Old Socialist comments.
Oct 17, 2024
Editor: Mr. Stephens abandons the Zionist Faschist State propaganda, for the moment, to offer Kamala Harris a speech she will never deliver: her Team would need to re-write it, to expunge from this pretentious analysis, into the wobbly cadences of the Harris campaign trail chatter.
My fellow citizens,
When the tumultuous history of this year’s presidential election is written, future generations will note that the choice boiled down to this: the certainty of division versus the possibility of unity.
Whether you love Donald Trump or loathe him, prefer his policies or mine, you can be sure of one thing: If he wins next month, we will be a bitterly, vocally, emotionally, exhaustingly divided country.
You know this because whatever you thought of his first term, you remember how that division became a part of your daily life. Thanksgiving dinners you stopped going to — because of Trump. Friends and neighbors you stopped speaking to — because of Trump. Topics you wouldn’t broach — because of Trump.
Editor: It’s hard to forget that Trump was the issue of the Tea Party Political Radicalism that metastasized: The New Democrats, The Republicans & The Neo-Cons all contributed to this rise, by their steadfast support of Neo-Liberal Free Market Swindle that bankrupted the Working and Middle Class’. Mr. Stephens is incapable of political honesty as a Neo-Conservative: the shopworn Noble Lie is his natural political inheritance:
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Summery
The Politics of Lying
Socrates’ introduction of the Republic’s notorious “noble lie” comes near the end of Book 3 (414b-c). “We want one single, grand lie,” he says, “which will be believed by everybody – including the rulers, ideally, but failing that the rest of the city.” Grand lie? Noble lie? G. R. F. Ferrari has a good note on the issue: “The lie is grand or noble (gennaios) by virtue of its civic purpose, but the Greek word can also be used colloquially, giving the meaning ‘a true-blue lie,’ i.e. a massive, no-doubt-about-it lie (compare the term ‘grand larceny’).” This is not the only point on which there might be argument about the translation. Some prefer to “lie” the more neutral “falsehood” (which need not imply deliberate deception), others “fiction ” (perhaps trying to prescind from questions of truth and falsehood altogether). Cornford had “bold flight of invention.” I think “lie” is exactly right. But the argument for that will emerge later, in section II.
The noble lie is to serve as charter myth for Plato’s good city: a myth of national or civic identity – or rather, two related myths, one grounding that identity in the natural brotherhood of the entire indigenous population (they are all autochthonous, literally born from the earth), the other making the city’s differentiated class structure a matter of divine dispensation (the god who molds them puts different metals in their souls). If people can be made to believe it, they will be strongly motivated to care for the city and for each other.
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Editor: Mr. Stephens offers the Toxin of Trump and Trumpism as a well of mendacity. I’ll provide examples of the Stephens wayward attempt at political advice to Harris.
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Thanksgiving dinners you stopped going to — because of Trump.
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The noise is incessant. It’s in the ad hominem tweets, the nasty nicknames, the disparagement of anyone who disagrees with him as an idiot, a weakling, an enemy of the people.
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In a democracy, a certain amount of division is natural. Like the opposition of wind and sail, it’s the productive tension that drives a nation forward while allowing it to find its balance.
Editor: the above example almost resembles actual thought!
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When consensus reached through compromise is possible, we should prefer it to divisive, and reversible, partisan victories. That’s how progress isn’t just achieved but also secured.
Editor: Again Stephen’s actual thought.
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Can we be disunited against the challenge of a brazenly aggressive China and its new best friends in Moscow and Tehran?
Editor: Stephens abandons thought, for the toxic triad of China, Moscow, and Tehran : The New Cold War that is about to reach …
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Disunity leads to paralysis, and that’s where this country has been stuck for too long.
Editor: Stephens again resorts to more political cliche as wisdom.
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I, on the other hand, intend to depoliticize the cabinet, so that the men and women in charge of our defense, diplomacy, Justice Department and economic system will have broad bipartisan respect, whatever party they affiliate with.
Editor: Harris reappears: she seems to appear and disappear at the political will of Stephens: think of him as one of the actors, in a maladroit adaptation of Pirandello!
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Editor: the final paragraph of Mr. Stephens attempt at political impersonation, recites cliche’s as imperatives that exhaust the possibilities of the jejune!
The talent, the passion, the optimism, the capacity, the sense of a shared and greater purpose that united our states and must continue to unite our nation — it’s still there, all around us. With your help, let me bring it to the White House.
Old Socialist
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