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I learned these "rules of thumb" during the Bush Junta, that, 1) Whatever Bushwhacks assert, the opposite is true; and 2) Whatever crimes Bushwhacks assert that others are doing, they themselves have done or are planning to do. For instance, Saddam Hussein is going to bomb London (the "45 minute lie"). The truth: They are going to bomb Baghdad. Or, Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction." The truth: They are going to bomb Baghdad and slaughter a million innocent people to steal their oil, i.e., inflict mass destruction on another country for no good reason. Or, Social Security is insolvent. The truth: They are borrowing against the Social Security fund to pay for bombing Baghdad and slaughtering a million innocent people to steal their oil, i.e., they are LOOTING the Social Security fund for dreadful purposes and are deliberately trying to render it insolvent.
I've since learned that these "rules of thumb" apply to anyone who advocates for large corporations and/or war profiteers, or fronts for corpo-fascist interests behind a disguise of "liberalism." The rule of opposites. Whatever they assert, the opposite is likely true, as a "rule of thumb" (or the opposite at least points you in the direction of the truth), and, whatever crimes they accuse others of committing, they or those whom they are shilling for (in the pay of, etc.) are actually committing or intend to commit.
Actually, I first learned this rule from watching a lot of TV as a kid. As I grew up, I realized that the commercials on TV were actually trying to compensate for serious downsides to the products being sold. For instance, ads for cars that stressed FREEDOM--some guy and his gal in an open convertible zipping down an ocean highway, free as birds, off to adventure. The truth: bumper to bumper traffic jams on a daily basis, 'freeways' packed with cars, people trapped inside cars, the air filling with fumes, the city covered with a layer of toxic smog, personal imprisonment in a car--no bathrooms anywhere, nothing or little to eat, can't walk anywhere. More recently, I've seen SUV ads where the SUV rips through a forest floor, tearing up the delicate, vulnerable layer of soil and humus so vital to the health of the forest. The forest in the ad is supposed to give you associations of beauty and quiet, to which, if you buy this SUV, you can add noise, pollution and forest destruction.
The trouble is that our government leaders now speak in corporatease. Whatever they are trying to "sell" you, as good for you and the country, is, in truth, bad for you and the country--really, really bad in many cases. This mindboggling "sell" of what is actually bad, as something to be desired--"Big Lie" corporate P.R.--has thoroughly infected our political discourse. The Bushwhacks were just the worst examples of it. It is also true of most Democratic leaders. They are sometimes cleverer at corporate-speak. But the "rules of thumb" in 'reading' what they really mean are the same or similar. Is Hillary Clinton praising Honduran "democracy"? In truth, union leaders, teachers, leftist political activists, community organizers are being shot dead--probably a couple of hundred of them already and the slaughter is on-going. What Clinton did was to put a "liberal" disguise on what is happening in Honduras. None of the normal election monitoring groups would have anything to do with the phony election that Clinton organized in Honduras and paid for with our tax dollars--an election under martial law. A rightwing government was, of course, 'elected.' And this is "democracy"? Nope. This is so that Chiquita and Gap and other U.S.-based multinationals can continue exploiting cheap labor. The elected president who was ousted in a rightwing coup d'etat, with the help of the Pentagon and the U.S. State Dept., had raised the minimum wage. And this is so that the Pentagon and its war profiteers could hang onto the U.S. military base in Honduras for purposes that we, the U.S. taxpayers, are not told the truth about. The elected president who was kidnapped and exiled from the country had proposed converting the U.S. military base in Honduras to a commercial airport. (They need a commercial airport; they do NOT need a U.S. military base.)
Is Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution--peaceful, democratic, leftist revolution that has swept Latin America--"bad for the region," as Barack Obama told Spanish-language TV during his inauguration week? I hesitated on judging this one for a long time, but I am forced to conclude that Obama was employing corporate-speak. The opposite is true. Chavez and the political revolution sparked by, and defended by, the people of Venezuela, is the best thing that ever happened to Latin America. It has inspired vast changes for the good throughout the region--including policies and movements toward universal free medical care, universal free education through college, workers' rights, women's rights, the rights of minorities, the sovereignty of Latin American countries, Latin American/democratic control of Latin American resources such as oil, regional development and cohesion and other positive developments.
And my "rules of thumb" specifically apply to Honduras--both to the junta itself and its lies (for instance, that President Zelaya was trying to extend his term of office--in truth, they were trying to put the rightwing PERMANENTLY into office in Honduras), to our corpo-fascist press and their promulgation of those lies (they repeated that one over and over and over again), and to the Clinton P.R. firm of Lanny Davis, who promoted those lies everywhere, and to everyone involved including the USAID/CIA, John McCain and his "International Republican Institute," Jim DeMint (Puke-SC, a Diebold touchscreen state) in Congress and others. They were all LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. And I'm afraid that that includes President Obama, who said that President Zelaya was "the only president of Honduras," while his government, abetted by the screamers on the right, arranged to make the coup permanent.
This is an appalling realization--that we cannot trust anyone in our government--that the Democratic leaders are merely cleverer than the Pukes at lying. I have had to face this realization, on Latin American issues--matters that I follow closely--and it is probably applicable across the board, on all or most issues.
1) Whatever U.S. leaders assert, the opposite is probably true; and 2) Whatever crimes they assert that others are committing, they themselves or those whom they shill for (multinational corporations, war profiteers) have done or are planning to do.
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