Samizdata

I am sure there are some strong Republican supporters who read us who do not understand how we could even compare the two candidates and say they are not all that different. Over the last few days I have been tossing around in my mind what exactly I want out of a President. This is not meant to be entirely a Libertarian view although it obviously is mostly that.

As you can see, both candidates come out dismally on pretty much everything I am interested in. About the only exception to the overall grimness is that I know personally one of the key space policy folk on the Obama team so I know that area at least would be dealt with competently.

“Vetted for fifteen minutes”

So runs the subheading in the “Lexington” article about Sarah Palin in this week’s Economist magazine. A choice, the Economist says, which raises serious questions about John McCain’s judgement… and the rest of the normal left media establishment spin.

The line is a lie, as Governor Palin was closely vetted by the McCain campaign over an extended period of time.

No doubt some clever-clever person will come up with the excuse that if I read the small print of the article (or read it up side down and in a mirror) then… However, I am not interested in excuses, the intention of the article is plain. The intention is to use lies and distortions to undermine any challenge to the “liberal” left power elite.

As for the source of the “Vetted for fifteen minutes” lie. The New York Times of course (Joe Stalin’s best friend in the Western World). A cynic might question how close the New York Times is to the McCain campaign, but the Economist would denounce such evil right wing cynics.

The US economist and cheerleader for the Democrats, Paul Krugman, reckons that George W. Bush is a “libertarian”. To which I would respond: “If only”.

US blogger David Bernstein is equally unimpressed:

Bush and McCain are Extreme Libertarians: So says Paul Krugman: “What we really need is a government that works, because it’s run by people who understand that sometimes government is the solution, after all. And that seems to be something undreamed of in either Mr. Bush’s or Mr. McCain’s philosophy.”

After eight years of “no child left behind,” Medicare expansion, aid to Africa for AIDS, drug warring, abstinence education, nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so forth and so on, and more of the same promised by McCain, the better question is, is there any problem that Bush and McCain DON’T think government should solve?

I take those who think that the modern Republican Party is an outpost of radical libertarianism about as seriously as those who think that the Democracts are getting ready to shoot the kulaks.

Well quite.

Comrades! – and revisionist Hillary supporting scum. Only a little joke, Hillary comrades – your support is really most welcome.

I stand before you today to tell you that Now is Our Time. The pathetic remnants of Western Civilization are ripe for destruction, and we will be the generation of revolutionaries that will finally achieve the goal of creating the new society. Outmoded institutions like private property will be swept away, and a new progressive order created.

And this will be achieved without once mentioning such words as “socialism” or “Marxism” in public. Indeed it is our very care to avoid scaring those mislead by capitalism, the ignorant who still cling to their guns and religion, that will help us achieve total victory. Ultimate power is within our grasp.

No longer we will have to pretend to be “proud of our country”, for as the Intellectual Vanguard of the Revolution our country is the whole planet.

We have the children and young people already. It is true that most children are still given such outmoded and old fashioned things as birthday and even “Christmas” presents. Few children are given the intense political education that these two children receive [at this point Comrade Speaker is to wave the two girl props], or that the Great One himself received – the three hours of political education per day that our Beloved Leader was given by his mother, the untypical white person, from his most early years.

However, such intense political education is only needed for the leaders, for the Community Organisers – for the Intellectual Vanguard of the Revolution. For the masses the level of conditioning provided by the progressive media and by the public collective schools and even some of the “private” schools, is enough. With minds clear of experience or information, the young can be taught that all problems are due to the greed of big businessmen (we need not even use word “capitalists” ) and can be solved by enlightened collective power.

It is true that we have made compromises and sacrifices, but look at things have turned out:

For example, only forty years ago our Comrade Revolutionaries were fighting on the streets with the corrupt Chicago Machine. We decided not to fight that Machine – but to cooperate with it, using our family ties to the Machine when we had them. And look at the results.

Now the machine is ours. It is our instrument – the instrument of the Revolution!

Today many of the largest corporations fund our organizations – just as Saul Alinksy predicted they one day would. But it is more than fear – the infiltration and, more importantly, the permeation of ideas (as Gramsci taught) means that many of the largest corporations are managed by people who are in whole or part in sympathy with us. The transition will be easy -for the managers of such corporations as General Electric hate the whole concept of share OWNERS already.

This is what pragmatism has given us – power, ultimate power. And soon this whole stinking Imperialist country will fall to us. And when this place falls, so will the whole world!

This is the secret of our success – our flexibility. If the “liberals” with their bourgeois humanitarianism are against the death penalty then we are against the death penalty – whilst they are useful to us.

But as soon as it is more useful to be in favour of the death penalty then we are in favour of it – indeed more in favour of it than anyone else. Indeed we truly are in favour of the death penalty, although not for the offenses the deluded reactionaries are – pause for laughter and shouts of “kill them all”.

Comrades, Comrades – we must remember Comrade Lenin’s teachings.

If it is for the good of the Revolution we should kill off nine tenths of the population of the whole Earth, but if it is for the good of the Revolution to resist our urges and kill no one at all – then that is the policy we should follow.

The only morality is the Revolution – the new society. There must be no more self indulgence in killing than in anything else.

Just as living children may be used as props to attract the votes of sentimental idiots – the kind of people who give “Christmas” presents [pause for more laughter], so they may be killed out of hand after they are born, or used for experiments [pause for laughter]- experiments the capitalists and their dupes are so weak as to be forced to fund with their taxes – pause for wild laughter.

There is no contradiction – for the only truth is the Revolution and its needs. For this end we may even set up Churches to take over the “God” nonsense.

Of course this is more than “we may” – for we already have, this is what Liberation Theology is about.

For whilst religion is the opium of capitalism – it can also be the energy of the Revolution!

When the new society is achieved, and it will be soon comrades, we will get rid of this “God” concept for the only true God is the Collective – not some mythical individual. Just as we will get rid of other things we pretend to hold in high regard, such as the “family” [wave prop children again – to wild laughter] – but till then these absurdities are of use. We will even use the idea of the pathetic Bush of capitalist taxes to subsidize religous groups – our religious groups. Indeed we have so ordered things that we get most of this money already!

Wild laughter – and shouts of “the capitalists fund the rope with which we will hang them”, other shouts of such things as “Warren Buffet and …… do this without being forced to” more laughter.

Comrades, Comrades we must not indulge ourselves even by too much talk – there is still much to do in the campaign.

So I will conclude by telling you that I think that our traditional private chant of “Death-to-America” is too narrow – too much in the spirit of narrow bourgeois nationalism and counter nationalism. Indeed it is has even been taken up by Islamic radicals, although of the more anti imperialist and useful kind, and they are even stupid enough to chant it in public.

So I propose a new chant. I was inspired by some of our more weak minded, but useful, comrades at Stamford University – with their “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho – Western Civilization has got to go”. But I propose something that is shorter and less flippant.

[At this point the speaker leads the crowd in the new private chant].

Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West! Death-to-the-West!……….