Progressive Priests of Propaganda

The progressive priests of propaganda typically criticizes the government to sing its glory. The rulers are deserving of criticism, but they are the good-guys, send them your trust!

I’m going to deal with one of these progressive priests.

Alan Hart titles his article in ICH (Feb. 21, 2015):
How To Defeat Perverted And Violent Islamic Fundamentalism
Repeated in the first sentence he awards ”Perverted And Violent Islamic Fundamentalism” its own acronym PVIF and then uses it eight times in the article.

Let’s take that title again a little differently.
How To Defeat Perverted And Violent Christian Fundamentalism (PVCF).
Although more than many PVCF soldiers and mercenaries can be documented from the Vietnam war and all the wars and conflicts up to the present ones, don’t expect to see this phrase applied.
Or…
How To Defeat Perverted And Violent Zionist Fundamentalism (PVZF).
Neither will this variation ever be used despite its suitability.
What about….
How To Defeat Perverted And Violent Congressional Fundamentalism.
Congressional war funding has killed more people than all the terrorists and fundamentalists in the world combined. The term also fits tailor-made to these politicians who, perverted by lobby money, believe fundamentally in the exceptionality of the USA and its right to employ violence anywhere.

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.” Madeleine Albright

Hart’s title phrase is a cheap variation of a war cliché that’s been in circulation for 1000s of years. The enemy is a monster. We are the good guys, whether Imperial Roman legions, knights in shining armor, Conquistadors of the Lord or our brave troops. Millions of people in the Middle East alone have terms equivalent to violent perverts to describe the Americans and their allies who invade, bomb, shock-and-awe, destroy, rape, imprison, torture, maim and murder 10s and 100s of 1000s of people year after year.

Balancing his monster PVIFs Hart describes the good-guy invaders as “American-led Western foreign policy”. This is the exact and only phrase used (four times) to describe the aggressors role in the wars, occupation and illegal bombings in the Muslim world.
No, Dorothy, I’m not making this up. Perverted violent fundamentalism against Foreign policy. This, the foreign policy, is the cause of PVIF together with “The corruption, authoritarianism and repression of most if not all Arab and other Muslim regimes. In most cases they are regimes supported/endorsed by American-led Western foreign policy.”

Once again Hart pounds away at the We-good-guys them monsters theme. Pointing out that they are subject to corruption, authoritarianism and repression implies (not subtlety) that we, the good-guys, are not. Yeh, right!

Members of Congress are flooded with money, favors and perks from lobbyists and would never have become Members of Congress without heavy financial support, but this is not corruption. It’s simply the (exceptional) American way. Authoritarianism! Don’t be ridiculous! This article states both directly and indirectly that America is a democracy. Hart may believe that paying millionaire Members of Congress handsomely to take from the majority of the people and give to a tiny group of billionaires is democracy, but a lot of people think otherwise. And what sort of perverted mind has the arrogance to refer to other regimes as repressive when it itself has the largest prison population in the world and torture sites everywhere? If hypocrisy were a crime, these people would be serving life sentences.

There’s more, but I think (hope) you see what I mean by the progressive priests of propaganda. They criticize small flaws, abstractions and what is already common knowledge while diverting attention from core issues and praising the rulers and the system.

I’ll conclude with pointing out that Hart doesn’t have a clue about how to defeat the supposed monsters despite the title of the article. He even admits this himself. He starts off claiming that “one thing above all others must happen.” Western leaders must open their minds to the fact that their “foreign policy” doesn’t work. He’s trying to tell us that the leaders aren’t aware that their foreign policy (violent aggression) causes violent resistance. In the last paragraph his says categorically that he hasn’t “the smallest amount of hope that Western leaders will have the good sense” to open their minds.

The substance of Hart’s entire article (besides glorifying America) is one big IF. If the leaders had good sense, they wouldn’t be facing such resistance.

“IF, if,” my grandmother used to shout at us, “If I had balls I’d be your grandfather.”

*

“The coward argues bravely for the bully’s demands.”
Dartwill Aquila

*

*