Rebelling Against Joel Hirschhorn's Revolting Rhetoricby
(A
rebuttal of his goofy ideas with fair use reference links to his
obnoxious claims).
In his essay "Americans Unready to Revolt, Despite Revolting
Conditions," Joel S. Hirschhorn uses the cheap trope of stacked
rhetoric culminating in a contradiction which begs an answer, which he
generously provides. The question, more succinctly put is: Why
are Americans not having a revolution against the government that they (meaning I) hate so much?*
This question is propped up by a statistical analysis which can be
dismissed out of hand because it claims that a "whopping 68% of people
surveyed think America is on the wrong track,"*which is a
pretty vague if not all inclusive assessment of the myriad stupidities
in American policy and regardless of degree. He follows with
speculation that the other 19% are Upper Class, marking this essay as a
Marxist screed. He refers to Bush's 29% approval rating and
Congress' 23% approval rating, which are more or less facts, and casts
a rightful aspersion on the now debunked Democratic sweep which has
disproven itself in a series of presidential vetoes, failed veto
overrides, and acquiescences to Republican / Administrative policy.*
He then links the failure of the Democratic Party to the ratio who
believe that the rich get richer and
the poor get poorer which is a 48/25 ratio with 27% of morons
abstaining because the big word "economics" was used.* Then, of course Hirschhorn's Christianesque
hook opens into a wholesale assault on Mammon and it's capitalistic
civilization. Of course, it is Hirschhorn himself who has long
prophesied the demise of American Democracy, as he readily informs us.*
Americans, the
song goes, live in a fake democracy as opposed to a true
democracy. The evil rich class victimizes the sacrificial lamb of
the poor class, and these meek sheep have no will to rise up and bleat
in opposition to their oppressor. Here, Hirschhorn dons the
phylactery of rationalism *
while making a revolutionary socialist argument that likens the evil
upper class to diabolical eugenicists.*
The motif is baited and rapidly switched from evil genetic engineers to evil political and economic engineers*
whose system, in a
reiteration of the opening question which begs an answer, is
"paradoxically" accepted by the lower class. Hirschhorn postures
himself to answer the question "Why" after laying his second
teaser. Again he appeals to reason.*
"The rational way to
understand this", he says is to accept the fact that Americans are
delusional. Thus is our humble essayist positioned as the broker
of reality and delusion. As an Ayn Rand Objectivist of Marxism,
he implores us to see "the empirical,
objective evidence of a failed government" and mismatch it with the
disjunct of the missing "rebellion
opportunities."*
It is
as if the revolutionary Book of Q is still earthed in a clay jay near
the Dead Sea waiting for a Revolution-Gnostic to pluck it out. As
an aside, I beg the question: Can one accept the idea of a Randian
Marxist Revolutionary Gnostic? And I answer this question.
One cannot. But lest one think I am stuffing straw into
Hirschhorn's shirt, let us continue his thesis:
Leave aside for a moment that Hirschhorn has still not revealed the
answer to his great question as to why noble people believe in a
delusion. He wants to show us some more signs in the
heavens. Voter participation is trending down. NBC says the
people are aware that their government is stupid.* But
the threshold has not been
reached where sufficient pain has been inflicted on the herd to get
them to bleat in a satisfactory chorus.*
Hirschhorn must examine then,
the
pain pathway.*
Finally, he
unleashes the
Marxist
Social Gospel!*
"America is historically unique" in that "even
the most
oppressed and unfairly treated people are distracted by affordable
materialism, entertainment, sports, gambling, and myriad other aspects
of our frivolous, self-absorbed culture."*
To channel Hegel,
historical materialism has synthesized a nation where even the poorest
people are bought off with material items, terrible western films,
ostentatious physical spectacle, breads and circuses, games of chance,
frivolity, and selfishness. Let's not forget their evil gas
guzzling cars! American pop culture is the Opium of the Masses!*
Power Elites (the
double sanitized term for Jews) have distracted us with Calliopes,
Pixar, and the Internet! And damn the Internet for not allowing
him a more volatile form of rebellion than the posting of screeds!*
And here is the nugget! That's right folks. The highest form of internet rebellion is
the publication of screeds. Thus sayeth Hirschhorn.
But thankfully "Thousands of people like me keep writing books
and articles and creating protest groups and events."*Thank god for
sermons! Thank god for
the home bible school of revolutions at the local infoshop.
Please buy my book. Allow me to break out into a rash of
advertising. But I must get a grip of myself and conclude my
sermon.... I think I was saying something about the delusional masses
who are pacified by the pleasure principle. And let's link it to 9/11.*
No. Let's not link it to 9/11. Let's deny Hirschhorn
linkages to every kookthread that his aggregator spools him up
with. As he said, Americans are well aware that they have been
led by the nose on the Coalition of Banana Republics, on T.W.A.T., on
Iraq WMD, on color coded threat warning systems, on duct tape, and on 4
oz. water bottles and nose clippers. Let's not also be led around
in a tin foil hat as well. Let's just touch the points that
Hirschhorn wants to touch, and in no deeper a fashion than his
superficial inclusions do.
Next subject: Immigration reform. Subject mentioned. Brief
mention of evil corporations lowering wages. No mention of reform
strategies or externalities positive or negative arising from illegal
immigration. Just a tag thrown into the discussion. The
same brief paragraph throws in the words "Global Warming." One
feels one is reading the Cliff's Notes to the Cliff's Notes to Al
Gore's shirtsleeve of bar pickup lines.*
Hirschhorn follows up with a few pot shots. Americans are
impotent.*
Americans
have forgotten their Revolutionary roots.*
And then: Americans should use
Article V of the Constitution to have a convention outside of the
government to pass an amendment revoking the government.*
Here Hirschhorn's essay
falls apart. His readers, be they Marxists, Greens,
Anti-federalists, are led from a critique of Mammon and Capitalism into
a plea to dismantle the government by plebiscite. And this after
he said it is a demonstrable fact that the vast majority of people
prefer to shop at Walmart and watch wide screen tv than have a
Constitutional Convention, and that those with a much greater sense of
moral outrage watch YouTube and post to Freak Republic, and
that people should buy buy buy his books. Alex Jones. David Icke.
Geraldo Rivera. Maury Povich.
Further humor: Do we believe in Law? Then we must abolish it!*
No wonder
that the primary opponents to the abolition of law are lawmakers,
lawyers and law enforcement officers! They all have a vested
financial interest in upholding the law! The public refuses to
believe this because they are ... (everyone together repeat) delusional.
I find that this essay lacked sufficient fully capitalized words and 46
font. And what's up with not putting in a turquoise background?
And now..... the AD
HOMINEM:
Joel S. Hirschhorn (not the songwriter for The Poseidon Adventure) is a
major article contributor to http://www.populistamerica.com/joel_hirschhorn
His articles can
also be found at CommonKooks Dreams. He used to
work as a staffer in Congress. He uses the word "delusion" in
most of his articles and some of his book titles. In my opinion,
Joel Hirschhorn is the Ira Einhorn of Constitutional reform. He
is one part spoon bender, one part Earth Day 1970. He has the
rare ability to tell people what they want to hear, to feed their
paranoia, and to capitalize on people's desire for governmental reform
in order to make money on the internet.
Countercurrents.org bills him as a "writer and political agitator," a
job which should should be added to the top 100 useless professions of
the 21st century.
____________________________________________________________________________________ The original
article
appears below for reference purposes ____________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17892.htm Americans Unready to Revolt,
Despite
Revolting Conditions By Joel S. Hirschhorn
06/16/07 "ICH"
-- -- The latest NBC/Wall Street
Journal national poll results vividly show a population incredibly
dissatisfied with their nation’s political system. In other countries
in other times such a depressing level of confidence in government
would send a signal to those running the government that a major
upheaval is imminent. But not here in the USA. Why?
First, here are the highlights of the poll that surveyed 1,008 adults
from June 8-11, with a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage
points.
A whopping 68
percent
think the
country is on the wrong track. Just 19 percent believe the country is
headed in the right direction - the lowest number on that question in
nearly 15 years. And most of those with the positive view are probably
in the Upper Class.
Bush’s approval rating is at just 29 percent, his lowest mark ever in
the survey. Only 62 percent of Republicans approve, versus 32 percent
who disapprove. Take Republicans out of the picture and a fifth or less
of Americans have a positive view of Bush.
Even worse, only 23 percent approve of the job that Congress is doing. So much for
that wonderful
new Democratic control of Congress.
Bipartisan incompetence is alive and well.
On the economic
front,
nearly twice
as many people think the U.S. is
more hurt than helped by the global economy (48 to 25 percent).
Globalization does not spread wealth; it channels it to the wealthy,
making billionaires out of millionaires.
I
have
long asserted
that Americans live in a delusional democracy with
delusional prosperity and these and loads of other data support this
view. There is a super wealthy and politically powerful Upper Class
that is literally raping the nation. Meanwhile, the huge Lower Class
continues to lose economic ground while their elected representatives
sell them out to benefit the Upper Class. Yet no rational person thinks
that a large fraction of the population is ready to rise up in revolt
against the evil status quo political-economic system that so clearly
is not serving the interests of the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Why not?
For a
nation that
was built on a revolt against oppressive governance
by the British, something has been lost from our political DNA. We
apparently no longer have the gene for political rebellion. It has been
bred out of most of us. And those of us that urge a Second American
Revolution are seen as fringe, nutty subversives.
Part of the genius of our contemporary ruling class elites is that they
have engineering a
state of political and economic oppression that
paradoxically is still embraced by the Lower Class. The rational way to
understand this is that ordinary, oppressed Americans are in a deep
psychological state of self-delusion. Despite all the empirical,
objective evidence of a failed government, they fail to see rebellion
opportunities. Many still believe they live in the world’s best
democracy. But across all elections considerably less than half the
citizens even bother to vote anymore. Yet, as the new NBC/Journal poll
results show, people are cognitively aware of just how awful the
political-economic system is. Yet they are not feeling enough pain to
seriously consider rebellion. And
it is visceral pain that must drive
people to the daring act of rebellion.
Why
is
there
insufficient pain for revolution? This is a deadly serious
issue. What is historically unique about America is that even the most
oppressed and unfairly treated people are distracted by affordable
materialism, entertainment, sports, gambling, and myriad other aspects
of our frivolous, self-absorbed culture. Even failed school and health
care systems do not drive people, paying enormous sums to fill up their
SUVs, to rebellion. So, Americans are aware of their oppression, but
the power elites have successfully drugged them with a plethora of
pleasure-producing distractions sufficient to keep them under control.
We are free to bitch, but too weak to revolt. The Internet has
provided
a release valve for some pent up anger and frustration. But it too has
mostly become another source of distraction, rather than an effective
tool for rebellion.
Though these new poll statistics make news, those in control of the
political-economic system are not afraid that the population is on the
verge of retaking their constitutionally guaranteed sovereign power and
take back their nation. Thousands
of people like me keep writing books
and articles and creating protest groups and events. Those in power
just find new, ingenious ways to keep the population distracted – if
not through pleasure, then certainly through fear of terrorism. Growing
economic insecurity also contributes to self-paralysis, as do
never-ending political lies.
What a system.
Even
as
the population
has growing awareness of the dire condition of
their nation, the move by the politically powerful on the right and
left continues to seek a new immigration law that will solidify the
selling out of America. Business interests want more of those fleeing
Mexico and other nations to keep wages low. Instead of Mexicans rising
up in rebellion against their oppressive government and economic system
they escape to the USA. But Americans have no such viable escape
solution. Though global warming will certainly make Canada increasingly
attractive.
So what do Americans have – other than a terribly bleak future? Where
is hope in our dismal world?
In a
bizarre
twist of
history that further illustrates just how
impotent Americans have become, virtually all citizens are either
unaware of or unreceptive to the ultimate escape route that the Framers
of our Constitution gave us. They anticipated that Americans could
become quite dissatisfied with the federal government. They feared that
the political system could become incredibly corrupted by moneyed
interests. They were right.
So here we sit over 200 years after our nation was created unwilling to
use what is explicitly given to us in Article V of the Constitution
–
the option to have a convention outside the control of Congress, the
President and the Supreme Court to make proposals for constitutional
amendments. Do we really believe in the rule of law? If so, then we
should understand that the supreme law of the land – what is in our
Constitution – is the ultimate way to obtain the deep political and
government reforms to restore true democracy and economic fairness to
our society.
Make no mistake: an Article V convention has been stubbornly opposed by
virtually all groups with political and economic power. This is most
evidenced by the blatant refusal of Congress to obey the Constitution
and give us an Article V convention, even though the single explicit
requirement for a convention has been met. This fact alone should tell
rational people that they are being screwed and oppressed. The rule of
law is trumped by the rule of delusion. Our lawmakers are lawbreakers.
Come
learn
more about
the effort to get an Article V convention at
www.foavc.org and become a member. Do not keep witnessing the
unraveling of American society, voting for lesser evil candidates, and
believing the propaganda that putting different Democrats or
Republicans in office will actually improve things for most of us.
Choose peaceful rebellion by using what our Constitution gives us.
Fight self-delusion.
