[Peace-discuss] Double-think in the ideological institutions

[C. G. Estabrook]

This is a very important point, but the conclusion is not hopeful:

"We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the 
potential power of speech in that jurisdiction."

But the Chinese are worried, and the Obama administration is not. They've 
managed to get us thinking that Sarah Palin is the threat.  Good liberals in 
America have learnt that they must rally to their betters in government 
(Republicans and Democrats) who will hold off the unwashed - Sarah Palinites and 
Ron Paulists - who are about to overwhelm the basically good-hearted PLU who are 
running the American government...

The capitulation of American liberalism is so complete - the index is the 
purported fear of "racism" - that we have not even taken aboard Jefferson's 
hard-headed and obvious observation of the better part of two centuries ago:

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who 
fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the 
hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, 
have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, 
although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country 
these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, 
and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and 
Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, 
Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same 
parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and 
Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to 
Henry Lee, 1824. ME 16:73

Republicans and Democrats (and academics) make up the "aristocrats" today. But 
the large majority of our fellow citizens - excoriated as "tea partiers" - are 
Jefferson's "democrats" (not of course our Democrats).

On 12/3/10 5:07 PM, Rohn Koester wrote:
>  Compare this to Assange's comment in an online chat published by the
>  Guardian today:
>
>  "The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web
>  of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such
>  an environment it is easy for speech to be 'free' because a change in
>  political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments.
>  Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is,
>  like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is
>  pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is
>  scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic
>  signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that
>  jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope,
>  speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade."
>
>  [via the IOZ blog, original:
>  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks]
>
>
>
> > Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 14:58:26 -0600 From: galliher at illinois.edu
> > To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Subject: [Peace-discuss]
> > Double-think in the ideological institutions
> >
> > The Wikileaks documents expose the contempt for democracy in the US
> > government.
> >
> > The theme continues in the commentary:
> >
> > today the NYT runs an op-ed from an emeritus professor of history
> > at the University of Illinois, who writes "...diplomatic
> > correspondence and negotiations ... ought to be released only after
> > passions have settled and scholars [like - guess who?] can examine
> > the records in fuller context." Then comes the killer:
> >
> > "Especially in a democracy [sic - otherwise the unwashed get to
> > comment, instead of just dying], the goal of negotiations should be
> > to secretly reach an agreement..."
> >
> > You can't make this stuff up - unless you're George Orwell.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss
> > mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
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