by Gouda » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:26 am
I may, now and then, share excerpts from J. Blum's wonderful <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, an "aperiodical" of politics, art & radical suggestions. (J, no relation to William.) Apologies, but at this time, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> remains low-tech and MS Word-bound, but it is free of charge to the masses. I think there are ambitions for getting it online someday. <br><br>From <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> Volume Three Number One, Winter 2006: <br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>"The Calumet Review's Forlorn Hope"<br><br>Our forlorn hope is that the fateful events of 1947 be reversed: that the entire National Security apparatus be dismantled, that the Department of Defense go back to being the War Department. And with them ought to go the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security and all subsequent addenda to the core crimes against freedom begun with the atomic-National Security State begun with Truman. Sunset laws for all the excesses of legislation dating back to the dawn of time - well, let's not get pushy.<br><br>Nick Turse suggested that Bushco wants to turn back the clock to the days before the Magna Carta. Tim Weiner, in his book <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Blank Check</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, compared the National Security State from Truman to Bush I to the excesses of the first Stuart kings of England in the first decades of the seventeenth century:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>None shall presume henceforth to meddle with<br>anything concerning our government or deep<br>matters of state.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br> Thus spoke the son and father of beheaded monarchs, James VI of Scotland and I of England. Thus also spake, in essence, Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and Colby and Casey and North and the Bushmen. "Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet," said Shakespeare's Margaret of Anjou - so perhaps James doth quit James. I refer not to myself, but rather to Mr. Madison:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>A popular Government without popular information,<br>or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a <br>Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>We are left to wonder whether Marx's more famous quip has its origins here. "Perhaps both" seems an apt enough summation of our present political quandary. We must take some issue with Mr. Madison's next statement, I fear:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>At least in terms of nominal governance, this is patently untrue: Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Harry S. Truman, Ronald W. Reagan and George W. Bush all attest to that. Knowledge <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>of what</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> - this remains the question. Of course, Herakleitos reminds us that the real constitution of things is accustomed to hide itself. Presidents are but the symbol of government and they need not be particularly knowledgeable about anything - including what is done in their name. When they are so knowledgeable, then they have not even the excuse of ignorance for their crimes against peace, humanity and the law of the land. (Read: Jimmy Carter.) Madison continues:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>And a people who mean to be their own Governors,<br>must arm themselves with the power which knowledge<br>gives.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>It has been the intention of several generations of American governments to disarm this people.<br><br>Weiner quotes Patrick Henry, a tidbit that ought to be at least as famous as the one about Liberty and Death:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Patrick Henry of Virginia insisted that a free people<br>could not "allow the national wealth...to be disposed<br>of under a veil of secrecy."
