Lieberman - The New Synonym for Traitor
Regular readers of my Pravda.Ru articles may have observed that I frequently promote the following three hypotheses: 1). That evil is the primary motivating force in human nature; 2). That even though human beings praise goodness with their words, they consistently produce, promote and reward evil with their deeds; 3). That human mortality ensures that the profits derived from doing evil shall not endure, and that those who turn away from evil will eventually be rewarded.
However, I also realize that a universal “balancing of the scales,” does not mean that those who do evil should go unchallenged. As I stated in my article “I Noticed Too” (Pravda.Ru, 11/18/09), evildoers, though rarely on the right side of history, often slow history’s progress.
During the nightmare years of the Bush dictatorship, I often sought solace in the belief that Bush, Cheney and their cabal of torturers, thieves, liars and war criminals, along with their supporters, had forfeited their souls, and thus a higher justice, beyond the reach of human corruption, would eventually require them to pay for their crimes. But I came to realize that the truth might be more complex.
Naturally there is no doubt that some, perhaps many, Americans supported the Bush dictatorship because it was as evil as they were. A cogent example of this reality is media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the apparent beneficiary of a Faustian deal that requires, in exchange for his becoming a billionaire, that he use his media empire to appeal to the vilest instincts in human nature. To that end he created the Fox “News” Channel to spread malevolent propaganda throughout the United States.
There is also no doubt that others recognized the evils of the Bush dictatorship and saw a way to profit from them. This can be discerned in the hypocritical antics of country singer Toby Keith. While The Dixie Chicks became pariahs in the country music world for openly (and accurately) condemning the evils of George W. Bush, Keith opportunistically exploited Bush’s warmongering policies by singing about kicking “a**” in Iraq. Not surprisingly, nobody in the country music world seemed outraged that Keith was exploiting, for personal gain, the sacrifices being made by American soldiers, even though he had never served in the military himself. In addition, nobody seemed angry when Keith performed with Ted Nugent, a rock singer who feigned insanity to avoid military service during the Vietnam War, yet who conveniently turned into a “conservative” pro-gun zealot after that war had ended. And recently, as if to accentuate his hypocrisy, or to underscore the fact that his fans are oblivious to it, Keith had the audacity to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize concert, even as he continued to hawk America’s current wars.
Given that Keith and Nugent are avid hunters, I wondered how many other people, beside myself, noticed the discernable link between hawking war while avoiding military service and slaughtering the defenseless. Former Vice-President and unindicted war criminal Dick Cheney, who received five deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam, is also an avid hunter, and often participates in “caged hunts,” where animals are confined and have no means of escape. Apparently Keith, Nugent and Cheney’s definition of “bravery” is confined to killing creatures that lack the ability to shoot back.
It was then I realized that evildoers often rise to fame, wealth and power not by promoting evil, but by exploiting and manipulating the virtues, the trust, the honesty, and ultimately the gullibility of good and decent people.
The technique is simple. Honest people, by virtue of their honesty, usually assume the people they are dealing with are honest as well; therefore they are more susceptible to the machinations of dishonest people. Dishonest people, on the other hand, automatically assume they are being lied to, and thus take precautions to insulate themselves from the ramifications of these lies.
Sadly, even when the lies of mendacious individuals are revealed to good people, embarrassment will often prevent them from admitting they were duped. This is why, when no so-called “weapons of mass destruction” were found in Iraq, many people who supported going to war on this rationale simply used another pretext to justify it.
Thus Murdoch’s minions exploit good people by pretending they are fighting for the voiceless and dispossessed against the “evils” of big government. And Keith exploits patriotism and the desire to “support the troops” to lure people into purchasing his music. Sadly, most of these people fail to realize that if they had to depend upon people like Keith or Murdoch’s minions during wartime, America would still be a colony of England.
Evildoers also rely on denial and misinformation. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, for example, recently wrote an article discussing how Fox “News” blowhard Bill O’Reilly denied ever calling slain abortion doctor George Tiller “a baby killer,” even though it was documented that O’Reilly had uttered the phrase “Tiller the baby killer” over twenty-times; Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart pointed out how Fox “News” manipulated a scene at a political rally to make the crowd appear larger than it actually
