greenwald and chomsky

Glenn Greenwald is under contract to write a book (he appears in the comments) that will be "a comprehensive examination of Chomsky’s life as a public intellectual as a means of understanding how America’s dominant media controls and narrows political debates." I look forward to that.

textbooks

James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me criticizes the way popular high school textbooks cover American History, and gives a great history course along the way. Here's an insider perspective on textbook publishing that makes it easy to understand why the books are so awful.

Happy May Day

The effectiveness of the state-corporate propaganda system is illustrated by the fate of May Day, a workers' holiday throughout the world that originated in response to the judicial murder of several anarchists after the Haymarket affair of May 1886, in a campaign of international solidarity with U.S. workers struggling for an eight-hour day. In the United States, all has been forgotten. May Day has become "Law Day," a jingoist celebration of our "200-year-old partnership between law and liberty" as Ronald Reagan declared while designating May 1 as Law Day 1984, adding that without law there can be only "chaos and disorder." The day before, he had announced that the United States would disregard the proceedings of the International Court of Justice that later condemned the U.S. government for its "unlawful use of force" and violation of treaties in its attack against Nicaragua. "Law Day" also served as the occasion for Reagan's declaration of May 1, 1985, announcing an embargo against Nicaragua "in response to the emergency situation created by the Nicaraguan Government's aggressive activities in Central America," actually declaring a "national emergency," since renewed annually, because "the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" -- all with the approbation of Congress, the media, and the intellectual community generally; or, in some circles, embarrassed silence. "

Noam Chomsky.  Necessary Illusions, pp 29-30.

I added the links.

on profanity

I'm finally getting around to starting to read Pinker's newest book, which had some introductory remarks on profanity, and then I think he will return to the subject eventually. I don't know how long it will take me to get to that part, so I'll just blurg along on that topic for a while here.

Profanity is an interesting phenomenon. Everybody knows that everybody else knows that these words exist and have meanings that can be useful, and yet we all understand that we're supposed to use various synonyms for them instead. Often there are no polite direct substitutions (for instance you can't sub in any replacement for something like "John fucked his girlfriend last night") and you have to rephrase the entire though into something more polite ("John had sexual intercourse with her"). Other times you're allowed to substitute the anatomically correct term or a less vulgar term, or whatever. And forbidden words are always about sex and excretion and religion. ("Cock! Crap! Jesus titty-fucking Christ!")

Why the hell is all of this going on? Pinker seems to be saying that it is part of the elaborate system whereby we're all acknowledging social systems and our relative places in society or something. We'll see when I get there. I'll let you know. Until then...

Myself, I'm fairly profane. If you could do a word count on this blog, I'd bet profanity levels are pretty damn high. I think I just don't have any respect for arbitrary taboo, and I derive some enjoyment from flaunting that. I said shit in class the other day, which was fairly enjoyable, and yet its stupid that I should even make a note of such, but I do. Why? Fucking profanity, that's why. Also, I like it that my advisers are loose with profanity. I pretty much like anyone who is loose with profanity. So for me, profanity is a code that gives me cues that you might be cool. For others, profanity is a cue that you're probably a terrible person.

Also, profanity can be really funny sometimes. George Carlin and whatnot. Good for a cheap laugh at least. Tickles you somewhere you're not allowed to be tickled. The Aristocrats.

This post doesn't have a point, just rambling thoughts. No end either.

The book:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

"Evolutionary" Psychology? Why bother?

In an imporant sense, there is no such thing as 'evolutionary psychology' because there is no such thing as non-evolutionary psychology (after all, scientific psychologists cannot be 'creationists'). Evolutionary psychology is likely to be a temporary discipline, which will exist only as long as it is needed. As psychologists of all stripes come to make explicit their currently implicit hypotheses about human nature, past selection pressures and environments of evolutionary adaptiveness, evolutionary psychology will wither away as a distinct field and all psychology will be 'evolutionary' - for precisely the same reason that all biology is evolutionary. Psychology is, after all, a branch of biology.

Salmon C & Symons D (2001). Warrior lovers: erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

While I don't go so far as to predict the future, the theory here seems right to me. I usually feel a little silly when I say I'm going to study evolutionary psychology for exactly that reason - all psychology should be evolutionary. I want to study human behavior, and I expect that study to be informed by and compatible with evolutionary theory, as all study of human behavior should be.

In a somewhat related note, I'll continue using this "grad school?" tag despite "grad school." or grad school" being more appropriate now.

On Deep History and the Brain

Both reviews I've read of this book take swipes at evolutionary psychology that seem unfair, but the book sounds quite fascinating. I can't seem to find it in the libraries here though.

Why I won't vote: "Tennis on the Titanic"

During the Gore/Bush/Nader presidential election, while the entire nation was hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in the distance, while the passengers and crew concentrated on a tennis game taking place on deck.

In our election-obsessed culture, everything else going on in the world - war, hunger, official brutality, sickness, the violence of everyday life for huge numbers of people - is swept out of the way while the media covers every volley of the candidates. Thus, the superficial crowds out the meaningful, and this is very useful for those who do not want citizens to look beyond the surface of the system. Hidden by the contest of the candidates are the real issues of race, class, war, and peace, which the public is not supposed to think about.

That's the opening of a Howard Zinn essay included in his book A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. Here's the closing.

The ferocity of the contest for the presidency in recent elections conceals the agreement between both parties on fundamentals. The evidence for this statement lies in eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration, whose major legislative accomplishments - destroying welfare, imposing more punitive sentences on criminals, increasing Pentagon spending - were part of the Republican agenda.

The Demacrats and the Republicans do not dispute the continued corporate control of the economy. Neither party endorses free national healthcare, proposes extensive low-cost housing, demands a minimum income for all Americans, or supports a truly progressive income tax to diminish the huge gap between rich and poor. Both support the death penalty and growth of prisons. Both believe in a large military establishment, in land mines and nuclear weapons and the cruel use of sanctions against the people of Cuba.

Perhaps when, after the next election, the furor dies down over who really won the tennis match and we get over our anger at the referee's calls and the final, disputed score, we will finally break the hypnotic spell of the game and look around. We may then think about whether the ship is slowly going down and whether there are enough lifeboats and what we should do about all that.

This analogy is pretty fucking good. So fuck Gore and Bush and fuck the 2000 election. Fuck BO and McCain and this stupid election too. All the candidates are the same. Stop wasting your efforts on this bullshit.

shut down The Fed?

Coming from an undergraduate economics background, I was raised to love The Fed and worship Alan Greenspan. I hadn't thought much about that in a while, but this is an interesting case that The Fed is a tool of tyranny. Check it out.

The pernicious role of The Fed was also examined in The Conservative Nanny State,
which is well worth the read, and a real bargain at $0.00.

Against the State

A Philosophical Challenge

My irritating yet astounding new book Against the State (SUNY Press) argues that all the arguments of the great philosophers (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Rawls, Nozick, and Habermas, among others), are, putting it kindly, unsound.

The state rests on violence: not the consent of the governed, not utility, not rational decision-making, not justice.

Not only are the existing arguments for the legitimacy of state power unsound; they are shockingly fallacious, a scandal, an embarrassment to the Western intellectual tradition.

So I issue a challenge: Give a decent argument for the moral legitimacy of state power, or reconstruct one of the traditional arguments in the face of the refutations in Against the State.

If you can't, you are rationally obliged to accept anarchism.

I'd offer a huge cash prize, but I'm broke.

Henceforward, if you continue to support or observe the authority of government, you are an evil, irrational cultist.

You're an anarchist now, baby, until further notice.

e-mail responses to c.sartwell@verizon.com

Yours in anarchy,
Crispin Sartwell

A Clash of Kings

"What will you do when he crosses?"

"Fight. Kill. Die, maybe."

"Aren't you afraid? The gods might send you down to some terrible hell for all the evil you've done."

"What evil?" He laughed. "What gods?"

"The gods who made us all."

"All?" he mocked. "Tell me, little bird, what kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady Tanda's daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with."

"True knights protect the weak."

He snorted. "There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule the world, don't ever believe any different."

Sansa backed away from him. "You're awful."

"I'm honest. It's the world that is awful. Now fly away, little bird, I'm sick of you peeping at me."

Wordless, she fled. She was afraid of Sandor Clegane... and yet, some part of her wished that Ser Dontos had a little of the Hound's ferocity. There are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can't be lies.

Yes, Sansa, they can be. Sorry.

Why I won't vote: Sham Democracy

Perhaps the most important factor in my decision not to vote is that democracy is a sham in the United States. Business interests, not popular opinion, control the machinery of government, regardless of which button we push every four years (I'll leave a discussion of how votes literally don't even count for another entry). Elections are an elaborate charade providing the illusion of choice, but issues of public concern are carefully avoided. The policies enacted by our federal government are widely opposed by the public, and yet incumbents rarely lose congressional elections. As a result of the way campaigns are conducted, with the mind-melting techniques of the public relations industry, public awareness of the positions of candidates on issues is abysmally low, while voters increasingly cite "character" or "values" as the reason for their selections. (Here's what I think about the character and values of politicians.)

To quote Noam Chomsky's discussion of public opinion and public policy in his 2006 book Failed States:

A large majority of the public believe that the United States should accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the World Court, sign the Kyoto protocols, allow the United Nations to take the lead in international crisis, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military ones in the "war on terror." Similar majorities believe the United States should resort to force only if there is "strong evidence that the country is in imminent danger of being attacked," thus rejecting the bipartisan consensus on "preemptive war" and adopting the rather conventional interpretation of the UN Charter reiterated by the UN's High-level Panel of December 2004 and the UN World Summit a year later. A small majority of the population even favors giving up Security Council vetoes, so that the United States would follow the UN's lead even if it is not the preference of the US state managers. On domestic issues, overwhelming majorities favor expansion of government programs: primarily health care (80 percent), but also funding for education and Social Security. Similar results on domestic issues have long been found in these studies conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR). As noted, other mainstream polls report that large majorities support guaranteed health care, even if it would raise taxes. Not only does the US government stand apart from the rest of the world on many crucial issues, but even from its own population.

I refuse to support this system and add to the illusion of its legitimacy. I won't vote.

books updates

Well I haven't nearly gotten through all 12.

I finished:

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
Though I didn't read all the appendices. I'll probably go back and read them at some point, since I can't get enough Chomsky.

1984 (Signet Classics)
Can't believe I hadn't read this sooner, though it probably wouldn't have meant as much to me.

God Is Not Great
Pretty good, and an enjoyable read.

What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World
This is a collection of interviews from the last couple years, so it hits a variety of topics but not in great depth. His writing style can take getting used to, but the conversational nature makes this one of the more accessible Chomsky books I've read. Or maybe I'm just more open to his ideas now so they are easier to process.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
Very good stuff here, though I'd recommend Pollan's last book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, more highly. I enjoyed especially a discussion of the cultural evolution aspect of traditional cuisine.

Hope for the Flowers
Also wasn't on the original list, but it only takes 30 minutes to read. Kind of a children's picture book for adults, or something like that. My sister loved it, and gave Kira a copy. Good for inspiration when you need that.


Still haven't finished:

Teaching As a Subversive Activity
Just not moves to read this. Maybe when I start teaching?

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Hard for me to fret about the tactical blunders of an invasion that was so wrong to begin with. Might never finish this.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
I was way off in my initial assessment that I was halfway through this. I was no more than a quarter of the way in. Now I'm probably 2/3 finished. Reading this is kind of like watching a good nature documentary on PBS. I learned that axolotls are awesome.

Unexceptional: America's Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007
Similar probably as Fiasco. I have a general familiarity with the material and I'm not sure that digging into these details this way is important to me right now.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
This wasn't on the original list, but I decided to reread this book before my grad school interviews. It has been about 3 years since I read it first, and I've had some pretty significant intellectual growth since then, so I wanted to reprocess the information from my new perspective. I'm most of the way through it now, and I think I am indeed seeing it in a new way. I'll leave it at that for now, except to say that this is a great book that was crucial to the development of my thinking.


Still haven't started:

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines

Les Misérables (Signet Classics)

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress


Considering in the near future:

Interventions (City Lights Open Media)
More Chomsky.

Catch-22
Another classic I've never read that seems appropriate for me.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
I plan to reread this, like The Moral Animal.

Plus I picked up these last four at a discount book store in Columbus. I don't know how good they're supposed to be, but they were like $5 each and cover subjects of interest to me.

Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human

The Survival Game : How Game Theory Explains the Biology of Cooperation and Competition

Margaret Mead and the Heretic: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth

The Octopus and the Orangutan: More True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity

Infinite Hypocrisy

Just consider the consequences if the privileged and powerful were willing to entertain for a moment the principle of universality.

So begins what I think is the first Noam Chomsky passage I ever highlighted in one of his books, the first of many. Elsewhere he's called the principle of universality a "moral truism that should not provoke controversy," defining it as "We should apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others - in fact, more stringent ones." In Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, he continues [emphasis in original]:

If the United States has the right of "anticipatory self-defense" against terror, or against those it thinks might attack first, then, a fortiori, Cuba, Nicaragua, and a host of others have long been entitled to carry out terrorist acts within the United States because of its involvement in very serious attacks against them, often uncontroversial. Surely Iran would also be entitled to do so in the face of serious threats that are openly advertised. Such conclusions are, of course, utterly outrageous, and advocated by no one.

He goes on to highlight two other historical instances where by "US and UK standards," attacks commonly regarded as atrocities should be seen as "legitimate anticipatory self defense." The Taliban and Osama bin Laden had reason to believe the US was planning military action against them, making the 9/11/2001 attacks " a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats."

An even stronger case is the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in World War 2, preceded by well publicized US plans to (as expressed by an air force general) "burn out the industrial heart of the Empire with fire-bomb attacks on the teeming bamboo ant heaps of Honshu and Kyushu," and slaughter civilians.

All of this provides far more powerful justification for anticipatory self-defense than anything conjured up by Bush, Blair, and their associates. There is no need to spell out what would plainly be implied, if elementary moral principles could be entertained.

Indeed.

so many books (so much time)

I realized today I'm in the middle of these 7 books right now:

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies

A collection of 5 Chomsky essays. I've read one so far, and it was excellent, as he always is. The interesting thing about this volume is that it has 5 appendices of supplemental material, one for each essay, whose combined length is longer than the main text. I haven't decided if I should read each appendix as I read its corresponding chapter, or just read it all in a row.

Teaching As a Subversive Activity

Originally published in 1969, about a philosophy of teaching and criticism of the existing school structures. I've read the first chapter and found myself vigorously nodding my head in agreement.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

I'm about a quarter of the way into this scathing critical analysis of the execution of the Iraq invasion and occupation. To an extent, I think this subject is unnecessary, since I'd contend we had no justification for invasion regardless of how ineptly things were planned and managed. But the book seems very well researched and written, and offers a great deal of information that supports my position regardless of the author's intention or views. It also provides insights into the minds of various government and military figures, which is interesting for me, given my interest in political psychology.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

Richard Dawkins writing about evolution is always delightful. I'm about halfway through. The book has a very cool premise: start with humans, and go back in time meeting each common ancestor along our evolutionary family tree all the way back to the origins of life. So I've met all the apes, and then monkeys, other primates, etc. He structures the book in the fashion of The Canterbury Tales. A very cool idea for a book, and very good reading.

1984 (Signet Classics)

I started this classic work of fiction a while ago, but haven't touched it for a long time because I can just read the news and get the real thing. Orwell was truly a genius.

Unexceptional: America's Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007

I met the author at a lecture and he sent me an advance copy of his book. I've read most of his concluding chapter, which he said he originally planned to read as part of the lecture (but changed his approach to fit the audience). I'm not sure if I'll end up reading the whole thing, since I feel like I already know most of the material on a basic level, and might not be especially interested in learning it in more detail.

God Is Not Great

The Christopher Hitchens polemic, subtitled "How Religion poisons everything." I read the first few pages last night because I was excited when it arrived in the mail. I anticipated it would be lighter reading for me, but I found Hitchens' style to be more dense than I expected (I've never read a book of his before). So I might pretend I never started it and move this into the next group of books.

The next group includes at least these 5 on my reading pile:

What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World

In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines

Les Misérables (Signet Classics)

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

I'm declaring a reading binge, to begin immediately. How long until I finish all 12? Does the end of February seem realistic?

could Dick Cheney have brain damage?

I imagine many of you have seen the old clip of Cheney from 1994:



The video above attributes Cheney's inconsistency to financial interests. Maybe.

I just started reading Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq which in passing raises another possibility. After discussing how Cheney, before the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, had always seemed like "a realist" who "demanded the hard facts" and was "very practical," Ricks writes "Cheney had changed... perhaps because of his heart ailments, which can alter a person's personality."

This immediately made me think of Phineas Gage, whose personality drastically changed after a railroad spike accidentally was driven through his frontal lobe. He became obstinate, abusive, and profane. Since then science has come to understand that region of the brain to be important for judgment and impulse control.

I wonder if heart attacks could cause minor frontal lobe damage? Could Dick Cheney literally have brain damage? Not to the extent of Gage's obviously, but enough to make him more aggressive, less reasonable, and more profane? This is the guy who told Senator Leahy "go fuck yourself."

This is obviously pure speculation on my part, but it struck me as odd that I'd never seen this idea anywhere else.

democracy and anarchy

Another excerpt from Chomsky On Anarchism, this from a 2004 interview with Ziga Vodovnik.

Ordinary people often confuse anarchism with chaos and violence, and do not know that anarchism (an archos) doesn't mean life or a state of things without rules, but rather a highly organized social order, life without a ruler, "principe." Is pejorative usage of the word anarchism maybe a direct consequence of the fact that the idea that people could be free was and is extremely frightening to those in power?

There has been an element within the anarchist movement that has been concerned with "propaganda by the deed," often with violence, and it is quite natural that power centers seize on it in an effort to undermine any attempt for independence and freedom, by identifying it with violence. But that is not true just for anarchism. Even democracy is feared. It is so deep-seated that people can't even see it. If we take a look at the Boston Globe on July 4th - July 4th is of course Independence Day, praising independence, freedom, and democracy - we find that they had an article on George Bush's attempt to get some support in Europe, to mend fences after the conflict. They interviewed the foreign policy director of the "libertarian" Cato Institute, asking why Europeans are critical of the U.S. He said something like this: The problem is that Germany and France have weak governments, and if they go against the will of the population, they have to pay political cost. This is the libertarian Cato Institute talking. The fear of democracy and hatred of it is so profound that nobody even notices it.

It seems to me that many of the ideals of democracy, particularly those expressed by the founders of this nation, are quite admirable by anarchist standards, especially as compared to the actual state of things in our "democracy," which is why genuine democracy is feared in a similar way to anarchy. Thus, working to advance actual democracy is a reasonable intermediate action for someone convinced that anarchism is the ideal social vision.

xmas trip recap

Well we're back from our whirlwind tour of Maryland. We put 1600 miles on the car (I'm thinking about buying carbon offsets - any suggestions anyone?), slept in 8 different places (some more comfortable than others), had some good meals and some bad ones, had some good times and some bad ones, and despite enjoying our trip, we're both quite glad to be home.

As for possible topics for blogging in the near future:

• I read a lot of Chomsky on the trip, and imagine I'll be blogging about it. I also landed a handful of books as gifts, and they'll be showing up too.
• I won my fantasy football league, which was worth $320. Perhaps I'll share my secrets to paying a month's rent with your fantasy sports prowess. (Teaser: Step One is to move to rural Ohio.)
• We encountered all kinds of family drama, which at first I thought I shouldn't really write about. But then I realized that I'm only aware of one family member reading my blog with any regularity, so what's the difference right? And in a way that inattention is related to the drama, so there's all kinds of opportunity for the self-conscious meta-analysis on which this blog was founded.
• The cats traveled with us, and spent an exciting evening with an energetic 8 week old mini-beagle. An overload of cuteness was the inevitable outcome. Also, the puppy pooped in the litter box.
• We saw I Am Legend and The Golden Compass. I'd cautiously recommend both and might elaborate in a future post.
• I've submitted 3 of the 4 grad school applications I'll be completing (the last is due by January 15), and might share some thoughts on that subject.
• My friends are really starting to reproduce. I hung out with two infants and a pregnant woman. This feels like some kind of life passage. (I myself have no plans for reproduction in my near future. Maybe if we get one part-time job between the two of us...)

That's all I got for now. If you're part of my immense audience the is here for the kinds of powerful political insights I usually generously provide, I'd suggest clicking on some of the blog articles linked to in my sidebar or here.

to fight fire with fire

[At a speech at West Point, Bush] added an assertion that is demonstrably untrue but that, in the mouth of the president of the United States on an official occasion, amounted to an announcement of a crusade: "Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, in every place." The preamble to the National Security Strategy document that followed claimed that there is a "a single sustainable model for national success" - ours - that is "right and true for every person in every society... The United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere."
- Chalmers Johnson, pp. 286-287

We often hear how militant Islamists want to use violence to force the whole world to follow their belief system, which they uncritically accept as superior to all others. Our response to this alleged existential threat has been to use violence to try to force the whole world to our belief system, which we uncritically accept as superior to all others.

Noam Chomsky on 9-11

There is no doubt that the 9-11 atrocities were an event of historic importance, not - regrettably - because of their scale, but because of the choice of innocent victims. It had been recognized that for some time that with new technology, the industrial powers would probably lose their virtual monopoly of violence, retaining only an enormous preponderance. No one could have anticipated the specific way in which the expectations were fulfilled, but they were. For the first time in modern history, Europe and its offshoots were subjected, on home soil, to the kind of atrocity that they routinely have carried out elsewhere. The history should be too familiar to review and though the West may choose to disregard it, the victims do not.
-pp. 119-120


One often hears that we must not consider these matters, because that would be justification for terrorism, a position so foolish and destructive as scarcely to merit comment, but unfortunately common.
-p.81

Often when I've argued that "they hate us for our freedom" is wrong, and that the real reason we're hated is because of our actions in the world, I'm told that I am some kind of terrorist sympathizer, a position quite foolish and destructive indeed. I agree with Chomsky that on any intellectual level that position is unworthy of reply, but I think its unfortunate commonness makes it something that needs to be addressed. So I will address it here.

(Listen up, Rudy and all my authoritarian acquaintances.)

SOMEONE HAVING A GOOD REASON TO BE PISSED OFF DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE JUSTIFIED IN USING VIOLENCE.

Of course, saying this loudly or in bold capital letters won't change the way their minds work. The only justification they need to attack someone is not liking them. The link is automatic, hence their enthusiasm for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. This is why it is so important for them that "they hate us for our freedoms." If that wasn't true, and America had actually done something wrong that makes people angry, that would justify the use of violence against us, and their lizard brains would explode.

Bush: stop all that lawyerin' and go get 'em!

1.) On the evening of September 11, 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he returned to Washington and at 8:30 p.m. addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Following his speech, he met with his senior officials concerned with the crisis in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. According to Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief for both Presidents Clinton and Bush, who was there, Bush entered the room and said, "I want you all to understand that we are at war and will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda." In the ensuing discussion, according to Clarke, "Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution. Bush nearly bit his head off. 'No,' the President yelled in the narrow conference room. 'I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.'"

2.) Bush himself said to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that [sic] was going to do whatever it took to win. No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death, that we're after 'em. And that was not only for domestic, for the people at home to see. It was also vitally important for the rest of the world to watch."

These two quotes are from Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project), with my emphasis added.

I'm trying to understand the deranged psychology of George W. Bush. I find it interesting how he uses lawyers as a substitute for the law in both quotes (the first of which seems to be a paraphrase that might not be word-for-word accurate, but presumably for Clarke to quote it this way, Bush must use that kind of phrasing a lot). I can think of two ways to interpret this.

The first would be that Bush recognizes that he is advocating illegal action, but uses lawyers as some kind of emotional scapegoat to avoid acknowledging his own lawlessness. I'd interpret that as a psychological mechanism he's employing for his own benefit, rather than a deliberately misleading attempt to manipulate his audience. It softens "lawbreaking" into "ignoring lawyers" and everyone hates lawyers so how bad could it be?

The second way to read it is that Bush sees the world through the lens of power. He doesn't see The Law as a manifestation of a social contract, or a set of rules that we're all obligated to obey, and that he's obligated to uphold. He just sees power. Lawyers have power and Presidents have power. Presidents are more powerful than lawyers, therefor Bush can get his way, especially when it comes to (what Bush decides are) important things. Supporting this is how in both cases his lawyer references are associated with puerile ideas about strength, or the image of strength. Bush and all of the neocon goons have this preschool playground idea of power. It's all about kickin' ass and gettin' 'em, and demonstrating our resolve. They're overgrown little boys with wild ideas and the most destructive toys in the history of mankind at their disposal.

Anyway, there's no reason these two versions have to be mutually exclusive, but they're both pretty fucking disturbing.