Fascist Digs Up & Burns Tom Paine's Skeleton

by **proldic** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:11 pm

William "Peter Porcupine" Cobbett, editor of "Porcupine's Gazette", and the publisher of this book: <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessage?topicID=1920.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...1920.topic</a> The leading Federalist publisher in America. The "Rupert Murdoch" of his time. Agent of Great Britain and hereditary government. #1 peddler of anti-semitic, anti-"Jacobin" (French Revolutionaries) conspiracy theory in America. Advocate for the exclusive rule of the propertied and wealthy. Foe of Democracy and rule by the property-less classes. In the dark of night, he dug up Tom Paine's skeleton, smuggled it to England, and burned his bones in an occult ritual. Oh, what might he have been trying to kill?

by **Jill Burdigala** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:37 am

Your statement that Cobbett was an "advocate for the exclusive rule of the propertied and wealthy" and "foe of Democracy and rule by the property-less classes" seems truly bizarre in light of his actual writings, to say nothing of his history as a farm laborer, a whistle-blower who tried to expose army corruption (and got punished), and a champion of the British working classes who spent so much time criticizing the British elite in his newspaper that he was imprisoned for sedition and later had to flee to America to avoid a repeat charge. It should be remembered that the opposition of 18th century Englishmen and Americans to the French Revolution (which, even for those of us who sympathize with its objectives, really was scary and really did get entirely out of hand) does not necessarily equate with love of monarchy, opposition to constitutional or republican government, or any other elitist point of view. Paine himself, who at first was such an enthusiastic admirer of the French Revolution that he went to France and accepted a seat as a deputy at the Convention nationale, later became horrified and depressed by its excesses; he was deemed by ultra-radicals to lack sufficient revolutionary zeal and was sentenced to be guillotined, which he escaped by the purest freak of luck. I wish Cobbett were still alive, so he could a) return his hero Thomas Paine's skeleton, which was not burned; and b) start a blog, because he writes better than so many of the people who are doing it now (I am not referring to anyone in the present company when I say this). Here are a couple of examples: All property has its origin in labour. Labour itself is property; the root of all other property; and unhappy is that community, where labourer and poor man are synonymous terms.... If the labourer have his due, and be in good health, in the vigour of life, and willing to labour, to make him a poor man there must be some defect in the government of the community in which he lives.... The labouring classes must always form nine-tenths of a people; and what a shame it must be, what an imputation on the rulers, if nine-tenths of the people be worthy of the name of poor! It is impossible that such a thing can be, unless there be an unfair and an unjust distribution of the profits of labour. Labour produces every thing that is good upon the earth... when, therefore, the strong and the young engage in labour and cannot obtain from it a sufficiency to keep them out of the ranks of the poor, there must be something greatly amiss in the management of the community; something that gives to the few an unjust and cruel advantage over the many; and surely, unless we assume the character of beasts of prey, casting aside all feelings of humanity, all love of country, and all regard for the ordinances of God, we must sincerely regret, and anxiously endeavour to remove, such an evil, whenever we may find it to exist. The man who can talk about the honour of his country, at a time when its millions are in a state little short of famine; and when that is, too, apparently their permanent state, must be an oppressor in his heart; must be destitute of all the feelings of shame and remorse; must be fashioned for a despot, and can only want the power to act the character in its most tragical scenes. -- Thirteen Sermons (1822) (emphases mine) I think Cobbett visited the 21st century in a time machine, watched a little TV news, and then went back and wrote this:  I perceive that you want very much to be enlightened on the state of our press, which you appear to regard as being free, and which, as I am going to prove to you, is the most enslaved and the vilest thing that has ever been heard of in the world under the name of press.... Advertising is the great source of revenue with our journals.... Hence, these journals are an affair of trade and not of literature; the proprietors think of the money that is to be got by them; they hire men to write them; and these men are ordered to write in a way to please the classes who can give most advertisements. The Government itself pays large sums in advertisements, many hundreds a year, to some journals. The aristocracy, the clergy, the magistrates (who are generally clergy too) in the several counties; the merchants, the manufacturers, the great shopkeepers; all these command the press, because without their advertisements it cannot be carried on with profit. --Political Register, August 1830

by **eric144** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 2:13 am

Thanks Jill, a breath of truth is very welcome. It's also worth remembering that Britain had an elected (non monarchial) democracy and written constitution almost 150 years before the United States

by **proldic** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:24 pm

What an utter whitewash. Cobbett's 40-year record of publication speaks for itself. If need be, I will make the time to select more from his ample supply of propaganda writing and private correspondence with leading Federalists and British agents, which so obviously represent his true beliefs on popular rule. A lifetime as peddlar of xenophobia, rule-by-elites, death-squadism, colonialism, anti-semitic, anti-Irish and anti-Indian rascism -- essentially the "Rupert Murdoch" of his era. Combine that with an eternal history of fascist-elitist rhetoric actively mouthing/co-opting elements of the class struggle to maintain stance and credibility. Sure, in his writings Cobbett constantly proclaims that he speaks for the masses. In his writings, he tried to claim that the majority of the property-less in America really wanted a Senate-for-life made up of the largest landowners. And they wanted no say in the American government. Sure, he attacked secret conspiracies of wealthy Illuminati sponsoring class warfare and subversion of good natives, while all the while receiving his support and funding from the very Federalist forces and British agents that openly spoke of Kingly government, and the reign of an American King. So, no contradiction there. The fact that his propaganda changed with the times and the audience -- "the times" being the growing worldwide revolution of the property-less workers against their elitist propertied rulers -- means only that he was a very sophisticated propagandist. There's no doubt about that. Was he conflicted? Did he have a split or change of heart? I doubt it very much. This is Deep Politics, turn-of-the-century style. Don't think for a minute that disinfo, and gatekeeping, and all the rest of that wasn't alive and well in those days. I have always found it very interesting the choices he did make to superficially challenge the facade of the British state, specifically his focus on anti-industrialism, anti-urbanism, and calls for a return to primitivism, especially in his virulent defense of the Luddites -- craftsmen, artisans and small businessmen, whose struggle had much less of a connection than is assumed (despite the "memes" currently in vogue) to the growing mass socialist struggle for control of the means of production by English workers toiling within the Satanic mills. The elites try to gain (retain) credibility and power by hijacking class-conscious rhetoric and dividing elements of the exploited classes against each other. Improbable? Here's a leading "defender of the working class": <blockquote>Quote:<hr> And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them -- if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago -- turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited...It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.<hr></blockquote> I wonder whether you would feel comfortable "cherry-picking" the class-conscious elements of this rascist xenophobe's rhetoric to diminish his undeniable record of service to elitism, as you have done with Cobbett's? So, if anything Cobbett's career is a good illustration of how it is the Federalist propertied elites -- not the "Republican-Illuminati-Jew-French-Irish-Jacobin-Secret Societies" -- that are the ones out trying to co-opt "populism". Fortunately, despite the careful dances twisting and turning to suit the tide of public opinion, I still believe that poor-folk common-sense eventually sees through that veil, each and every time you defenders-of-priviledge put it up.

Fascist Digs Up & Burns Tom Paine's Skeleton

Fascist Digs Up & Burns Tom Paine's Skeleton

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