If reason makes no sense to your argument as reality clearly shows otherwise, attack reason as pernicious and superficial, and persuade the world that reality doesn't exist.

Communism was one of the main subjectivist ideologies that had their roots in the war on existence which was covertly pushed by the anti-modern philosophers of eighteenth century Germany. The battle was over the nature of thought itself. It grew out of fear for the 'cold' rationality of the Enlightenment, the liberty it propagated for peoples and individuals, and the Luddite angst over science and technology as expressed by Rousseau.

How to get the popular liberty genie, released by the Enlightenment, back into the bottle? For such a feat to be accomplished nothing less than the perception of reality needed to be altered, while the living conditions had to seen to be improving extensively. The followers have been working at it to this day.

The atheist branch went so far as to envision turning the physical world itself into the Paradise of Heaven. As a result the politics growing out of these philosophies use as their working material - not the realities of this world - but rather as it ought to be, at least from their point of view.

After the radicalism of Rousseau and the pious mind-games of Kant, the Hegelians divided into a Right and a Left faction. The Right had their base in Prussian Nationalism, which later morphed via Nietzsche into National Socialism; the Left produced Carl Marx, and the rest as they say, is history. After the Right was defeated in World War II all main arteries united together in Postmodernism. The philosopher Heidegger acted as the bridge over which Right and Left subjectivists unite.

As truth has the nasty habit of reasserting itself constantly, indeed oozes through every crack in the manufactured world of make-believe, the false perception needs to be actively inculcated on people's souls on a perpetual basis. Apart of manipulation of reality, ingraining is helped along by the use of physical coercion. This was justified by Rousseau's delusion, in which submission to the collective's 'common will' is seen as the highest ethical standard. Kant, Marx and Corporal Hitler agreed.

The main tool of Communism has always been the mind-games played on the masses as a means of control. The Nazis excelled in this as well. Leonard Peikoff in The Ominous Parallels makes the case that the Nazi concentration camps were actually a gigantic controlled experiment in mind-control. The Communist gulags and mental hospitals in which enemies of the collective were interned, are similar laboratories of evil.

It was one of the victims of those Siberian camps who died only last week, Alexander Solzhesitsyn, who worded so well how the war on reality works. “Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”

The last part in fact works the other way around: any man who has once accepted the lie as his core philosophy is inevitably forced to take violence as his method of maintaining it.

Today's Russian oligarchy have their roots in the Soviet version of the Gestapo: the KGB. Whatever the case, it is hardly surprising that men who were from early childhood severely indoctrinated with the pernicious Soviet ideology, in midlife suddenly turn round and become the champions of liberty; their brains are just not wired this way. Such an expectation is as naive as it is hazardous; yet the world nursed this illusion since 1989. Georgian President Saakashvili, himself well versed in the intricacies of the Soviet war on reality, in a interview said it like this: "They use lies as an instrument of communication."

Younger people, born before the implosion of Communist collective might well study the brilliant work by George Orwell, 1984 which describes to perfection how the manipulation of reality works in such totalitarian systems that are built on its denial. The New Speak vocabulary drives the world of Ingsoc's smoke and mirrors.

The finger prints of the Soviet Pavlov reactions are all over the Georgian crisis. Just one of those knee-jerks is the Russian attitude towards the press, the messengers of reality (at least, until they were assaulted themselves by the war-on-reality vampire; since then they have become its tools).

It may take some time for the penny to drop, but for the Postmodern transnational progressives the re-emergence of the Evil Empire is good news. After all, Communism was only a means to an end: the state would wither away to bring about a global, multicultural collective. This is precisely what the KGB demoralized tranzies, currently in power, want to establish.

With the tragic events of last week, in which the fledging democracy of Georgia was sacrificed on the altar of debilitated tranzy diplomacy, the phantom of a global dystopia has come one step closer.

After sitting on the fence for a day or so the Left and the mainstream media have made up their minds. This wasn't a hard one (see Socialist Causes Explained): the Russian Sorelian myth in the making, that Georgia provoked the attack by an all out assault on Tskhinvali is swallowed hook, line and sinker; besides thus being the aggressor, Georgians are also primitive flag-waiving 'Nationalists', Christians (too bad Muslims aren't in charge in Ossetia), but their greatest sin of all, is that they are uninhibited pro Americans and proud of it.

When will the relativized stooges, the useful idiots, get their heads around the fact that America - far from being the enemy - is the sole guarantor against the global dystopia? The Evil Empire never was about ideology. It was always about power for power's sake. Communism was but a means to an end; geopolitical Darwinism will do as well, as it did before the onset of ideology.

Update:

A post by Paul Goble, director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy on "Window on Eurasia" is instructive:

"Russian television, the most influential media channel in that country, has so distorted what is taking place in Georgia in the course of its “construction” of reality there that Russians who want to know what is really happening have been forced to turn to the Internet or, as during the Cold War, to Western broadcasters such as Radio Liberty.

In an analysis which was posted on Fontanka.ru today, media critic Sergey Ilchenko observes that “facts, especially in our days, do not exist on the television screen ‘in a pure form,’ separate from interpretation and commentary” as Russian TV’s approach to Georgia has clearly demonstrated over the last five days (www.fontanka.ru/2008/08/12/033/).

Catastrophes and conflicts, he points out, are “constructed” by television whose editors and reporters “ever more frequently appear in the role of directors of reality,” as the movie “Wagging the Dog” and Russian coverage of the war in Georgia show to the satisfaction of anyone who cares to pay attention. (...) >>>

Both parties disagree which side upset the status quo: Russia says it is protecting the ninety percent of the South Ossetian population who hold Russian citizenship; Georgian President Shaakashvili claims Georgia has been attacked for its pro Western position. There's no contradiction here thanks to a fateful error made elsewhere by the West. At this point the plot thickens, as a mirror image of Kosovo's secession from Serbia emerges.

Circumstantial evidence or double bluff, Georgia is only now repatriating its troops from Iraq, after the fact.

And what should we read in the fact that both Vladimir Putin and George Bush were attending the Beijing Olympics when the news broke?

Meantime reports have it the fighting has spread to nearby Abghazia, another breakaway region attacking Georgia.

- Caption: ethnic map of the Causasus -

President Saakashvili said 150 Russian tanks invaded Georgian territory on 7th August at 23:50 hours. He claims the Russians have been holding military manoeuvres for months, openly discussing the invasion with the protection of the Russian citizens in S. Ossetia as a pretext. Georgia for its part sought to preserve its territory, but apparently overplayed its hand.

But it is also a fact, that Russia has an entire history of waging war on civilian populations. Its style of warfare is to simply obliterate the will to fight. Residential complexes are indiscriminately bombed - no sensitivities over collateral damage there. Already the burnt out, Soviet style apartment buildings resemble scenes from the Chechen wars (first and second) (image: Grozny).

The Russian Black Sea fleet is preparing a blockade of Georgian ports.

A handful of orthodox thinkers have been warning for years of the dangers of Kosovo breaking away from Serbia, to no avail: how can any number of separatist actions be avoided with that precedent in mind? Ironically it was only Russia that supported Serbia in seeking to preserve its territorial integrity, but the postmodern tranzies wanted Kosovo's independence. Today in Georgia the shoe is on the other foot.

CNN just reported that Vladimir Putin has arrived in the region. Just how that will influence the situation will be seen in the coming hours.

Meantime, here's some background information by George Gvishiani:

Georgia and the South Caucasus: "BACKGROUND: Russian Invasion of Georgia"

Please distribute to all relevant platforms on the Facebook or on other websites this statement of the Georgian Embassy in the US (they are my friends). File is attached and main text is in this e-mail below. I've just talked with Government in Tbilisi and with our Embassy here ... Almost all Gov. sites are down. Here is the text. Russian planes are hitting Poti where we have main communication points. (...) During the last 24 hours military forces of the Russian Federation in coordination with the Russian-supported and supplied South Ossetian militia launched combined air and ground attacks on Georgian territory. (...)

The Danger Room has another perspective:

Danger Room: "Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia?"

Georgia and Russia are careening towards war. And the U.S. isn't exactly a detached observer in the fight. The American military has been training and equipping Georgian troops for years. The news thus far: Georgia, which has been locked in a drone war over the separatist enclave of Abkhazia, has launched an offensive to reclaim another breakaway territory, South Ossetia. Latest reports indicate that Georgian forces are laying siege to Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. And Russia, which has backed the separatists, is sending in the tanks. So why should we care? Oh, just the prospect of a larger regional war that could drag in Russia – and involve the United States as well. When I last visited South Ossetia, Georgian troops manned a checkpoint outside Tskhinvali -- decked out in surplus U.S. Army uniforms and new body armor. (...) One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly. “We’re giving them the knife,” he said. “Will they use it?” >>>

An article by Dinesh d'Souza on Townhall in clarification of a recent al Jazeera broadcast in which he was juxtapositioned to Richard Dawkins, shoots once again to the forefront the fruitless discourse on Darwin's Theory of Evolution on the one hand, versus Creationism and Intelligent Design on the other.

D'Souza, author of "What's so Great About Christianity," before joining the Hoover Institution, was the John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Dawkins authored "The God Delusion" and is a well known Skepticist whose wiki biography fails to disclose any political activities other than anti Vietnam and anti Iraq War reflexes.

Dawkins is a proud Skepticist. Skepticism itself is a Naturalistic theory which holds that man is incapable of acquiring knowledge about reality. It even rejects consciousness and reduces man to the animal level. The term Skepticism by its Greek root σκεπτω, to think, suggests reason, but on the contrary, the theory excludes it. Skepticism is endemic in current academia.

Dawkins' credentials as a Postmodern anti-humanist are indicated by his involvement in the Great Apes Project, which seeks to reduce humans to the moral level of gorillas, and his close association with bio-ethicist Peter Singer, a well-known advocate of infanticide in the service of animal liberation, suggesting that the distinction between man and animal is meaningless to Dawkins.

Returning to the discourse on evolution versus creation, it is clear from the outset that this false, unscientific dichotomy is leading nowhere. Any explanation for the origin of life other than the two polar options are a priori excluded from the debate for reasons of Postmodern sophistry. The reason lies in a rather dishonest debating technique, a parlor trick in which Postmodernists excel: recasting the subject in a caricature of itself after which - exposed to ridicule - it can safely be condemned as 'obviously invalid.'

As d'Souza explains the reason why relativist thinkers cling dogmatically to Darwin's unproved theory is that it provides them with the 'scientific' basis for the atheist ideology. This in turn explains the fanaticism and the close-mindedness displayed since the 1880's and why Charles Darwin - like Sigmund Freud - has been included in the Marxist pantheon.

Out-of-the-box, often exact scientists (the real ones) working in the field known collectively as Intelligent Design, are lumped in with Creationists proper after a US lawsuit (see Part I) declared the two metaphysical explanations legally identical. Since then any suggestions, other than evolutionist, are confined to a particularly nasty corner of the atheist hell specially reserved for 'Christians and other primitive Flat Earthers.'

The latter is meant to conjure up the vista of Galileo's enlightened heliocentricity, said to have been suppressed by the obscurantist Renaissance Church. The case is not dissimilar to present agonistics over Darwinism. But the Catholic Church authorities displayed a far more open, scientific mind-set than Galileo and Postmodern Darwinian absolutists: the Galileo denunciation by the Church lay in the fact that he insisted on his theory being taken as empirically proved, while in fact this was not the case.

The same is true for Darwin's theory. Luckily for Galileo, he later turned out to be right; this remains however to be seen in the case of Darwin and his pomo followers, who prefer shutting up dissent: the result is that their theory increasingly takes the shape of dogma, and that scientists think twice before publicly venturing a fresh hypothesis.

The application of Darwinism to other fields is rejected by both debaters, but in the case of Dawkins, this position is questionable: like Muslims, pomos are allowed to lie to their opponents.

D'Souza - himself a Darwinist - explains that the theory as posited by Darwin had no bearing on the origin of life itself, or indeed on human consciousness.

Dawkins for his part - although he declared Darwinism to be applicable to cultural traits (memes) - in Part II of the program rejects social Darwinism: not its existence, but advocating it. Of racial Darwinism as invoked by Nazi ideology, Dawkins pretends not to be aware; he prefers to patronize his interlocutor and ridicules him as 'illogical'. Of course Dawkins would reject social Darwinism: in the eyes of its adherents socialism does little else but counter it and compensate its perceived victims from its negative effects; the core tenet of the dialectic is progress through strife and conflict between 'the Oppressors and the historically Oppressed'.

Typically Dawkins prefers to start indoctrination of the dogma as early as possible: children ideally should be exposed to the correct ideology from the age of eight, rather than their middle teens when the faulty epistemological basis has already been formed; after Fichte it is well known that free enquiry and dissent must be crushed as early as possible.

We see that relativist thinkers use the Christian approach as an excuse for the relativist anti-humanism. The Biblical principle that God created man in His image leads not only to the fundamental objectivity that all men are created equal (also rejected by relativism); but the same teaching laid the cornerstone as well for the anthropocentrism that relativists so fiercely denounce. Man is not Nature's lord and custodian, but its usurper. Down with civilization, long live Rousseau's noble savage!

What seems at first glance to be a legitimate, lively debate on a very existential issue, can on analysis be reduced to the usual boring Postmodern agenda: a strategy for the deconstruction of Western civilization through the dialectic (sigh ...).

Links to the Al Jazeera broadcast:

- Part I
- Part II

"The Chinese leaders are of the opinion that Google searches for "Falun Gong" and "Tibet Government" have nothing to do with sports journalism. We, as International Olympic Committee, agree."
- Overheard on Dutch television
~

"Obama Heckled." "This cannot have been an easy day for him ..."
- Overheard on CNN
~

The Jewish Press Blog: "Hebrew U Professor Who Thinks Non-Rape is Racism Gets Busted for Rape"

(...) these were relatively minor disgraces compared with that now infamous "rape thesis." (...) a Hebrew University graduate student claimed in her thesis that the absence of any history of rapes of Arab women by Israeli soldiers proves that Jews are racists and oppressors, people who do not even regard Arab women as worthy of being sexually abused. (...) >>>
~

"Reconstruction work in Afghanistan by Dutch military is compromized to a large extent by the American war on terror. We can't expect Afghan civilians to understand who are the good guys and who are the bad."
- Overheard on Dutch television
~

Front Page Magazine: "Grover Norquist: “Spencer Hates Muslims," by Robert Spencer

(...) I don’t hate Muslims. In fact, I like Muslims so much that I don’t want them to fall victim to the stonings and amputations and denial of the freedom of conscience mandated by Islamic law. (...) He responded: “So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion and, thereby, become non-Muslims.” (...) For my protesting against these things is what makes him say that I “hate Muslims.” (...) >>>
~ More cartoons by Bob Gorrell on Townhall >>>

In reaction to ultra rational positions taken by the later thinkers of the Enlightenment, a brand of 18th century German intellectuals sought to save the old order by undertaking a cultural movement countering the rationalist influences. These reactionaries are known as the German Idealists, the Romanticists, the Counter-Enlightenment movement, or the anti-modernists.

In the effort, anti-modernist philosophers Kant (1724-1804) and Hegel (1770-1831) sought to square Judeo-Christian cosmology with reason.

Kant saw philosophy as a grey area between science and religion and made it the battleground in the war on reason. His rescue effort resulted in the corruption of all three fields. Philosophy - in Aristotelian and Thomist hands a precision instrument for the exploration of reality - has never recovered from Kant's speculative theories about the nature of thought.

Kant devised a dialectical mechanism which was later further developed by Hegel to reflect contradictions: the dialectic of contradictory elements, also known as 'new reason,' making them part of reality. Thereby he inflicted on the world the self-perpetuating mechanism for progress through strife and conflict. A practical application we see around us every day is the adversarial approach to communication, common to the journalists, lawyers and politicians.

Hegel skewed Kant's proposition by replacing God with the State. Later followers posited further variations on such themes, creating in effect secular pseudo religions. This is the origin of mystical nationalism and of malignant racial and cultural theories, including Postmodern multiculturalism.

Hegel's followers divided into Right, and Left (or Young) Hegelians. Young Hegelian Karl Marx (1818-1883) further developed the dialectic, devising yet another skewed version (dialectical materialism) of Hegel's skewed version.

Marx' paranoid vision of society has divided the world into two species of humans: the oppressors and the oppressed, resulting in a perpetual struggle of minority groups against the 'power structure.' The latter should not be understood as simply 'those in power today', but rather 'those traditionally in power, other than us'.

Contemporary postmodernism in whom Right and Left Hegelians have re-united (yes! their are quite a few closeted Nazis there), harnessed political correctness to today's version of Marx' class struggle. Rousseau's vista of a noble, primordial world destroyed by the logic of man's egoism and drive for civilization, might well have sired the epidemic of Western self-loathing. Now it is part and parcel of the postmodern dialectic: political correctness, a mechanism for self-control along the lines of direct action or positive discrimination with the aim of establishing redistribution of power and rights.

Contemporary postmodernism in whom Right and Left Hegelians have re-united (yes! their are quite a few closeted Nazis there), harnessed political correctness to today's version of Marx' class struggle. Rousseau's vista of a noble, primordial world destroyed by the logic of man's egoism and drive for civilization, might well have sired the epidemic of Western self-loathing. But it is now part and parcel of the postmodern dialectic: political correctness, a mechanism for self-control along the lines of direct action or positive discrimination with the aim of establishing redistribution of power and rights.

The overt, narrow objective is the liberation of the minority in question (women's lib, black power, gay rights, etc.) with the view of shifting power and rights from the 'white males power structure' to minority victim groups (everyone else). In the Pragmatist expediency this moral aim justifies any means, but methods of self-control through moral, social pressure are very popular today.

The ultimate aim however goes far beyond the narrow collective group interest: the deconstruction from within, of Western culture as it developed over the course of three millennia.

The next step on that path was set when the Left recently abandoned the patronage of the traditional historically oppressed groups in favour of their enemy, Islamism: its potentially deconstructive powers are simply too promising to pass up. The fact they have made the shift without any visible signs of cognitive dissonance says much about the ruthlessness of the underlying ideology. Next stop: 'borders are immoral.'

Ever since Rousseau's posited that the State's Common Will is in perpetual tension with individual Free Will, a state of affairs justifying compulsion, the Left has sought ways and methods to make citizens conform to its collectivist ideas.

It should be well noted that this Common Will is of an entirely different nature than the Common Good; the Common Will is a precursor to Hegel's "true freedom through the State," foreshadowing the state as an organic, ethical whole of the totalitarian Collective.

Starting with lies and fallacies followed by agitation, murder and terror; after internal mass deportation to social engineering; from mental hospitals to gulags; after subversion, indoctrination and the counter-culture's sensitivity training; which was succeeded by the nasty Postmodern social pressure of petty political correctness; while spin-doctoring and re-framing were perfected by Third Way-ers Clinton and Blair - we are today subjected to the latest attempt at neotot interference with the exercise of our ethics - Free Will - this time from the field of behaviorism, the Materialist approach to psychology.

In full accordance with the collectivist tradition it is introduced to us by its Orwellian name, aimed at perceiving it in all its cuddly harmlessness: the 'Nudge,' the Real Third Way, we are promised. The true definition is of course the very opposite of a nudge, it is another blatant attempt at making people comply to collectivist principles.

The latest tool has been thought up by Messrs Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, academics of the University of Chicago, which also happens to be Obama's old stomping ground and the common factor in their involvement. The revelation does provide some answers to questions concerning Obama's voodoo approach to campaigning.

Traditionally the assault is opened by attacking the human instrument for the exploration of reality: reason. Indeed, the target of the first salvo is the rationalistic thought that man makes choices that are always and exclusively in his own self interest: that notion was part of an outdated 'narrative' in the field of economics, all the fault of the exact approach during the 40s and 50s (homo economicus). Always the same pomo logic: take a notion to extremes and when it fails to comply, denounce it as invalid.

Whereas the author of the Spectator article "Nudge, nudge: meet the Cameroons’ new guru," James Forsyth, falls hook, line and sinker for the new tool, Daniel Klein (PDF) connected to the Santa Clara University in California, who is obviously schooled in Libertarian political philosophy, sees straight through the fallacies. We'll return to the Cameron connection shortly.

The Nudgers qualify their nanny invention as "the taking of actions in which no coercion is involved with the goal of influencing the choices of affected parties in a way that will make those parties better off." At this point the narrative is infected with an ugly equivocation in the form of a rather nasty oxymoron, Libertarian paternalism, also the title of a conference paper included in the May 2003 issue of the American Economic Review.

Klein, in a commentary to the paper makes mincemeat of the preposterous notion: "If Thaler and Sunstein were to proceed with this kind of gimmick, we could anticipate the following papers: "Libertarian Socialism (...) Libertarian Communism (...) Dirigisme (...) Interventionism (...) Repression (...) Paternalism."

In the neotot book, any method that doesn't involve dungeons and gulags is considered non-coercive. Subtle distinctions are lost on them: their mind-set is entirely directed at the Rousseau dichotomy of individual will versus Common Will, which justifies the use of any kind of coercion.

Libertarians from the authoritarian period were moved by other principles: their 'nudges' were rational requirements which could be freely accepted or abandoned. The neotot Nudge on the other hand is a sly means to make people act in conformity with the collectivist ideological wishes: spin-doctoring 2.0., if you will. They don't call Nudging the Real Third Way for nothing!

Reason out of the way, the Spectator article gives further enlightenment on the nature of the Nudge. Almost in passing we are urged to think of it as something trivial ... religion for example, which is "at its best is all about nudging." How daft do these pocket potentates think people are? Atheist Collectivism over its entire history have begrudged organized religion its central role and powerful influence! Now, it is the substance of ... 'quips.'

The Nudge book is described as a "guide to how the power of nudging can best be harnessed," at which point the Pragmatist environment in present 'post-ideological' politics enters the stage.

In part III of the post "When Reason Fails: Morbid Obama Intoxication" we had a closer look at what the Pragmatist world view actually entails. It is often thought of in terms of a choice for the mere practical - but like the Nudge - under the harmless sounding epithet lurks a far more sinister creature.

(...) William James (1842-1910), who gave the concept its name (...) wrote: 'The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving."

Pragmatism is a Romanticist version of relativism. Extrovert action and passion are valued over introvert reflexion and reason. Pragmatism is essentially amoral (... and is) governed by the principle: our goal is so ethical that even the unethical is justified in reaching it - the aim justifies the means, truth is flexible and depends on the need of the moment, an utility expedient towards realization of the goal.

(...) Pragmatism is rather dishonestly presented as the opposite of what it aims to achieve. It seemingly is the practical over theory, portends to position the individual in a central role, ostensibly respects reason and facts, while its very principle constitutes an assault on logic (everything is in flux), gives a central role to feelings and passions (subjectivism), denies reality (nothing is absolute), and reduces the individual to an atom of the collective (...)"

That the approach is not as innocent as it sounds comes to the fore when it is coupled to dogma, and subjective passions are allowed to spiral out of control. This was the winning ticket that made National Socialism such a lethal ideology: they strengthen one another.

One can see how that works: our aim justifies the means (Pragmatism) because we say so(subjective dogma). Dogmatism couples blind belief to an already brutal concept while it is fired by passion, case need through Sorelian myths. It beckons: stop thinking, follow me and I'll give you what you want so passionately! This constellation of ideas makes the Obama campaign so dangerous for unbalanced followers, of which there are regrettably many.

Returning to the involvement of Tory leader, David Cameron with Nudging and Pragmatism, some serious clashes of ideas stand out which are lost when 'logic' tolerates contradictions.

From an article on Cameronism by Richard Reeves in the New Statesman it transpires that - where the basics are concerned - Cameron, far from being a Materialist Pragmatist or a Humean Skeptic, actually thinks in terms of society as a collection of responsible individuals:

"It is this essential optimism, that individuals and communities can usually organise their lives more successfully than any government, which underpins Cameron's rhetorical commitment to move power from central to local government and give users more power over the manner in which public services are provided. (...) One of Cameron's mantras, a deliberate wedge between himself and Thatcher, is that "there is such a thing as society. It's just not the same thing as the state." (...) All the work on family breakdown, poverty, education and antisocial behaviour fits into the basic Cameron analysis: society is broken, and the state cannot put it back together again. "The big question (...) is not what will government do - but what will society do?

Central to Cameronism are Libertarian ideas, as a limited state and a belief in progress through voluntary, mutually beneficial interaction. Moreover, Cameron's choice for what is practical should not be confused with the philosophy of Pragmatism! What we have here is the curse of Postmodernism: sloppy logic - deliberate of accidental - leading to a confusion of definitions.

Another cause for concern - the "Oliver Letwin definition of Cameronism as taking 'Conservative approaches to achieving progressive goals, '" a brief perusal of this Tory document (PDF) learns that on the contrary, the shoe is on the other foot: Cameron uses progressive themes to achieve Libertarian outcomes in an effort to expunge Nasty Party rhetoric.

Prioritizing the winning of a general election is a choice for the practical, rather than the Pragmatic.

After the scandal of the Al Dura case - of which no one in the general public seems to be aware because it was suppressed by the mainstream media - we now have the as yet nameless incident of a Palestinian demonstrator being shot purposely in the foot by an Israeli soldier.

While the news item is all over the media (the contrast with the cautions of 'disturbing material ahead' are staggeringly hypocritical!), no reference whatsoever is made of the Al Dura precedent, in which the 'editing' of video material has been established without doubt.

It never ceases to amaze how the professional press manages to be hoodwinked in such an obvious fashion. The answer to that rhetorical question is clear however: today's subjective reporting is entirely politically motivated.

- Caption: it is generally forgotten that 'the wall' was erected after numerous terrorist attacks on Israel; it's purpose is to prevent others -

Apparently postmodern fascists believe that the proliferation of deliberate lies is in the public's interest. It says a lot of the depth of the cynicism of the neotot mindset and the 'scourged earth' tactics of their politics: propaganda and the manipulation of perception is everything to those who think that thought creates reality.

The IDF will conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. Considering the history of Paliwood, they'd better ... don't hold your breath for a retraction if it turns out that the footage once again has been subjected to an 'editing' process.

The article in American Thinker "The New York Times and the al-Dura Hoax" explains how this fact editing for the purpose of propaganda costs lives. Here's how it works in practice.

The constructed legal neologism 'Islamophobia' is a misnomer on many levels, but most importantly it is an equivocation that represents the shift from religion to race, turning offences against it into racism.

In the humorless, pathological personality cult that is the Obama campaign, all supporters had to to do was reverse the mechanism to morph satire and caricature - in fact all criticism of the Obama couple - into something morally equivalent to blasphemy.

In postmodernism the process from presidential candidate to a pseudo religious being-of-light against whom all offence is a sacrilage, is an easily constructed fallacy. Matt Purple looks at the new taboo in "Liberal Blogosphere: Satire of Obama is Unacceptable." "First they went after Saturday Night Live. Then Jon Stewart got blasted. Now left-wing blogs are attacking the New Yorker for satirizing Barack Obama and his critics on the cover of their most recent issue."

Postmodern relativists have made the corruption of definitions and the conflation of unequal concepts the centerpiece of the war on reality. The result is an ideological hotchpotch, which is the essence of the mess we find ourselves in today.

Here's an excerpt from the chapter The World of Paradoxymora and Other Mythical Creatures from the as yet unpublished tome "The Dystopia of Paradise."

In positing there is no such thing as truth, relativism reveals two inherent contradictions which renders its tenets invalid:

The silent, post-democratic expansion of Europe into swathes of northern Africa (Maghreb) and whole chunks of the Middle East (Mashreq), continues unabated.

Nobody's been asked and no one tells, except buried news items like this morning's Yahoo!News article "Syria's Assad to seal detente with Europe". The story is so remarkable, that contrary to policy it should have been published here in its entirety. We decided against it, but reading it comes highly recommended.

While Syria's secret service agents continue to operate in the Levant as if on their own turf, the Syrian President thought nothing of having a former head of state assassinated; who recently heard about the UN investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, is kindly requested to inform.

So what, if the current head of the ruling dynasty sees his country as his own private estate in which the sole fascist politicial party is the means to rule it; if the totalitarian state's apparatus is in lock-step with Iranian theofascism, the actual potentates of the Assad private estate; that Israel recently had to trash a secretly built North Korean nuclear reactor; or that American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East may be undermined?

The Eurocrats' magic word for expanding the sphere of influence is 'interdependence,' the vehicle talking-shops and environmental projects pending reluctance to unleash overt cultural cooperation on the peoples of Europe. The excuse, Hegelian 'world historical events' leading to Kantian world government at any price.

Just curious how long the dealings with evil will last until blow back ... "Syria's Assad to seal detente with Europe" - read it all >>>

Continued from Part II: "The Left's Narrative"

The collective swoon over B. Barak Hussein Muhammed Obama is getting corrosive. If Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) (see parts I and II) was a public health hazard, we ain't seen nothing yet. The Morbid Obama Intoxication (MOI) beats BDS on all fronts.

For a proper understanding we must turn beyond the field of psychology - to philosophy - which explains matters in broad abstracts. As is happens, a number of parameters alarmingly coincide - and here it gets sticky - with the German interbellum.

We all know how that ended. Nota bene, I'm not collating Obama with Adolf Hitler, or lumping him with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels; although he is playing the campaign like a full-fledged demagogue, the problem rather lies with his fans and admirers.

The American Left is traditionally steeped in pragmatism. That may sound innocent and practical, but it comes with a few less known consequences which seldom come to the fore all at once.

The champion of pragmatism is the American pioneering psychologist William James (1842-1910), who gave the concept its name. The brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James wrote: 'The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving." Dewey applied pragmatism to education.

Pragmatism is a Romanticist version of relativism. Extrovert action and passion are valued over introvert reflexion and reason. Pragmatism is essentially amoral. It has contributed to the nastiness of Postmodernism by positing a sort of secular, Western form of taqqiyah, which is governed by the same principle: our goal is so ethical that even the unethical is justified in reaching it - the aim justifies the means, truth is flexible and depends on the need of the moment, a utility expedient towards realization of the goal.

As a consequence pragmatism is rather dishonestly presented as the opposite of what it aims to achieve. It seemingly is the practical over theory, portends to position the individual in a central role, ostensibly respects reason and facts, while its very principle constitutes an assault on logic (everything is in flux), gives a central role to feelings and passions (subjectivism), denies reality (nothing is absolute), and reduces the individual to an atom of the collective. That collective - in pragmatism is usually 'our generation,' 'liberals,' or 'society'; it is not an aggregate, but an 'organic entity.'

It holds a number of Orwellian concepts, as Hegel's 'Ethical Whole' to which individual free will must be sacrificed for the good of the Collective Will, and Rousseau's notion which has come down to us in Marxism, of 'true freedom through the state'. A picture of mystical group-think is emerging from the Obama campaign which looks ominously familiar, but is by itself not enough to warrant great concern.

Is gets more hazardous when pragmatism is coupled to dogma and subjective passions spiral out of control. This is the winning ticket that made National Socialism such a lethal ideology: they strengthen one another. One can see how that works: our aim justifies the means because we say so. Dogmatism couples blind belief to an already brutal concept. It beckons: stop thinking, follow me and I'll give you what you want so passionately!

If we turn our attention to the Obama campaign we hear one mantra: Change, Action, Belief. The latter represents the dogmatic side: blind faith, not in the Obama ideas (he doesn't have any) but in his method, while Change through Action suggests Will to Power: the dogmatic approach to a subjective aim that justifies the pragmatist means.

There is the negative myth as summed up in part II by Front Page Magazine author Ben Johnson's "The Left's Fairy Tale," a shortlist of the main delusions that the Dems and the Leftist world at large have convinced themselves of. The demonization of George Bush is not a Sorelian myth, but it lends sufficient fire and motivation to reach the goal: getting Obama into 'our' White House.

Sit tight for Leonard Peikoff quoting Herman Goerring in "The Ominous Parallels" (Meridian, 1982, p. 55):

"Just as the Roman Catholic Church considers the Pope as infallible (...) so do we National Socialists believe with the same inner conviction that for us the Leader is (...) simply infallible. [Hitler's authority derives from] something mystical, inexpressible, almost incomprehensible which this unique man possesses, and he who cannot feel it instinctively will not be able to grasp it at all."

If you think that's tacky, compare that to this load of Postmodern 'spirituality,' according to which Obama is both the infallible Pope and the celestial Leader rolled into One:

"Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. (...) The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics? No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity. Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord. Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul. The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare."

Mark Steyn noticed it too: "Obama the humble savior:" "I face this challenge with profound humility (...) limitless faith (...) I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation." It's a good thing he's facing it with "profound humility," isn't it? ... Yeah, and divorced from reason ...

- Continued in Part IV: "Fulfil My Needs"

- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Page" -

Jordan intends to seek the prosecution of Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders in relation to "Fitna," a short film produced by Wilders that outlines the dangers of radical Islam for democratic society. (Link to "Fitna")

An Amman Court on Monday accepted the charges against Wilders pressed by a Jordanian group called "The Messenger of Allah Unites Us."

Wilders is accused of racism, incitement to hatred and insulting Muslims and Islam. This will be an important test-case in respect of legal Jihad.

According to Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the terrorism czar are on the case because of the implications the matter could have for freedom of expression in the Netherlands. For once it seems the Government is siding with liberty instead of signaling inter-religious solidarity.

Wilders, fearing arrest, has welcomed the Government support. "Fortunately it's taken seriously. This is hugely impacting my activities as a politician," Wilders said.

He fears the court will proceed quickly with issuing an international arrest warrant. He expects it next week.

Jordan has several options to get Wilders extradited: to have the request distributed via Interpol, or issue direct requests to countries where Wilders is visiting.

As long as Wilders remains in the Netherlands there is no problem.

The Jordanian group behind the indictment is also organizing a boycott against Dutch products.

Here's a link to a speech Wilders' recently delivered in Copenhagen, explaining his reasons for producing the film.