I just read an impassioned (angry, filled with righteous outrage) comment posted in a recent diary which prompted me to write this commentary. The comment was precipitated by the effects of economic dislocation the user is experiencing due to the current economic depression, and the outrage the user feels at observing so-called liberals and Democrats engaging in what can only be characterized as "whistling past the graveyard."
I understand this person's anger and outrage. Our entire system has become predatory as the result of a wholesale corporate takeover of our institutions. Both political parties have been captured by these anti-democratic behind-the-scene forces, resulting in the "Deep State," where even the veneer of democracy is fading fast.
And in the face of this reality, what many see as their last last line of defense, the Liberal establishment and self-proclaimed "progressives," instead of speaking truth to power, instead of challenging the status quo (in defense of what the Party is supposed to stand for), they've decided to carry water for an utterly corrupt system for self-serving reasons. They obfuscate, offer apologia for what should be indefensible, and otherwise engage in distortions and manipulation. Theirs is the language of PR firms talking points, which seem to originate from a shadow lobbying complex.
In their self-serving apologia, they know what lies to tell, and in doing so they've betrayed those whom they pretend to be helping.
The power elite, especially the liberal elite, has always been willing to sacrifice integrity and truth for power, personal advancement, foundation grants, awards, tenured professorships, columns, book contracts, television appearances, generous lecture fees and social status. They know what they need to say. They know which ideology they have to serve. They know what lies must be told—the biggest being that they take moral stances on issues that aren’t safe and anodyne. They have been at this game a long time. And they will, should their careers require it, happily sell us out again.
[The emphasis is mine]
-- Chris Hedges
Yes, in their "access" and perceived status, the system apologists relish in their power with smugness, but history will judge them harshly for their betrayal. Some will always be willing to leave their honesty and integrity at the foot of the altar in exchange for a few coins. But that will be their curse. Some men (and women) can't be bought off and because of it, one day this
inverted moral order will be set straight.
The masses in a totalitarian structure live in what Fraenkel termed “the normative state.” The normative state, he said, is defenseless against the abuses of the prerogative state. Citizens are subjected to draconian laws and regulations, as well as arbitrary searches and arrests. The police and internal security are omnipotent. The internal workings of power are secret. Free expression and opposition political activity are pushed to the fringes of society or shut down. Those who challenge the abuses of power by the prerogative state, those who, like Snowden, expose the crimes carried out by government, are made into criminals. Totalitarian states always invert the moral order. It is the wicked who rule. It is the just who are damned.
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