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“The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal” [Darleen Click]

From Heather MacDonald

Since last summer, a lie has overtaken significant parts of the country, resulting in growing mass hysteria. That lie holds that the police pose a mortal threat to black Americans—indeed that the police are the greatest threat facing black Americans today. Several subsidiary untruths buttress that central myth: that the criminal-justice system is biased against blacks; that the black underclass doesn’t exist; and that crime rates are comparable between blacks and whites—leaving disproportionate police action in minority neighborhoods unexplained without reference to racism. The poisonous effect of those lies has now manifested itself in the cold-blooded assassination of two NYPD officers.

The highest reaches of American society promulgated these untruths and participated in the mass hysteria. […]

The New York Times ratcheted up its already stratospheric level of anti-cop polemics. In an editorial justifying the Ferguson riots, the Times claimed that “the killing of young black men by police is a common feature of African-American life and a source of dread for black parents from coast to coast.” Some facts: Police killings of blacks are an extremely rare feature of black life and are a minute fraction of black homicide deaths. The police could end all killings of civilians tomorrow and it would have no effect on the black homicide risk, which comes overwhelmingly from other blacks. In 2013, there were 6,261 black homicide victims in the U.S.—almost all killed by black civilians—resulting in a death risk in inner cities that is ten times higher for blacks than for whites. None of those killings triggered mass protests; they are deemed normal and beneath notice. The police, by contrast, according to published reports, kill roughly 200 blacks a year, most of them armed and dangerous, out of about 40 million police-civilian contacts a year. Blacks are in fact killed by police at a lower rate than their threat to officers would predict. In 2013, blacks made up 42 percent of all cop killers whose race was known, even though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. The percentage of black suspects killed by the police nationally is 29 percent lower than the percentage of blacks mortally threatening them. […]

Cop-killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who assassinated NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos on Saturday, exemplified everything the elites have refused to recognize: he was a gun-toting criminal who was an eager consumer of the current frenzy of cop hatred. (Not that he paid close enough attention to the actual details of alleged cop malfeasance to spell Eric Garner’s name correctly.) His homicidal postings on Instagram—“I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today. They Take 1 of Ours . . . . .Let’s Take 2 of Theirs”—were indistinguishable from the hatred bouncing around the Internet and the protests and that few bothered to condemn. That vitriol continues after the assassination.

The yearning of the Left isn’t some much “anti-cop” but “anti-not-our-cop”. Mayor deBlasio seemed to have no problem with making sure the NYPD continued to enforce the law against “loosies” which cut into city revenue, and yet it also didn’t stop him from whining in public on how he taught his son-of-darker-shade that the cops were evil people he should fear.

When the Left has control of an enforcement agency, they delight in its actions.

Law enforcement agencies are local agencies and their culture is a reflection of the local government which controls who heads the agency. Some are good, some are bad. However, the mission of any agency is (and should always be) the protection of the rights of the citizenry it serves. That is the only standard by which they should be measured. And when agencies are not serving their citizens, either because the Police Union protects bad cops or the city or county encourages them to become militarized and take an antagonistic view of citizens, then they need to be sanctioned and reformed.

Let’s not, however, lose sight of the fact that the movement of the Left in seizing and sanctifying people like Michael Brown is breathtakingly cynical. The “protests” have little to do with an “centuries of racism.” The Left in academia have been reduced to desperately inventing systemic racism with such contemptible concepts as “microaggressions” and “white privilege.” In an era of plummeting rates of violence, where the incidents of fire hoses, police dogs and lynchings are entirely unknown, the Left has to do everything and anything to keep people divided and their favored-pet minorities feeling like victims.

It’s about power. It’s what they are, it’s what they do.

58 Replies to ““The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal” [Darleen Click]”

  1. cranky-d says:

    I don’t care for the police, in general. Enough of them are assholes to mark the lot of them as assholes. I had them be an asshole to me when I was at their office reporting the theft of something from my porch, which I had to do because I would not get a replacement without filing a report. I did not give them any attitude. I never have, I always knew better.

    However, black folks need to understand that the police are assholes to everyone. Black fold tend to think it’s more personal than it really is, and I don’t blame them. I believe I would, too, given the history they have had to endure.

    The cops do skew towards being assholes to people who fit a profile, though. Being poor makes you stand out. I had them follow me home multiple times when I was driving a beater mustang and had long hair. I have been pulled over multiple times while driving a rusted-out car. In every case I know they were checking me for warrants, etc.

    Having said that, just because I don’t like them does not mean they deserve to die. I would not let a cop die if I could prevent it. And, without the police or some equivalent organization, the cities would quickly dissolve into widespread (rather than the current isolated) anarchy. That is the result the left is clamoring for, since the resulting active police state is to their liking.

  2. Darleen says:

    That is the result the left is clamoring for, since the resulting active police state is to their liking.

    Yep.

    I prefer cops to be “invisible” … in other words, if they are doing their job correctly & professionally, law-abiding citizens shouldn’t really notice them. Sort of like a good IT department.

    I confess, most of my interactions with cops have been positive, but I’ve also had a couple where -yes- the asshole factor was infuriating to the max.

  3. Shermlaw says:

    It seems the public’s attitude toward the police has morphed over the years from genuine respect to, at best, ambivalence or at worst, suspicion. When I was a kid, our sheriff never carried a side arm. He’d telephone people with felony warrants and tell them they’d better turn themselves in. And they invariably did. His mere presence was enough to diffuse tense situations. Now we’ve got APCs showing up to serve minor felony warrants. It’s absurd.

    In the Garner case, the focus is on the cops, but no one on the Left is remarking about the law, i.e. sale of “loosies,” which was the precipitating factor. It was a law undoubtedly passed by Leftists designed to maximize tax revenue and punish people who dared to try to circumvent that. The change in the public’s attitude parallels in the increase in laws designed to screw with ordinary people doing ordinary, benign things. Add in the not infrequent “flash bang” toss into a toddler’s crib and the like and you get where we are today.

  4. serr8d says:

    There’s an overall upswell in police ‘privilege’. By that I mean, generally, they take themselves far too seriously; they’ve overarmed themselves to the point that they are too fearsome for the job they are supposed to be doing; they’ve adopted an attitude that is not in the interest of the majority of law-abiding citizens, and is a problem to those of us who can’t stand overwrought expression of authority. They act as if anyone and everyone is likely a criminal, is a threat to their own and society’s well-being, and above all threat to their personal ego and authority.

    I sincerely believe that police generally need be taken down a notch or two. But certainly not the way it happened in New York City; by becoming notches on some drugged punk’s shiny unearned pistol.

  5. Darleen says:

    shermlaw

    I’m beginning to think that a lot of this police morphing has to do with the continued urbanization of American cities. There is a definite difference in attitude, not only in police but in citizens, when cities grow larger than 100K.

    And the “social engineers” have hated suburbia & rural like, forever, and do everything they can to shove more people into large urban areas “for our own good.”

    In “the sticks” people have to rely on each other more and Big Daddy Gov is just not the huge presence. Hence the local sheriff has authority that is directly granted by his constituents who may actually know who he is. As opposed to big city cops who are transferred around to different areas and may know little or nothing of the people in the community they patrol. The suspicion and wariness are a two way street plus the who “entitlement” attitude ranges from the Sec 8 to the 1% who look on cops as nothing more than losers with guns (“who do you think pays your salary?”).

    As long as Big Gov policies keep forcing people to crowd into cities, this won’t get better.

  6. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Since it’s Big Lies all the way down with the Left, a better title might have been “The Anti-Cop Big Lie of the Left Turns Lethal.”

    They always do, sooner or later.

    As for the police getting too big for their britches, that’s typical bureaucratic mission creep made worse by the nature of the mission and the fact that the Federal Government is subsidizing it with military surplus “toys.”

  7. Shermlaw says:

    Hence the local sheriff has authority that is directly granted by his constituents who may actually know who he is.

    Very true. The sheriff I mentioned appeared at every church/parish picnic, town festival, little league games, high school football contests, you name it. A cynic would call it mere politics, but he was one of those naturally gregarious individuals who seemed to never forget a name or face. The thing is, he was not unique in our neck of the Ozarks.

    Certainly, that closeness to a community vanishes with ever increasing populations. And as you point out, the individual police officers don’t seem to have a connection to the communities they serve. My 85 year old mother told me just the other day that when she walked to elementary school in south St. Louis, there was the same police officer controlling a busy intersection helping the kids cross for her entire K-8 years. The kids loved him. At Christmas, the sidewalk would be filled with small presents the kids would bring him on their last school day before break. You don’t see that anymore.

  8. Darleen says:

    Sherm

    I know one of the big sheriff departments here (county) moves their officers’ assignments a lot. I really wonder if they *do* want the individual officers to build community connections on a personal basis and risk having “favoritism” charges tossed at them.

  9. Ernst Schreiber says:

    That’s wishful thinking on C.C.W. Cooke’s part, thinking the Left is capable of discovering anything.

  10. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Having now read about half of it, I think the whole thing is an exercise in wish projection.

    Charles C. W. Cooke is never going to be thought of as a serious, thoughtful, fair and responsible commentator unless and until he pulls a David Brock.

  11. newrouter says:

    >I think the whole thing is an exercise in wish projection.<

    on page 2 he calls them out for their bs views

  12. Darleen says:

    Ernst

    Actually, I was giggling at Cooke’s piece that gets ever-so-more mocking as it goes along.

    The Left will completely switch gears the next incident that even hints of non-leftist-commits-evil and will again blame TEAPARTYSEXISTRACISTHOMOPHOBICISLAMOPHOBICCISHETEROSEXISTPATRIARCHAL rhetoric and demand SOMETHING BE DONE(tm)

    i.e. Shut Up anyone who disagrees with The Superior Left

  13. McGehee says:

    I’ve encountered a lot of Lefts. Some may be superior to other Lefts — for example, the Rhein-eaux — but none are superior to anything Not Left.

  14. Ernst Schreiber says:

    on page 2 he calls them out for their bs views

    After first confirming that he in fact holds himself to the standards the Left has set for him.

    Because Alinskyite mind tricks work on him, or something.

    The point being, Leftists didn’t read past the first page either.

  15. sdferr says:

    Vilifying Jews for decades as vermin; as cockroaches, as sub-human scum, as non-entities; as animalia unfit to political right, fit only to slavery; as fiendish monsters engaged in surreptitious cabals aimed at seizing power from the volk; as puppet-masters in control of all banking, heavy industry, journalism, secretive councils of state; accused of a dastardly foreign policy, created athwart the interests of the German people, and on and on with one contradictory and nonsensical piece of propaganda after another — all these are harmless accidents of benign political rhetoric having nothing whatsoever to do with the eventual murder of six plus millions of European Jews in an attempt to exterminate all European Jewry entire.

    This is the tenor of our proud “liberals” argument today, all puffed up and gasping for air in their indignity. And we are supposed to quietly acquiesce to their nasty campaign against the police here, while the leftists indiscriminately brand the police as racist villains — in shame they tell us, be quiet! Shame that we might think otherwise of it: that their propaganda has successful effect on their pitiful morally cretinous ranks.

    Be fools, they demand. Be the fools you’ve been these last three decades Americans. Surrender again.

  16. Ernst Schreiber says:

    C.C.W.C is no more a fool than is Jonah Goldberg. But like his NRO colleague, his English Major/Journalism School masters have taught him well.

  17. sdferr says:

    I speak not of Cooke, but of everyone listening to the backfilling leftists running their mouths today. I care not a fig for Cooke.

  18. Ernst Schreiber says:

    everyone listening to leftist backfill

    Those are the people Cooke is trying to talk to as well. But he’s defaulting to demonstrations of objectivity as a means to prove his opinion is reliable. The problem is, he discounts his own opinion in so doing.

    Orwell was honest, which isn’t the same thing as being objective.

  19. guinspen says:

    That reminds me.

    Figgy pudding, yum.

  20. […] Violent Protesters! Pamela Geller: NYPD Cop Killer Worked For Hamas Affiliate ISNA Protein Wisdom: The Big Lie Of The Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal Shot In The Dark: Insert Narrative Here The Gateway Pundit: NYC Cop Killer Had Pocket Full Of $100 […]

  21. geoffb says:

    The KKK was, for a hundred years, a (there were others, the unions for instance) violent ideological enforcement wing of the Democratic Party. They were seemingly aimed at opponents of the Party but they had another purpose too, keeping those who might stray too terrorized to leave the Party or oppose it internally or externally.

    The group who has taken the place of the KKK is the A.N.S.W.E.R/Anarchist-Black Bloc wing which now has an Islamist presence too. They are a tool which can be effective in enforcing Party discipline but can also easily slip the leash and run wild.

    Anarchists, who are the cannon fodder of the extreme left, are sending the message that the Old Leftist politics has failed and the time has come to double down. . . . In the beginning it will take exactly the form we are witnessing now: a signaling exercise on the Left ostensibly directed at the mythical right but essentially aimed at sending a message to leftist politicians and semi-respectable activists that they haven’t been militant enough. It is an open political letter from one faction to the other.

    More than 1,000 anti-cop protesters defied Mayor Bill de Blasio and flooded Manhattan on Tuesday evening, marching through the Fifth Avenue shopping district before heading uptown.

    “The mayor says stop that, we say f–k that!” the mob chanted at one point.

    Other slogans were of the sort that Hizzoner has denounced as “hateful” and “inappropriate” in the wake of Saturday’s assassinations of two city cops.

    “NYPD, KKK, how many kids did you kill today?” the protesters shouted.

    Darkly amusing to see the new enforcement wing chanting against the one they supplanted. They are the force which moves the internal ratchet of the Party always left.

    “The time for peace has passed,” says a revolutionary editorial titled “In Support of Violence” that was penned by editor-in-chief Gordon Barnes in the Dec. 3 issue of The Advocate.

    “The problem with the protesters’ violence in Ferguson is that it is unorganized. If the violence was to be organized, and the protesters armed — more so than the few that sparingly are — then the brunt of social pressures would not be laid onto middling proprietors [of looted small businesses], but unto those deserving the most virulent response of an enraged populace,” Barnes writes in the CUNY Grad Center’s publication.

    “The acts of looting, destruction of property and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary,” says Barnes, a doctoral student in history who once studied in Cuba.
    […]
    “The violence against property, that is destruction and theft, is only an unorganized form of something with the potential to be far more revolutionary and inspiring,”
    […]
    “What is needed now is to take the next step from indiscriminate attacks to ones directly pointed at state power as well as at the lackeys and apologists who allow it to prosper,” says Barnes…

    This is only directed at “the state” not to destroy it but to make it more in line with the desires of the far left.

  22. sdferr says:

    in line with the desires of the far left.

    heh, “in line” — that’s one of the most wavering lines ever conceived, at least insofar as something like a “line” is in the brain or under the ridiculous “control” of an ignorant imbecile named Gordon Barnes. For certain it’s a line that circles around aimlessly treading upon itself in auto-annihilation. Bob Fredericks’ NYPost article calls Barnes’ editorial “disturbing”. Well yeah, it’s disturbing alright, especially if what Fredericks is disturbed by is the fact that Gordon Barnes is an example of one man passed into a graduate education program without having mastered undergraduate nor even high-school level skills of reasoning — for if Gordon Barnes, how many others? Why, even possibly a Mayor, a President or an Attorney General.

  23. newrouter says:

    >I’ve seen any number of pundits the last few days just blandly accepting the false Palin comparison, with nowhere a mention that A) there has never been ONE SHRED OF CREDIBLE EVIDENCE presented that the lunatic Loughner was in any way influenced by Palin’s campaign rhetoric, and B) it’s fucking ridiculous on its face anyway. Nobody in the Tea Party–nobody–ever once called for violence against anybody; in fact, they stood by and accepted real, direct violence from SEIU goons themselves on several occasions without ever once raising their hands in their own defense. To meekly go along with the assertion that either Palin or the Tea Party ever did anything remotely like what DeBlasio and the rest of the Lefty goon squad has is to make yourself a party to an egregious slander…and to losing the battle before it’s ever joined.

    But these supposedly “serious” commentators just go along sheeplike with these and other outlandish liberal assertions as if they bore any resemblance to truth or reality, when in fact they do not. How long can it be before these guys are referring straightfaced and solemnly to the dangerous thug Brown as “the Gentle Giant,” or moaning about the “unarmed teen” and his appalling “murder” for no reason at all by the cops?

    Here’s a clue to you weak sisters out there: you ain’t ever gonna win any arguments with liars by starting right off acquiescing in their lies. They’re going to run rings around you, just like they have been for years, and leave you sitting there scratching your heads and occasionally cheering about the latest Pyrrhic GOP “victory” that nets us all nothing.<

    link

  24. happyfeet says:

    when in fact they do not

    love that part

  25. McGehee says:

    you ain’t ever gonna win any arguments with liars by starting right off acquiescing in their lies.

    Which is why the Soviets were winning the First Cold War until 20 January, 1981. And why the barbarians have been winning the Second Cold War since 26 February, 1993 — if not longer.

  26. happyfeet says:

    and then taylor swift won the third world war and jennifer lawrence was all fuck that action and brought down the stars

  27. newrouter says:

    proggtardia is a potemkin village waiting for #isisisnotislam/sarc

  28. McGehee says:

    I thought that was Joey Lawrence.

  29. newrouter says:

    >I thought that was Joey Lawrence.<

    no more lawrence of arabia #isisisnotislam/sarc

  30. serr8d says:

    Thanks much for the link, nr!

  31. anchovy says:

    “In 2013, blacks made up 42 percent of all cop killers whose race was known, even though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population.”

    Even though blacks make up 13 percent of the nations population the vast majority of violent black behavior is black males, which make up a little less than the 13 percent. More like about 6 percent. Of that 6 percent a good part of the black males are in jail or prison, so the actual numbers should read something like, “In 2013 42 percent of all cop killers, where race was known were done by black males who make up somewhere around 4 percent of the nations population.”

  32. happyfeet says:

    that’s not very christmassy

  33. geoffb says:

    Painting the “Red Line” red.

    Also, a judge with an Answer heart.

  34. newrouter says:

    well commies got red. oops. the proggtarded like projection.

  35. newrouter says:

    >that’s not very christmassy<

    here's this:

    Joy To The World

  36. happyfeet says:

    that reminds me of church that was always the last singing at the christmas service but we did it better than these urchins

    they’re all over the place and they sound a lil fancy if you know what i mean

  37. newrouter says:

    >they’re all over the place and they sound a lil fancy if you know what i mean <

    don't judge peeps hearts, excluding black racists like Al or Jesse. eff them

  38. happyfeet says:

    i been listening to them ones Miss Darleen discovered

  39. happyfeet says:

    these ones we really loved them back in la but in chicago though

    chicago’s a tough crowd

  40. happyfeet says:

    after maleficent everybody loved this one

  41. newrouter says:

    >chicago’s a tough crowd<

    wish upon a metrosexual thug perhaps?

  42. happyfeet says:

    i googled and they don’t have anything for christmas

    which, that would be a far more better subject for them to explore than all the cloying patriotic crap what pollutes their only cd so far

  43. newrouter says:

    >WE HAVE seen that the real meaning of the greengrocer’s slogan has nothing to do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, this real meaning is quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the greengrocer declares his loyalty (and he can do no other if his declaration is to be accepted) in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place.

    If ideology was originally a bridge between the system and the individual as an individual, then the moment he steps on to this bridge it becomes at the same time a bridge between the system and the individual as a component of the system. That is, if ideology originally facilitated (by acting outwardly) the constitution of power by serving as a psychological excuse, then from the moment that excuse is accepted, it constitutes power inwardly, becoming an active component of that power. It begins to function as the principal instrument of ritual communication within the system of power.

    The whole power structure (and we have already discussed its physical articulation) could not exist at all if there were not a certain metaphysical order binding all its components together, interconnecting them and subordinating them to a uniform method of accountability, supplying the combined operation of all these components with rules of the game, that is, with certain regulations, limitations, and legalities. This metaphysical order is fundamental to, and standard throughout, the entire power structure; it integrates its communication system and makes possible the internal exchange and transfer of information and instructions. It is rather like a collection of traffic signals and directional signs, giving the process shape and structure. This metaphysical order guarantees the inner coherence of the totalitarian power structure. It is the glue holding it together, its binding principle, the instrument of its discipline. Without this glue the structure as a totalitarian structure would vanish; it would disintegrate into individual atoms chaotically colliding with one another in their unregulated particular interests and inclinations. The entire pyramid of totalitarian power, deprived of the element that binds it together, would collapse in upon itself, as it were, in a kind of material implosion.

    As the interpretation of reality by the power structure, ideology is always subordinated ultimately to the interests of the structure. Therefore, it has a natural tendency to disengage itself from reality, to create a world of appearances, to become ritual. In societies where there is public competition for power and therefore public control of that power, there also exists quite naturally public control of the way that power legitimates itself ideologically. Consequently, in such conditions there are always certain correctives that effectively prevent ideology from abandoning reality altogether. Under totalitarianism, however, these correctives disappear, and thus there is nothing to prevent ideology from becoming more and more removed from reality, gradually turning into what it has already become in the post-totalitarian system: a world of appearances, a mere ritual, a formalized language deprived of semantic contact with reality and transformed into a system of ritual signs that replace reality with pseudo-reality.

    Yet, as we have seen, ideology becomes at the same time an increasingly important component of power, a pillar providing it with both excusatory legitimacy and an inner coherence. As this aspect grows in importance, and as it gradually loses touch with reality, it acquires a peculiar but very real strength. It becomes reality itself, albeit a reality altogether self-contained, one that on certain levels (chiefly inside the power structure) may have even greater weight than reality as such. Increasingly, the virtuosity of the ritual becomes more important than the reality hidden behind it. The significance of phenomena no longer derives from the phenomena themselves, but from their locus as concepts in the ideological context. Reality does not shape theory, but rather the reverse. Thus power gradually draws closer to ideology than it does to reality; it draws its strength from theory and becomes entirely dependent on it. This inevitably leads, of course, to a paradoxical result: rather than theory, or rather ideology, serving power, power begins to serve ideology. It is as though ideology had appropriated power from power, as though it had become dictator itself. It then appears that theory itself, ritual itself, ideology itself, makes decisions that affect people, and not the other way around.

    If ideology is the principal guarantee of the inner consistency of power, it becomes at the same time an increasingly important guarantee of its continuity. Whereas succession to power in classical dictatorship is always a rather complicated affair (the pretenders having nothing to give their claims reasonable legitimacy, thereby forcing them always to resort to confrontations of naked power), in the post-totalitarian system power is passed on from person to person, from clique to clique, and from generation to generation in an essentially more regular fashion. In the selection of pretenders, a new “king-maker” takes part: it is ritual legitimation, the ability to rely on ritual, to fulfill it and use it, to allow oneself, as it were, to be borne aloft by it. Naturally, power struggles exist in the post-totalitarian system as well, and most of them are far more brutal than in an open society, for the struggle is not open, regulated by democratic rules, and subject to public control, but hidden behind the scenes. (It is difficult to recall a single instance in which the First Secretary of a ruling Communist Party has been replaced without the various military and security forces being placed at least on alert.) This struggle, however, can never (as it can in classical dictatorships) threaten the very essence of the system and its continuity. At most it will shake up the power structure, which will recover quickly precisely because the binding substance—ideology—remains undisturbed. No matter who is replaced by whom, succession is only possible against the backdrop and within the framework of a common ritual. It can never take place by denying that ritual.

    Because of this dictatorship of the ritual, however, power becomes clearly anonymous. Individuals are almost dissolved in the ritual. They allow themselves to be swept along by it and frequently it seems as though ritual alone carries people from obscurity into the light of power. Is it not characteristic of the post-totalitarian system that, on all levels of the power hierarchy, individuals are increasingly being pushed aside by faceless people, puppets, those uniformed flunkeys of the rituals and routines of power?

    The automatic operation of a power structure thus dehumanized and made anonymous is a feature of the fundamental automatism of this system. It would seem that it is precisely the diktats of this automatism which select people lacking individual will for the power structure, that it is precisely the diktat of the empty phrase which summons to power people who use empty phrases as the best guarantee that the automatism of the post-totalitarian system will continue.

    Western Sovietologists often exaggerate the role of individuals in the post-totalitarian system and overlook the fact that the ruling figures, despite the immense power they possess through the centralized structure of power, are often no more than blind executors of the system’s own internal laws-laws they themselves never can, and never do, reflect upon. In any case, experience has taught us again and again that this automatism is far more powerful than the will of any individual; and should someone possess a more independent will, he must conceal it behind a ritually anonymous mask in order to have an opportunity to enter the power hierarchy at all. And when the individual finally gains a place there and tries to make his will felt within it, that automatism, with its enormous inertia, will triumph sooner or later, and either the individual will be ejected by the power structure like a foreign organism, or he will be compelled to resign his individuality gradually, once again blending with the automatism and becoming its servant, almost indistinguishable from those who preceded him and those who will follow. (Let us recall, for instance, the development of Husák or Gomukka.) The necessity of continually hiding behind and relating to ritual means that even the more enlightened members of the power structure are often obsessed with ideology. They are never able to plunge straight to the bottom of naked reality, and they always confuse it, in the final analysis, with ideological pseudo-reality. (In my opinion, one of the reasons the Dub?ek leadership lost control of the situation in 1968 was precisely because, in extreme situations and in final questions, its members were never capable of extricating themselves completely from the world of appearances.)

    It can be said, therefore, that ideology, as that instrument of internal communication which assures the power structure of inner cohesion is, in the post-totalitarian system, some thing that transcends the physical aspects of power, something that dominates it to a considerable degree and, therefore, tends to assure its continuity as well. It is one of the pillars of the system’s external stability. This pillar, however, is built on a very unstable foundation. It is built on lies. It works only as long as people are willing to live within the lie.<

    havel go look on your own

  44. guinspen says:

    Merry Christmas, Chicteens!

  45. geoffb says:

    He say he want a revolution – well…ll you know…. – He do want to change the world.

    Obama is said to feel liberated in his revolutionary mode, without worry of either midterm elections or his own reelection. He promises in his “fourth quarter” to enact more executive orders that will radically transform America, despite potential opposition from voters and the Congress.

    In part the Obama revolution is linguistic. Words have been reinvented to mask unpleasant reality. Executive orders are “presidential memoranda,” to disguise their ubiquity. Costly Obamacare is an “Affordable Care Act.” Treaties are mere “accords” that do not need to be ratified by the Senate. Deportations are redefined to create a false sense that immigration law is enforced. Terrorism is disassociated from its Islamic roots through euphemisms like “man-caused disaster.”

    In part the Obama revolution is bureaucratic. Old agencies are reinvented for new progressive missions. The NASA director promised to pursue Muslim outreach. The IRS went after political opponents. The actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are selective, and predicated on politics that are deemed favorable to the long-term Obama agenda. Whether the Department of Justice under Eric Holder intervened in a case was predicated on race, class, and gender criteria rather than just the legal merits.

    In part the Obama revolution is a war to divvy up the nation by race, class, and gender. Differences are all stoked through various made-up wars. Incendiary presidential advisers like Al Sharpton, inflammatory rhetoric such “nation of cowards” and “punish our enemies,” and presidential commentary on controversies such as the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases inflame and divide.

  46. sdferr says:

    Yes, Mr. Hanson, and there is a name for that political phenomenon. It is called by the name tyranny. Moreover, arising from experience of tyranny, our political architecture has foresighted provisions to rid our polity of precisely that menace, the most direct of which provisions is called impeachment. The framers saw that suffering tyranny is not a necessary circumstance, but a circumstance which can be halted or altered by a consensus of opinion. Damn shame then, is it not, that opinion has been carefully nurtured these last few years to ridicule the very prudent measures the framers foresaw?

  47. geoffb says:

    With apologies to Peter Weiss.

    Twenty-four glorious months
    Twenty-four glorious months
    Months of change
    Months of war
    Each month greater than the month before
    Twenty-four
    Twenty-four
    Twenty-four glorious months

    Barack we’re marching on
    To us you are “THE ONE”

    Iran’s free of her chains
    Only Israel remains
    Mushroom clouds
    They do loom
    Ali Khamenei
    Makes the desert bloom

    Israel’s beaten down flat
    Great Barack did that
    Cheer him as they depart
    To the Med
    Will their God it part?

    Cuba gets a reset
    Castro’s our bro
    You bet!
    Their healthcare
    Have no fear
    Soon it will be coming here

    Twenty-four glorious months .
    Twenty-four glorious months .
    Months of change
    Months of war
    Each month greater than the month before
    Twenty-four
    Twenty-four
    Twenty-four glorious months

    Barack we’re marching on
    To us you are “THE ONE”

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