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2013-08-19 -Land of the Free

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Posted by badanov 2013-08-19 00:00|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 "... ill-fated Mikhail Tukhachevsky..."

Tukhachevsky was executed in 1937 after a sham trial prior to which he was tortured into signing a confession. About 2000 other Russian officers were executed during 1937 and 1938 by stalin.

Posted by lord garth 2013-08-19 00:29|| 2013-08-19 00:29|| Front Page Top

#2 The revolution always consumes its own.

Posted by phil_b 2013-08-19 02:30|| 2013-08-19 02:30|| Front Page Top

#3 phil_b, if that's ALL they consumed that would be a good thing.

Unfortunately they go through a whole lot of other people before they get there.

Posted by AlanC 2013-08-19 13:16|| 2013-08-19 13:16|| Front Page Top

#4 Chris that's my fear: that we have an oncoming generation that isn't so much unaware of liberty, as they are simply uncaring about it - for them liberty and individual rights have no value, and no real meaning versus feelings and group orientation. So they will never "wake up" - because how can they miss something they never seem to have learned in history, in ethics, and in their families - something that they have as a birthright, yet seem utterly unconcerned with it compared to the latest declarationn of Hope and Change and Blame The Other Guy...

Its not so much Orwell's 1984 as it is Huxley's Brave New World.

Rand was right as to how the collectivists go about their task of destroying the individual, and the values necessary for individuals to prevail against the state or the collective. And Huxley was right - and frightening prescient when it comes to the end-stage of where the collectivists are attempting to push us.

But most of all, a rereading of Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death (Public discourse in the age of show business)" on its pending 30th anniversary would do a lot of people some good. If anything, the internet has accelerated the worst of the bad trends he put forth in that book.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is a cover blurb "a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment" A synopsis from Wikipedia (yeah I know...) The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest of his argument(s), is that "form excludes the content," that is, a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Thus Rational argument, integral to print typography, is militated against by the medium of television for the aforesaid reason. Owing to this shortcoming, politics and religion are diluted, and "news of the day" becomes a packaged commodity. Television de-emphasises the quality of information in favour of satisfying the far-reaching needs of entertainment, by which information is encumbered and to which it is subordinate.

To apply this to the current electronic media; the way the current generation (basically those 40 and under) gets its "news", TV had to cram everything into at most an 8 minute "news" piece back in that day. Compare to TV now, which is pretty much a 30-60 second sound bite and video blast. And sadly, this has devolved even further into a single picture on instagram, a 6 second "vine" video, and at most 140 characters in a tweet.

That is how we end up with people idolizing a vicious thug, Trayvon Martin, as a martyr, how Obama gets away with Benghazi, and many other things that seem to show the dearth (and death) of necessarily extended rational discourse in the public arena.

Read it. And go read Huxley's Brave New World to see how people voluntarily and willingly abandon their rights once they abandon their rationality in favor of feelings.

Then try ti figure out how to teach a blind man about "purple" - something he has never seen before. Because that is the task we face if we cannot change how these people see the world.

Posted by OldSpook 2013-08-19 20:13|| 2013-08-19 20:13|| Front Page Top

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