't stop it. I'm not that special. I'm just anonymous. I'm just alone.” ―Elliot Alderson(Mr. Robot)
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